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This is the archive for April 2007

Don Imus and the Media Frenzy

I haven't commented on the Don Imus controversy, despite the fact that, as a crux between sports, politics, and entertainment, it's right in my wheelhouse of things I care about. It's a media-created frenzy about a media figure who is meaningless, both in his own industry (that being radio) and in the world at large. This is completely ignorant.

College-aged women shouldn't be offended by the thoughts and throw-away comments of someone who has never met them, especially a fossil like Imus. The fact that they allowed themselves to be manipulated by a coach who wants her 15 minutes of fame and by media whores like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton should be a million times more offensive than being called a nappy-headed ho (and honestly? Some of them do need to become better acquainted with the hairbrush). I guarantee you every woman on that squad has a CD where women are called ho, bitch, and God knows what else. I also guarantee you that every single woman on that squad has been called and called some other woman a ho (they are in New Jersey).

All that said, thank goodness for someone with the brains of Jason Whitlock, who has the brains and proper color to put this controversy in its rightful place without being called an Imus-defending racist. I've always been a Whitlock fan, from his battles with Scoop Jackson to his current role on AOL Sports, and this latest trip through the publicity cycle has done absolutely nothing but raise my opinion of Whitlock as a journalist and as a man.



Keep up the good work, Big Sexy!

Imus = Anus

Okay, I'm not totally shocked by what happened on Tuesday night. I was definitely disappointed, considering it's the first championship any New Jersey team has competed for since the Nets were run out of town by the Spurs in 2003 in six games. So imagine how blown back I was to hear Don Imus call the Lady Knights some "nappy headed hos."

Allow me to go Booker T here for a minute as I say...

"He didn't just say that. Tell me...he didn't...just say THAT."

Apparently, he did. And one will have to forgive me for saying so, but I'm not catching the humor behind calling a team of black women a bunch of 'hos' of the nappy headed variety. I guess calling them a pack of chickenheads, would be pushing it. Quite frankly, I'm not going to call him a racist. That's like calling a duck a bird with web feet or a crackhead, someone whose drug dependent. Now, let me see if I have this right. The Federal Cocksucking Commission, can run Howard Stern off the air onto Sirius Satellite Radio and levy him with countless fines.

HOWEVER...let Imus call a mostly-black team a bunch of nappy headed hos and I guess their radios weren't on that day. This angers me for the mere fact that instead of focusing in on the year that was for the Lady Knights, we're talking about some dumb slack jawed yokel.

Summitt's not just her last name, it's where she stands in the coaching pantheon

Sometimes, the ugly cute girl gets to the dance, finds herself a Prince, and lives happily ever after in a fabulous castle filled with talking rodents and magical grandmothers. Other times, when they bring the ugly cute girl up on stage and slide that Prom Queen tiara on her perfectly coiffed head and she takes her smiling date’s hand, someone dumps a bucket of pig’s blood on her head from the rafters.

Len’s Cinderella Rutgers squad is looking more like Carrie White today, after a thorough 59-46 humiliation at the hands of Darth Summitt’s Tennessee Lady Volunteers in the 2007 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.

So, that begs the question: why am I writing about women’s sports? I mean, everyone knows that Bill Simmons thinks that women’s basketball is like Big 10 basketball sans dunks (and that is boring).

Well, for starters, Pat Summitt is the winningest coach in NCAA history, and her 7th national title brings her into striking distance of John Wooden’s 10 titles, especially if Candace Parker returns to kick ass and take names next year. And even though I’m sure she’s much less interested than Billy Donovan, just ponder the thought of Coach Pat Summitt’s University of Kentucky Wildcats. Really think about it.

Most of your young black basketball players are raised by single mothers. Who’s going to relate to those mothers and those players more than a strong female authority figure who obviously doesn’t take any crap from anyone? Who has a better coaching pedigree than Pat Summit and who is still an active coach? No one.

Now, I know this will never happen. I know Pat Summitt once cut short a recruiting trip to have her son in Tennessee. I know she loves UT like I love pizza and beer. But I’ll be damned if it’s not intriguing.

As for Rutgers, well... They're all gonna laugh at you! They're all gonna laugh at you!

Cinderella Vs. The Evil Stepsister. Final Round.

Alright, screw all that crap you hear about Cinderella in the Men's Tourney being some mid-major school that you never hear of until they start picking off teams in your bracket like some crazed sniper with a high powered rifle. Tonight in Cleveland, about 15-20 minutes up the way from me, the NCAA Women's National Championship will have Cinderella in all her glory trying to get not just a glass slipper...but the platinum one that comes with a plaque that says 2007 National Champions. Cinderella Rutgers crashed this ball's final dance and along the way she did the following...

- Defeated Michigan State in East Lansing in the second round, in front of a rather nasty crowd. Unlike the men's game, the first two rounds aren't neutral site games. Draw the right straw and you can force your opponent to win two tough first-round games before going to the Sweet Sixteen.

- She sent #1 Duke packing and with it, their coach Gail Gostenkors [the female Coach K, only without the national titles] to Texas.

- She sent Arizona State home rather unceremoniously, shutting them down with a defensive stand that slowed the Lady Devils.

Oh and here's the cherry topper, no pun intended.

- They sent Bob Starkey back a few chairs on his bench by shutting down his, err, Pokey's Lady Tigers and their Female Shaq, Sylvia Fowles, in the Final Four on Sunday.

So bring on the gal they've been calling She-bron in Candace Parker. I've got to question someone who is dating a Dukie [Shelden Williams] and her brother whose professional life hasn't amounted to anything until she hit the scene [take a bow Anthony Parker, even though Toronto's playing playoff basketball in the Leastern Conference]. Bring on Darth Summitt and all 6 of her titles.

The Lady Knights are ready. Cinderella's packing her hard hat and lunch pail, because #7's not in the bag. It's not even on the checkout line. Wanna know the last championship the State University of Rutgers has seen?

Try a share of the 1949 Fencing title with Army. Who cares about FENCING? The football program is well on its way to owning the Big East.

Basketball? Comes down to just three letters as far as I'm concerned. C-V-S. C. Vivian Stringer.

Go Knights.

... you only wish I was fixing it.

While Rich and Ron may think that I made my decisions for the brackets based off of who had the prettier uniforms or the cuter mascot, that'd only be as a result to them both eating a pile of sour grapes.

Why is that? That's because yours truly is the Official Sports Bastards' March Madness Bracket Winner. Do these bragging rights really matter? Not so much, only in that I can rub it in everyone's face here, at this moment, and then my five seconds of pseudo-fame are up.

So, congratulations Florida on your second NCAA championship this year in a major sport. (Did you win others in minor sports? Hell if I know... because at the end of this you're still Florida and stuck in awful Gainesville. I've visited.. it's awful.) But Congrats.

And self congratulations to me in picking a great set of brackets, even if Georgetown kept me from winning a few other brackets.

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

1.) Delusions of Grandeur - Jaime Sue (157 points)
2.) KEEPCOUGHLINKEEPCOUGHLIN! - Chris (114 points)
3.) The Grimey Bracket - Len (82 points)
4.) Spindoctor's Specialties - Spinler (74 points)
4.) I thought you said NAACP! - John (if you're not John. Sorry. Suck it up. You're now John) (74 points)
6.) Jade's Bracket - Jade (70 points)
7.) Everyone has AIDS - Ron (69 points)
8.) ChurchofLen - Rich (33 points)

Hope you all had fun. Now bore yourselves to death with baseball (as my local news sportscaster tries to convince me the Rockies losing on opening day was a good thing) and your NASCAR (who is even more lame in another week off... but then again, they're good old boys. They never work Easter or Mother's Day). And enjoy some hockey playoffs here in a week (I can't wait).

Florida and the Ohio State University Redux

It feels like we've been down this road once already. Oh, wait, we have. It was called the BCS National Championship Game.

Either way, here we are again. The highly (over)rated tOSU versus the young upstart Florida Gators! Well, okay, not so much this time. If anything, tOSU is the underdog in this one, which leave me in a quandry.

Do I root for a team whose fanbase I hate with a passion, or do I root for a team with the one college player I hate almost as much as I hate J.J. Reddick? Decisions, decisions... ah, fuck it, I'm shooting for a Florida sweep. tOSU just doesn't impress me all that much, and I don't think they'll be able to keep it slow.

In the thread below, leave me your thoughts on the game and who you think is going to win. Bragging rights, as always, are on the line.

Go Gators!