Will the Big House be dead silent in Michigan's home opener this year?

One of the greatest times of the year is upon us, the first weekend of college football! It’s that time of year when we can sit and watch live football for a whole day! There is nothing as spirited and hyped as college football. Although amazing as well, the NFL does not come close in comparison. Throughout the college football season, JIB Sports will have a weekly column every Friday with four headlines you just might see on your Sunday sports page, along with JIB Picks for the week.

No Miracle for Appalachian State 

Last year Appalachian State kicked off what turned out to be a topsy turvy ’07 season in NCAA football when they shocked Michigan at the Big House. Although shaky at quarterback, LSU will win on the shoulders of their “tough” SEC defense. Here is a small thought for everyone, so many times we hear that the SEC has the toughest defenses in the nation and every time there is a low-scoring contest it is considered a “defensive struggle.” Could it be that the offenses in the SEC just aren’t that great?

Nightmare in The Big House II

 Is it really possible that Michigan could lose two home openers in a row? With former BCS buster Utah coming to town the Wolverines don’t have a lot in their favor. Besides having to replace Chad Henne and Mike Hart, Michigan will have a new offensive scheme under new coach Rich Rodriguez. Utah is coming in very confident with a healthy offense, which was not the case in ’07.  All the pre-season BCS buster talk has been on BYU, just watch the talk turn after Utah handles Michigan.  You better believe Michigan will not forget what happened last year, nobody will ever forget, but they will have another season opening loss to make a bitter taste in their mouths for next year.

Will there be "Thunder and Lightning" at Clemson this year?

There is title talk on the Clemson campus, and they will start their journey by defeating Alabama. The Tigers are equipped with Cullen Harper, the ACC’s highest-rated QB in ’07. They also bring back James Davis and C.J. Spiller, their running back tandem nicknamed “thunder and lightning.” The only thing that might foil these three from racking up yards is a very inexperienced offensive line they may prevent the thunder and lightning from even getting out of the backfield. Maybe this is the year that Tommy Bowden steps out from behind his father’s old decrepit coaching shadow. Let’s be honest though, this is Clemson we are talking about, they will lose at least one or two times before the seasons end. 

Sleuth of Top 25 Teams Easily Pass Warm-up Exam

Many teams are taking after Ohio State and playing “patsy” teams for their first game. Read some of these schools that will be waxed this weekend: Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Youngstown State, Northern Iowa, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Tennesee-Martin, Eastern Washington, and Northern Arizona. If you can name half of the mascots for the schools just listed then you deserve a cookie. The real competition starts in week two for most of the top schools. Ohio State is getting in one more before they face their first challenge of the year, USC in southern California.

#1 Georgia hopes to runaway from the competition this year.

JIB Picks

Week 1: #1 Georgia – Georgia Southern / #2 Ohio State – Youngstown State / #3 USC – Virginia / #4 Oklahoma – Chattanooga / #5 Florida – Hawaii / #6 Missouri – #20 Illinois / #7 LSU – Appalachian State / #8 West Virginia – Villanova / #9 Clemson – #24 Alabama / #10 Auburn – Louisianna-Monroe / #11 Texas – Florida Atlantic / #12 Texas Tech – Eastern Washington / #13 Wisconsin – Akron / #14 Kansas – Florida International / #15 Arizona State – Northern Arizona / #16 BYU – Northern Iowa / #17 Virginia Tech – East Carolina / #18 Tennessee – UCLA / #19 South Florida – Tennessee-Martin / #21 Oregon – Washington / #22 Penn State – Coastal Carolina / #23 Wake Forest – Baylor / #25 Pittsburgh – Bowling Green

ESPN Game Previews

The Olympic torch has been dissipated in Beijing and will next make it’s way to London for the 2012 summer games. There were a lot of protesters following the torch relay everywhere it went displaying their displeasure with the Chinese government and how it so effectively uses it’s young country folk for profitable production. I can’t imagine seeing too many protesters following the torch run to London, unless they want to display their displeasure with monarchies and bad teeth. 

The ‘08 Beijing games were memorable in so many ways; we saw the most expensive opening and closing ceremonies ever, we witnessed swimming rise as a ‘must see’ event, we saw USA track and field crash and burn, we saw a ‘Redeem Team‘ make a formidable comparison to ‘The Dream Team,’ and we were reminded of the glaring problems that the Olympics have failed to obliterate after all these years. 

Michael Redd, Deron Williams, LeBron James, Jason Kidd, and Carlos Boozer show off their new bling, Olympic gold!

Sitting down to watch the opening ceremonies and seeing how long they are is similar to when a wife asks her husband to watch Anne of Green Gables or Pride and Prejudice with her, “What?!?!?! This thing is 53 hours long!!!” Okay, so the opening ceremonies aren’t that long, but they are creeping ever so closer. Right now they are in the same league as the Super Bowl pre-game show, which is just as long as the Super Bowl itself. The opening ceremonies were amazing, they combined both visual and performance arts that may never be matched. In many of the performances there were 2008 people on stage, seemingly improbable, but then we are reminded that there are over 1 billion people in China. Surely it wasn’t too difficult for the organizers to find a few thousand people willing to sacrifice lots of time to practice and perfect a routine show. A few Chinese people can go a long way! At one part of the ceremonies there was a cute little girl being repelled through the stadium serenading us with her angelic Chinese voice. A few days later news leaked that it wasn’t even her voice singing, but the voice of a “Quasimodo” Chinese girl backstage who wasn’t up to snuff to go on stage. Whoever made that decision definitely did not watch Ashley Simpson perform on Saturday Night Live. That single event squashed Ashley’s career like a bug, a bug living in her big bug sister’s shadow. It was rumored that the opening ceremonies alone cost upwards to $100 million! While the Chinese economy struggles to overcome such massive debts from hosting the Olympics, I’m sure all the poor rice farmers and McDonalds Happy Meal toy workers will think, “That ceremony was SO worth a pay cut!” 

There is one thing that the Olympics does not leave, and that is the feeling of you wanting more. Then again, it so happens that the summer Olympics always fall during the same year as the Presidential election. Right about now when the political conventions are on every channel I’ll gladly take more of anything…even a Hannah Montana 3-D concert. (Hey, there’s an idea for London, a 3-D opening ceremony!) 

The NBA and MLB have their respective All-Star Games, and the NFL has the Pro Bowl. The NBA and MLB have theirs in the middle of the season, the NFL’s is at the end. There is only one of them that has got it all together to have meaningful and entertaining All-Star festivities.

The late Sean Taylor and Chris Samuels at the '06 Pro Bowl. "Aw man! Do we have to play football?"

The NFL struggles the most with it’s Pro Bowl, which is held in Hawaii every year. Not only is viewership down in the company of the PBA and the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest, but it is just difficult to watch. The offensive sets that each conference uses are very basic, much like the ones run in your local pee-wee football league. The defenses are about the same, except for it doesn’t take a pack of them to tackle one player, just two or three. What the Pro Bowl needs is some sort of challenge involving top quarterbacks, just a little something to spice it up. I remember watching one quarterback challenge in particular with Brett Favre (pre-Wrangler endorsee), Warren Moon (Pre-annual DUI suspicion arrestee), and Steve Young (pre-bald spot in the back of his head). They had competitions testing accuracy, quickness, and strength. My favorite was the motorized carts with wide receiver cutouts attached to them. Three or four would cross each other at a time and the QBs would have to hit them with footballs that had paint on the tips. The slower/closer carts were less points then the ones that were faster and further away. As it stands, the Pro Bowl is a dried baked potato that’s been sitting under the heat lamps at Wendy’s; no butter, no chives, no cheese, just plain and stale. The Pro Bowl is nothing more than a congratulatory vacation package to Hawaii for the players and cheap entertainment for the fans.

Amare Stoudamire and Tim Duncan arguing over who has to guard LeBron James.

The NBA has got a good thing going with it’s pre-game entertainment. The new Skills Challenge (designed to test passing accuracy and quickness of guards) fits in quite well with the Slam-Dunk Contest and 3-Point Shootout. Now all they need is a competition for the centers…hmm…maybe they can have 20 elementary school kids all shooting at the same time and see who can reject the most shots. Entertaining and fun for the kids, I think we have a winner! The All-Star Game on the other hand is quite a snoozefest. What the game includes is a bunch of “All-Stars” showboating and not playing defense, not to mention as many flubeed alley-oop attempts as you’ll see with a couple of 12-year olds playing on a 6-foot hoop. The past few years, it has also turned into a ‘runway’ for Adidas to show off some new funky uniform. Here’s a gallery of All-Star uniforms through the ages:

1990ish / 1995 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 West 2007 East / 2008 West 2008 East

The NBA has been criticized for its All-Star Game because of it’s selection process and the fact that half the players do not deserve to play. In 2007, Shaq played a whole 10 games the first half of the season, yet started for the Eastern Conference team. Allen Iverson sat out almost the whole first half of the season with the 76ers (in the Eastern Conference), and was traded to the Nuggets (in the Western Conference) and was consequently a starter for the West team. Then there’s the stigma around Yao Ming, how is he voted the starter every year? oh yeah, he has a billion votes pouring in every year from China alone. A more fitting name for the game should be the ‘Market’-Stars Game.

Josh Hamilton hit a record 28 home runs in the first round of the '08 Home Run Derby.

Lastly, there is Major League Baseball, the only league to get things right. The one things that makes the MLB All-Star Game the cream of the crop is that it is meaningful.Come October there will be plenty of baseball fans who will wonder, “Who won the All-Star Game?” That is the case because the league(National or American) that wins that All-Star Game gets home field advantage in the World Series! In the NBA and NFL next to nobody cares enough to remember who won because it doesn’t matter! in the 2008 MLB All-Star Game, the American League won in the 15th inning, capping the most watched All-Star game for MLB since 2002. Similar to the NBAs dunk contest, MLB has the Home Run Derby, which adds to the excitement and entertainment value of the All-Star Game. It is a glorified batting cage for the players and a spectacle to watch. This past derby featured Josh Hamilton hitting a record 28 home runs in the first round. Let’s be honest though, if my grandpa was throwing me fast balls like 71-year old Clay Council was throwing Hamilton, I’d be hitting that many too.

(1)New Orleans Saints

In 2006 they were the feel good story of the NFL after Hurricane Katrina. In the Monday Night Football opening game, the Saints beat the then Michael Vick Falcons and that was the start of their fairy tale season. Behind the MVP-like performance of Drew Brees, (who was let go by the San Diego Chargers for fear of his durability after a shoulder injury) the tough running of Deuce McAllister and breakout season from late round draft pick wide receiver Marques Colston, the Saints put up lots of points and their defense was nothing short of stellar. In 2007, going into the season, there were high hopes for the Saints to go far in the playoffs. Some experts picked them for the Super Bowl. I even drafted Brees as my starting quarterback on my Fantasy Football team! Needless to say, the Saints disappointed many and left a city once on the top of the hill, ready to break out their old garbage bags to put over their faces. So the question is which season was a fluke? This year we will find out!

Can Reggie Bush and the Saints recover from an upside-down '07 season and prove '06 wasn't a fluke?

(2)Cincinnati Bengals

Will someone please give Keyshawn Johnson Jr.(Chad Johnson) the damn ball?!?!  For a few years now we have yearned to see the Bengals break away from the shadows of their horrific past in the 90s. They showed moments of brilliance in 2005 and sporadically throughout each season after, but a shaky defense and an oft-injured Carson Palmer, coupled with some apparent team chemistry problems with his receivers, have kept the Bengals from making that move from decent team to playoff team. They have become the lovable losers with those one of a kind uniforms and host of players who practice more on what they will do when they get in the end-zone instead of how to get there. 

(3)Cleveland Browns

 My earliest memory of the Cleveland Browns was their last game ever before being “deactivated” for three years in 1996. It wasn’t pretty, middle-aged men in dog masks and football helmets with bones through them tearing apart the benches of the stadium. They were ticked, and seemed to have remained so through 1999 when the team was reactivated and then up to 2007 when their team rose from their dismal run of 13 years without a 10+ win season. Quarterback Derek Anderson and running back Jamal Lewis lead a surprisingly good Browns offense to finish 8th in the NFL in total offense. The Cleveland Browns were quite simply the 2006 New Orleans Saints, the question is will they follow suit of the 2007 Saints or will they keep the good stuff they have rolling, keepng their loyal fans in the Dawg Pound wagging their tails. Is it a coincidence that the dog is the most loyal animal and recently a poll ranked Browns fans as the most loyal in the NFL? I think it was rigged.  

(4)San Francisco 49ers

My second Fantasy Football blunder of 2007 was selecting quarterback Alex Smith to backup Drew Brees, I thought I was a genius! Smith was heading into his 3rd NFL season with Jim Hostler as his new and improved offensive coordinator and an offense that was stacked with good targets and a stellar running game to open up the passing game for Smith. Fast-forward to the  end of the season, 49ers fans were calling for Hostler’s head, and Smith only ended up playing in 7 games, throwing for 2 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. Going into his 4th NFL season, and a proven offensive guru at the helm in Mike Matrz, the 49ers have a lot to prove. Not to mention they play in the NFC in which wins are much easier than in the AFC to come by. Smith needs to step up this year and show why he was the #1 pick back in 2005 Draft. If I were a diehard 49ers fan, I would also be sick of knowing the last decent quarterback they had was Jeff Garcia, and he talked with a lisp.   

(5)Minnesota Vikings

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is one of the newest spokespersons for Vitamin Water, along with knock you down to Chinatown linebacker Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears and hit the baseball halfway to the moon batter David Ortiz of the Red Sox! Then again, so is country singer Carrie Underwood so not much to be gained in the toughness category there. Peterson’s Nike commercial with LT however does validate him as an up-and-coming star in the NFL. Last year, on his way to winning Offensive Rookie of the Year, Peterson set an NFL record for most rushing yards in a game, 296. Along with Peterson as a weapon on the offensive side of the ball, the Vikings defense is a collective weapon, finishing 2007 first in the NFL against the run. The Vikings started 2007 very poorly but finished strong. Can they start strong and make a push for the playoffs for the  first time since 2004? Stay tuned!  

3 NFL Teams Who Can’t Prove Anything in 2008

(1)Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins made the right decision to draft offensive tackle Jake Long with their first selection. The only downside to Long is that he can’t block 5 players from sacking the poor quarterback(still to be determined). It will be interesting to see how the next few years do shape out in Miami with the ‘Big Tuna’ Bill Parcells heading football operations. Maybe tuna with dolphin isn’t such a a bad thing. If their union is a success, expect PETA to get involved.

Boy, doesn't he look happy that he gets to play for the Dolphins?

(2)Atlanta Falcons

The worst decision ever made down in Atlanta was making Joey “Heisman” Harrington their starting quarterback. Their has never been a more frightened pocket passer that I can think of, every time he drops back you can see his eyes screaming “GET ME THE HECK OUT OF HERE!!! WHERE’S MY RUNNING BACK TO DUMP THE BALL OFF TOO?!?!?!” Hopefully rookie QB Matt Ryan can rise to the challenge and dethrone him. Call it “The Curse of Michael Vick,” call it “The Curse of Bobby Petrino,” or call it “The Curse of the Falcons Stink,” whatever it is, the Falcons imminent future is not looking bright.  

(3)Arizona Cardinals

Every team the Cardinals play are what they think they are, which is better than them. (Refer to coach Dennis Green’s post-game press conference after a loss to the Chicago Bears) Cardinals have tried everything to win, they have tweaked their uniforms, they have built a new stadium, they have tried to insert old players that were once great (running back Emmitt Smith and QB Kurt Warner), and they’ve tried playing in Mexico. Simple fact of the matter, the Cardinals have proven every year that they can’t prove anything except that they aren’t good.

The NBA has been able to achieve what few other sports have, and that is keeping themselves visible and newsworthy practically all year round. The fact that they have extended their playoffs into June has definitely helped. Only weeks after the NBA Finals concluded, there is the NBA Draft. After the NBA Draft there are summer leagues, and the crazy second season of the NBA (free agency signings and trades). This year they have another luxury, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, featuring the ‘Redeem Team.’ By the time you know it another season is practically rolling around. 

The NFL, although much more anticipated I believe, seems to disappear from our minds for months in between seasons. Between the Super Bowl in February, the NFL Draft in April, and the select few players that feel it a necessity to be arrested for countless offenses, not much happens to fill the void between seasons. But wait, what about that one crazy indoor football league during spring and summer, the AFL? Although the AFL has been marketed much more the past few years, I’m not all too convinced that it is for the hard-core NFL fans.

Like every sport, the AFL has it’s pros and cons, I will present those and let the people decide what they think about the AFL.

Pro- The AFL football is magnificently designed with a gold base color and black ‘racing stripes’ to make you think that the quarterbacks throw it faster. Also, all balls that go into the stands are allowed to be kept by the fans.  

Con- The AFL is a pass-happy league. It is much like the old Madden football video games where you would only pass the ball because the running backs were slower than the offensive lineman. The AFL’s all-time rushing leader is Michael Kelly, he rushed 1,617 yards in his 12 years in the league. That’s an average of 134 yards per year, an average achieved by some NFL players per game. Much like the old Madden video games, the scores are inflated, which becomes nauseating after a while. 

Pro- The field goals are much more exciting with the post being half the size of a NFL post . The AFL posts also have nets on each side so a missed field goal can be rebounded and returned by the opposing team

Con- Nobody hardly makes field goals…

Pro- The field is surrounded by walls which provide exciting collisions and bring the fans at the games closer to the action.

Con- The walls make harder hits than the players.

Pro- No matter what your favorite team’s record is, they will most likely make the playoffs. Last year the Utah Blaze made the playoffs after posting a 6-10 record. 

Con- The playoff race isn’t that exciting if everyone gets in. It’s almost as exciting as you favorite school in college football playing in the Whatcrappybowlwilltheycomeupwithnext.com Bowl.

If you are at all enticed to watch an AFL game now, you will have to wait until next year. The ’08 season ended with the Philadelphia Soul (which is partly owned by singer Jon Bon Jovi) defeated the San Jose Sabrecats (which are not owned by anyone cool). Give the AFL a try, you just might like it, or you just might think that it is nothing more than a NFL Development League, on crack. 

The BYU Cougars find themselves in a precarious situation that has been partly brought upon by themselves and partly by the media in search of another BCS-buster like Utah in 2005 and Hawaii in 2008. Although a “sexy pick” to go to the 2009 Fiesta Bowl, I for one am not yet convinced that BYU has it in them and I will give you three reasons why.

BYU still has not been able to win non-conference road games consistently

The past two years have been deja vu for Cougar fans. In 2006-07, BYU lost two early non-conference road games to Arizona and Boston College; in 2007-08 BYU did the same at UCLA and Tulsa. In both seasons BYU ran the tables after and went undefeated the rest of the season, but all four of those road losses the past two years were all winnable games.

QB Max Hall Looks to lead BYU to their first undefeated season since 1984

-2006 at Arizona - BYU made made costly turnovers and never got their offense going, lost on a last second field goal after they had missed one that would have sent the game into overime.

 -2006 at Boston College - Jared McLaughlin had a short field goal for the win and missed, quarterback John Beck threw an interception in overtime to secure the win for the Golden Eagles. 

-2007 at UCLA - BYU doubled UCLA in total yards, but did the same in turnovers as well. BYU stormed back in the second half, but only after they were non-existent in the first.

-2007 at Tulsa – In this touchdown party with over 1,000 total combines yards by both teams, BYUs defense was what Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall called “unprepared.” The offense had a costly late turnover. 

BYU can get the monkey off their back early with two challenging games at Washington and at home with UCLA. UCLA comes armed with a new head coach Rick Neuheisel and new offensive coordinator Norm Chow, who is a familiar name to Cougar fans. Chow was only on BYU’s football staff for 27 years, from 1973-1999. If BYU loses one of those two games they might as well kiss a BCS Bowl goodbye and say “hello” to the Las Vegas Bowl for the 4th straight year. 

BYU still must lean heavily on schools ahead of them to lose

Just like Hawaii last year, BYU has to hope that schools in front of them lose at least twice. Even two-loss teams from “Major Conferences” have the potential to jump BYU in the polls. Last year, BYU started their season ranked lower than any other school compared to their previous year. BYU finished the 2006-07 season ranked in the top 15 and started the the 2007-08 season as far down as the mid-30s. BYU finished last year in the top 15 as well, this year they will start #17 in the Coaches Poll and #16 in the AP Poll. College football is very unpredictable though, who would have thought South Florida and Kansas would have been in the top 5 last year? Whoever answered “yes” to that question is a liar and a cheat. 

BYU still has to beat the University of Utah in Salt Lake City

The last two years BYU has beat Utah on miracle catches in what will go down as two of the best rivalry games in their history. Throw records out the window, this rivalry is one of the most heated in the nation. Many may shrug that comment off, but just ask any national reporter who has taken part in this rivalry and they will agree. What adds more to this years rivalry is Utah changed sponsors from Nike to Under Armor. By the way Utah is talking, their new “partnership” will make them faster, quicker, and stronger. Who knew bad commercials could empower a group of football players so much?

I don’t know what is worse: having to wait 2 weeks for the Super Bowl, being a sports writer that has to find a Super Bowl topic that hasn’t been beaten like a dead horse, or the innocent public having to read the crap that the sports writers put in front of us. Today, all 3 have joined forces, in the form of the crappiest article ever written on espn.com. David Thorpe of espn.com posted an article this morning entitled, “Best football players from NBA rosters.” In this article, Thorpe goes through a football roster and plugs NBA players into every position. In his opening paragraph he wrote, “take a second to imagine the kind of havoc some of these guys would wreak on the football field.” This has to be the most ludicrous notion I have ever heard, that basketball players can make a switch to the NFL. I don’t think Thorpe has even watched any of the fights this season, none of them can even land a clean punch. Heck Thorpe, the golf season just started, why don’t you write an article on best women’s golfers in the NBA, that would for sure involve Mike Miller, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Adam Morrison (he wouldn’t be the first LPGA golfer with a moustache). How about the best basketball players from soccer? I can see David Beckham running the point and Freddy Adu throwing down some LeBron-esque dunks! Ooh, what about John Daly on the pitcher’s mound? Hey, if David Wells can do it, anybody can. Better yet, what about professional wrestlers in baseball? They would fit right in with the steroids and all; however, their flopping abilities may be better suited to the NBA. If you are not an insider subscriber to espn.com, I’m terribly sorry you cannot participate in reading this laughfest of an article, maybe there is a reason they make you pay to read that stuff, it’s that bad.

This vintage article was originally posted August 4, 2007. I’ve been right a lot of times in my life, in this instance I was wrong. In fact, I was very wrong. The road to the NBA Championship wasn’t easy for the Boston Celtics. they were stretched to seven games in the first and second rounds. In the end, it took them more playoff games than any other team in NBA history to win the title. I can’t wait to make my lofty predictions for the 2007-08 NBA season. There is one thing I am sure on, the Seattle Supersonics are going to be practically non-existent. 

Last year the Denver Nuggets acquired Allen Iverson and there was talk of the Nuggets running the table and winning the NBA Championship. The Nuggets ended up being a 7-seed in the West and bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. Now it’s Boston that has Championship buzz after trading for superstar Kevin Garnett. There have even been talks of a new “Big Three” like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish of old. Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett are good, but it still remains to be seen if they can play together. Take the 2004 Los Angeles Lakers for example; that team was the greatest assembly of superstars in the history of the NBA, but they could not play together and ended up choking the Championship away to the Detroit Pistons. Not only is the premature “New Big Three” unproven, but Pierce and Allen are one more injury from being a solid bench player. Not to mention, who will run the offense with the “New Big Three” on the court? Rajon Rondo is definitely not an experienced point guard, and quite frankly, he’s not that good. Also, after trading away 7 players to get Garnett, the Celtics bench is depleted., After years of trying to rebuild the Celtics, GM Danny Ainge finally realized that veterans are key to rebuilding. What Ainge has done in bringing in Ray Allen and KG is remarkable, the Celtics have went from bottom dwellers in the East to a potential spot in the Finals next year. However, if the Celtics are to go to the Finals next year, they will have to make it through at least 3 other teams:
(1) Cleveland Cavaliers
(2) Detroit Pistons
(3) Miami Heat
And that’s just the least of them in a very weak Eastern Conference. There are still the Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, and the Orlando Magic that are on the rise. Boston might just blaze the exact trail that the Nuggets did last year……a 7-seed and an early summer vacation.

College Basketball
This past spring brought it’s usual and now expected craziness of upsets, buzzer beaters, and amazing comebacks in what we like to call “March Madness.” The craziest part about it was listening to Jim Nance’s post-game interview with some of the newly crowned champion Florida Gator players. Jim Nance asked center Joakim Noah about what the Gators did to win the game. In amazing fashion, Joakim Noah testified of the quality of his education at the University of Florida by saying, “Me and my boys brought it, and when I say we brought it you know what I mean? No you don’t know what I mean, but my boys know what I mean.” It seemed as if Jim Nance was pushing a panic button that flashed the words “COMMERCIAL BREAK! COMMERCIAL BREAK!” on the producer’s screen up in the video room. It didn’t stop there, Nance went on to interview a couple others which only buried the academic validity of Florida athletes. It seemed as if none of them had any formal schooling or had been taught the English language from a book. I don’t think the Florida officials shed a single tear when four starters chose to bypass their senior seasons and declared themselves eligible for the NBA Draft. Those five players’ decision to leave just might have doubled the school’s average GPA.     

Pro Basketball
Can anybody out there look at me straight faced and tell me without even smirking that NBA officials do not show favoritism and that the NBA is free from conspiracies and inconsistencies? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Case and point, I went to game 4 of the Western Conference Finals between the Jazz and Spurs. Steve Javie, the head referee, is a ruthless tyrant that reigns with terror on teams he doesn’t particularly like. Just as Joey Crawford would like to pick a fight with Tim Duncan, I don’t think it would be far fetched to say that, if given the chance, Steve Javie would love nothing more than to line up every player and coach on the Jazz roster and kick them square in the crotch. Although he didn’t do it physically, he did it mentally with the horrendous way he and his crew handled this game. Not only did he kick out Derek Fisher, who has been in the top 5 for “Sportsman of the Year” every year for years, but he also refused to call fouls on the Spurs. Riddle me this Batman, how did the Jazz lose by double digits despite having fewer turnovers and shooting over 53% from the field? I’ll tell you how, by the officials giving the Spurs 20+ free throws in the 4th and the Jazz 2. Here’s an interesting fact, the officials called fouls 90% of the time that the Spurs drove to the basket, and 10% of the time the Jazz did the same. Can you tell me there was that much difference in the physicality on both ends? I think not. Do you really blame the fans for getting a little boisterous and chanting “REFS YOU (OPPOSITE OF BLOW)! REFS YOU (OPPOSITE OF BLOW)!”? Good thing Jazz fans don’t consume as much alcohol as other NBA fans or there might have been another Palace Brawl.

NFL
**NEWSFLASH** JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE A FOOTBALL PLAYER YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO BREAKING THE LAW! It seems like there are more convicts in the NFL than there is in every other professional sport combined. It will be interesting to see if Commissioner Roger Goodell throws the hammer down on Michael Vick for his dog fighting regime. Vick danced his way around alleged possession of marijuana, so I don’t see anything coming of this current case. I hope Vick hires a good legal counsel or he might say something stupid on the stand like, “Your Honor, I thought that dog fighting is legal where cock fighting is legal……cock fighting is legal right???”

Baseball
I’d now like to take the time to make a personal announcement. I have meddled over this decision for many, many years. While my parents don’t like it, and lot of friends don’t support it, I feel I will receive enough support from others to sustain and validate my decision. Here it goes, I am attracted to baseball! I’ve never been a supporter of baseball and never had a team, although I would secretly watch the World Series every year growing up in my room with the door locked so my parents wouldn’t know what I was doing. I am strangely attracted to the competitiveness of the sport and having “a team” to root for. Not only am I coming out as a baseball fan, but also a San Francisco Giants fan. Why San Francisco? Well, I think it’s fairly obvious, but for those who don’t know let me give you the rundown. First, Barry Bonds is awesome. I’ve always liked him and have never wavered on my support of him through this ridiculoius steroids investigation by MLB. Will he beat Hank Aaron’s homerun record? Yes. Should it be in the record books? Yes. Should he be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Yes! You can’t tell me “steroids” gave Bonds the fluid motion of his swing. Second, what’s cooler than home run balls landing in a bay to be had amongst the person with the swiftest swing of a net or strongest swing of an oar in the general direction of the other people going after the ball. And third, I like the 49ers, so it only makes sense to like the Giants too, right? Because I’m new at this baseball thing, I reserve the right to change teams if “my team” is really bad. Expos fans reserved that right and shipped their team to Washington DC.

What Ben Wallace and Ron Artest started last year in the “Palace Brawl” has forever changed that face of the National Basketball Association. That is exactly what NBA commissioner David Stern did not want, but you don’t always get what you want. Now David Stern must find a way to deal with it. Last year Stern implemented a new dress code for players arriving to the arenas on game day and sitting on the bench to try and increase the professionalism of the players. This year Stern amended the actual uniform attire, outlawing tights and wearing elbow and knee pads on anything but the elbows and knees. That’s right, some people actually had a problem with that. Kobe Bryant at one time wore knee pads down around his ankles. Was it a fashion statement, or did curious little Kobe get into the equipment closet and start playing dress-up? I guess we’ll never know, but at least we won’t have to witness such stupidity again. Stern also implemented a “Zero-tolerance Policy” in regards to players reacting to referees. Stern’s zero-tolerance policy was effective the first few weeks. There were technical fouls being thrown out faster than steroid suspensions in MLB. However; none of these new stipulations and guidelines have succeeded in increasing the sportsmanship of players. This year there have been three more brawls in the NBA. The first of the year was in New York, dubbed by me as the “Midget Melee in Madison Square Garden.” Just like Ben Wallace was the initial perpetrator in the Palace Brawl, Nate Robinson(all 5’9″ of him) was the initial perpetrator at the Midget Melee in MSG. Had nobody else got involved, J.R. Smith would have knocked Robinson back to the Shire. That brawl became even more embarrassing after Carmelo Anthony slapped, not punched, Jared Jeffries and then ran away like there was a fire. The scene at MSG was like the scene between the rival gangs in West Side Story, it was that cheesy. There were some rather heavy suspensions dealt by Stern to “send a message,” but apparently not many players got the message. Last week Kevin Garnett and Antonio McDyess got into a fight that looked eerily similar to a playground fight between two fourth grade boys. Garnett throws the ball at McDyess, McDyess pushes Garnett, Garnett throws a sissy little punch that doesn’t connect and then backpedals almost all the way back to Minnesota. I hope Garnett sat in the corner of his room and thought about what he did during the whole one game he was suspended. Yeah, one game. Some message Stern, if anything you are saying that the type of behavior displayed by Garnett is not only acceptable but actually mildly inviting because it might boost ratings. The third instance simply involved Baron Davis of the Warriors throwing a punch at Clipper Quintin Ross, for which Davis is also receiving a one game suspension. All of these displays of unsportsmanlike conduct are a black eye to the NBA and sports players everywhere. I personally don’t like to watch crybaby millionaires fighting like little kids, and quite frankly I’m sure there are not a lot of people that like to either. Why else would NHL ratings be so low?