The March 3, 2008 issue of Sports Illustrated

It's been a long time since I looked at a Sports Illustrated magazine. I picked up the March 3, 2008 issue today, and was surprised by how slender it seemed. Was it always 70 pages? Or have they decreased page count while keeping the price the same? Or worse, decreased page count and increased price?

Well, print magazines are having a hard time right now, as most people get all their info from the internet, and worse, from only one source, Wikipedia. Let me take Wikipedia on directly and tell people that that source should not be the first one you check. Anyone can make changes to any article, so you really don't know if you're getting the facts or lies.

Anyway, there were two interesting articles in this issue.

1) Abusive Fans in College Hoops
This article talks about the abusiveness in male college hoops - with fans swearing incessantly at players, holding up signs referencing criminal activity, etc. They didn't mention what happened to Alexis Hornbuckle of the Lady Vols a couple of years ago, when the Cameron Crazies at the Duke game taunted her because of a shoplifting conviction in her senior year as a high school student.

But abusive fans are not only in college. The pros are worse, the more so since it's the people close to the floor in the NBA - the ones who had to pay a lot of money to get those seats, and say, "I paid my ticket, I have a right to verbally abuse that guy. It's part of the game."

And of course in baseball, there's been a 3rd base coach beaten by two drunken fans bottles and stuff thrown at the players in the outfield, etc.

Then there's the loons who threatened that poor schmuck from the Chicago Cub audience a few years ago - he interfered with a live ball that gave a batter a 2nd chance to get a hit, and cost the Cubs the World Series - he got death threats from everybody!

2) The Road to Beijing - Olympic Town, Fort Benning, GA
This is a one page article about the Army Markmanship unit, and there's a picture of Sgt 1st Class Daryl Szarenski. It's the photo of Szarenski that irrited me. He's got a pair of glasses. One eye is magnified behind glass, the other eye is hidden behind a metal tab.

This is technology taking the skill out of sports!

Now, obviously, in the military technology is very important, and anything that can help a soldier take out an enemy quickly should be embraced whole-heartedly. But in sports, it's supposed to be about the athlete and their skill, not their equipment.

Yes, I know things are evolving all the time, like the polevault pole changing from wood to fibreglass, the surfboard changing from some humongous thing to a short thing that anyone can ride on, but there are some sports that really should not be interfered with.

I'm ambivalent about the "slap skates" as I think they're called. There was some fuss in the Winter Olymics 8 years ago, where Americans hadn't been using the slap skates, so couldn't get used to them in time, and so wanted them banned from competition, and those teams that were using the skates were saying, Hey, it's not our fault if you jumped on the band wagon late.

But, again, there are some sports that should not be interfered with.

And those are: archery, and pistol shooting.

Now, of course archery has been doing its technology thing for years, and I've never liked it. Basically, you've got these three little thingies, or "booms" on the bow - extending outward, so you line up your arrow with all these things, and let it go, and it's easier for it to hit the target.

Cheating!

That's not what archery is supposed to be about!

Then we've got pistol shooting. And now it looks like you can wear eyegear that magnifies your vision so you can see the target better. You can probaby even use a laser sight to put right on the target when you fire.

Cheating!

The skill is going, or has gone out of, these sports, to be replaced by only strength. As long as you've got the strength to hold up that bow with all the extra stuff hanging off of it, you'll score high. As long as you can hold your hand steady enough to sight with that laser dot, you'll score high.

Terrible!

2) The Road to Beijing - Olympic Town, Princeton, NJ
There's a photo on this page of the Printon rowing women, and it was a joy to see these athetic women, their slender bodies packed unashamedly with muscle. These are what women should like - no more ruler-thin arms and stick-like legs! Muscular (albeit not hyper-muscular!) is sexy.

Interview with Pat Summitt after Stanford loss, 12/23/07

Click arrow twice to play



After every game, it's possible to hear audio of Pat's after-game interview with radio broadcaster Mickey Dearstone, but I'd never seen a video of it, til this appeared on Youtube. So I thought I'd share it here.

Here's also a video from about a year ago, where she's coaching her young son in an AAU game. They lost, though.

Coaches, CEOs and politicians... golden parachutes above flaming debris

Kelvin Sampson, the NCAA division 1 basketball coach who left Oklahoma under a cloud because he'd made dozens and dozens of phonecalls that he was not supposed to make, has just accepted a buyout of his contract for $700,000, from Indiana - for doing the exact same thing.

This makes no sense to me. What kind of blood-sucking lawyers do university athletic departments hire these days, that they can't write an iron-clad contract saying, "You cheat in any way, shape or form, and we get to fire you without paying you one red cent."

Surely that is how head coaches' contracts should be written.

But Jim O'Brien got fired, as he deserved, and he won a wrongful dismissal lawsuit and now he's getting paid the big bucks.

And now we've got Kelvin Sampson, who threatened to sue the university if he were fired. So they cave and "buy out" his contract, giving him $700,000.

Where does this money come from, I wonder? From taxpayers, whose tax money goes into university coffers to pay for athletic programs? From alumni gifts and stuff? From income from the football program? (I do believe that football is the only money-making proposition for most schools - all other spoorts, male and female, ride on those coattails...)

It's just ridiculous.

In what other job can you deserve to be fired, and get paid millions when you go? Only head coaches, CEOs, and politicians. The average rank and file would be out on their ears...

Do they not have to obey their mothers?

On February 2, a Christian school called St. Mary’s Academy, a private religious school that sits on a sprawling campus about 25 miles northwest of Topeka, was playing a basketball tournament.

A female referee was going to referee the game, except the athletic director of this school refused to allow her to do so.

"That would be putting a woman in a position of authority over boys, he was told — a scenario that was contrary to beliefs at St. Mary’s Academy."

Now this kind of archaic thinking is what you'd expect from Muslims, not Christians. And I'm like.... what? These are boys - boys who presumably do what their mother tells them to do. What are they going to do when a female police officer stops them for a traffic violation, I wonder, tell her that since she's a woman they don't have to do what she says? Or do all the boys of this school go straight into the church where they don't have to worry about dealing with the female of the species?

Removal of woman referee by religious school has some crying foul

Lawyers are getting their claws into sports, now

I see that a member of the Rams, the team that lost to the Patriots in some Superbowl a few years ago, is suing the Patriots organization and Bill Bellicheck for taping the Rams practices.

This is just ridiculous. But of course... there's big money in it - not only for the lawyers who will get most of the pie, but also for the players who lost the Superbowl, as the winners get big bonuses while the losers get smaller bonuses.

Next we'll see teams sue referees for making mistakes with foul calls (anyone want to bet Rutgers would love to sue the timekeeper or ref or whoever it was that froze that Tennessee clock at .2 seconds a couple of days ago?)

This type of litigation has no place in sports. Sure, if some psycho athlete blindsides a player and pounds his head into the ground - which is what happened in a hockey game a few years ago and ended up breaking the guy's neck - that's assault and the guy deserves to go to jail.

But suing because of cheating? When "everyone" does it?

Nooooo. Keep lawyers out of sports!

UT vs Rutgers: Clockgate - See the video

Someone uploaded vidoe of the final 28 seconds. Watch the clock. It sllllooooows down for about 5 seconds, then stops at .2, then quickly runs out.




Okay, this is going to be a litany of woe.

I actually watched that game until 2.47 seconds left in it, with Rutgers up by 2. Then my brother wanted to watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and since I've "gone off" the Lady Vols, I just went upstairs, intending to keep track of it on ESPN gametracker. (Of course, neither ESPN nor CBSSportlines had "gametrackers" that were anywhere near accurate.)

So the game ends in controversy, and I didn't see it! I *could* have seen it if I'd told my brother to just watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles on computer tomorrow (he gets TV on Demand) - but he writes reviews for me for my The Thunder Child website so I didn't want to discourage him by making him think his reviews were unimportant and having to wait a day...

So, the controversy.

According to Rutgers fans, UConn fans and 1 or 2 Tennessee fans on the Summitt, the clock stopped with .2 seconds to go, for a whole second. Had the clock not stopped, time would have ran out and Rutgers would have won by 1 point.

Because the clock stopped, a Rutgers player fouled Nicki Anosike (one of the worst free throw shooters the Vols have), and with .2 seconds left, she sinks both free throws. Tennesseee wins.

Of course, the UConn board has several threads about the Magic Clock. Havent' gone to the Rutgers board, but they probably do to.

On the Summitt, most are saying it wasn't cheating, and to get over it, but one or two long time posters see it the other way. (There are a few fly-bys, obviously Rutgers fans posting their first messages...but hey, if what every "impartial" person is saying is true, Rutgers just got "jobbed."

Of course, the Rutgers player who committed the foul - a rather blatant foul - shouldn't have done that, and they'd have won that way, too!

Well, hopefully they'll replay the game or cover the controversy on PTI tomorrow.

Super Season Ends With A Sulk

When Tom Brady's final, fourth down pass was broken up, sealing the Giants win, I turned off the TV and left the room.

I'm allowed. I was a spectator.

But when that happened on the field.... Patriots coach Bill Bellicheck also left the building. Quick shake of Coughlin's hand and out the door, even thought the refs tried to call him back because the game wasnt over - a second was being put back on the clock.

Worse than that - Tom Brady also left, without shaking Eli's hand. Indeed, according to reports I've read, the only person on the field at the end of the game to congratualte their opponents was Randy Moss - the guy who' been ripped in the media (deservedly) for walking out on his team with a few seconds to go, a couple of years ago.

Today, everything's making a big deal of the Giants, and commenting on the loss of the perfect season for the Patriots...but no one's really pointing out the bad sportsmanship that came at the end (although it was mentioned quite a bit in the writeups last night.)

I wanted the Patriots to lose and I was glad they did. I've disliked Bill Bellicheck all year. All year I've read about his arrogance and his rudeness...and he showed it again last night. I just hope that his rudeness doesn't start a trend...much like a single spike of the football in the endzone several years ago ignited what we have today, offensive and defensive players partying after each play they make as if the rest of the team didn't exist.

Be interesting to see the fallout between Randy Moss and the Patriots, and between Tom Brady and his girl-friend of the month - maybe she'll drift over to Eli Manning's side now... (that's not a rip on the guys, but rather on the empty headed models who want to be seen with the flavor of the month quarterback.)

Well...bring on the baseball!

$1 Mil a minute and this crap is the best they can do?

I've been watching Superbowl 42. Game's good, commercials are lousy.

TO see them:

Superbowl Commercials at Myspace - NFL's official site

I have seen at least three commercials that were sexist and demeaning to women - including one in which an extremely plain young woman (made up to be extremely plain, not really extremely plain) draws all eyes, because instead of wearing perfume she wears cashew nut aroma)

and a commercial in which a lot of immigrants with furrin accents are being taught how to pick up women... and of course the winner is a short, plain Korean guy with a beautiful blond model, all because he knows how to say Bud Light. Can't believe immigrant groups aren't going to make a fuss over that...it was demeaning!

On a brighter note, looks like the Giants defense came to play....