Today, as I do every Monday, I spent the morning watching Sportscenter six times in a row to ensure I got the maximum amount of analysis regarding this Sunday's NFL action. In between showing highlights of DeSean Jackson's game winning punt return 1,024 times, and discussing all of the various playoff scenarios, ESPN briefly shifted their attention outside of the gridiron. Apparently yesterday the University of Connecticut rolled through Ohio St. to win their 88th consecutive game in some sport known as women's collegiate basketball. If you do some research you will find that women's NCAA basketball is kind of similar to men's NCAA basketball, except that nobody can dunk or dribble the ball between their legs. So basically it's like watching middle school hoops with sports bras. I didn't really pay too much attention to this brief digression from NFL football analysis, until they showed and analyzed the post-game conference commentary of the dipshit pictured to the left: UCONN women's head coach Geno Auriemma.
When the UCONN Lady Huskies won that 88th straight game last night they "tied" the mark set by the 1960s era UCLA Bruins coached by John Wooden (more on this later). Since this was considered a somewhat impressive achievement there was slightly more media coverage given to a regular season girls basketball game than usual. Being well aware of this, their fucktard coach Geno decided to hop on his soapbox and go on some incomprehensible rant about gender roles in sports in the post-game press conference. Highlights of his whinefest below.
"The reason everybody is having a heart attact the last four or five days is a bunch of women are threatening to break a men's record, and everybody is all up in arms about it."
"All the miserable bastards that follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they're pissed."
"Because we're breaking a men's record, we've got a lot of people paying attention. If we were breaking a women's record everybody would go: Aren't those girls nice, lets give them two paragraphs in USA Today, you know, give them one line on the bottom of ESP and then lets send them back where they belong...in the kitchen"
Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me? What the fuck is this lunatic talking about? I'm perfectly content with you leading a team of ladies to your cute little "milestones" Geno but if you're gonna offer a bunch of insane in-depth analysis of how gender affects our perception of sports records, you gonna just stick a cork in it.There are so many things wrong with this guys's crybaby rant, I could spend all day taking it apart. I will do my best however, to address each ridiculous statement as briefly as possible.
(A) "Everybody is having a heart attack over the past four or five days...."
Um What..? Where exactly are these masses of people having triple bypass procedures as a result of your team setting this record? I haven't had any recent conversations about sports with my buddies where somebody said "Dude if the UCONN women get to 88 straight wins I WILL LOSE MY SHIT!" I haven't seen any heated debates over the last couple weeks on "Around the Horn," "PTI," or any other sports debate forum re: what an outrage it will be if UCONN sets this "record." Nobody outside of Connecticut residents and butch 4th grade girls who still have WNBA aspirations pays any attention to you. You could not be more insignificant. Stop giving yourself so much credit Geno. I worry about what's going on in the world of women's college hoops about as often as I check in on who's been eliminated from "Dancing With The Stars."
(B) "All the miserable bastards that follow mens bball and don't want us to break the record are here because they're pissed.
No actually all those pissed off faces you see as you look into the crowd of this press conference belong to guys that are infuriated that they are being forced to cover women's basketball. Women's basketball fucking sucks balls. Being forced to watch an entire girls hoops game and then write an article where you pretend like you just witnessed the highest echelon of athletic competition is miserable. Sportswriters that get forced to cover lady hoops are guys that pissed off their editor, or are not yet high enough up on the newsroom totem pole to get assigned to cover real sports. Believe me I know. I used to work for my campus paper and was assigned to cover women's sports after bitching a few too many times to my editor about my lack of football assignments and/or showing up drunk and late to staff meetings. Even the guys working for major news outlets like ESPN in that room are their low-end guys that are just paying their dues till they get the chance to cover Mens hoops. Don't think major writers with a grudge are randomly making the effort to come cover regular season UCONN Lady Huskies games just to spite you.
(C) "Because we're breaking a MEN'S RECORD...we've got a lot of people paying attention"
Actually Geno you're not breaking a "men's record." That would require you coaching ..you know..."MEN'S BASKETBALL." Which you certainly don't. This is the most infuriating part of all this. Since when did the UCONN women "tie" a men's record for consecutive wins? We're talking two completely different levels/classifications of collegiate sports. If a Division I-AA football coach at Montana makes a run at Bear Bryant's record for national championships, would we start comparing the Grizzlies program to Alabama? NO. So why the fuck are we putting the modern UCONN women's program in the same sentence as the legendary UCLA men's program of the 1960s. I know what your rebuttal is to that statement. Well they're both the same LEVEL of competition. All Division I basketball programs should be judged by the same standard regardless of gender. That's retarded.
If one faction of a sport involves inferior athletes and a lower level of competition why should it not be judged by a separate standard from its superior counterpart? Coaching wiz Geno Auriemma happens to coach at one of the few schools that happens to give a shit about lady hoops, to the point that they fund it almost on par with a men's hoops program. I mean what programs does he really have to "compete" against on the court on a yearly basis? Maybe two..? (Tennessee and Stanford come to mind, that's about it). This applies in recruiting also, since any five star recruit women's hoopster pretty much has to go to UCONN. It's nothing like men's hoops where there are at least 20 consistently powerful college programs and 20 others barely on the outside clawing tooth and nail to grab this year's star freshman phenoms. Where there's a bunch of other programs with long-tenured legendary coaches to compete against. Completely different playing field that deserves to have its own separate group of records.
Anyways tonight UCONN will probably take down Florida St. for it's "Record 89th straight win." Then they'll prob reel of another 40 wins after that. Who cares? I don't. And no other self-respecting sports fan will either. No matter how many basketball records UCONN and Auriemma break, and no matter how large the margin between them and number two, I will never mention them in the same breath as a legendary men's hoops program/coach. So Geno should probably save his breath and stop bitching and moaning about who hates his success, and hates UCONN surpassing men's milestones. Because in order for somebody to hate UCONN"s success, they'd have to actually give their sport the time of day, which...newsflash..nobody does. So enjoy your lofty perch at the top of the lady hoops rankings Geno. Maybe after tomorrow your "legendary sports program" can move up from being relegated to ESPN 2 coverage with Rece Davis.
Sic 'Em Lady Bears!
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