The Sporting Life category archive

A South Carolina man is facing narcotics charges after police last night found him in possession of a bag of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, specifically a “New England Patriots drug pipe.”

No word on whether the pipe was properly inflated.

Don Giordano has qualms about returning a statue of Joe Paterno (who was a football coach, not a statesman or general or a scholar) to a place of honor on the Penn State University campus. In case you have forgotten, Paterno was revered as an all-around nice guy until it was learned that, upon being informed that one of his friends and long-time associates had been seen molesting a little boy, did as little as he could possibly have done about it.

Old friends and we’re all members of the club and all that, eh, what?

Nevertheless, the Penn State alumni continue to revere JoePa because he embodied their highest value, their most revered goal, the reflection on the Platonic wall of all that is sacred, the highest ideal of honor and integrity: NCAA bowl games.

Here’s a bit from Giordano:

It’s amazing to me the spins and defenses that callers have offered to me to defend Paterno. The first wave argued that JoePa was of a generation that couldn’t comprehend what he was being told when he was informed by Mike McQueary, the assistant football coach, that he had witnessed Sandusky assaulting a young boy in the athletic-building shower.

I wonder what Paterno’s reaction would have been if McQueary had told him that he saw Paterno’s grandson in that shower. Would Paterno have merely done the minimum and reported it only to his supervisors?

The second wave of defenders loves to tell me that Joe did all that he could to stop Sandusky. He reported Sandusky to his “superiors.” Who was JoePa’s superior at Penn State?

The third wave of defenders has started the argument that we beat the NCAA and now we’ll put Joe’s statue back because we are a huge alumni group with a lot of power. I wonder what an alum would do if it was his child or grandchild who had been victimized by Sandusky. Would he truly be OK with JoePa’s minimum effort?

This is just strange.

The NASCAR driver known as “The Outlaw” testified Tuesday he believes his ex-girlfriend is a trained assassin dispatched on covert missions around the world who once returned to him in a blood-splattered gown.

The headline in the print edition of my local rag differs from the online version.

The print headline says,

The Goal: Curb rising college fees.
The Risk: Big cuts for some sports.

Get real. The purpose of college is to entertain beer-guzzling couch potatoes and give ESPN a vehicle for ads.

If you are watching college football today, you are indeed watching Pro Bowls.

Frolicking football fans.

The Hipster Muffler.

I’m not the only person who’s fed up with Big-Time Football. Lloyd Buzzell is starting to have qualms. Here’s some of them:

Though you should probably wonder about any game in which it is customary to have an ambulance in attendance, the violence is not staying on the field where it is channeled and controlled. Much attention has been focused on two incidents at the high school level: the 2012 sexual assault of a 16-year-old in Steubenville, Ohio, and the more recent hazing of younger players in Sayreville, New Jersey.

Following the game at the college level is a little bit like reading a crime blotter. And last year’s Heisman watch took the cake with Jameis Winston and his school, Florida State, the subject of extensive reporting by the New York Times regarding allegations of a rape and the school’s casual attitude toward the victim and her rights. Everything seemed to be subordinated to Florida State’s bid for the national championship.

My local rag has laid off my favorite sportswriter. After 38 years with the same employer, he is done.

I now have no reason whatsoever to look at their sports section, except, possibly, to watch NASCAR devolve back to its hillbilly rum runnin’ roots.

As my two or three regular readers know, I’m fed up with big time sports, but I always read his column because I appreciated his point of view and, by heavens, the man can write.

AFAIC, nothing on the internet has damaged legitimate journalism more than Craig’s List, which has destroyed the classified advertising that was the life’s blood of newspapers.

Is there a bigger jerk than Dan Snyder?

The pathology of white violence grips another city.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

I will never watch another football game again once more another time all over again.

Like Crabby Appleton, the game and everyone associated with it are rotten to the core.

I’m so old I can remember when the University of North Carolina was a respected institution of higher education.

The kids may be all right, but the parents are another story.

And, courtesy of my brother, here’s another story of Parental Football Impairment Syndrome.

Yet, some wonder why, by the time they get to big-time football, some players think they are exempt from law and morality . . . .

Daniel Ruth considers Florida State University’s hold over Tallahassee:

You have to wonder what it takes to get arrested in Tallahassee, especially if you are a member of the Florida State University football team. The players seem to enjoy greater immunity from prosecution than the diplomatic corps.

Read the rest, then do something useful with your Saturday, like not watch NCAA football.

Werner Herzog’s Bear posits that football is a reflection of corporate America. A nugget:

At a time when corporate profits are booming when living standards are stagnant, football is raking in the dough while shafting the men who sacrifice their bodies. The NCAA blocks the payment of money to the “student athletes” who make it billions of dollars. The NFL drug its feet when it came to helping former players with scrambled brains, and recently locked out its own players rather than do more to share its wealth from those who actually generate it. Roger Goodell is the kind of corporate technocrat ensconced at the top of America’s major companies, with a one singular mission: generate profit above all else, even if some people suffer.

Do read the rest, then ignore tonight’s game.

. . . are still the worst fans in pro sports.

If you haven’t read the New York Times’s story detailing how the Tallahassee police force overlooks, nay, covers up misconduct by Florida State football players, you should.

Then do something productive with your time, like not wasting it on big time football.

Bob Molinaro on milking it for all it’s worth:

The merchandising of Derek Jeter’s long farewell tour by the Yankees, Nike, Gatorade and others amounts to a tribute industry unmatched in sports history. And the selling isn’t about to stop. Not when there are still so many more emotions to be manipulated for corporate gain.