Jesus Wasn't Good at Football Either

This Sunday in the National Football League was admittedly a bit uninteresting compared to some of the craziness seen during the first six weeks of the season. After all, six of the best teams in the league had bye weeks, and the NFL continued its run of shitbag primetime games (seriously when the hell does flex scheduling start?). Still, there were a number of interesting storylines worth covering by the pigskin talking heads even on this reasonably uneventful Sunday. The Falcons retastablished themselves as contenders with an impressive road win over the once unbeatable Lions. A rookie shattered an 18 year franchise record held by the NFL's all-time leading rusher in his first start. The Packers maintained their unblemished record. Really any of these stories could have passed for the "front page headline" at the end of week 7 in the NFL. Instead of course the story that analysts, reporters, and sportswriters couldn't get enough of involved winless team and a one win team engaging in a meaningless and alltogether horribly boring 18-15 shootout. Why you ask? Well because it involved everyone's favorite golden boy Jesus afficionado: Tim Tebow.

Pretty much everyone who , you know watches football regularly can unequivocally see that Tim fucking Tebow sucks total donkey dick when it comes to playing quarterback in the NFL. Unfortunately none of us average Joe football fanatics actually gets paid to analyze the NFL. The people that do have made it a point to blow him at every moment possible. It's absolutely ridiculous. Every headline today was "Tebowmania!" or "Tebow: the legend grows!" or some variation of the like. Yesterday endless amounts of time were spent analyzing every detail of the showdown between the 0-5 Dolphins and 1-4 Broncos that will ultimately mean nothing to this season's playoff picture. My question of course is..WHY? WHAT. THE. FUCK? What is it with the media and their desire to hype and praise this completely mediocre (more like completely shitty) football player? For starters, let's establish what LEGENDARY feats Tim Tebow accomplished yesterday. He "led" a valiant 15 point comeback that required a recovered onside kick, an amazing catch in the waning moments, a forced fumble by the defense, and a 52 yard game winning field goal. Other than that Tim Tebow pretty much singlehandedly pulled a miraculous comeback out of his asshole along with the usual unicorns and rainbows that exit his bunghole.

I have never seen so many people with such a raging hard-on for an athlete that has accomplished absolutely nothing at the professional level. I mean I've come to expect that once an athlete establishes themself at the top of their sport we will have to hear about their every move ad nauseum 24/7 (Brett Favre, LeBron James etc.). Never however, have I seen the national media so universally on a guy's jock before he has even established the ability to be competent. So what exactly fascinates everyone (the media) about this cocktaster? NBC's Bob Costas, who likes to wax poetic once a week at halftime of SNF about the bullshit Disney story of the day, offered this typically nauseating explanation:

"Tebow's appealing intangibles: His HEART, his SIZE, his ATHLETICISM, his PLAYMAKING KNACK...He is a distinctive and compelling player. Easy to root for."

Jesus fuck. Ok let's start by crossing off the obvious fallacies in this utterly idiotic statement. There is nothing special about his size or athleticism. He's an average sized QB with the strength to break tackles in short yardage situations. There is nothing inherently exciting or "distinctive" about his playing style. He's not juking the shit out of linebackers and taking off on 40 yard scrambles ala Michael Vick. His "playmaking knack" never seems to show itself during the first 50 plus minutes of games when he's air mailing throws over receiver's heads. Just because unique circumstances allowed him to score on a couple late game goalline touchdowns, doesn't make him John Elway.

So that leaves us with one intangible that makes Tebow so "easy to root for" His "heart." What exactly defines a player's "heart" you ask? Nothing. It's a totally bullshit adjective used to describe players that the media loves to laud for their ability to succeed under difficult circumstances. Yes, it can be seen as a sort of inherent desire to fight till the final whistle, ability to play through pain, and refusal to give up. Let's be honest though. Don't most successful NFL players possess this trait? I mean do most "superstar" (i.e. nobody on the Miami roster) players in this league just mail it in once they face a deficit. No. Somehow though, when Tim Tebow decides to play hard at the end of the game he shows such great "heart" and "grit" and "scrappyness" and any other number of words used to describe clean-cut all-American white guys that the NFL applauds. Especially ones that are polite, go on global Christian missions, swear off vagina till marriage, and do Pro-life Super Bowl ads with their moms. That is after all what this is about. If we really wanted to talk 24/7 about a compelling young quarterback with a distinctive blend of size, athleticism and playmaking knack taking the league by storm, we'd be talking about Cam Newton. Of course, Newton is black, dances after touchdowns, and probably slammed a coed or two during his brief time at Auburn. He's fun to watch, but certainly not somebody the NFL dreams of being the "face" of their sport.

That presumably is the main reason the NFL "needs" a superstar like Tebow. Football apparently needs a pure, untainted superstar that every kid can look up to when they're playing boring scrappy football and scoring touchdowns that aren't followed by crazy jive dances. A kid you'd hope your son shared a room with in college so they could engage in Friday night bible study, and abstain from promiscuity and binge drinking. A boy you'd welcome to your boring family Thanksgiving. Well I'm here to tell you that is complete bullshit, and I'm pretty sure I speak for most of the NFL's core audience when I say that Tim Tebow's success/failure will not impact my desire to watch football whatsoever. In fact we're totally fine with watching a league of foul mouthed, substance abusing assholes with crazy hair and tattoos, as long as those aforementioned assholes can jump high, run fast, and hit really hard. Or in Tim Tebow's case throw a pretty spiral. Until Tim Tebow can do anything of note on the field that makes football fans go WOW, none of his "intanglibles" will matter. So until that day comes, lets cut out the media slobbering of his virgin ballsack, and just accept that he sucks at playing football.

Juuuust...a Bit Outside

April has arrived, which means spring is officially upon us. That time of the year when the weather gets warmer, flowers bloom, young love springs eternal, and douchebags start to post Facebook status' about their struggles with seasonal allergies. Most importantly it's that special time when baseball, America's official pastime returns to our lives. Now of course in recent years many people (myself included) have questioned whether baseball is still worthy of this lofty title. After all, football is easily the most popular sport in America, with the NFL being the league that garners the big-time TV ratings and rakes in the highest profits each year. Basketball is the sport with the most recognizable superstar athlete in the country in Lebron James. Even Nascar has surpassed baseball in popularity due to its enormous fanbase of poor and stupid rednecks who think Obama's totally gay. Despite all this, I still think baseball deserves its due, and should always be given equal if not equal standing in the discussion of professional sports in the US of A. Especially now as we face the very real possibility of life without the NFL (reason: one group of rich assholes can't agree with another group of rich assholes over who should have more hundred dollar bills to wipe their asses with). As the NFL lockout drags on, I think it's time that America once again attempt to embrace its once undisputed national pastime. I give you now, my top reasons baseball is totally fucking Rad.

1. Take me out to the ballgame

It is easier to attend a baseball game than it is to attend any other pro sporting event. First of all, baseball is easily the cheapest ticket in professional sports. Look we're going through a recession, people are fucking poor, and we all know that no matter what sporting event we attend, we'll be forced to purchase overpriced $8-$10 pints of beer. We know we're gonna have to pay out the ass for parking at the stadium unless we want to take the subway 12 stops to get there. So the actual ticket better be cheap as shit, to soften the blow of all the other coin we're spending to check out this game. Baseball tickets can be acquired for as little as $5 a pop, and decent seats can be acquired for no more than $25. This is totally a bargain compared to all the other major professional sports. This is of course due to the fact that the baseball regular season is far longer than that of the NFL, NHL, and NBA (Nascar seems to never fucking end so we'll overlook that one), and they play everyday. Which brings us to baseball's other perk. You can chooose to attend a game whenever it's convenient for you, anytime during the week. You don't have to pick one of only eight sundays. You don't have to choose a random weeknight to stay out late in the city. There are both day and night games, on weekdays and weekends, exh day for six consecutive months. Depending on what best fits your personal schedule, you can always find a way to attend a couple baseball games a year.

2. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack

Out of all the professional sports in this country, baseball is by far the one that is most enhanced by the live viewing experience. No other sports's stadium atmosphere can compete with the overall Rad appeal of attending an MLB game at the ballpark. There is just something about walking into a baseball game that is just an overload of America all over your ass. (BTW baseball...only sport played on our nation's birthday). First of all, most baseball stadiums are outdoor venues and the sport is played during the spring/summer/early fall. You're not packed in some stuffy indoor arena, or some open air stadium in frigid temperatures with rain or snow pouring down upon you. The aforementioned fresh air is filled of course with the smell of Rad ballpark food. Every baseball stadium has a full menu of awesome eats, that are meant to represent the unique artery clogging cuisine your team's home region has to offer. Hot dogs in NY, Bratwursts in Chicago, BBQ in Texas etc. Along with circus style snack food like cotton candy, peanuts, popcorn, and cracker jack. Oh and btw you get to see fireworks before, after, and during the game while hearing three different national "anthems" sung by a firefighter. Rad.

As for the actual game atmosphere baseball finds a perfect balance in accomodating both the psychotic sports fan, and the casual observer. No matter what you're in the mood for as a fan, baseball can fit your needs. If you want to sit in the family section with your kids, enjoying a casual day at the ballpark of keeping score, munching on snacks, and politely cheering when the home team scores, that's cool. If you want to hang with your date in the quiet section, explaining the nuances of the game, and chill on a couple beers and and share a plate of nachos..also kosher. If you want to go to the game with your bros, sneak a pint of whiskey stuffed down your pants into the game, get blackout wasted and yell profanities..well there's a section for you too. Baseball is the best sport for Rad heckling, because it's the only sport where the action is quiet enough (and close enough) for the players on the field to hear your clever taunts. So once you find that designated area of the stadium in the outfield, free of families and cute couples, and loaded with other assholes like yourself, it's open season on the visiting squad. Feel free to let your voice be heard loud and clear as you tell the opposing centerfielder that his wife is a dirty skank, and that he takes it in the butt from the team's shortstop.

3. It's the official sport of Average Joes and Rad Dudes

A friend of mine often says about baseball, "It must be fun watching a sport where you don't really have to be an athlete to play the game." Actually this is one of the factors that makes baseball so appealing to your average American sports fanatic. Have you seen Lebron James play recently? The guy is like a mack truck with track speed and the ability to jump over cars. At the age of 8 that guy had already surpasssed my athletic prime. Looked at Terrell Owens lately? I think T.O. runs five miles and bench presses a car 50 times before I wake up on most Saturdays. Think your average American sports fan, after working 8 hours at his blue collar job, having a couple of beers with his buddies at the watering hole, and sitting down in front of the tube with his three slices of leftover Dominos can relate to these guys? Hell no. The only professional sport where Joe McShay the construction worker can see anything resembling his mirror image out on the playing field is baseball.

Baseball is the official sport of Average Joes and Rad dudes. Ever wonder why EVERY kid played little league baseball? Even the most hopeless child with no physical talent to speak of can find a place on a little league squad. Oh you're fat? We'll put you at first base, just lean and stick your glove out once an inning. Oh you're unccordinated? Well we'll just put you in right field where you'll never have to catch a pop fly or throw the ball home. Every kid has the ability to play SOME position in little league baseball. In pro baseball, even though there are obviously freak athletes out there in the majors, there is still room for the Average Joe. The greatest basebll player ever, guy by the name of Babe Ruth, drank heavily, smoked cigars, and was built like a blimp. Have you taken a glance at CC Sabathia and Prince Fielder recently? They would fit right in demolishing plates of ribs and farting up a storm at the dinner table from "The Nutty Professor."

Even baseball players who aren't blatantly obese are at least Rad looking dudes you know would hang with you at the local pool hall. I mean the 93' Phillies squad that actually went to the World Series? Lenny Dykstra, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, John fucking Kruck?? Whole lineup of rad dudes that looked like Dalton's henchmen from "Road House." Randy Johnson looks like the world's tallest spokesman for Copenhagen tobacco, and he's one of the greatest pitchers ever. Hell arguably the best modern pitcher Tim Lincecum, once starred in "Dazed and Confused," and his closer Brian Wilson looks like some sort of rad psycho lumberjack. Anyways, like I said there are obviously sick athletes and pretty boys in baseball as well, but more than any other sport the Rad dudes and Fatty All-American Joes can look at the screen and see a couple guys they could relate to and have a beer with.

4. You have to be A FAN

Baseball is by far the oldest major American sport, and in order to really appreciate the game you have to be aware of its history. You have to understand that nobody in a family of Chicago Cubs fans will ever witness a World Series title, and why Steve Bartman should remain in the witness protection program for the rest of his life because of it. You have to know about Bucky fucking Dent, Aaron fucking Boone, and the 3-0 ALCS collapse to understand why the Yankees and Red Sox hate each other. You have to understand how Jackie Robinson changed the face of the American athlete forever. You gotta understand why Roberto Clemente is responsibile for all the Rad immigrant ballplayers we see today who grew to love our national game in other countries, and came here to pursue the American dream. You have to see the records "61 home runs," "56 straight games," and ".400" and know that you may only get ONE chance in your lifetime to see them matched. (yeah I threw in 61* at the..official..HR record pre-Roidsville USA). You have to hold some opinion of Pete Rose's chances of ever getting into the hall of fame.

More than any other sport, you also have to really understand the little nuances to appreciate baseball. You gotta understand why batters get walked to create force outs at second. You have to get why a sacrifice fly is sometimes just as good as a base hit. You have to know your ace pitcher hitting the 100 pitch count in the 7th inning of a deciding playoff game means it's time for a change if your manager isn't named Grady Little. Without getting too longwinded with the baseball references the average person might not get...if you're gonna be a baseball fan..you have to actually be A FAN. You have to understand the history and tradition of America's pastime and really appreciate the game. That's what makes baseball great. It's not just an event. People don't go to baseball games just to look for celebs in the crowd, or just for the parking lot tailgate experience, or solely to get blackout wasted with their white trash bros. People go to baseball games because they love baseball, or at least appreciate how much it means to American society. That's why in a nutshell, I feel that whether or not you like another sport far better, you should try giving the old ballgame another shot. It's your duty as an American. When the day arrives where people no longer appreciate an afternoon at the ballpark of hot dogs, beer, fireworks, national anthems, questioning the opposing shortstop's sexuality and general Radness, the terrorists will have won.

PLAYOFFS?? PLAYOFFS?? YOU KIDDING ME??

Last night we all watched a totally badass national title game between Auburn University and the University of Oregon. The matchup went down to the wire, but in the end Auburn was able to pull it out 22-19 and emerge as 2010's undisputed college football national champion. Well maybe not "undisputed" per se, as usual somebody in college football is pissed off that they got a raw deal and were screwed out of a fair shot at the crown. This year that somebody would be the players, coaches, and fans of Texas Christian University. This year TCU went undefeated just like Auburn, but ended up on the outside looking in when it came to a piece of the championship pie. Don't get me wrong I think Auburn annihilates the Horned Frogs if match up head to head, but it's still fucking preposterous that this opinion can't be proven on the field of play. Obviously this issue comes up every year regarding the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system that uses computers to determine who the two best college teams in the land are, that should meet in the title game.

I am about the 784,890,543rd person to have a beef with the BCS, and suggest that college football implement some sort of playoff system that provides a fairer way of determining the sport's champion (like EVERY other sport). Most people however, just bitch about the BCS without really presenting a logical solution for a playoff format. Which just allows the douchebags that run this idiotic system to say "yeah well...it's easier said than done, you don't understand the complex issues that go into making that happen." Well I for one think I do understand these supposedly "complex" issues, and could logically come up with a sensible solution to this annual shitshow known as the BCS..by the end of this post. Without further ado, lets go issue by issue.

1. The college football regular Season IS your playoff

This is by far the most utterly retarded argument I hear from old school college football pundits opposing a playoff system. How exactly is playing an entire regular season schedule within one conference equivalent to going through playoffs? In every other sport (pro or college) teams get to play at least 1/3 of their games outside of their division/conference and prove themselves against foes across the country. In college football team play 2-3 games outside of their conference with one of those games being against an in-state/border rival, and another game being some cupcake college with a total enrollment of 100 people. So a team might play ONE game against a major squad outside of their conference/geographic area/comfort zone. Putting it in the most simplistic terms there is no truly fair way to rank a team from the West Coast against one from the South, if neither team ventures outside of their conference schedule. Obviously there are "naked eye" tests and stats that show that certain teams/regions always have the highest ranked football recruits. But the fact remains that if a team from Texas never plays an SEC conference schedule you can't just say "they would OBVIOUSLY not go undefeated with that schedule."

2. A college football team can't play that many games.

Obviously football is different from other sports, due to the physical beating players take. You can only play so many football games in a season, before your body breaks in half. With that being said, in my lifetime alone the college football season has expanded from 11 games to 14 games. So why not cut down a team's regular season, or hell even eliminate a conference championship game to allow for a couple playoff games. I.E. play your 8 or 9 game conference schedule, play your border rival, and then move right into the playoffs. You could even implement the few conference championship games into the first round of the BCS playoff format. Just eliminate one of your team's games against the Eastern Mississippi Hellen Keller Institute for the Impaired that you win 77-3 every season. Basically, a team could play all the relevant games on their schedule, go through an entire four week playoff run to the championship (16 teams), and still play only 14 games a season under my format.

3. You could interfere with players' December education schedule

I just threw up a little in my mouth writing that sentence. "Education." Give me a fucking break. Football players don't even take real majors (Communications? Kinesiology? Ballroom Dancing?). If a female lacrosse player can manage to fit in studying for her biochemistry exam between practices, I think Cam Newton can put away a couple hours to ensure he passes Flower Planting 101 while playing one playoff game a week. This is honestly a moot point anyways. Bowl games start in mid-December (after most school's finals end), and end around January 10 (before schools open or at least right in the first week). Really the only thing players in a college football playoff might lose out on in December, is some quality holiday time with their family. Who cares? The holidays blow anyways. College basketball players skip spring break in Cancun with slutty coeds each year to participate in March Madness, which in my opinion is a far greater sacrifice than missing some quality time with mom and dad fighting about your GPA. Suck it up guys.

4. How do we allot bids to teams and format these playoffs?

The most basic problem with the BCS is really the easiest to solve. Namely, the issue of how to actually format a college football playoff. Simple. Sixteen Teams. Four Weeks. Every major conference champion gets a bid. Then you give the rest of the playoff slots to "at-large teams." I.E. the best of the rest based on BCS rankings. This way the power conferences will still control the postseason, but the best of the little guys will get a fair shot at the crown as well. Obviously there will be some teams that bitch about being snubbed, but after years of undefeated teams being screwed out of championship games, nobody should give two shits about the 17th best team in the nation that's crying about being left out.

5. What about all the money that bowls/sponsors bring to the greedy ass NCAA?

Again simple as pie. We all know the NCAA are a bunch of greedy assholes. That's fine. They would lose absolutely no money from implementing this revamped logical playoff system. First of all you can keep ALL of the bowl games and ALL of their sponsors. In college basketball you have the postseason NIT for all the shitty teams that weren't quite good enough to make the real playoff tournament. In college football you could still let all the mediocre college football squads play their hearts out against each other in the Beef O'Grady's Bowl, GMC Motor City Bowl, and all the rest of the shitty meaningless postseason games. They don't mean shit now and still bring in sponsors and ticket money from alumni who attend the game. So keep them, and play them during the week in between each week's playoff games. You could still play meaningless college football every day from mid-December to January, except now there'd be a set of meaningful games each week to compliment these shitty games. You wouldn't have to wait from Thanksgiving to New Years Day to get a football game worth a shit. As for the major bowl games? Just keep them and make them the quarterfinals/semi-finals of the new BCS playoffs. The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl winner plays the winner of the AT&T Rose Bowl, for a chance to play the winner of the Orange Bowl champ vs. Sugar Bowl champ, etc. etc.

So all the bowl games stay. All the sponsors stay. The NCAA's greedy assholes make even more money than they currently do. Everyone deserving of a shot at the title gets a fair chance. We don't even have to make the season longer. The players, coaches, and fans are all happy. It just took me an hour to come up with this. So why is it so fucking hard for a bunch of people who actually get paid to run college football to accomplish this? When he was elected two years ago, President Obama promised us a college football playoff system. Well get to it Barack. You wouldn't need more than three people with an IQ equivalent to mine to form a committee focused on accomplishing this. People ain't gonna stop bitching about universal health care or the shitty economy anytime soon, so you might as well do something that will undoubtedly boost that approval rating in a hurry. Namely, remove the BS from the BCS.

You're Like the John Wooden of Synchronized Swimming

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.

Real. Comfortable. Dickhead.

I wrote a post a while back regarding assholes in sports, and how they were essential to a team's success. This was in response to the Patriots making the mistake (so I thought) of trading Randy Moss away to the Vikings. Since then of course, Moss' continued assholery has been well documented as he wore out his welcome in yet another locker room, and did little on the field to make his presence worthwhile. Whatever, I didn't get the memo that Moss was a completely washed up asshole. Anyways nobody in the media tries to put a positive spin on Randy Moss' behavior. Everybody knows he's an asshole, everybody dwells on the fact that he is an asshole, and the world will be notified by ESPN every time he doesn't hold a door for an old lady (or bitches about a local rib joint..). There is one asshole however, who always gets the golden boy treatment despite being no less of an asshole than Randy Moss, even if his asshole tendencies differ in nature. This asshole can do no wrong in the eyes of the media no matter how much he fucks up on or off the field. It blows my mind and pisses me off to no end. I am talking of course about national Wrangler spokesman and American hero Brett Favre.

Seriously fuck Brett Favre. I'm so done with his bullshit. Look I know he was a great quarterback for most of his career. First ballot Hall of Famer, maybe the best to ever play his position. That doesn't excuse the fact that he has acted like a total dickhead and child over the last 3-4 years. More importantly it doesn't excuse the fact that the media continues to grant him on-air felatio week in and week out no matter what he does. I am so sick of hearing about Brett Favre ad nauseum every fucking week. Those of you who are slightly more than casual football fans know that he quarterbacks a shitty team not relevant to the playoff discussion, and that he sucks. Since I'm not a sports blogger I won't beat you over the head with statistical analysis. Just know that the Minnesota Vikings suck balls, and basically every loss can be placed squarely on the shoulders of Captain Wrangler. End of story.

Lets move away from the on-field stuff for a second though. I know Brett Favre fanatics will pummel me with theories as to why the Vikings suck that don't involve #4 (i.e. their utterly retarded coach). They will point to his great season last year, and argue that the guy can still play. Fine. You cannot however my refute my belief that he is a complete primadonna cockbag. Lets look first at how he's acted in the offseason ever since the first time he "retired." He plays a season. Then he starts to drop hints about his impending retirement. So the media blows him incessantly because they think this might be the last go-around for their pigskin god. Then he retires in a tearful press conference. Or at the very least says he "thinks he's through."

Then he heads to Hattiesburg, Mississippi for a relaxed summer of bass fishing and buck hunting. You know standard All-American Good Ol' Boy' activities. Then in August, after his team has been in training camp for a good while, he randomly decides he can handle one more rodeo. He gets "the itch" to play. His injuries have "healed." His team sends a private jet down to Mississippi, and begs him to return. He does return, conveniently having forgone an entire month of practice the rest of his teammates had to endure. ESPN circles him 24/7 during the whole ordeal, their "experts" eagerly anticipating his decision on "to come back or not to come back" even though those of us sitting at home all know what's coming. Any other player would be considered a selfish asshole for making their team wait on their decision to unretire, skipping training camp, and then forcing their coaches to come down to Mississippi (a shittactic state no man should be even be forced to drive THROUGH) to beg for his return. They would be crucified on tv every day by sports talking heads. Not BritFar though. He is a DatGum Legend. The greatest ever. He has "earned the right" to do all this. What a crock of shit.

This season has been worse than ever in terms of the media outlets' oral copulation of this redneck asshat. Brett Favre is known to be the toughest, most durable man to ever lace up a piece of cleats. He never misses a game, as evidenced by his consecutive starts streak. Boy has he ever milked the fuck out of that this year. Every week some report comes out about his "nagging injuries." Every week his starts streak is "in jeopardy of ending" because he is banged up. We know this because we hear it from the mouth of Bubba Jesus himself.

"Durr well this hur ankle's bin really botherin me this week and I ain't go no idea if I's gon be able to suit up Sunday. I'm in loads of pain ya see. Ima really gon work hard to try to heal up bt I can't guarantee I'll play."

(Fast-Forward to Sunday. He plays. Duh.)

Look I'm not saying he's not legitimately playing with pain. I don't however need to hear about his bumps and bruises before, during and after every game. Injuries that have yet to actually keep him out of a game. Injuries that look fine when he's jumping around celebrating a touchdown. Injury discussions that always seem to coincidentally arise after he has shit the bed and lost his team another ballgame. Seems pretty convenient that whenever Brett Favre plays like crap, the convo amongst sports analysts/writers turns to his injuries and the fact that he's such "a warrior" and "tough as nails." and "never gives up." The "never gives up" thing really pisses me off. WTF does that mean?? He is a fucking athlete getting paid millions of dollars. Are we supposed to commend him for NOT taking himself out of a game his team's losing? Last time I checked you are supposed to play 60 minutes in a football game, and don't get a medal of honor every time you do so.

I won't get too much into DongGate 2K10 and the Jen Sterger controversy, because after all here in America you are "innocent until proven guilty" and Brett Favre is still "under investigation" by the NFL (An "investigation" that seems to have disappeared under the rug). I'll just say that if anybody other than Captain America had ("allegedly") texted pics of his dick to a female NFL employee repeatedly, it might have gotten a little more press. Brett Favre however is free from media backlash. He is after all an All-American good ol' boy who wears Wrangler jeans and talks with a manly Southern drawl. He rocks his dirt covered fishin' hat in press conferences. He drives pickup trucks and wrastles with his adorable pooch. He doesn't show up driving an Escalade, wearing a doo-rag, and then tell reporters he wil be paying a fine "straight cash Homie" like Randy Moss does. So he gets a pass for everything..except from amateur observers like hater bloggers and hater football fans who are full of hot air and don't understand his hero status. Well whatever, Brett Favre is an absolute self-absorbed, conceited dickhead. You heard it here first. I'll stand alone on that opinion if necessary because it is a Dat Gum fact.

Living in a Fantasy World

Today is Tuesday, which means that another week of the NFL season is in the books. Normally this would spark a morning of water cooler discussions regarding the implications of the division standings through six weeks. Or perhaps talk of how injuries have affected the top Super Bowl contenders. Maybe people might even engage in trash talk about how their team just won a tightly contested matchup with their arch rival. At least that's how things used to work. Today however, every discussion begins and ends with talk of how everyone did this weekend in their "league." In the modern world it is impossible to talk about the NFL anymore without mention of Fantasy Football.

Fantasy Football is fucking retarded. The concept (for the three people other people out there not in "a league") is that you and ten of your buddies get together and have a draft, where you pick players for your respective "teams." These players are ranked via how many points they can get you through gaining yards, scoring touchdowns etc. Each week you "play" against another "fantasy owner" and whoever's team scores the most points as a result of their players having the most gaudy stats, wins. Points, wins and standings are recorded and tallied through an online website. Does this not sound like the geekiest thing in the world? Well it is. Except fantasy football owners aren't scrutinized and mocked in society in the same manner that say..a bunch of nerds who play role playing games with armies of wizards and dragons are. The name after all includes the term "football" and the game requires watching lots of football on a weekly basis, so fantasy football is considered just as manly an activity as fishing or going to a strip club.

I played fantasy football once and it was a miserable experience. Fantasy football renders you unable to focus on just...being a fan and rooting for your favorite franchise to win each week. You have to watch every game and not just yours. You can't just roll out of bed on Sunday morning hungover and head straight to the sports bar, you have to run to the computer to "update" your roster before noon. Then you get in those awkward situations where you have a player on your fantasy squad that plays for the opponent of your favorite team. "Well we really need this win against the Texans to make the playoffs, but I need 17 points from Andre Johnson to take the lead in my league." Or somebody on your team scoring the winning touchdown, but happens to be on the "roster" of a rival fantasy owner. What a dilemma! Who should I focus on cheering for today?? What 4 tvs do I absolutely have to be watching at all times?? Fuck that bullshit. I don't want to have to remember to do something on Sunday morning, before I go to the bar. I like to focus on my team's game and maybe one other game that involves the team ahead of them in the standings. That's it. If you're an NFC East fan you shouldn't be screaming at the TV with the Bengals-Jaguars game on it.

Obviously most fantasy football owners are by nature actual football fans who have a favorite team they root for every Sunday. There are however, an increasing number of people who have no personal rooting interest in the NFL that only care about fantasy football. I fucking LOATHE these people. Do you know why I despise these fucking scumbuckets? These people always interrupt a conversation about actual football and relate it back to how their fantasy team is doing.

Co-Worker: "Hey man tough loss for your boys yesterday." Horrible holding call on that kick return.

Me: "Yeah I know. Total bullshit. I have no idea how that was a block in the back."

Dickhead Fantasy Guy: "Shit well if it makes you feel better, This retard over here decided NOT to start Joe Flacco...when the Ravens were playing the Patriots!! Everyone knows the Pats have the 29th ranked pass defense I mean DUH!!"

Jesus Christ, fuck you dude. I'm trying to get over a heartbreaking overtime loss that put my squad in last place in the division. I don't give a shit how your stupid fantasy team did this weekend. Oh sorry you endangered your chances of winning that $200 prize in two months. Which is now only $100 since you invested in 20 strategic moves to improve your roster. Waaaah. Nobody cares how "Chariots of Fire Crotch" is doing in the Yahoo standings.

What pisses me off the most about fantasy football, is that it is EVERYWHERE now. You can't avoid it. Since so many people across the nation love it, real sports media outlets actually cover it every week. There are guys on ESPN who are fantasy "experts" that tell you who are the fantasy stars of each game. There are people that write fantasy "draft guides" for magazines. How did these dorks get jobs? By memorizing and analyzing the league leader statistics? There is even a sitcom on FX ("The League") that is devoted ENTIRELY to fantasy football. That is not funny at all. "The League" is kind of like "Everybody Loves Raymond" if all the jokes about your wife withholding sex from you involved fantasy football transactions. Well I'm sick of all this. I don't want fantasy football analysis on ESPN. I don't wanna read about who each week's "fantasy studs" are. I don't wanna watch anything about fantasy football. I just wanna be a football fan and discuss real-life football. So if you wanna discuss ACTUAL pigskin, let me know, but if you're only interested in talking about how Michael Vick's ailing ribs affect "Roethlisberger Rape Brigade's" roster, I'd rather put on my headphones and listen to a Coldplay record.

Sympathy for the Devil

The baseball playoffs started today but since America's real pastime is football the ESPN headlines have been all about the blockbuster Vikings-Patriots trade. The Patriots traded future Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss to the Vikings (his former team) for a third round draft pick, which is the sports equivalent of trading a Ferrari for a gift certificate to a Honda dealership. Why did they do this? Most likely because they, like other teams before them, considered Randy to be a selfish asshole. Somebody that only cares about himself and bitches when he doesn't get the ball enough. A "me-first" guy in a world that knows there is no "I" in "TEAM." It is a universally accepted truth that you can't win in team sports with selfish assholes because you need "chemistry." Well let me be the first to tell you that that selfish assholes win championships. Can't live with em' but you certainly can't win without em'.

The reason every team needs selfish assholes is because the most selfish asshole on a team's roster always happens to also be the best athlete on the team. If you are a great athlete you are most likely an asshole. When I say "athlete" I don't just mean somebody that is great at playing their sport. I mean somebody that was born with god given physical abilities that can't be taught. Take all-around nice guy Drew Brees for example. He is a great football player, but he is not a great "athlete." He honed his craft through hours of hard work and studying the game he plays. He wasn't born with the ability to outrun wild animals and a god given physical frame naturally honed for athletic competition. He's not the guy on highlight reels on sportscenter that makes plays that leave you speechless and make you think "Wow...how the fuck did he do that?" If he were that guy, he would be definitely be an asshole.

Seriously if you think of all the truly great athletes in history they were almost all assholes. Remember a guy by the name of Michael Jeffrey Jordan? Kinda decent at roundball? Complete and total asshole. He actually told individual players if they were allowed to touch the ball at crunchtime. He punched out teammates in practice. He talked shit to his rivals. He also just so happened to have the ability to dunk a basketball from the free throw line and won 6 titles. Remember a guy named Deion Sanders? He wore sunglasses and gold chains to press conferences. He made rap videos. He danced and taunted opponents before, during and after he scored on them. That asshole also happened to control the balance of power in football throughout the 1990s. A famous nice guy NFL legend named Steve Young spent the early 90s struggling to beat a notorious collection of assholes known as the Dallas Cowboys. Then he convinced his 49ers to sign that total asshole Deion Sanders and won a championship. Then Deion acted like an asshole and went and signed with the 49ers aforementioned rivals from Dallas and won them a championship.

Things have not really changed since the days of MJ and Deion. Assholes are still the most physically gifted people in the world of sports. Everybody acted surprised this summer when the finest athlete of this generation, a Mr. Lebron James, turned out to be an asshole. We all thought he was the nice unselfish kid with the million dollar smile that loved his fans in Cleveland. He wasn't. He was the asshole that wanted to "take his talents" to sunny Miami and win a championship with his asshole superstar buddies. This brings me to my point of why assholes are essential to a team's success. Assholes love WINNING.

Assholes know they are better than everyone else. Assholes known they were born with gifts that don't get bestowed upon people at birth every day. Assholes know that if they can't translate their amazing physical talents into championships, their career is deemed a failure and they are just another asshole. So they bitch, piss people off, and do whatever it takes to ensure they get themselves a ring. That's what Randy Moss did this week. He essentially said to the Patriots: "Hey dickheads if you're not gonna throw me the ball anymore you clearly don't care about winning as much as I do." So he told them "get me the fuck out of here and send me to Minnesota where Brett Favre (another complete asshole) will appreciate these muthafuckin' skills and throw me the god damn ball, and I can get myself a Lombardi trophy." Randy Moss knew that Minnesota wanted a championship as bad as he did if they were willing to trade for the same asshole they ran out of town years ago.

With Randy Moss gone the New England Patriots locker room will surely be a more tranquil place. They will have better team "chemistry" without some asshole yelling at teammates and coaches about getting the ball enough. I GUARANTEE however, that they will not win a championship this season without that asshole Randy Moss. You don't win titles with nice, hard working 5-7 overachievers named Danny Woodhead. You win championships with 6-4 assholes that can leap over people and pluck the ball effortlessly out of midair like it's childs play. So good luck this season Patriots. You may have just shipped out the one asshole your team couldn't live without.

I Wish Your House was Burning Jim Rome.

When I was in college a couple friends and I briefly had a sports talk radio show on the local college station. Every guy enjoys a good sports debate/screaming match so we figured why not take our standard Friday night drunk argument to the airwaves? Our show was rated slightly lower than Sunday night indie rock hour, but whatever for the most part we had a good yelling our warped viewpoints over the AM radio for an hour a week while our 17 loyal campus fans that were too stoned to change the dial listened in. Of course this type of forum was not an original idea on our part. There are sports talk radio shows all across America. Many of these amateur sports debaters wrote or screamed their way to a national sports debate forum on ESPN radio or better yet the World Wide Leader's actual TV network. For the most part I tune into these shows and enjoy hearing debate of the weekend's top sports headlines. The one exception to this of course is the obnoxious cock gobbler pictured left: Jim Fucking Rome.

Jim Rome is a total dickhead. The whole point of sports talk radio shows to me as I iplied earlier is the concept of a good old fashioned debate. Couple of fat armchair quarterbacks sitting around shooting the shit about why your favorite franchise is 0-3. One guy blames the coach. Other guy blames the quarterback. Whatever. You the loyal listener/viewer get to sit at home and decide whose view is less nonsensical. That's entertainment. That's "Mike and Mike in the morning." That's "PTI." Well what if you just get some shithead who gets a show all to himself and gets to tell everyone in the world what the fuck is up with nobody across from him to tell him he's bat-shit crazy? His opinion is the gospel and you will all listen to it.Well then you my friend would be listening to Jim Rome's forum for spewing lunacy: "Rome is Burning."

"Rome is Burning" is a fucking horrible show. It would be bad enough if Jim Rome just had a national radio show. That would piss me enough. Well now he has a goddamn TV show. It comes on right after Sportscenter and NFL live, and right before Around the Horn and "PTI" (all shows I actually enjoy). So inevitably I'm sitting around on my couch with ESPN on surfing the web or doing some homework or whatever, when I realize that I've been listening to "Rome is Burning" for 20 minutes. Goddamit. And I have to now listen till the end of the show because there is nothing on in the mid-afternoon. I don't feel like switching to the last 10 minutes of fucking All my Children or a King of Queens re-run, and missing the start of an ESPN talk show I actually like.

Jim Rome's afternoon rant programming can best be described as "The O'Reilley Factor" for sports. You see Jim Rome never actually discusses the day's top sports stories. He just rants about what is wrong with the picture based on his expert opinion. Your team lost because their quarterback is a crybaby pussy. Your favorite athlete got a DUI because they are an irresponsible child that doesn't take his job seriously. He will then address them directly (over a media forum and not to their face) and tell them that they need to be accountable for their actions. A typical Jim Rome headline breakdown will go something like this:

"Hey Carmelo Anthony. Don't tell us you didn't want to be traded. In that case why does everyone think you want to be traded? Why are there so many rumors about you demanding a trade? Clearly you wanted a trade and now you're hiding behind a podium trying to blame the media for your selfish demands. Don't be a liar. Be a man and act accountable for your actions!"

You see Jim Rome likes to publically ridicule athletes for their every action in the most overblown way possible. Where another sports pundit might say "Tony Romo is gonna need to step up his play this December," Jim Rome will shout "Hey Romo be a man. Start being a leader. Until you learn to start doing that for your organization and not being just an overpaid choke artist nobody will respect you as a so called ELITE quarterback." Jim Rome yells everything in a stern judgmental tone like a father disciplining his delinquent 16 year old son. He is an expert on all sports issues, both on and off the field and is going to yell at you when you're not being accountable for either your play or your moral behavior.

Well I'd like to address Jim Rome: "Hey Jim Rome. You have never played a fucking professional sport in your life. So why the hell are you such an authority on how a player should talk about their impending trade? Or when they're not being enough of a leader. Have you ever been in their shoes? Oh you haven't? Well then shut the fuck up and stop acting so high and mighty. You are no better than the crazed Rush Limbaughs or internet bloggers of the world (myself included). You just happened to blow the right people in the industry and get your own show where you can yell about who's the most useless human in the world of sports with nobody across from you to say you're an idiot. I hope one of those athletes you judge on a daily basis shows up to your set with a crew of his homies and sets fire to your set with a couple of canisters of kerosene. That would be the best episode of "Rome is BURNING" ever. (pun intended)

Get Out of My Sports Bar

The first week of the NFL season is complete. If you're like me all your excitement and anticipation over your team's high expectations for the 2010 campaign was rewarded with a nice gut wrenching dick punch loss, and you have already thrown in the towel for this year. NFL Week 1 is like Christmas morning for adults, in that you get all excited for that square shaped present you've been eyeing for a month that looks like the package for Grand Theft Auto 3, and then it turns out Grandpa got you a fucking book. If you happen to live in the home city of your favorite NFL franchise, you have the luxury of getting to watch your team every week in the comfort of your own home. If you don't however, and you are a devoted fan, every week you will have to make the trek to your local sports bar that carries the Direct TV NFL package you can't afford. Here you will be forced to reckon with a multitude of douchebags that also frequent your favorite sports watering hole, that are classified below.

1. People with Kids:

These people are generally non-threatening people from the Midwest that root for an NFC North squad like the Green Bay Packers or Da Bears. They are nice and quiet. They have cool stories about how they've been season ticket holders for 30 years, and their children were dragged to their frigid home stadiums before they could walk. Look it's really cute that your five year old twins have mini cheeseheads on. They however do not belong in a sports BAR. The word "Bar" indicates that people drink alcohol and smoke here, why are you exposing your kids to this. Inevitably these lovable fat hump families will tell you to "cut down on the profanity" at the exact moment your team just fumbled the ball for the third possession in a row. FUCK THEM.

2.CHICKS

There are knowledgable female football fans who root for their team every week, and keep up with their free agent signings. Then there are "Chick" fans. These girls know absolutely nothing aboout their favorite team but dress up in their cutest football gear outfit every week to impress boys or make daddy proud. These twats are generally Patriots fans who wear pink Red Sox hats to the bar and didn't exit until around 2005. They are the biggest Pats fan in the world but if asked to demonstrate some historic knowledge of their squad couldn't tell Irving Fryar from Washington Irving.

3.Fantasy Football People

The nerd species of the sports bar world, these assholes generally don't even have a favorite team they root for. They are just involved in the football equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons and need to go someplace they can keep up with every member of their roster. So they come to a bar by themself at a four person table and sit down with their laptop stressing over six different tvs. They also generally are cheap customers who will drink 1 diet coke the entire game, and screw the waitress out of the $100 tab you and your buddies would have laid down at that table.

4.Gambling Addict Guy

This guy is similar to fantasy football guy in that he probably doesn't have just one rooting interest on Sunday. However, he has a lot more riding on the games than old Johnny Laptop. He has bet half of junior's future college tuition on the Bengals beating the spread. He flips out over every random seemingly insignifcant field goal. He doesn't have any Chargers gear on but will go bonkers when Antonio Gates scores against your squad. You can't get too mad at the guy because he will likely soon be divorced and wagering to cover child support payments in week 16.

5. Guy with waaay too much gear on

It's cool to wear a jersey to the sports bar. Maybe throw on a hat. You don't however need to demonstrate your team loyalty with every piece of apparel from your team's NFL Pro shop. Not only are you rocking the team jersey and hat, but you also have on the team sweatpants, team headband, and diamond studded team watch. Your sneakers match the team colors. This is largely in reference to obnoxious Dallas Cowboy fans, who fortunately only appear at the sports bar once every four years when the Boys are actually decent.

6. Guy who talks shit to everybody

These people are generally fans of a team that has recently in the past decade begun to experience consistent success, and now they want to tell EVERYONE about it. In my college years this phenomenon was largely attributed to Eagles fans as a result of their dominance in the NFC East (and subsequent choking on dick in the NFC title game cough each year). After the Giants won the Super Bowl, they took the torch of obnoxious Northeast Guido cheer squad. These assholes will talk shit to you even if your teams are not playing. They generally have some stupid fucking chant that you need to hear 30 times at the bar after every significant play, like the Giants "we fly high" anthem, or the Eagles "E-A-G-L-E-S"chant (the singles dumbest fucking chant in pro sports).

7. Guy who screams at EVERYTHING

You are a big football fan. This guy however lives and dies with EVERY moment of the game. Literally anytime something significant happens this guy is either screaming at the TV with joy or slamming his fist on the table in disgust. Eight yard run by their halfback? "GOOOOOO BABY GO!!!! HELL YEAH!!!!" Pass intereference call doesn't go their way? "OH GODDAMMIT THAT IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!" (throws chair). This guy is the most likely to get obnoxiously drunk regardless of how the game's going and use enough profanity to scar the all-american family from Milwaukee for life.

8. Racist "Favorite Player" Fans

Ok I'm not sure if these people are actually racist, but I am gonna go ahead and stereotype that they are. They have one player that is their absolute favorite. They wear his jersey to every game and yell "That's my boy!!" every time their favorite player does anything. This favorite player is of course always a white player. It's never however, a superstar white quarterback. It's always the "scrappy" player that plays a non-glamour position like tight end, safety, linebacker or third receiver. Think the fat Minnesota fan in the Jim Kleinsasser jersey. Or the four Redskin chicks in Chris Cooley jerseys. Patriots fans are of course the most guilty of this offense, having held the record for most scrappy white players in history. Your usual Pats fan posse will consist of a throwback Bruschi, Wes Welker jersey and custom made Julian Edelman since they are simply unable to think of a brother on the roster that contributes to the team's success: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZlD3ckKQI&feature=related

9.Fan of the random mediocre teams without a fanbase (so you thought)

Dude it's late in the year. Big time division tilts are taking place. Playoff berths are on the line. Don't reserve a Big Screen and force us all to watch the meaningless clash of the 5-7 titans between the San Francisco 49ers and the Houston Texans. Thanks.

10. Fan Nations

Most football fans get together with a couple friends/family to watch their squad every week. Then there are some teams that have fan NATIONS. They have to gather in groups of 40+ with their fellow fans, to root on their insufferable powerhouse squad. They have to take over an entire bar, or at least reserve and entire section that will show ONLY their game, leaving everyone else to wander to a secluded corner to watch their team on a little inconveniently located television. Of course in the modern NFL era I am talking about STEELER NATION. Apparently every person from Western Pennsylvania migrated to another area of the country in droves, and felt the need to take over all the space at local sports bars (Steeler fans are fat so I mean this literally) so 40 of them could hold hands and gather in a stadium atmosphere. Steeler nation is so loud at bars that nobody else can hear their games due to the constant mass cheering. Get fucked Steeler Nation. Pittsburgh can't see you waving your "Terrible Towels" in Alexandria, Virginia. Your logo is retarded. And your quarterback is a rapist.

Get Out of My Stadium Kid.

(Tonight we kick off the 2010 college football campaign. The return of America's REAL pastime means the return of another great american tradition: TAILGATING. Here to guest rant on proper tailgating etiquette and procedure is Senior Female College Football Correspondent Sally Clydesdale.)

First of all, let me just say that I'm honored to receive a guest blogger position with GOMLK. It's truly an honor, even though you apparently hate me for my group shot photos, love for Perez Hilton, and affinity for Maroon 5. But what I'm really here to talk aboutis problem that crosses our nation (and only ours-AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!). This problem is people who don't know how to tailgate.

Let me be clear-I'm only concerned with proper COLLEGE football tailgating. I don't care if you want to wear a block of cheese on your head or insult Native Americans with your team name, that's a completely different forum. College football is pure unadulterated bliss. Where else can you find thousands of screaming fans for a sport where the athletes don't (officially..) get paid? And part of that great tradition is tailgating before a big game. Or any game-let's be honest, sometimes you really want to get blackout drunk and vaguely remember the noon game, so bring on Middle Tennessee State! The best tailgating is obviously done in the South-where ladies dress up and men wear ties. People are polite, even when delivering scathing insults about Tim Tebow's sexuality. Now let's talk about some of my tailgating pet peeves, shall we?

(1) Girls Who Wear Team Jerseys

OMG! That's so cute! You woke up and put on jeans and a jersey. You get an F for Fucking Lazy. What's that you say? You were out late drinking, and so hungover/still drunk that you threw this on? Ladies, this is not hardcore. What IS badass is staying out until 4am, sleeping until 8, waking yourself look BETTER than you would if you were going to class. I make myself look pretty for football games. My dress is picked out in advance, I blow dry my hair, and put on full makeup. Then I walk out the door into the blistering fall heat and drink my ass off for the better part of 18 hours. I don't use day drinking as an excuse to look like a lesbian, a-thank-you-very-much. Some might argue that they're showing spirit. I argue right back that the only team spirit necessary besides the dress you're wearing in your team colors is a similarly colored coozie, and a strategically placed tatoo ofyour team's logo (preferrably on the cheekbone). It says "I love my Razorbacks!/Tigers!/Longhorns!" without also saying that you love munching box.

(2) Boys Who Wear Team Jerseys

If I'm putting on my Sunday best, you better be putting it on as well. Nothing screams class like keg stands in a tie. You can get just as sloppy wasted as the d-bag wearing athletic shorts-but the juxtiposition when you're a sweaty hot mess at 10 pm in a dress shirt and tie makes it all worth it. Also put those sunglasses on some croakies good sir, we don't want you losing them in the stands or while taking that aforementioned keg stand.

(3) Yelling at Peaceful Enemies

So let's say we're having a nice time tailgating, all is fun and games, and a few tailgaters from the wrong side of the stadium ramble by. If the answer is start yelling at them and throwing things..you're wrong. Because then if your team loses you look like a giant asshole. Why not invite them for a beer, casually poke fun at their team/school/mother, have a good laugh and send them on their way? That way when, when your team wins, victory is that much sweeter. A cautionary tale: During my freshman year at Clemson, a ragtag group of us travelled to South Carolina for the annual shit-kicking they call a rivalry. The classless, toothless vermin we encountered yelled at us everywhere we went (apparently they don't know the rules). We ended up kicking their ass again (surprise! surprise!). And what made it more amazing is that after that, no one seemed to want to talk shit about football anymore. (Sidenote: One of my best friends was offered some "Tiger Stew" by a kindly older gentleman making food, and she screamed "GO FUCK YOURSELF!!" befre realizing he was actually a fellow Clemson fan. Completely uncalled for, completely hilarious. This is what happens when you let other people and their negative tailgating energy affect you.)

(4) Being a Penn St. Fan

Look at us, WE ARE! Penn State. Ugh. Yawn. Get me out of here. You may have the largest stadium in the country but your home game atmosphere is about as rowdy as a church picnic. Yeah, I bet you guys "invented" Zombie Nation being played in stadiums. What a bunch of fucking losers. Also, you people just suck. Don't know why and I certainly don't care. Yeah it's pretty easy to champion your season every year...considering last year you played..Akron, Syracuse, Temple, Eastern Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Michigan State. Congrats on your coach not dying last year! Seriously, when people are betting on when your coach is going to die..maybe it's time to let go of tradition. (BTW, my bet is when Penn St. loses to Iowa...again. So long Paterno!)

(Editor's note: Fuck the Big 10 in general. If you're gonna call yourself a "power" conference you might wanna have a winning bowl record once a decade. Also your girls are fucking ugly.)

(5) Not Knowing When a Nap is in Order

It happens to the best of us. Maybe you start with mimosas instead of the safer choice of beer. Maybe someone talks you into taking vodka-Gatorade shots (In theory, wonderful. In practice, deadly.). Regardless ofthe reason, sometimes you just have too much, too early. Here is an essential lesson: When in doubt, take a nap. Find a truck, car, couch under a tailgate tent, friend with a close apartment, or a fraternity quad-as long as you can pass out in peace, you'll be fine. Sure you may miss a few hours of late afternoon/early evening drinking, but at least you won't be the guy/girl pissing themselves and getting kicked out of the stadium during that 7:00 game.

(6) Not having Proper Tailgating Gear

Koozies are essential. Keep your beer cold and delicious as long as possible in the hot days of early (or even late, depending on where you're situated) fall. But this is just the beginning. Ladies, large purses with hidden pockets are great for transporting beer into dry stadiums. As are flasks with garters or inside a cute pair of boots. Gentlemen? Strap on a "BeerBelly" and call it a day! No one is going to notice if you're quite a bit thinner at halftime. The point is -Never Give Up. If someone tells you "No Alcohol Allowed," smile politely and think about how enjoyable those beers, shots of JD/warm vodka will be while cheering your team on. If you have all these things, then you won't need to ask me for MY alcohol, which I carefully planned. And no, you can't have any.

(7) Non-Alumni Fans

One of my biggest pet peeves. "OMG I'm the biggest Ohio State fan EVER!" "WE kicked your ass last year." These quotes are almost always made by someone who went to Towson. or Loyola. Or Mount St. Mary's. If you didn't go to the school that is behind the team you're cheering for...you are not the biggest fan ever. Because you didn't see the "student" athletes on campus. Or in class. Or in the dining hall. I'd say library, but I didn't see them there either. The whole point of being a college fotball fan is LOVING your alma mater and remembering the days when you got to go to EVERY home game. It is not chooosing a team that is considered to be good and then jumping on the bandwagon. I don't care if your parents raised you that way-you should know better. If you want to be a die-hard fan, go to a school with a well-known and well-funded football program. If you didn't get in it wasn't meant to be. If you went somewhere else on a sports scholarship for field hockey or badminton or whatever the fuck sport you played, tough shit. Be quiet during the game and let the real fans scream their heads off. No one cares about your opinion, because you went to St. Mary's College of MD.

These are just a few guidelines to follow while tailgating. You don't have to agree, but they will make you a better tailgater, guaranteed. Or you could go the TBagzzz route route and be the kid is a sports jersey passed out on the sidewalk having pissed himself with nary a drop to drink.

Happy Tailgating!

(Editor's note: Ok that happened like ONCE...EVER)

The World Series of Losers

Today is the first day of September, and that means the return of football to our lives. More importantly that means the return of 24/7 football COVERAGE on ESPN. Football pre-game shows. Football post-game shows. Football highlights and anaysis. "Fantasy football" analysis. You get the picture. All football, all the time. These last few days before the season are the best time of the year because you get to feel that tingling excitement about your favorite team and enjoy watching ESPN overhype your squad, before facing the inevitable reality of another disappointing season when your boys get upset week 1. Perhaps the most exciting thing about all this is it means I actually have reason to watch ESPN again. July/August are horrible ESPN months. Baseball is not quite in the stretch run yet and our hometown team sucks anyways. No basketball or hockey again till winter. Lets not even get into soccer again. So ESPN fills up it's schedule with programming that doesn't qualify as "real sports." Namely the fucking WORLD SERIES OF POKER.

Every once in a while a couple buddies and I get together for poker night. During the game we eat cheetos and demolish Tostitos queso. We down beers and whiskey. We make use of various tobacco products. Basically we are your average group of 20 something out of shape bros. Would I ever describe my gambling social circle as a group of "athletes?" Hell no. Every day however, ESPN shows guys that look just like us play each other in high stakes poker tournaments for HOURS on end. Jesus Christ. Why the hell would I want to watch a leisure activity on ESPN? A poker hand on ESPN's "World Series of Poker" is not significantly different from poker night at my house other than the fact that you're betting Benjamins instead of quarters. You might as well show people playing fucking "Madden 2010" against each other on Xbox and call it "sports programming."

(Oh wait ESPN does that as well. Goddamnit.)

At some point when I was in college this whole "World Series of Poker" phenomenon took off. I lived with a group of poker fanatics so I had to deal with the effects of this more than the average guy. Now when your poker addict buddies weren't loading up on adderall and Red Bull, playing marathon games of "No Limit Hold Em" till 5am, they were watching poker on tv. In the same way that normal people watch...you know..REAL SPORTS. Everybody got to know the names of their favorite WSOP players in the same way everyone knows the names of Kobe, Lebron and D-Wade. Moneymaker. Helmuth. Phil Ivey. After watching enough WSOP re-runs, kids actually remembered "classic" hands in the same way we remember memorable plays from Super Bowls past.

Bro 1: "Dude amazing hand here with Helmuth and Ivey. Helmuth is pushing Ivey all in with two pair. No idea that Ivey has THE FUCKING FLUSH DRAW!!"

Bro 2: "Bro I remember this shit. Helmuth totally thinks he has him but then the on the river Phil flops the fucking King high flush!! CLASSIC IVEY!!

Yeah wow, that was exhilarating. Somebody hits the fucking flush on the river every week at our local poker game in the same exact manner. It is no amazing athletic feat for all to behold. Ivey's classic call on Helmuth in WSOP 07' is not akin to David Tyree's helmet catch in the Super Bowl. Ease off your boner losers. The saddest thing is now there are sports video games for poker (see above), where you can play as your favorite Poker stars on Xbox. WTF? Why would you play a poker video game?? The whole point of video games is to participate in a fantasy activity you couldn't normally engage in. Like working for the mafia. Or engaging in tank warfare. Or dunking on Yao Ming. Playing a poker video game is just like normal poker except you get to pretend you are Johnny Chan. God you're a fucking loser.

Look I'm not saying becoming a great poker player doesn't require some "skill." That "skill" however, is simply acquired by wasting more hours and hours of time participating in a leisure activity than a normal student or member of the workforce. Yeah I mean I could quit my job or skip class and fucking play Monopoly for 100 hours a week and become the best Monopoly player in the world. Does this make me an "athlete" worthy of being on ESPN? NO, because if I practiced playing basketball for 100 hours a week I would still have ZERO chance of making it to the NBA.

"Athletes" are physical freaks of nature born with vertical leaps and speed we couldn't dream of possessing. That's why we watch sports. We enjoy seeing people do things with a ball we couldn't dream of doing. Poker stars are simply losers who dared to destroy their social life or waste their parents tuition to sit around a table and play cards till the wee hours of the night. We could be just like them if we didn't aspire to..you know...be productive members of society. Fuck these assholes. Get them off my goddamn ESPN and bring on the 24 hour pigskin coverage.

My Wish is For ESPN to Stop Inspiring Me

I was sitting around watching the Little League World Series today because hey there was nothing else on and the LLWS is truly (to be cliche) the "purest" level of sports. Call me naive but I'm under the assumption that at least 80 to 85% of these 12 year olds have not yet discovered the magic of performance enhancing drugs yet. Anyways I'm in a nice positive mood, relaxing on a Sunday watching Mexico beat up on Germany. Then the play by play guys notify me that they have a "truly inspiring story" about a young man on one of the teams...

(Oh Jesus...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlZh9yelk

ESPN's boys in the booth then spend the next 10 minutes talking about some kid with multiple sclerosis that is an honorary member of one of the teams. He is really courageous and it's just so inspiring that his teammates are so supportive and bring him along for the ride. Then ESPN proceeds to show us this poor kid with his crippling disease in the stands and have him do the play by play for an inning. Jesus. Here I was sitting around enjoying a little baseball on a lazy Sunday and now I'm completely dejected. What am I doing with my life? If I thought for a second that my life sucks I should think about the fact that I don't have multiple sclerosis. In fact instead of spending $60 at the bar last night I could have donated that money to MS research. Now I feel like if I don't root for this team with the inspirational diseased kid mascot to win I have no soul.

ESPN does this shit ALL THE TIME. Look I'm sorry I'm not Ebenezer Scrooge over here. It's not like I am unsympathetic to children with debilitating diseases or something. It is truly sad that there are kids out there that have to deal with that type of adversity. Why however, do we need to hear about this type of stuff during sports broadcasts? It's fucking depressing. Do you know why I love sports? Sports are the world's greatest distraction from reality. We watch sports to get away from thinking about what a cruel world we live in. If you've had a tough week at work. Or your grandpa is sick. Or you're dealing with some other tough life obstacle. With sports you can forget about all this for three hours and get lost in the fact that you really need your team to win to stay in the wild card race. Basically you get to invest yourself in something meaningless, to distract yourself from real life issues. When ESPN beats you over the head with depressing "inspirational" stories of terminally ill children during their broadcasts, you are once again forced to think about how there are more important things in life than a stupid ballgame.

The worst is ESPN's "My Wish" program. Basically ESPN takes kids with terminal illnesses or some other terrible handicap and gives them a chance to meet their favorite athlete/team. This is after all the kid's "Wish" presumably. To hang out with their favorite overpaid douchebag running back for a day and get a signed football and jersey out of it. ESPN repeatedly devotes a 10 minute segment to this on Sportscenter. Last time I checked Sportscenter is defined by my TV guide as "a thorough presentation of sports news, highlights, and analysis." Not "A thorough presentation of inspirational stories." The other thing that pisses me off is that "My Wish" is another example of the media trying to portray athletes as "Heroes" Oh wow. Brett Favre took 30 minutes of his busy day at training camp to carry a crippled kid on his back and sign a football. I'm so inspired by how much he cares. Aww Tedy Bruschi got some kid with cancer front row tickets to the week 1 Monday Night Football game. He is basically the fucking Mother Teresa of scrappy middle linebackers.

Personally if I were a dying 12 year old cancer patient I'd have no fucking interest in getting a signed jersey from Peyton Manning. How about ESPN really makes a kid's dreams come true and arranges to take him to Vegas? Have Chris Johnson buy him an evening of lap dances. Or let Ben Roethlisberger take him to a frat party and have his sloppy sorostitute seconds. Or let him spend a day taking bong hits with Ricky Williams. You know..something that literally makes you say "now I can die happy." THAT would be inspirational and wouldn't depress me when I'm trying to watch sports and forget how mch life sucks. Arranging for a terminally ill child to attend Oakland Raiders training camp...? Shit you might as well pull the plug on him yourself ESPN.

Cleveland...is once again...Cleveland.

Thankfully the Lebron James saga is over. Jesus christ. Did we really need a one hour ESPN special: "THE DECISION" for that? Last time I checked he was announcing where he was gonna play basketball next season, not his presidential candidacy in 2012. There are 8 billion sports bloggers out there with opinions on why Lebron is destroying his legacy, or a sellout or a general egomaniacal dickhead, so theres no reason for me to dwell on that. Instead I'm left thinking that none of these media d-bags are focusing on the real story here...Cleveland once again...being Cleveland.

Despite what Drew Carey's intro tells you Cleveland sucks balls. I would compare Cleveland to Beirut but I think at least one sports franchise in Beirut has won a title in the last 50-60 yrs. I saw a funny clip recently about Cleveland where they end by saying "at least we're not Detroit." Yeah you're not Detroit. Detroit has contributed SOMETHING to American society. Detroit has Motown records. The auto industry. White-boy rappers. What the hell can Cleveland lay claim to?

Everybody's first answer is Drew Carey? Um...Ok. That's not really something worth bragging about. He was an almost moderately funny comedian with a sitcom who later hosted a tv show. It's not like LA tells you they are the birthplace of George Lopez. You can't really say Drew Carey is famous for being from Cleveland, because Drew Carey is not famous for...anything. Yet Cleveland is famous for Drew Carey. Cleveland is famous for having the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which doesn't really make sense to me because...no Rock and Roll hall of Famers are from Cleveland. Seriously the only famous musician from Cleveland I can think of is Bone Thugs N' Harmony. I thought at the very least Cleveland was named after former US president Grover Cleveland. NO. They were named after some general named "Moses Cleaveland." You read that right. They took some random general's name misspelled it and that's how they gave their city a name. Cleveland in a nutshell.

What about the city itself? It is an "industrial" city which is fancy talk for "dirty, run-down and smoggy." There are no famous tourist attractions. No beautiful parks to hang out in. No historical monuments. You can't even go to somewhere just outside of Cleveland to find something fun to do. Because after all you're still in Ohio and there is nothing there. It's cold. Its depressing. It's a barren wasteland. Neil Young once wrote a song called "Ohio." Have you ever listened to that song? Lets just say if you are ever doing heroin in your basement and wrestling with the idea of killing yourself, listening to "Ohio" for 3 minutes will make your decision for you. Pretty appropriate considering how depressing it is to be a resident of the state.

With Lebron in Cleveland for 6 years, Cleveland finally had something to la claim to. They had the best player in the world. They had an attraction. They had somebody from their city worth having skyscraper sized billboards for. Hell they had the BEST "something" for once in their life. Of course with this came the expectation that Lebron would make a Cleveland franchise "the best" for the first time since the leather helmet era of football.

Cleveland's sports misery is well documented with the obvious examples being the Browns choke jobs against Elway, Jordan's shot over Ehlo, and the Indians...being the Indians. To me however, the biggest dick punch that is never talked about is the fact that The Browns left town...became the Ravens...and then won the fucking Super Bowl two years later. Are you kidding me?!? We were the NFL's most devoted franchise...for a shitty team that didn't win anything f0r 40 years.... and you move them...and instantly they become great. WHAT THE HELL? Fuck you Red Sox nation at least you had the Celtics and Pats winning titles while your beloved Sawks choked year after year, and Boston is at least a cool city to live in.

Also...Cleveland is cold as shit...in the Midwest...and doesn't even have a hockey franchise. What the fuck? Carolina and San Jose have hockey teams...and Cleveland doesn't.

So Lebron James, if I were from Cleveland I would say this. "Fuck you Lebron. Thanks for that 6 year cocktease that made us believe we...Cleveland would finally amount to something. You are even from here, and have grown up for 26 years knowing our misery. You of all people should understand what a massive cockpunch this is. We are now back to being the old hopeless depressing Cleveland everyone else in the country points and laughs at. I can't say I fault you for leaving this miserable shithole. Especially since you took less money than we would have paid you to stay in this miserable shithole. Still it pisses me off that once again it sucks balls to live in Cleveland"

(Retires to basement. Turns on "Ohio") BANG!