What If?

Recently I have been reading “The Basketball Book” by Bill Simmons. In it he has a chapter called “The what if chapter” where he lists the 30 top what ifs of NBA History. If you are not familiar with the what if game it’s pretty simple. We all play it. I have several what ifs that I think about from time to time. What if when Jesse Proctor came to visit Union I didn’t talk to him in the College View Church lobby? From what Jesse has told me he saw me in the CVC lobby and I was on my cell phone. He was a senior in high school and he was checking out Union to see if it was the school for him. I have no recollection of this but apparently I told the person who I was talking with to hold on for a second. I turned to Jesse and said “You visiting here?” He said “yeah”. I then said “you should come here, you would like it”. When he told me that was a big reason he came here I was blown away. But lets for argument and the what if game’s sake say that I never had that brief conversation with him. And let’s pretend that was the actual reason why he came to Union. If Jesse Proctor doesn’t come to Union my life would be completely different. Jesse and I were pretty good friends in college but we weren’t besties or anything. So why is this a big deal for me? Jesse grew up in a small town called Portland Tennessee. His house is on Hester Road. A few houses down from his family lived the Groft family. The Proctors and the Grofts grew up together. One of Lilly Groft’s selling points to her younger sister Natalie on why she should come to Union was that she knew several people up here. So no Jesse, no Natalie. No Jesse no awesome recruiting story for my interview with the Rob Weaver. No sick interview with Rob Weaver no Job at Union. No Natalie no reason to stick around after I graduated. I would probably be bootsy history teacher at Wisconsin Academy trying to meet single girls in Columbus while hating that I live in Packers country. I would also have some resentment against my mom for putting me in the education program. This blog would probably be angrier. Perhaps even an emo blog. Who knows Natalie would have probably ended up marrying a rich doctor. So this turned out good for me, and now my wife has to live in Nebraska when she hates cold weather. So that’s the gist of the “what if” game. I know when people see a lot of text on my blog they stop reading. But if you have made it this far you are in for a treat. Here are a couple of “what ifs” that I have been thinking about.


.What if Tupac wouldn’t have been shot at Quad Studios in November of 94 (ladies you can skip this section)

A lot of people including myself believe that the Death Row-Bad Boy feud which eventually turned into east coast vs. west coast feud was the result of Tupac accusing Biggie and Puff of setting him up when he came to visit them in the studio on November 30 of 1994. Biggie and Puff adamantly denied these claims by Tupac. Who knows what happened. But what if that never happened? What if instead of getting shot in the dome piece and groin Tupac was able to just go upstairs and kick it with Biggie and Puff. How would this have affected the hip hop genre? There wouldn’t have been any east coast west coast beef to sell records and chances are good that Tupac and Biggie might still be alive today. The day after Tupac got shot he was found guilty on charges stemming from an encounter with a woman in a night club and spent a year and a half in jail. While in jail Tupac read a lot and put out a number one album. The only person to have a number one album while in prison. After he was released he put out “Hit em up” one of the first diss records against Biggie. But no shooting, no diss record and Tupac would probably have started rapping more about partying. He never joins Suge Knight at Death Row. He never collaborates with Dr. Dre and the world is left with no “California Love”. His acting career takes off and Tupac changes his reputation and becomes a better version of LL cool J. He makes cameo appearances in “Next Friday”. He gets his first Oscar playing the character of Alonzo Harris in the movie Training Day. Denzel gets nominated for his role in Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith can’t break into the game and is forced to go back to rapping. Now what would have happened to Biggie? Biggie goes down as the best rapper of the era. Jay-Z and Biggie have beef over who is the real King of New York. There is no Nas and Jigga beef. Biggie puts out three more albums after “Life after Death”. He ends up having a heart attack and dies. Immortalized forever. Kind of like Big Pun but wayyyyy better. Jay Z’s career ends up like Busta Rhymes, a couple of nice hits. Lets not forget about Puffy. Who we’d still be calling Puffy cause no one would know about him. No Biggie death, no “I’ll be missing you”. With Biggie still alive Puffy has no choice but to produce every single one of his records. Which means he aint dating no J-Lo. She snubs him at a couple of parties. After Biggie dies Puffy ends up like a poor man’s Jermaine Dupri. There is no Bad Boy Family. The world misses out on Mase, “I need a girl part 1”, and the name “Diddy”.


What if Suh gets blocked for a half second longer by the Texas O lineman on the last play of the 2009 Big 12 Championship game? (No need to read this ladies)

If the Texas O line holds up Suh for once the whole game and Colt McCoy is able to scramble around and make a play he finds Jordan Shipley at the 20 yard line and the game is over cause….there wasn’t any time left. Nebraska fans you were so close! So here is what happens. Mack Brown decides to retire at the end of an amazing and in the end hugely disappointing season. Oh yeah you can forget about that 5 million dollar pay raise for Brown. The final play of that game goes down as the biggest blunder in Big 12 conference history. Running the clock out and not being able to attempt a field goal when you have a time out left. Not to mention losing to a team that had 106 total yards. Mel Kiper Jr. questions McCoy’s poise and leadership after he ruins his team’s season. McCoy’s stock drops and he ends up getting drafted by Arizona and wins the Superbowl two years later after Kurt Warner’s hip breaks in the shower cause he is so old. Cincinnati plays Alabama in the BCS championship game. Brian Kelley doesn’t get hired at Notre Dame because he has no time to interview while preparing his team for the big game. The BCS gets destroyed. Not because people decide that it doesn’t work but because an angry TCU fan stabs the president of the BCS causing everyone to realize that this isn’t worth it. Nebraska plays TCU in the Tostitos Fiesta bowl. Nebraska loses on a last second 47 yard field goal. Carl Pelini and Bo Pelini’s heads explode. Ok that doesn’t happen but they get mad. Kevin Erickson (my coworker) is so mad he doesn’t speak to anyone for two weeks. Notre Dame hires Jon Gruden. He brings them back. Dustin Hackleman is happy. All of this happens because of one second!

I was going to do a couple more of these. But I went a little long. On the left side of the blog there are a couple of options to vote on for my next “What if” Please vote