I miss Jaybate, I miss last year.



  • I miss Jaybate. No one loved the Jayhawks and Self more. He would wax eloquently and put words to what we all love most about basketball. I didn’t leave the Jayawks, but I understand the pain and anger of why he walked away. I still watch. I watched as we beat Tennessee, Michigan State, Villanova. I watched as Doke went down, I watched when Silvio was removed, I watched Self, as his last nerve was snapped by Vick. I watched with trepidation as our top superstar recruit see’s less and less floor time. I saw the strain that Self has gone through. Then I watched magic happen at TCU. The locker room exploding in Joy and Coach doing his happy dance with them. I watched as 4 Freshmen Started and Self began to re-discover the reason why he coaches. For the last 14 years, we are right where we have always been. I now care about it all. Allen Field House is crazier than it has ever been…but I miss Jaybate.



  • @wrwlumpy ahh lump, that was a really nice write! I appreciate you and all you do for us! Love your loyalty



  • Why did he walk away?



  • @wrwlumpy One of my favorite movies. It’s spot on tho and it’s prob been happening in college athletics long before I was born. Anything corporations are involved with is dirty, that’s just the way it is, to many with too much money not caring as long as what they want is achieved.



  • @Hawk8086 I would suspect, but I don’t know of course – but the anger and vitriol some showed to him on a large number of his substantive posts might have created a, “is this worth it” moment. It bordered on ridiculous.

    Edit: Actually, it was ridiculous.



  • Do you know for sure that he walked away from posting and that he is okay? I hope that’s the case. As I am about to state in a reply I didn’t care for him but I would never wish him actual harm.

    HighEliteMajor said:

    @Hawk8086 I would suspect, but I don’t know of course – but the anger and vitriol some showed to him on a large number of his substantive posts might have created a, “is this worth it” moment. It bordered on ridiculous.

    Edit: Actually, it was ridiculous.

    If he responded less obnoxiously and didn’t act so obtuse maybe that would have helped. I flip flopped back and forth on if he was as dense as he appeared or was just fooling around. Hard to say.

    Overall I am glad he is gone. The negative tension he created outweighed the sometimes interesting sometimes absurd basketball takes he had. I know I am far from alone in this too though overall I think the forum is fairly split on it.



  • @HighEliteMajor I think he left because of the FBI scandal but I’m not sure. I personally wasn’t a fan of most of his last several posts, paragraphs and paragraphs of absolutely nothing. He made Bshark mad because he had like 6 or 7 new posts on the same exact topic, that was solid garage at best. I wouldn’t anyone to leave and he had his funny moments but some his last post on here made me concerned about his mental state if I’m being honest, hopefully he’s doing well.



  • For someone who at one point literally told me he couldn’t care less about what I thought, it would seem odd that Jaybate would just disappear due to hurt feelings. He said what he wanted when he wanted to. Although, as egotistical as he clearly was, perhaps I’m wrong.

    If that is what happened , I don’t feel bad. He was combative in nature and brought those types of responses upon himself. Being a contrarian on the majority of topics (whether it was just to entertain himself or how he actually felt) is begging to be called out. But to top it off, he always had to have the last jab. Meaning “conversations” could drag out for days. His replies, were often novels, and written in ways that were either insulting or drawn out ways of working around the actual topic being discussed, leading to nothing but frustration from those voicing their opposition to his ideas. It was clear this style of debate was his way of trying to make others feel intellectually incapable, though most of what he wrote in reply would actually be nonsense once broken down.

    So, no, I do not miss someone on the board who was constantly looking for a fight. Writing posts that were clearly begging for an opposing reply so that he could attempt to humiliate some other poster. It always felt like we were all toys to him. Pawns in some game. To me, aside from 4 or 5 entertaining posts a year, he was no more than a long-winded troll.

    However, I do understand the family culture here between all of those that migrated over from the LJW site. JB was apart of your KU family and I can see why people would miss him. He had his moments of brilliance. He absolutely deserves to be in the Bucket’s Hall of Fame. Perhaps, the very first inductee.

    I hope he is happy and healthy and still hypothesizing new conspiracies on the daily.



  • Years of appreciating @jaybate-1-0 for what he was, and what he offered, has significantly mitigated any irritation I might have with anything he posted. This site lost a lot of depth when he left. There was no need for some to continue to berate him, as many did.

    Seriously, we know what the guy brought to the table. And quite frankly, he deserved more respect here.

    It was quite easy to determine who was the smartest guy in the room. It was @jaybate-1-0 I didn’t even know what in the heck he was talking about sometimes. But he wasn’t talking out of his backside. It was actual, good old fashioned knowledge.

    It’s just amazing to me how opinions, and outside of the box thinking, triggers such negative reactions. Believe me … I challenged things he said that I thought were simply ludicrous. Like the “we’re always injured” baloney and the Self-worship (those two seemed connected). And if anyone was around in the kusports.com days, I’m not sure there were bigger battles there than I had with @jaybate-1-0 (not in importance, or worthiness, but in words typed).

    Folks that challenge thought processes, and offer strong opinions, even if backed up by facts, are lightning rods.

    I find it quite interesting that his Shoeco theories, ones I always hated and scoffed at much of the time, seem oddly to be playing out right now with the FBI investigation and federal prosecutions.



  • kjayhawks said:

    but some his last post on here made me concerned about his mental state if I’m being honest, hopefully he’s doing well.

    Same.

    @Kcmatt7 I almost used the troll word as well. It certainly seemed like he viewed himself as a higher being, playing with his food. He certainly had a way with taking a long time to say nothing.

    @HighEliteMajor He invited conflict as he was very combative and belittling with his posts.

    I guess I missed a lot of the facts. He got the shoe game right, that can’t be denied but he was also completely wrong about many things, like Vick being a PG. And I wouldn’t mistake his verbose and circuitous style with higher intellect. His biggest issue is when he made boisterous claims is that he wouldn’t support them at all. Even when links were posted that proved the contrary. Frequently, I wondered where some of his “facts” came from and it seemed like the answer was out of thin air. I scoured search engines a few times to try to find claims he was making. I certainly put more effort into it than he did, so I guess he “won”.

    As a final aside, almost everyone is always injured to some extent in sports. College or pro guys are consistently banged up and have to play through it (or not). Just little nicks and whatnot from playing your hardest. Something you realize when you play and why it’s not an excuse unless someone is so hurt they have to be out (Doke, Garrett) or there is a very clear impact in their play (Selden).



  • @jaybate-1-0 is a wonderful writer, capable of turning over rocks and tapping untapped wells of thought and emotions in places you might assume to be all tapped out, by always going a little bit further, lingering a little bit longer, savoring a thought, and turning it once more until it sparkles in the light. I miss the guy deeply.

    I’ve come to understand that some people didn’t appreciate him as much as I do, that he did not resonate with them as much as he does me. But I ask those people to at least see how different and thoughtful he is, even if it doesn’t float your boat, and even if you do not see him as a friend.



  • @jaybate-1-0 had me concerned near the end of his posts. He didn’t seem himself. I hope he is well and has found some sort of peace.



  • @Kcmatt7 I agree with a lot of what you said.

    @HighEliteMajor . On the ShoeCo thing…he called that a long time ago…I didn’t even know what he was talking about early on. But, man, was he right.



  • You guys are forgetting his badball takes. Those were the best of his career. Some people here wanted to fact check a novelist, without seeing the beauty of the prose.



  • I really don’t think his Big shoe co post were that far fetched, I think deep down we knew there was some truth to it. @KUSTEVE, I would take @jaybate-1-0 from 3 or 4 years ago any day compared to his last year or so.



  • Since we are bringing up missing posters, where are you fellas at??

    @RED.ROOSTER @JayHawkFanToo

    Hope you both are doing okay.



  • When I didn’t understand or want to continue fighting a topic with him I just let it go. I miss his novels though and the outside the box stuff. I felt like you just had to take what he said with a grain of salt and leave personal feelings out of it. I found it easier to enjoy what he brought to this site that way. Definitely is missed…



  • Kcmatt7 said:

    Since we are bringing up missing posters, where are you fellas at??

    @RED.ROOSTER @JayHawkFanToo

    Hope you both are doing okay.

    Approx mentioned FanToo was alright, just busy iirc.

    Rooster was going through some very hard times with his wife. I hope he is okay.



  • BShark said:

    Kcmatt7 said:

    Since we are bringing up missing posters, where are you fellas at??

    @RED.ROOSTER @JayHawkFanToo

    Hope you both are doing okay.

    Approx mentioned FanToo was alright, just busy iirc.

    Rooster was going through some very hard times with his wife. I hope he is okay.

    Yep 💯



  • Rooster was having memory problems, so very sad! Would loved to have met the very kind man! What a lovely man to care for his wife like he did! I hope he’s being cared for too!



  • @Red_Rooster was great, anyone heard from @RockChalkinTexas recently?



  • Crimsonorblue22 said:

    Rooster was having memory problems, so very sad! Would loved to have met the very kind man! What a lovely man to care for his wife like he did! I hope he’s being cared for too!

    Amen, Sister!



  • kjayhawks said:

    @Red_Rooster was great, anyone heard from @RockChalkinTexas recently?

    Was online a few days ago according to her profile.



  • Crimsonorblue22 said:

    Rooster was having memory problems, so very sad! Would loved to have met the very kind man! What a lovely man to care for his wife like he did! I hope he’s being cared for too!

    Amen.

    Memory problems suck. My friend’s dad was just diagnosed with Parkinson’s last week.



  • @kjayhawks She posted a pic from the UT game, IIRC, a couple of weeks ago after being AWOL all season, I believe. I don’t know of anything since, unless she was in on a game thread.

    I had no use for Jabate’s tendency to make claims he refused to support or even discuss. He and JHFToo used to fight over who had to look up evidence about JB’s theories (that he denied were theories).

    I also had no use for JB’s willingness to entertain every crackpot theory out there, from fake moon landing to 9/11 as a false flag attack. Then he would deny it, then he would attack and constantly berate anyone calling him out.

    He did have a wonderfully creative skill in wordsmithing. And a compendium of knowledge across a broad spectrum, especially his memories of 50’s and 60’s KU and KC. Like many creatively brilliant minds, though, he often refused to accept a worldview contrary to his own and reacted like an angry child, twisting words and resorting to sarcasm and retreating from conversations he could not control. This was really getting worse in his last posts, sadly, which made me wonder how long any of us have.

    Interesting to have met him, exhausting to attempt to interact with him.



  • Anyone ever seen Jaybate and Gassnola in the same room together?

    In all seriousness, I’m not the most frequent or most prosaic (or poetic) or even the most knowledgeable poster on this board by a long shot, but I did send JB a direct message back in November once the season had begun but his commentary had not. I thought I’d check in to make sure he was okay. I never did get a response. I suppose he’d have no reason to reply to me necessarily, but like some others, I always appreciated his takes whether the were prescient (as in the case of the growing shoe scandal) or slightly wide of the mark. I hope he is doing okay wherever he may be.

    Same too for @Red_Rooster.



  • @mayjay I’m going to call a flagrant 1 on that one. Unnecessary roughness.



  • Count me with those that appreciated @jaybate-1-0.

    Especially on those long lonely late nights when I just needed something of substance to read. Of course he wasn’t for everyone. Nobody on Earth is for everyone. I’ll even admit at times for me he was longwinded and probably speaking on a level above my ability to process. But I prefer to be challenged overall. @jaybate-1-0 and @HighEliteMajor have both been enjoyable to me in that regard. Stepping out of the box, building a whole new box, and then destroying that box and starting another one. Making you think in new ways. Asking the hard questions. I enjoy it. The absolute beratement and disrespect from some here towards the guys that travel in those unknown and for some here apparently too dark of places are as big a reason I keep coming back as anything.

    We could all just constantly Yee haw and yippee… Oh my gosh we’re phenomenal, everything about the program is majestic…blah, blah, blah. And we would of course have plenty of grounds to do so. Personally, I like to think a lil harder than that.



  • @KUSTEVE (Raises his hand to acknowledge the foul call like college players used to have to do.) How anybody feels about JB might depend largely on whether that person was ever one of his targets.



  • @mayjay I was a Target on more than one occasion.

    What about Globaljaybird? What’s the story here? He was one that used to call out my realism as negativity… But we meandered thru it on the side in pm’s



  • I was always astounded that @jaybate-1-0 articles were so much better and entertaining than any of the fodder kusports.com was putting out. He was a renaissance man journalist with greater intellect and writing skill than all the supposed journalists combined (thank the LORD keegan left!). Very often people don’t like the smartest guy in the room because they are often quirky and eccentric and well…a lot smarter than less secure people can handle.

    I very much miss the deeper dive and thematic genius of his entertaining and wonderfully verbose masterpieces (and the occasional duds as well). As you may recall, he was alluding to his own health issues, so i find it a bit shameful to see some piling on now that no lengthy rebuttal will be forthcoming. We are Jayhawks, we should be better than that. I got the impression he may have been fighting serious issues as well.

    If he unfortunately shed the motal coil, then I hope he is with James and Phog having some humdinger debates on the finer points of what he used to repeatedly call…the greatest game ever invented.

    Go Jaybate go! You are missed.



  • @Fightsongwriter 😢 I hope our fears are greatly exaggerated.



  • Anyone try that email?



  • Crimsonorblue22 said:

    Anyone try that email?

    I’ve tried to email him numerous times.



  • Interesting, I never really found him combative. Was it just recently? He always struck me as a bright guy with a few crazy ideas. I never recall him being combative, more just playful.



  • Actually I think I may have discovered where he went…

    a guy who writes just like him, apparently called BDevilbate, is on a Duke site writing voluminously long and zen-like meandering but crazy-brilliant posts… lovingly extolling the genius of krzyzewski and the glowing magnificent heritage of Duke basketball… and how he catfished us here for years simply to amuse himself.

    It appears his “love” of KU was just nothing but a put-on… an abject sham. Hideous.

    (Ok…Trying to piss him off enough to resurface just to rip me a new one in say 7 alliterative paragraphs… 🙂



  • @Fightsongwriter I don’t really think anyone is crossing any lines. Even those of us that weren’t big fans of his are wishing him well. I didn’t find most of his stuff useful and dont think he had much knowledge of the game itself. But it dont mean I wish him harm or have any ill will towards him. God speed to him if he has scumed to illness but I’m not changing my opinion on him because of it. I’ve never understood that, like when Michael Jackson died and people forgot about the pedophilia he was involved in. How many families did he settle outta court with? And the evidence that he wrote multiple others checks regularly to keep them from talking. I’m not changing my opinion on people when they are gone.



  • And another point… it feels to me like some here may take themselves a bit too seriously. Mr J -bate brought fun to this place more than anything else for me. He was decidedly original in many ways. Which is why I never understood why certain people felt the need to pick apart some of his more elaborate and inventive theorizations. Did it really matter if some of his Jenga- like thought streams may not completely hold up to logical scrutiny? Better to just enjoy, and at his best, he made you see things in a new light… even if the light was refracted.



  • @wrwlumpy PHOF!!



  • Bosthawk said:

    Actually I think I may have discovered where he went…

    a guy who writes just like him, apparently called BDevilbate, is on a Duke site writing voluminously long and zen-like meandering but crazy-brilliant posts… lovingly extolling the genius of krzyzewski and the glowing magnificent heritage of Duke basketball… and how he catfished us here for years simply to amuse himself.

    It appears his “love” of KU was just nothing but a put-on… an abject sham. Hideous.

    (Ok…Trying to piss him off enough to resurface just to rip me a new one in say 7 alliterative paragraphs… 🙂

    GOLD!



  • No offense to anyone here but this board has lost much of my interest this year. Missing jaybate is a major reason why. I still check back out of habit, and appreciate some of the banter, but it’s lost its color. I’ve been home all day for Presidents Day and this is the first time I’ve looked at it. I remember a couple of years back that @brooksmd left too along with globaljaybird. Some I know keep in touch.

    I didn’t read everything Jaybate wrote, some of it was outlandish, but goodness, it was entertaining and educational! He was a tireless cheerleader for the Jayhawks, seeing the slightest of silverlining in the darkest cloud.

    I guess this is part of the mysterious nature of an online community. We’re all anonymous. And when someone goes we’re all scratching our heads. Some of you have been part of my life for over a decade! Some of us go back to the KUSports days. Some names are brand new like this week. Life goes on. Hopefully we can keep this thing going. Thanks to @approxinfinity our MVP Techie for everything.



  • I’m a transferee from LJW days and was known to occasionally post on KUBuckets until the NCAA ruined March Madness for me. I’ve never stopped reading KUBuckets. And I loved Jaybate and his long winded monologues. In July 2017 I was in a head on collision (police report captured my screaming he was on my side of the road) and was more or less out of commission for 15 months. Last fall when I could enjoy KUBuckets again I missed Jaybate. And thought he must have died. Especially when approxfinity referenced jb would have liked someone’s comment.

    I was feeling very melancholy about missing JB and this thread popped up giving me hope that he is not dead. Nearly dying 3x has heavily influenced how I feel about all of you posters and I’ve become a different Fan. Sports bring people together–online and in person. None of you are known to me but you and your sometimes crazy comments are part of my aging life. Your diverse thinking and humor have made KU basketball an incredibly enjoyable part of my life. If someone hears from Jaybate please let me know he’s still officially kicking. Thank you.



  • @Paris gosh, glad you are doing ok. Scary thing to go thru!



  • @Paris God protected you that day and we’re thankful for that!



  • Bosthawk said:

    And another point… it feels to me like some here may take themselves a bit too seriously. Mr J -bate brought fun to this place more than anything else for me. He was decidedly original in many ways. Which is why I never understood why certain people felt the need to pick apart some of his more elaborate and inventive theorizations. Did it really matter if some of his Jenga- like thought streams may not completely hold up to logical scrutiny? Better to just enjoy, and at his best, he made you see things in a new light… even if the light was refracted.

    I tried to post similar thoughts last night but was not as articulate as you —- so I didn’t post it. I kept ending with, “boy, some of you sound like babies.” While that’s how it sounded to me, I think your post better captures my feelings.

    I truly think some here went looking for a fight with him and that their intentions there were quite negative.



  • @Bosthawk Good one! You had me going!



  • @kjayhawks I’m just saying let’s keep it classy. Some of the posts struck me as mean spirited and piling on. Not naming names.



  • @Bosthawk Exactly!



  • @approxinfinity Just like they say with great NFL QBs, it’s hard to replace a legend.



  • @HighEliteMajor Hear! Hear! The board lacks depth since he’s een gone though I could find some of his stuff obnoxious or eventually boring.

    Agree though - he had a depth of knowledge and understanding most don’t come close to nor even strive to gain - and the way he could pull tangentially connected thoughts together was the stuff of brilliance.


Log in to reply