Category Archives: football
Big Fat Bully Boys
Americans, as usual, are holding up our end of H.L. Mencken’s grand bargain that “we get the government we deserve, and we deserve to get it good and hard”.
But what have the polite people of Toronto done to deserve Mayor Rob Ford?
His poll numbers went up when he was caught smoking crack but his latest video rant may be a rage too far. Here’s a nice retrospective of his top then videos.
More Big Fat Bully Boys
As for the other big fat bully boy in the news, things may not be exactly as they seem either. Here’s a view from Lydon Murtha in SI. He’s a former Dolphin teammate of Richie Cognito and Jonathan Martin. Murtha says it was Martin who violated the NFL code of conduct and he sounds convincing.
If you doubted that 300 pound men who smash into other 300 pound men in a high speed collider – just the way we like it – can be bullied, you may be right.
We get the NFL we deserve – good and hard.
Too Smart for the NFL
So far this year one NFL player is in jail on murder charges while others have been fined for tackling too hard. Now, according to Bloomberg, a 320 pound Nebraska and Oregon reject has been suspended for bullying a 310 pound Stanford classics major for being too smart.
Dolphin tackle Jonathan Martin turned over to the NFL some nasty voice and text messages he received from guard Richie Incognito that indicate the hazing went beyond “team building”. This wasn’t a case of veterans making the rookie stand on a table at training camp and sing his college alma mater. He flat out got the “mean girl treatment” when he sat down to eat and Incognito and the other linemen got up and left. Whatever.
NFL Gangster Style
John Facenda was known as The Voice of God. He was famous for his over-the-top NFL Film productions glorifying the manly ideal of the players. Now pro athletes glorify themselves as gangsters and rappers. At least that’s how Jason Whitlock sees it at Fox Sports. He says, “… popular culture has installed Tony Soprano as America’s most celebrated and revered icon above Joe Montana”.
The Wall Street Journal says that on a psychological profile Aaron Hernandez scored a perfect 10 on focus and a 1 on social maturity.
Those Damn Catholics
Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee’s geeky jokes finally got him busted.
The multimillionaire president once cracked that he hoped the multimillionaire football coach, Jim Tressel, “won’t fire me”. His comment that Ohio State doesn’t play “the Little Sisters of the Poor” put him in hot water with – the Little Sisters of the Poor. But the one Gee Gaffe too far for the board of trustees was his jab at “those Damn Catholics” at Notre Dame. He said, “the fathers are holy on Sunday but holy hell the rest of the week” and “can’t be trusted on a Thursday or Friday”.
As one of those “Damn Catholics” who roots for the Irish I really can’t quibble with Gee’s remarks. Well, maybe the one about the Little Sisters of the Poor – after all, the Buckeyes do play the Akron Zips.
As penance for his sins Dr. Gee must now be remediated. Sounds painful, but it’s just the usual college commie cant about “civility, inclusion, and collective aspiration”. In other words he’s about to become as boring as every other politically correct academic who isn’t advocating bestiality.
Update: No remediation for Gee. He’s retiring.
Lance and Manti
In the Weird Weird World of sports, Lance Armstrong’s doping confession to Oprah Winfrey was upstaged by news of Notre Dame star Manti Te’o’s cyber girlfriend. The fake girlfriend didn’t make Manti run faster but she played the media sob story machine like a fiddle. Lesson: trust somebody you can touch without a keyboard.
Here’s a good piece by John Kass reminding ESPN, Sports Illustrated, etc. that “if you mother tells you she loves you, check it out”.
