Saturday, December 11, 2010 was not a good day for Pitt athletics.
Jamie Dixon's basketball team was outed in front of a national television audience making the Panthers 0-4 in high profile basketball and football games this year. The good news is the basketball team is going to be on the tube a lot this year and they will more than make-up for the put-down Tennessee gave them yesterday.
The Volunteers exposed Pitt's weak non-conference schedule even though Pitt fans perceive it as tough. Jeff Sagarin rates it the 121st-toughest in the nation, not exactly a ringing endorsement. Sagarin also had the Panthers ranked #9, not #3.
Tennessee's strength of schedule is 37th-toughest and the Vols are ranked #7. The outcome of yesterday's Pitt-Tennessee basketball game provides proof that playing tough opponents is the best preparation for beating tough opponents.
Of course, Pitt fans have a lot more faith in Dixon than they did ex-football coach Dave Wannstedt. Dixon's teams actually rebound from losses to win plenty of high profile games. Wannstedt, on the other hand, perfected losing to big opponents, especially in front of a national television audience.
It's especially hard for the Pitt basketball team this year because God is taking up Dixon's time like you wouldn't believe. God is also using the one scare tactic that gets the attention of the profession's best, like Urban Meyer, and the oldest, Joe Paterno.
Want to see a grown man fret? Bring up heart disease in all its spontaneous death and diminished lifestyle goriness. Dixon is fretting a bit.
You already know that Paterno is hanging on way past his prime because he is petrified that he will just drop dead when he retires.
He has proof, too, he claims, just look at Bear Bryant.
But in Dixon's case God has turned him into the male version of Lilly Tomlin's telephone operator without the timeless comedy.
The tragic untimely death of his sister Maggie still traumatizes him.
Then on October, 25, 2010, he performed a minor miracle on a Pittsburgh highway by being the first one to plunge head first into a car wreck to save a woman's life, breaking the window of her vehicle and helping her escape.
Eric Fisher, a Pennsylvania state trooper, reported to ESPN that coach Dixon provided a huge assist in rescuing one of two occupants in an over-turned car on Pittsburgh highway I-279 shedding his own blood in the process.
See, that incident was directed from the heavens. You probably have to be Catholic or at least a believer in the metaphysical world to understand this: When God is calling you to heaven to be a saint, and He has signed off on your Purgatory Clearinghouse Form, you have to practice your flash drive miracle skills here on earth.
Once you get to heaven you will be too busy to practice. Dixon is cool with it because he loves to practice.
The opportunities to demonstrate miracle skills just keep coming, sort of like the free throw shots Pitt had yesterday. Unfortunately, the Panthers missed many of those.
In dealing with Scott Lange, the young head basketball coach at Pittsburgh's La Roche College who collapsed and died right on his home court in front of his team a few days ago, Dixon will have the opportunity to console Scott's friends and family.
Dixon is not only the coach of the best basketball program in Pittsburgh, he is the spiritual leader of the small coaching fraternity - saint material once again. In God's game plan to fast track you to heaven, you have to demonstrate deep compassion and caring for your fellow human beings.
For Dixon, the heart disease trauma won't go away. He saw another person he cared about taken by it. This is part of his spiritual test because God torments you, too, especially by using what you most fear.
Maggie Dixon died a little over a month before she turned 29 on April 6, 2006. An autopsy revealed she had an enlarged heart and heart valve problems. To commemorate his sister and raise funds to fight heart disease, Jamie Dixon helped establish the Maggie Dixon basketball classic.
Pitt fans might need to ask God to let their basketball coach be a mere mortal, at least for this season. When Dixon's feet are planted squarely on ground he coaches a team that is hard to beat.
But, please, do not ask for God to give us victories. He is busy dealing with miracles and calling up souls. He has no time for trivial stuff and loose ends.
Dave Wannstedt, previously terminated but apparently still coaching, has decided to stick the university he loves with one huge loose end: He can't decide whether to coach the Panthers at the BBVA Compass Bowl or watch the game from afar.
With as much drama as he has shown on the sidelines making faces and running his fingers through his hair, and with as much cloudiness as what he says at his press conferences, Wannstedt gave fans and the press Phil Bennett, Pitt's defensive coordinator, to conjecture on the subject.
Bennett is convinced Wannstedt will coach. Wannstedt told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Friday, December 10, he doesn't know what he'll do.
I'm sure this ambiguity does not please the sponsors at BBVA Compass bowl nor the hard-working people in Birmingham and at ESPN who have put this bowl together.
Despite all the complaining by Big East fans about this bowl, it was created when the Big East was coming up short in bowl affiliations. Bowls have come-and-gone with the Big East, with more going than coming.
Without large traveling fan bases and names with clout, the Big East is lucky to have the Birmingham bowl.
Many Pitt fans are right to complain about Pitt's lack of clarity and focus on the bowl, but they shouldn't put down Birmingham and its neighboring city of Atlanta, just an hour away.
And surely someone in Pitt's athletic department cares about winning the game with Kentucky and improving the Panthers' 11-15 bowl record.
Maybe Wannstedt is waiting for God to send him a signal. Better yet, God could send Wannstedt a miracle, too, like duplicating the rousing send-off Florida State gave Bobby Bowden when his Seminoles routed West Virginia in the Gator Bowl last season, his final time to coach FSU.
Miracles happen to those who put others before self. In the question of who's coaching Pitt in the BBVA Compass bowl, Wannstedt clearly has put himself before others.
Wannstedt appeals to so many people because he appears to be so normal, flawed like we all are. Without the purgatory exemption and a fast-track to heaven, we are lucky to see one miracle in a lifetime.
Wannstedt probably used his miracle up in the 13-9 win over West Virginia in 2007.
What will bring Pitt a win over Kentucky won't be a miracle but good, old-fashioned hard work. If Wannstedt isn't sure if he's going to coach the game, he's unlikely to expend the effort needed to create a victory.
God helps those who help themselves, especially those waiting for inspiration and miracles.
Carrie Underwood Rosario Dawson Tricia Helfer Elena Lyons Brooke Burns
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