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MEN'S BASKETBALL
WEDNESDAY, 3:20 P.M. B force.
What does Ryan say about the Jack Reacher character as a whole? Cutting to the chase, he summarized, "He's an ex-MP who always gets the bad guys in the end.'' The charter plane is taking the Badgers to Minneapolis for a Thursday night matchup against the "bad guys'' — in this case, the Minnesota Golden Gophers — at Williams Arena.
24 » VARSITY FEBRUARY 16, 2012
o Ryan boards the charter plane — an Embraer 145; a Chautauqua Airlines re- gional jet — and takes his customary seat (18C) in the back of the cabin. Ryan's rational for sitting in the last row has been well-documented: When was the last time that you saw a plane "back'' into a mountain? His coaching staff is also in the back of the 50-seat plane, which can more than accommodate the traveling party of 37 though any player over 6-3 must
duck his head to squeeze down the aisle.
Ryan will frequently occupy his time on short flights with a crossword puzzle. He's also an avid reader of novelist Lee Child and his best-selling "Jack Reacher'' series. "You've got to be a Jack Reacher guy to understand how people can get hooked on these books,'' Ryan said. "They're pretty good and they're educational, too.'' The fictional Jack Reacher character is a drifter and problem-solver; he's a former major in
the U.S. Army Military Police, who worked out of the fictitious 110th Special Investigations Unit.
During his stint in the service, Ryan was an MP at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. Tom Cruise has been cast in the Jack Reacher movie role for "One Shot.'' Some critics feel the undersized Cruise falls short of the 6-foot-5, 250-pound Reacher that Child has created for his readers. On the other hand, Child says Reacher's size in the book is a metaphor for an unstoppable
