Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Super Bowl means down time

Super Bowl these days comes with a 2-week hype break. This is a very excruciating time for Sports fans where suddenly we don't have football after almost 5 months of continuous football. Plus we have to put up with 24 hour sports outlets analyzing every conceivable angle of this game. By Friday of the first week, we have suffered information-overload and we know what the 3-Rd tight-end on the bench is eating for breakfast! NBA is the only other sports league in business (I don't count the NHL) and it is still in it's early season mode. Actually NBA doesn't get serious until the second round of the playoffs. So not many people care about it in Late January. May be because of all this downtime, there have been too many controversies the last couple of weeks.

It started off with people ripping apart Ladainian Tomlinson for his behavior during the AFC title game. Some people questioned his toughness, but most people were critical of his demeanor during the game where he just sat their with his helmet and didn't really mingle with the team. Also with Philip Rivers playing hurt and injured, LT looked worse in contrast. Jim Rome was saying on his how LT went from the best ever guy to a bad seed in just a week. I think this has been going on the entire season. I am a huge LT fan, but I have been feeling that he was getting a little "too big" lately. You can't really blame these guys. The money, the attention and the deification is so bad these days in the sports world, even great guys like LT lose their bearings a little bit as things get to their head. I expect Dwayne Wade to be the next classy star making the turn to ego-town. Hopefully LT learns from this controversy and comes back down to earth.

The real controversy involved the golf channel hottie Kelly Tilghman suggesting that one way for young players to deal with the challenge posed by Tiger Woods would be to "lynch him in a back alley". Thats real poor choice of ward. I can't understand how she can be so dumb. I think sometimes these people really say things that are on their mind and get in trouble. May be she really wants to lynch Tiger. Who knows. She got suspended etc, but this was a disturbing one. The other controversy was with ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson. She got liquored up at a roast for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic and said "F**k Notre Dame. F**k Jesus". My first reaction was, who hosts a roast for Mike and Mike? What have they done to deserve a roast and when do I get one for myself? Secondly, this was offensive, but not as disturbing as Kelly's words. Dana was drunk and stupid and she got punished appropriately.

These chicks must just shut up and do what they are hired for - look good on TV. I am not a sexist and I love talented female sportscasters as much as the next guy, but lets call a spade a spade. Most of these chicks are just eye candy. I respect talent when I see it. In fact, I think ESPN should turn over their entire football operation to Suzy Kolber, Chris Mortensen and Ron Jaworski and fire all the other clowns. Thats how good Suzy is, but these 2 chicks getting in trouble in the same month is 2 female sportscasters way too many.

The other guy to get in hot water was Saint Louis head coach Rick Majerus. He made some pro-choice comments on abortion, leading to condemnation by Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who suggested that officials at Saint Louis University take "appropriate action" against him. Apparently they don't want a Catholic school to employ him. This is ridiculous. Leave the fat man alone. He has a right to his opinion and I don't think that every employee at Catholic schools conform to all of their beliefs. Why force just this guy. Makes no sense whatsoever. This issue got some air-time too on Sports talk because of the Super Bowl downtime. Bring on the game already!

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