ESPN announced their college football announcing lineup for 2009 yesterday. For the SEC over the air package, they actually retained Dave Neal as play by play voice. ESPN knows they're taking over taking over a property from Raycom that has been mocked for years due to its shoddy production values. Why they would ever want to retain a tie to that is a mystery to me. Two of the three Daves are gone, which is good, but the new analyst is the abysmal Andre Ware. Don't even get me started on the crew assigned to the ESPNU SEC package. ESPN spent big money to get these rights and has assigned either rookies or demonstrably poor announcers to them - I just don't understand it.
Austin Murphy of Sports Illustrated put together his list of the ten most thrilling college football players ever (with eleven guys on it - apparently Austin is a Big Ten fan). Inexplicably, his choice for the number one spot is Vince Young. If the list was most thrilling single game performances, Young can be in the discussion. The Texas national title win over USC was spectacular and he made it happen. For an overall career though, Young has no business being in the top ten much less in the top spot. Just in his conference alone I would take Tommie Frazier of Nebraska and Jamelle Holieway of Oklahoma as more thrilling than Young at his position. To not even have guys like Bo Jackson, Johnny Rodgers and a host of others on the list while Young sits atop it is just silly.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. says he's interested in racing in the Indianapolis 500. Far be it from me to give Junior career guidance, but in general it's a good idea to have success at what you're already doing before you start discussing other stuff. More and more people around NASCAR are starting to believe this guy really is done as a meaningful force on the track, with some of his fans beginning to jump on board the Tony Stewart bandwagon since he drives closer to Dale Senior anyway. It's bizarre to see what's happened, because Junior did seem to have pretty good talent at one point in his career.
Sania Mirza is a pro tennis player from India. She's not hard on the eyes, but considering she never got to the point where she was being seeded in tournaments Mirza was never a big star here. In India, on the other hand, her impending engagement is apparently a crisis for some avid fans. One guy tried breaking into her house to profess his love to her. That kind of thing tends to work out better in the movies. Another fan took himself hostage, saying he would commit suicide if Mirza went through with the engagement. I'd love to know what plans these guys rejected before believing they had carefully selected sound strategies to woo the lovely Miss Mirza away from her fiancee.
We're twelve days away from the start of SEC football media days. Next week is the deadest sports week of the year, but good stuff awaits on the other side. Have a great weekend, avoid strange late night Twittering like Rich Eisen and I'll see you back here Monday.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wish I could get paid big money to be wrong about everything too
When a former national championship QB looks back on his college days, you'd assume it'll be with nothing but great things to say. In the case of LSU's Matt Flynn, you'd be wrong. The current Green Bay backup spoke out recently about the level of quarterback coaching he got in Baton Rouge...
“I never really got the individual work on dropbacks and stuff like that, so it’s been very beneficial to me,” Flynn said. “There’s a lot of technical stuff at this level.”
Flynn also referred to his LSU QB coaching on pocket techniques as "just drop back and throw". The QB coach for all but one of Flynn's seasons at LSU was none other than FSU offensive mastermind Jimbo Fisher. Sounds like Christian Ponder's big breakthrough year might need to be moved back a few seasons.
Some stories just don't make sense when you hear them. For me, one that immediately failed the smell test was the wave of "Lenny Dykstra is a financial wizard" stories that ran last year. Everyone who's ever heard Dykstra interviewed or read anything about the man can tell he's a dumbass. He was named as a PED user in the Mitchell Report, nearly killed a teammate in a DUI, and was tied to gambling during his playing days. If even a true financial mastermind like Warren Buffet was struggling with last year's markets, I was supposed to believe Dykstra had it all figured out? Sorry, not buying that even though Jim Cramer insisted I should. Over the past few months, the lie unraveled in stories like this one from GQ. Yesterday, Dykstra filed for bankruptcy and acknowledged he has around fifty thousand dollars worth of assets and over 30 million in debts. I understood how people got taken in by Bernie Madoff - but anyone who was giving Lenny Dykstra big money for financial guidance deserves what they got. Can someone explain to me how, given the events of the past year, Jim Cramer still has a job?
As a member of the Football Writers Association, I'm in on the voting for some of the awards in college football. As a result, I get sent things promoting players for the various honors. Normally it's just emails or a pamphlet. Once in a while someone tries a stunt, like View Masters with a highlight reel disc for Missouri's Chase Daniel last year. Normally the players they're touting are at least clearly among the better ones in the country. Illinois does not appear to see that as a requirement. They've already started an awards promotion website for a QB who threw just four fewer interceptions last year then the three Heisman finalists combined and a receiver with five touchdown grabs and a 69 yard per game average in his two year career. They're not terrible players, but there's nothing there to even justify first team all conference. Perhaps instead of hyping guys off a 5-7 football team for awards the Illini would be wise to focus on team goals?
After mercifully disappearing from the ESPN scene in May, Stephen A. Smith has begun to resurface. He's been opining on his own website, but now he's started turning up on MSNBC as a commentator on general events. Hopefully Smith knows politics better than he knew football, and it will help if he could dial the "angry man" persona down about five notches. I suspect that I will value his opinion on Sonia Sotomayor about as much as I would Dykstra's tip of "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacot Steel".
“I never really got the individual work on dropbacks and stuff like that, so it’s been very beneficial to me,” Flynn said. “There’s a lot of technical stuff at this level.”
Flynn also referred to his LSU QB coaching on pocket techniques as "just drop back and throw". The QB coach for all but one of Flynn's seasons at LSU was none other than FSU offensive mastermind Jimbo Fisher. Sounds like Christian Ponder's big breakthrough year might need to be moved back a few seasons.
Some stories just don't make sense when you hear them. For me, one that immediately failed the smell test was the wave of "Lenny Dykstra is a financial wizard" stories that ran last year. Everyone who's ever heard Dykstra interviewed or read anything about the man can tell he's a dumbass. He was named as a PED user in the Mitchell Report, nearly killed a teammate in a DUI, and was tied to gambling during his playing days. If even a true financial mastermind like Warren Buffet was struggling with last year's markets, I was supposed to believe Dykstra had it all figured out? Sorry, not buying that even though Jim Cramer insisted I should. Over the past few months, the lie unraveled in stories like this one from GQ. Yesterday, Dykstra filed for bankruptcy and acknowledged he has around fifty thousand dollars worth of assets and over 30 million in debts. I understood how people got taken in by Bernie Madoff - but anyone who was giving Lenny Dykstra big money for financial guidance deserves what they got. Can someone explain to me how, given the events of the past year, Jim Cramer still has a job?
As a member of the Football Writers Association, I'm in on the voting for some of the awards in college football. As a result, I get sent things promoting players for the various honors. Normally it's just emails or a pamphlet. Once in a while someone tries a stunt, like View Masters with a highlight reel disc for Missouri's Chase Daniel last year. Normally the players they're touting are at least clearly among the better ones in the country. Illinois does not appear to see that as a requirement. They've already started an awards promotion website for a QB who threw just four fewer interceptions last year then the three Heisman finalists combined and a receiver with five touchdown grabs and a 69 yard per game average in his two year career. They're not terrible players, but there's nothing there to even justify first team all conference. Perhaps instead of hyping guys off a 5-7 football team for awards the Illini would be wise to focus on team goals?
After mercifully disappearing from the ESPN scene in May, Stephen A. Smith has begun to resurface. He's been opining on his own website, but now he's started turning up on MSNBC as a commentator on general events. Hopefully Smith knows politics better than he knew football, and it will help if he could dial the "angry man" persona down about five notches. I suspect that I will value his opinion on Sonia Sotomayor about as much as I would Dykstra's tip of "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacot Steel".
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Coming soon: a rebranding to Heefklyne.com
Some folks are worked up by radio host Paul Finebaum's anti-Urban Meyer tirade in yesterday's Mobile paper. Considering he now writes just one column per week and they went to special effort to hype this up on the al.com website, I'm surprised at how poorly done it is. Finebaum's poison pen is what he built his career on, and when he's interested he's normally good at using it. This is just a rambling, disjointed mess though. Meyer is leaving for Notre Dame, says Finebaum, because: 1. he's a liar, 2. he's scared of Nick Saban, 3. Tebow's leaving, and 4. Billy Donovan's a nobody now (idiotic, not to mention irrelevant). A few brief rebuttals to this silliness: 1. Notre Dame won't be hiring any new coach this year. You or I could win 8 games with their schedule and they don't want to eat Weis's big deal with six years remaining. 2. The guy with the two BCS titles in three years, who went 12-0 at Utah and won immediately at Bowling Green, is not scared of a guy he just beat who's won two conference titles in his entire career. 3. Calling someone a name doesn't make them what you call them. Otherwise calling Mike Shula a head coach might have worked. My only guess for why Finebaum wrote this is a desire to fire up his Bama listener base. Nothing else, including the column, makes any sense.
Gary Parrish of CBSsports.com reports Mike Krzyzewski will return as coach of Team USA in the 2012 Olympics. The 2008 gold medal team was out to prove a point about our basketball and did so. While Coach K had a role to play in guiding them there, if they hadn't cared about succeeding in the Olympics a great deal before he ever came into the picture then the team wouldn't have won. I'm not sure that same hunger will be there in three years, and if it's not then I doubt any coach will be able to guide the USA to the gold. I wonder how Duke people will feel about K dividing his time again, since a number of them felt it negatively impacted the program the first time.
I'm a big John Pelphrey fan, but something doesn't seem to be working right for him in Arkansas. Over the weekend word came down that Jason Henry isn't going to be back for his sophomore season with the Razorbacks. That's now four guys out of six from his most recent signing class who've already said so long to Fayetteville. Pelphrey's not on the hot seat yet, but if they don't improve this year the word is he could be in some trouble by the end of the season. It would be foolish for them to make a move after just three years, but you never know what can happen these days.
Not sure why Michael Jackson's memorial service needed to be on every channel yesterday, but there it was. People are going to say positive things about the deceased at their funeral, but it got a little loopy at the Staples Center. Al Sharpton actually said to Michael's kids there "wasn't nothing strange about your daddy". Sure, lots of kids have parents who make them wear masks when they go out in public and hang out with a pet chimp. Nothing odd about that at all. Magic Johnson said the best day of his life was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with Michael. Better than the gold medal or all those championships? Wow, that must have been some good chicken.
I've mentioned before here how fascinated I am by companies getting caught up in things like logo or name changes. Pepsi spent huge money concocting a slightly different logo - did you buy any more of it? How about Gatorade - anyone notice a mad surge of G drinkers lately? We have a new standard for silliness in the broadcast division now. The Sci-Fi Channel, the name of which told you exactly what its programming was, is gone. In its place is the new, "hipper" name Syfy. Sure people who see that who aren't viewers already will have no idea what it means - big deal. Someone in marketing just got a bonus!
Gary Parrish of CBSsports.com reports Mike Krzyzewski will return as coach of Team USA in the 2012 Olympics. The 2008 gold medal team was out to prove a point about our basketball and did so. While Coach K had a role to play in guiding them there, if they hadn't cared about succeeding in the Olympics a great deal before he ever came into the picture then the team wouldn't have won. I'm not sure that same hunger will be there in three years, and if it's not then I doubt any coach will be able to guide the USA to the gold. I wonder how Duke people will feel about K dividing his time again, since a number of them felt it negatively impacted the program the first time.
I'm a big John Pelphrey fan, but something doesn't seem to be working right for him in Arkansas. Over the weekend word came down that Jason Henry isn't going to be back for his sophomore season with the Razorbacks. That's now four guys out of six from his most recent signing class who've already said so long to Fayetteville. Pelphrey's not on the hot seat yet, but if they don't improve this year the word is he could be in some trouble by the end of the season. It would be foolish for them to make a move after just three years, but you never know what can happen these days.
Not sure why Michael Jackson's memorial service needed to be on every channel yesterday, but there it was. People are going to say positive things about the deceased at their funeral, but it got a little loopy at the Staples Center. Al Sharpton actually said to Michael's kids there "wasn't nothing strange about your daddy". Sure, lots of kids have parents who make them wear masks when they go out in public and hang out with a pet chimp. Nothing odd about that at all. Magic Johnson said the best day of his life was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with Michael. Better than the gold medal or all those championships? Wow, that must have been some good chicken.
I've mentioned before here how fascinated I am by companies getting caught up in things like logo or name changes. Pepsi spent huge money concocting a slightly different logo - did you buy any more of it? How about Gatorade - anyone notice a mad surge of G drinkers lately? We have a new standard for silliness in the broadcast division now. The Sci-Fi Channel, the name of which told you exactly what its programming was, is gone. In its place is the new, "hipper" name Syfy. Sure people who see that who aren't viewers already will have no idea what it means - big deal. Someone in marketing just got a bonus!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Your Michael Jackson counterprogramming - Orrin Hatch
There are indications that Florida may lose wide receiver Riley Cooper to the Texas Rangers farm system before the season begins. Cooper probably has a better chance at a pro baseball career than a football one, and he already has been part of a couple of national titles. UF would certainly prefer to have him, but I don't think anyone can question Cooper's choice if he feels like now is the time he has his best leverage for a big MLB contract. Florida would miss his blocking on the perimeter as much as his receiving skills if he does choose to leave.
Another week, another BCS dog and pony show in Washington, DC. This time it's Orrin Hatch leading a Judiciary subcommittee through an exercise that will accomplish nothing. Don't believe me? Check out the witness list for today's hearing. A Utah senator asking the president of the U of Utah about whether the system is unfair to them is the definition of pandering to constituents. A reminder - there is nothing in the system which prevents Utah from playing for the BCS title. What kept them back are pollsters who did not rank them one or two - which would have still happened under the old setup. I'm no BCS defender, but this is a ridiculous argument.
The ACC embarassed itself yesterday, removing the conference baseball tournaments it had awarded Myrtle Beach for the years 2011-13. The decision is a result of the ongoing NAACP boycott of South Carolina due to the Confederate flag that still is prominently displayed on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia. No facts have changed between the time the ACC awarded Myrtle Beach (roughly three hours from the offending flag) the games and yesterday, so why the abrupt change? A "miscommunication", says the ACC. That's a load of garbage. They simply didn't have the guts to stand by their commitment to a city (one which has nothing to do with the flag problem) once someone from outside the Myrtle Beach area started complaining about it. The ACC could have said they'd remove the games if action wasn't taken by a certain date, giving Myrtle Beach legislators an incentive and opportunity to work toward change. They could have staged the event for one year to demonstrate the economic impact the state has been missing out on, with a deadline for change or the other two tournaments would be lost. Almost any course of action the conference took would have been better than running, claiming they somehow weren't aware of a boycott that's existed for a full decade. It was pathetic.
If you're the kind of person who takes your TV viewing extremely seriously, there's a guy looking to fix you up with your own Man Wall. 4 TVs, a sports ticker, two cigar humidors and a beer tap can all be yours for the low, low price of $14,900. To the guy who designed this thing's credit, he admits he doesn't expect to sell many. If there's a married guy alive who can get that purchase by his wife, I would like to meet him.
Another week, another BCS dog and pony show in Washington, DC. This time it's Orrin Hatch leading a Judiciary subcommittee through an exercise that will accomplish nothing. Don't believe me? Check out the witness list for today's hearing. A Utah senator asking the president of the U of Utah about whether the system is unfair to them is the definition of pandering to constituents. A reminder - there is nothing in the system which prevents Utah from playing for the BCS title. What kept them back are pollsters who did not rank them one or two - which would have still happened under the old setup. I'm no BCS defender, but this is a ridiculous argument.
The ACC embarassed itself yesterday, removing the conference baseball tournaments it had awarded Myrtle Beach for the years 2011-13. The decision is a result of the ongoing NAACP boycott of South Carolina due to the Confederate flag that still is prominently displayed on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia. No facts have changed between the time the ACC awarded Myrtle Beach (roughly three hours from the offending flag) the games and yesterday, so why the abrupt change? A "miscommunication", says the ACC. That's a load of garbage. They simply didn't have the guts to stand by their commitment to a city (one which has nothing to do with the flag problem) once someone from outside the Myrtle Beach area started complaining about it. The ACC could have said they'd remove the games if action wasn't taken by a certain date, giving Myrtle Beach legislators an incentive and opportunity to work toward change. They could have staged the event for one year to demonstrate the economic impact the state has been missing out on, with a deadline for change or the other two tournaments would be lost. Almost any course of action the conference took would have been better than running, claiming they somehow weren't aware of a boycott that's existed for a full decade. It was pathetic.
If you're the kind of person who takes your TV viewing extremely seriously, there's a guy looking to fix you up with your own Man Wall. 4 TVs, a sports ticker, two cigar humidors and a beer tap can all be yours for the low, low price of $14,900. To the guy who designed this thing's credit, he admits he doesn't expect to sell many. If there's a married guy alive who can get that purchase by his wife, I would like to meet him.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars
The summer of celebrity death continued with Saturday's stunning news of Steve McNair's murder in Nashville. McNair's toughness was the thing that most stood out about him, but I still remember watching him break a 71 yard touchdown run to beat the Bucs in 1998. The Bucs led that game 16-3 at the half, but McNair brought his Oilers (name change to Titans wasn't until the next season) back for the 31-22 win. Covering Jacksonville a year later, I watched them plan their defensive strategy around the concept of "Dare McNair". The premise: McNair wasn't an accurate enough passer to beat them, so stop Eddie George and they'd win. The 1999 Jaguars lost three times - all of them were to McNair and the Titans including in the ACC title game. Whoops. I'm not sure McNair would have been a Hall of Famer before this happened - it would have been close, since he never won a championship and only went to one Super Bowl - but he was an outstanding player and overall a big positive for the NFL. Whatever the circumstances of his death prove to be, it was a major loss.
If you're not covering Major League Baseball, summertime is for list making. It's a way for sports media to fill the time before things start to rev up again with NFL training camps late this month. ESPN has come out with their supposed rankings of the franchises of the four pro sports leagues. Any list that asks me to accept the notion that six of the top eleven franchises in sports are in the NHL is a really stupid list. On what planet could the Charlotte Bobcats be considered the 59th best franchise - ahead of all three Florida NFL teams? If this is the best the guys in Bristol could come up with, they need to either change the formula or stop coming out with the rankings.
Unfortunately, that's not the stupidest sports list I read this weekend. The ab obsessed folks at Men's Health decided they should rank the 100 most sports obsessed American cities. Their conclusions? Philadelphia, Tampa and New York are 85th, 87th and 88th. Colorado Springs is 3rd and Anchorage, Alaska is tenth. Great list, guys. Stick to "seven foods to supercharge your sex life" from now on, okay?
One of the touchstones of my childhood officially left the airwaves this weekend. Casey Kasem's American Top Forty was mandatory listening for me when I was a kid. Don't ask me why I cared whether a song I hated like Sly Fox's Let's Go All The Way rose or fell on the countdown - all I can tell you is that I did. Kasem hasn't been doing AT40 for a while, being quite a bit out of the age range of the current top 40 demographic, but had been doing a version for the "soft rock" format the past few years. Now he's getting out of the countdown business altogether. The one thing I always hated about American Top Forty was the "long distance dedication" - as you can hear from this famous Kasem outtake, I wasn't the only one. (don't click if foul language is a problem for you)
If you're not covering Major League Baseball, summertime is for list making. It's a way for sports media to fill the time before things start to rev up again with NFL training camps late this month. ESPN has come out with their supposed rankings of the franchises of the four pro sports leagues. Any list that asks me to accept the notion that six of the top eleven franchises in sports are in the NHL is a really stupid list. On what planet could the Charlotte Bobcats be considered the 59th best franchise - ahead of all three Florida NFL teams? If this is the best the guys in Bristol could come up with, they need to either change the formula or stop coming out with the rankings.
Unfortunately, that's not the stupidest sports list I read this weekend. The ab obsessed folks at Men's Health decided they should rank the 100 most sports obsessed American cities. Their conclusions? Philadelphia, Tampa and New York are 85th, 87th and 88th. Colorado Springs is 3rd and Anchorage, Alaska is tenth. Great list, guys. Stick to "seven foods to supercharge your sex life" from now on, okay?
One of the touchstones of my childhood officially left the airwaves this weekend. Casey Kasem's American Top Forty was mandatory listening for me when I was a kid. Don't ask me why I cared whether a song I hated like Sly Fox's Let's Go All The Way rose or fell on the countdown - all I can tell you is that I did. Kasem hasn't been doing AT40 for a while, being quite a bit out of the age range of the current top 40 demographic, but had been doing a version for the "soft rock" format the past few years. Now he's getting out of the countdown business altogether. The one thing I always hated about American Top Forty was the "long distance dedication" - as you can hear from this famous Kasem outtake, I wasn't the only one. (don't click if foul language is a problem for you)
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Anytime I can mix in Warren Zevon, it's a good day
The Michigan student newspaper claims the Wolverines are looking at a football home and home with Georgia beginning in 2010 in Ann Arbor and then going to Athens in 2011. Because of UGA's aggressive non-SEC scheduling this is actually semi-believable as a possibility, but I doubt it. It makes all the sense in the world for Michigan to want to play a game in the south, since that's where Rich Rodriguez is trying to land almost all his players. (There are virtually no home state kids on their commitment list.) What I can't see is where the benefit for Georgia would come from. They don't recruit extensively in Michigan, unless they're figuring on a bunch of Lions fan kids wanting to go where Matthew Stafford played. Joe Cox is a fifth year senior, so unless he flops/gets injured and is replaced this year they'd be giving a QB his first start in the Big House. Though it would be a fun series, this doesn't pass the common sense test with me so I'll assume it won't be happening. Wouldn't it be great if you heard Florida was looking at a series like that and ever had reason to believe it?
The NCAA basketball tournament committee got one right. They've announced that teams records in the last twelve games of a season will not be one of the factors they weigh in the selection process. It's about time. Think about it - what does this stat show you? It's not like each team plays the same set of games, so comparisons purely on records mean little. If a team loses enough of its last twelve, it will miss the tournament because its record wasn't good enough. Otherwise, why should UF be penalized for having their toughest conference games in the second half of the schedule to make TV happy every year?
Alexis Arguello joins the recent list of big name deaths, under curious circumstances in Nicaragua. The fact he was mayor of Managua tells you this was not the typical boxer. The fact his bout with Ray Mancini was significant enough to get into the lyrics of Warren Zevon's song Boom Boom Mancini should as well. Now try and name three personalities in the sport which can captivate public attention today. It's amazing how far off the radar the sport has become. Ask around at your office today: who are the heavyweight champs right now? If anyone can come up with the law firm of Klitschko, Klitschko & Valuev, I'd be stunned. That's what putting all your sport's big events on pay per view, especially when you frequently deliver crap to those who do pay, will do.
One of the all time great SEC football names of the past twenty years is in trouble with the law. Jim Bob Cooter never saw meaningful action for Tennessee, but the walkon quarterback had the absolutely perfect name for a member of the Volunteers. Alas, after a brief run as a graduate assistant coach once his playing days were done it appears Cooter has picked up burglary as a new hobby. This sounds like one of the incidents Robert Downey, Jr. had in his out of control days rather than a property burglary. Hopefully Cooter can get himself back on track, because that's too good a name to have slide off the radar.
Since this is a three day weekend for most folks, I will take tomorrow off from the blog. I hope you'll enjoy your 4th of July. If you take time to think about the principles that make the USA great, try to square them with the sentiments being expressed in this clip. I don't care what your politics are, openly rooting for a terrorist attack in this country is insane. Glenn Beck should be ashamed to show his face in public after condoning it and apparently agreeing with his guest advocating an Osama attack as the way to "save" us. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.
The NCAA basketball tournament committee got one right. They've announced that teams records in the last twelve games of a season will not be one of the factors they weigh in the selection process. It's about time. Think about it - what does this stat show you? It's not like each team plays the same set of games, so comparisons purely on records mean little. If a team loses enough of its last twelve, it will miss the tournament because its record wasn't good enough. Otherwise, why should UF be penalized for having their toughest conference games in the second half of the schedule to make TV happy every year?
Alexis Arguello joins the recent list of big name deaths, under curious circumstances in Nicaragua. The fact he was mayor of Managua tells you this was not the typical boxer. The fact his bout with Ray Mancini was significant enough to get into the lyrics of Warren Zevon's song Boom Boom Mancini should as well. Now try and name three personalities in the sport which can captivate public attention today. It's amazing how far off the radar the sport has become. Ask around at your office today: who are the heavyweight champs right now? If anyone can come up with the law firm of Klitschko, Klitschko & Valuev, I'd be stunned. That's what putting all your sport's big events on pay per view, especially when you frequently deliver crap to those who do pay, will do.
One of the all time great SEC football names of the past twenty years is in trouble with the law. Jim Bob Cooter never saw meaningful action for Tennessee, but the walkon quarterback had the absolutely perfect name for a member of the Volunteers. Alas, after a brief run as a graduate assistant coach once his playing days were done it appears Cooter has picked up burglary as a new hobby. This sounds like one of the incidents Robert Downey, Jr. had in his out of control days rather than a property burglary. Hopefully Cooter can get himself back on track, because that's too good a name to have slide off the radar.
Since this is a three day weekend for most folks, I will take tomorrow off from the blog. I hope you'll enjoy your 4th of July. If you take time to think about the principles that make the USA great, try to square them with the sentiments being expressed in this clip. I don't care what your politics are, openly rooting for a terrorist attack in this country is insane. Glenn Beck should be ashamed to show his face in public after condoning it and apparently agreeing with his guest advocating an Osama attack as the way to "save" us. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Now playing in Columbia: Bulworth 2
Kentucky basketball may be about to pick up two more players, including the supposed third best prospect in the country. Xavier Henry's already been let out of his letter of intent at Memphis but was supposedly going to Kansas. Since he can't sign a second letter of intent, only his word keeps him bound to the Jayhawks right now. I don't see how John Calipari is going to blend all these guys together when each of them wants to be the man and none of them are planning on playing more than a year of college basketball. UK might be the most talented collection of players in the country, but I doubt they'll be much of a team.
Last night was the final new episode of Fox Sports Net's Best Damn Sports Show Period. I assumed having me on the show seven years ago was a sign they were circling the drain, but somehow it just kept going for around a decade. Never have so many ex-jocks feigned so much amusement about so little genuinely funny material as they did on that program. A free wheeling "Tonight show" styled program for sports fans is a pretty good concept, but no one's had the right set of talent to do it. Tom Arnold definitely wasn't the guy.
Jeff Pearlman keeps a blog on his website in addition to the info that's there about his books. Yesterday, out of nowhere, he featured a terrific Youtube find for those of us who are Tampa Bay Bucs fans. It's a clip of a post game interview with both Ricky Bell and Doug Williams on the field after Tampa Bay improved to 6-2 in the amazing 1979 season by defeating Green Bay. There are so many things that stand out - rookie analyst John Madden talks about running into Williams at the airport, the Tampa Bay marching band stands ready to play behind the guys, and the interview is almost six minutes long (which would never happen on a network today with any player). I was six when that happened, so it was a cool time capsule moment.
The situation here in South Carolina with the governor is getting weirder with each passing day. Mark Sanford keeps revealing more details about his liaisons with his mistress and then inexplicably brought up episodes with other women yesterday. Hopefully you'll never find yourself in the position this guy is, but should you ever stray from your marriage here are a couple of helpful hints. It's probably a bad idea to refer to the other woman as your soulmate repeatedly while calling the episode "a love story". It's even worse to then mention you're "trying to fall back in love" with your wife. When you're in a hole, stop digging!
Last night was the final new episode of Fox Sports Net's Best Damn Sports Show Period. I assumed having me on the show seven years ago was a sign they were circling the drain, but somehow it just kept going for around a decade. Never have so many ex-jocks feigned so much amusement about so little genuinely funny material as they did on that program. A free wheeling "Tonight show" styled program for sports fans is a pretty good concept, but no one's had the right set of talent to do it. Tom Arnold definitely wasn't the guy.
Jeff Pearlman keeps a blog on his website in addition to the info that's there about his books. Yesterday, out of nowhere, he featured a terrific Youtube find for those of us who are Tampa Bay Bucs fans. It's a clip of a post game interview with both Ricky Bell and Doug Williams on the field after Tampa Bay improved to 6-2 in the amazing 1979 season by defeating Green Bay. There are so many things that stand out - rookie analyst John Madden talks about running into Williams at the airport, the Tampa Bay marching band stands ready to play behind the guys, and the interview is almost six minutes long (which would never happen on a network today with any player). I was six when that happened, so it was a cool time capsule moment.
The situation here in South Carolina with the governor is getting weirder with each passing day. Mark Sanford keeps revealing more details about his liaisons with his mistress and then inexplicably brought up episodes with other women yesterday. Hopefully you'll never find yourself in the position this guy is, but should you ever stray from your marriage here are a couple of helpful hints. It's probably a bad idea to refer to the other woman as your soulmate repeatedly while calling the episode "a love story". It's even worse to then mention you're "trying to fall back in love" with your wife. When you're in a hole, stop digging!
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