KING SIZED BLOGS: Best & Worst of 2007 - SPORTS

Well, I knew the first topic would be a dud - thanks to Greg's refusal to be a drooling, dozing, television zombie.  So, let's go with something more up his alley: SPORTS.  First, I would like to make a small correction for the Television article.  I should have had American Idol at least under Best Honorable Mention.  That is probably the show we watch most consistently.  Anywhoooo.  On to sports.  And get ready to get all flustered.  I'm not being Skip Bayless, I swear.  And, no surprise, the worsts far outnumber the bests.

BEST OF SPORTS

• KEVIN EVERETT RECOVERY - The more you read about this story, the more crazy and awesome that it becomes.  This Buffalo Bills player should be paralyzed right now.  Instead he is starting to walk and recovering.  It was thanks to God and a doctor who was willing to take risks.  They lowered Everett's body temperature to combat swelling in a very risky and experimental maneuver.  It is amazing to hear of a positive story with a medical professional who was willing to put his entire career on the line for this player.
• NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS RUN AT 19-0 - I don't care what you think about this team or its coach or anything.  Personally, I hate the Patriots, I think Bill Bellichick is a jerk, I think Tom Brady is a scumbag, and I think most Patriot fans are arrogant turds.  (Sorry Kevin - you are the exception.)  BUT, these things are great for sports.  Everyone follows it.  The ratings for those Pats games are enormous.  And the Super Bowl, if it features an undefeated Patriots against either Dallas or Green Bay could be the highest rated show ever.  I know I watch them every week.  And you have to admire greatness.  They are a GREAT team.  You get to see teams like that every 30 years or so.  Enjoy it.
• COLLEGE FOOTBALL UPSETS - I love watching all the big-shot BCS schools get tripped up.  It makes College Football fun.  I hated watching college football for a large stretch of the 80s and 90s because the same teams always went 10-1 and hogged the big games.  Of course, while the regular season was exciting, the Bowl Matchups are, eh, um, not?  And the same teams ended up hogging the bowls again.  Oh well.
• HONORABLE MENTION: UCF's Football run (I had to put that), UF's Gator Slam (ugh), NBA resurgence, Dwight Howard, Bret Favre's resurrection, state of Florida's FIVE bowl teams, Dungy winning Super Bowl

WORST OF SPORTS

• BASEBALL STEROIDS: I'm so far beyond being surprised by this story.  It is just disgusting and ridiculous.  How can baseball legitimately hold itself up as a serious sport now?  Hundreds of players have been tagged - either by the Mitchell report or clubhouse rats or drug testing.  The Home Run King is a user.  The 340 game winning Rocket is a user.  The lineup is littered with players who were the dominant ones.  And even the Report has questions - based on shaky witnesses, run by a dude on the Board of the Red Sox (where hardly any Sox players are named and 22 Yanks are!), no fair trial for the accused.  Baseball managed to screw up its efforts to clean itself up after screwing up for years in refusing to clean itself up.  Confused?  Imagine those young fans who have to sort through all the asterisks and wonder why the greatest players of a generation aren't in the Hall of Fame.
• MICHAEL VICK & ATLANTA FALCONS:  This covers so many points that the Worsts would have stretched to three pages.  First, there is Bobby Petrino weaseling a new contract out of Louisville, only to screw them over and go to Atlanta.  Then, Michael Vick gets busted for dog fighting and destroys his life and the team.  Then you have players verbally attacking Petrino for being a jerk.  Then you have players supporting Vick and getting fined for it.  (Just think how big of jerk Petrino had to be for the players to verbally support a dog killer and try to throw you under the bus.)  When the team was barely limping to the end of the year, Petrino jumps ship (after promising to stay and being refused permission to talk to other jobs) to go BACK to college to browbeat the Arkansas players.  Then the owner of the team starts negotiating to replace the current GM Rich McKay WITHOUT TELLING McKay he wasn't coming back.  Only the negotiations are with such a big name (Parcells) that it hits all the papers - before Big Tuna screws them over to court the Dolphins.  What a crappy franchise.
• BILLY DONOVAN: I know UF fans are willing to forgive and forget, but the five Orlando Magic fans aren't.  He weasels an extension out of UF to stay and not take whatever job was floating around.  Then he leaves and takes the Magic job.  Then, after announcing it and everything, CHANGES HIS MIND over the weekend and goes back to UF with a nice fat extension.  I know it is going to work out for Orlando.  Ron Jeremy, I mean Stan Van Gundy is a great coach and the Magic started the year great before December happened.  But I think Donovan will never be an NBA coach now.  Unless the Falcons get a team.
• JOE TORRE'S SENDOFF: Okay.  Your coach leads you to five World Series in six years or something like that.  Then the other teams catch up.  You haven't WON a World Series since 2000.  BUT you still win your division, go to the playoffs, win in the playoffs.  So, you naturally blame the manager.  Threaten to fire him.  And then cut his salary and tell him to earn it back through incentives - only the incentives are the same thing he's been doing every year that wasn't good enough.  WHA?  Then you anger one of the most popular players your team has ever had by publicly saying he isn't good enough to manage - causing him to leave too.  Brilliant, Hank.
• KOBE BRYANT: So, you are a young superstar.  You have won your third straight NBA title with your fellow superstar and supercoach.  What next?  Force the team to trade that other star, get the coach to quit or get fired, and make the team build everything around you.  Now, you get to be THE MAN.  So you start getting huge stats, but your team is horrible.  Every big game you have seems to hurt the team more.  So you pitch a fit and don't do anything, just to show how bad your team is.  You grumble.  You gripe.  You get the coach to come back.  And then you demand a trade.  Because the team didn't do enough to win - didn't bring in any huge talent.  Wait, you twit.  You HAD huge talent.  You had the best center in 35 years.  You had four future Hall of Famers starting every night and didn't win the title.  YOU forced the trades.  YOU canned the coach.  YOU were behind EVERYTHING.  And now YOU are mad at how it turned out?  Grow up.
• 2007 HEISMAN:  Let me begin by saying that I am NOT angry Tim Tebow won the Heisman.  I know that he is incredible - absolutely mind boggling on the field.  I know he is a great person.  Heck he saved a bus of nuns and orphans on the way to the ceremony.  Right now he is personally delivering one million toys to children.  What I am saying is how did Kevin Smith get completely ignored for not only the Heisman, but also the Best Running Back awards?  He didn't need to win.  But I don't get how McFadden is one of the top four, when he had 400 yards less than Smith?  Smith is 181 yards from an all-time rushing record (though even I think its bogus to let that stand when 3 extra games went into it).  How is that not worth a top five finish at least?  Ridiculous.
• HONORABLE MENTION: Pacman Jones, Red Sox winning World Series, Dolphins winning in Week 14, Peyton Manning winning Super Bowl, NBA Gambling Ref, Patriots Camera Work, Don Imus vs. Rutgers

I'm sure I forgot a ton - straighten me out Ramer.

Announcement

I just wanted to go on the record to announce that I am NOT taking the University of Michigan Head Coach of the Football Program position.  While I greatly admire the job that the Wolverines do, I have NO INTENTION of leaving my current position to move to Ann Arbor.  I am COMMITTED to stay here with Defender Ministries and to see it through until the very end.  Thank you.  There will be no time for questions.  I have work to do.

My New Enemy

I have a new enemy, and his name is Billy Donovan. Now, I never was a big Donovan fan in the first place. First of all, he was a pupil of Rick Pitino - who I think is a total wanker. Second, he coaches Florida. And, anyone who knows me knows how I feel about the Gators. Third, he is a really good coach who has assured that cocky and arrogant Gator fans always have both football and basketball to crow about. Stinking Billy.

So, when he was looking at the Orlando Magic job, I was thrilled because it was going to totally stick it to the University of Florida. Their basketball program would have been decimated - losing their top seven scorers AND their coach. Plus, since I am not an idiot, I was thrilled that the Magic was actually going to get such an amazing coach. I tried to think back to when the Magic had a good coach. Hmmmm. Well, there was.... Uh..... Matt Goukas? Phll Daly, but he had no players to coach. That pretty much sums it up. The Magic coaching job has been one joker after another.

Well, that is a good description for being a Magic fan. I never wanted to like the Magic. When I went to college, I was not a basketball fan at all. I loved Michael Jordan and enjoyed him beating the tar out of people. The only team I liked was the Atlanta Hawks - since they were broadcast on TBS Superstation 17 when I was young. I like 'Nique. But I never really was a fan of any team. Then I got to Orlando, and the team was just so darn likeable. And they had these young guys - Shaq and Penny. And I got sucked in. Then they went to the Finals, and got trounced. And I was ready for a year-in, year-out pursuit of that weird trophy.

Then June 1996 happened. I was out at Disney MGM Studios with some of my friends. The Olympic teams were going to go through the park, and we went to see the whole process. Our Shaq was one of those stars. Sure, there had been a bunch of morons in the city who said Shaq wasn't worth the money. And some rumblings had happened that he may bolt for the movies of L.A. But I was sure it would work out. And when his car drove by, with him waving and saying, "Love you Orlando!" Well, we were sure it was all okay.

THAT SAME FREAKING DAY we heard the news that he was about to sign with the Lakers. It ripped your heart out. We lost Shaq - and didn't even get anything for him! How do you lose Shaq? Then Penny lost his dang mind. And then the Magic fell apart for good. Coups in the locker room. Dumb trades. We thought there was some light when we hit free agency back in 2000. We had enough to get Tim Duncan. He bailed on us, but still, we got Grant Hill and some guy named Tracy McGrady who was related to Vince Carter. Then Hill's foot fell off. T-Mac tried to carry the team by himself and then his heart fell out (which conveniently found on the way to Houston).

It has been miserable to be a Magic fan. You don't want to buy a jersey because you are afraid that the player will abandon you. We always seem to get nice guys - but they just get hurt and never play right. Then we luck out and win the draft lottery again and get Dwight Howard. What a freak that guy is (in a good way). Hope reigned. We got some players who are not horrible - and then we bring back Brian Hill as coach. I hoped it would make up for the way he got canned last time. Last year the team started off HOT HOT HOT. It had the best record in the NBA for one day at 20-4. Then the team collapsed. I had gotten tickets for four games for Christmas, and was disgusted by the horrible play.

But hope springs eternal. And somehow, we managed to talk Billy Donovan to come in and teach our team of "not bad players," along with one superhuman one. Sure, I would ordinarily trash Donovan for his abandoning UF just weeks after swearing he wasn't leaving. But I was willing to overlook that. Last Friday it was official, and the little guy came down here. He was all smiles. We were all smiles. Tickets were selling. Players were happy.

grrrrrrr

Stinking Billy Donovan. So we are stuck now as he tries to break his contract. Florida will obviously welcome him back and probably win the championship in three years. We tried to get Stan Van Gundy, whose main qualification is that he looks like adult movie star Ron Jeremy. But the Miami Heat decided to demand draft picks for him, while they didn't care if he went to Sacramento. So he is going over there. And where are the Magic now?

The look stupid. The local press - who for some unexplainable reason hate the Magic - have launched into full attack mode. How can you blame Orlando? They did everything they could. It was Donovan's lack of commitment, lack of heart, lack of a spine. It was his unbelievable wussiness. So we have no coach, and the prospects floating around now are ridiculous. All the good candidates are gone. We have nobody, no first round draft picks, lots of money to sign free agents - and nothing that would make anyone want to come. So, the hope I had is gone. We'll probably end up signing Chauncey Billups to some massively overblown contract (even though he hasn't done anything in three years), maybe add some other half-heart. Vince Carter will toy with us and then sign with the Lakers. And we'll end up with somebody like PJ Carlesimo as our coach. It's so frustrating I want to give up.

But, man, that Dwight Howard is good....