A world worth living in? One man's quest to take hyperbole to new heights.

For those who don't follow sports, the Miami Heat beat the Oklahoma City Thunder last night in the NBA Finals to go up 3 games to 1 in their best of 7 series.  With the next game in Miami, there is a really good chance that LeBron James will be a World Champion by this weekend.

And I don't know how I feel about that.

Let me back up- I know how I feel about that.  I don't like it- at all.  I am sick and tired of LeBron.  Honestly, I've never not been sick and tired of LeBron.  I've rooted for his failure pretty much since he came into the league.  I watched with a particular glee last summer as the Dallas Mavericks added to his history of Finals failures.  I think I read every single news piece about LeBron's 4th quarter failures like some sort of bizarro proud papa.  I cheer Skip Bayless (Skip Bayless!) every time he says "Prince" James in that condescendingly sarcastic tone of voice.  Now, as he stands on the brink of vanquishing his playoff demons and engraving his name onto the pages of history- I find myself wrestling with how I'm processing this particular event.

Because the thought of LeBron having a championship is affecting me way, WAY more than it should.  Not enough to make me want to jump off of a building or cause property destruction or anything like that- but I am realizing that there is part of me, however small (I do not know), that has derived some sense of identity from LeBron James' failures, a conscience fueled by schadenfreude.  The closer LeBron James gets to his first title, the stronger those little, subtle punches to the gut become.

And I know how I feel about that- it's sort of sickening.  Because really, nothing changes for me in a post-LeBron championship world other than I now have to view LeBron through a different lens.  But he'll still be a world-famous, multi-millionaire athlete- and I'll still be Jason Parks, playing Angry Birds and writing blogs that no one reads.

So why do I care so much?  Is it because I'm a fan?  Maybe, but I'm not so sure.  In this instance, I'm not really rooting for a specific team, I'm just rooting for teams that play LeBron.  So I guess you could say I'm an anti-fan (LeBron fans might refer to me as a 'hater').  Instead of rooting for a specific team to win, I'm cheering for a specific player to lose.

Messed up, I know.  I take solace in the fact that I'm not alone.  Many people around the world dislike LeBron with as little reason (or less, if that can be believed) as I have.  Of course, many people just as mindlessly like LeBron.  Or at least, LeBron the name brand.  How funny that we can attach such strong emotions (on both sides) to people with such little interaction with them.

Truthfully it isn't just LeBron though.  I've always been this way when it comes to high profile athletes.  Michael Jordan was my first anti-fan association.  Brett Favre is on the list too, as well as Tom Brady (although after leading my Fantasy Football team to it's best showing ever, he's probably off this list), Emmitt Smith, Eric Lindros and Sidney Crosby.  On a more mezzo-level, you can throw in the Yankees, Duke and North Carolina (hoops), Ohio State (all sports)- and that's pretty much it.  I think.

I'd like to say that my disdain for these individuals/teams is because somehow I'm this extraordinary free-thinking spirit who despises being told who is good/who to like and carves out my own path.  But nope- because anytime a player (or team) comes along that is heads above his peers, my anti-fandom comes poking his head out like those creepy tongue-thingies out of the Sarlacc pit.

Besides, I do recognize that there's at least a bit of homerism that factors in.  Obviously Ohio State is U-M's biggest rivals- that's why they get scorn.  Duke and North Carolina each waged war with the Wolverines in the NCAA finals during my early formative years as a hoops fan (which explains why their fellow blue bloods Kentucky and UCLA get a pass).  Brett Favre played against the Lions twice a year, was voted MVP during Barry Sanders' 2,000 yard season (a travesty), and had some really obnoxious fans at Bullock Creek High School.  Emmitt was Sanders' RB position rival, and I still haven't fully accepted him as the all-time NFL rushing champ.  Tom Brady beat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl when I was all over their bandwagon like ugly on Steven Tyler.

Who is undoubtedly the ugliest woman I have ever seen

Some hypocrisy plays a role too.  For instance, Alex Ovechkin, Peyton Manning, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Aaron Rodgers, the Boston Red Sox, Tim Tebow- the list goes on of athletes who have received similar (if not even more) accolades and adoration to athletes/teams that I've despised.  Yet I don't root against those dudes.  I was quite ambivalent when the Red Sox won their first World Series back in 2004, and I actually sort of rooted for Manning and Rodgers in their Super Bowl wins.  So why, when I have no immediately available vested interest, do I cheer some and jeer others?

I think multi-faceted, the answer is.

Coming did not you that one see

1) Humility/underdog status- perceived or factual- plays a role.  Manning, for example, comes across as just a hard-working normal guy who gets by because of his insane amount of preparation instead of any God-given natural talent.  Sure, he was a top overall pick (whereas Favre was a second rounder) and highly touted coming into college- but I've perceived him (and his ridiculously awkward throwing motion) as more of a humble underdog than Favre, who seems more natural throwing the ball and obviously more of a dominant personality.

Same thing with Wade.  Yes, he was top-five NBA pick.  However, he seemed (at least to me) to come out of nowhere after leading Marquette University (a non-traditional power) to the Final Four.  Wade is quite possibly just as big of a prima-donna as James is, but because he didn't get on the cover of ESPN the magazine as a high school junior (and he's much more of a quiet personality than James), he has gotten a pass (for the most part).

So obviously part of it is how these guys are packaged to me through the eyes of the media and my perceptions of those packages.  I don't think that explains it fully though, hence thought number deux...

2) Alpha-dog status.  Over the past year or so, I've been processing the human experience through more of a biological/animal perspective- which frankly has been fascinating.  I don't want to dredge up any evolution/creation debates- but it is interesting to think of our behavior as if we were just animals (instead of being some elevated form of life).

With this point of reference in mind, my seemingly irrational disdain for certain individuals/teams would actually be a manifestation of some biological function.  For instance, think about territorial animals.  It's pretty natural for them to be threatened by (and respond accordingly) to a bigger, stronger alpha-male that comes into their territory.  They won't spend too much time thinking about how glorious everyone else says those gleaming, sharp teeth are.  They don't really care about the other-worldly strength possessed by those powerful arms.  They just know that now some other dude wants in on that harem action, and by "wants in on", I mean "will probably kill me and take over".  Hard to be a fan in that instance.

So yeah, maybe I look at guys like LeBron and I'm threatened by their excellence, their self-confidence, their natural gifts and the abundance of their resources.  If life was a savage jungle, obviously LeBron James would be better prepared for 'survival' than I am, which is such a sad proposition that I cannot think about him in terms of his positive traits because I hate him for the food he is indirectly taking out of my stomach. 

Or something.

The reality is that these 'off-the-cuff' thoughts don't help me to come to grips with the fact that very soon, my identity as a sports fan is about to be shaken very severely and I have no idea what the landscape will look like when it's all said and done.  The only thing I know for sure is that there is still hope for the Thunder, and my obligation as a fan is to root them on to victory- even if that victory is currently sitting in the big, toothy, powerful jaws of defeat.

OH GOD I CAN'T STAND IT!!!!

PICS: Steven Tyler- http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/20080521/300.tyler.steven.052108.jpg
Yoda- http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/e/e0/Yoda_SWSB.jpg
LeBron- http://rickischultz.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lebronjames.jpg

College football thoughts from this past weekend

Despite paying little or no attention to college football in my blog this year, in the spirit of the recently-concluded "rivalry weekend" (or I guess I could say week now, as there were games on Thursday and Friday), I'm going to force you to choose whether or not to be subjected to my musings.  (But the answer is yes).

-First of all, hats off to Michigan for beating the Buckeyes for the first time in seven years.  Granted it was a very close win at home against a far inferior opponent, but still- a win is a win.  A lot has changed at Michigan since the last time they beat the team from the south.  Michigan has been doing the Hoke-y Pokey this season, which seems to have turned themselves around (which is really what it's all about).  Jim Tressel (the anti-John Cooper) is busy rocking his sweater-vest as a consultant for worst NFL team in the world (for once, not the Detroit Lions).   Terrelle Pryor, highly esteemed four year OSU starting QB, graduated and....wait, you mean Pryor didn't graduate?  He was forced to leave school early because of a scandal?  Oh.  Never mind*.

- Urban Meyer, former Florida Gators coach and current ESPN talky guy, created quite a stir this weekend by denying reports that Ohio State had offered him its head coaching position, but then asking to be taken off of the broadcast team for the OSU-U-M game.  Meyer has admitted that if the Buckeyes make an offer, he'd have "a decision to make" (which shows that Meyer has come a long way from middle school, when girls would ask him to dance and he'd just sort of stand there until they either gave up or just grabbed his arms and dragged him to the dance floor). 

I mean, if he does decide to return to coaching, he's not going to get much of a better offer than OSU.  Top notch school, great tradition and history, able to pick from the best players every year- with a great offensive mind like Meyer has, OSU would be back on top in, like, two seasons.  Tops.

And I hate that we're even talking about this.  Not just because it's OSU, either.

What pisses me off is that he "retired" last December (which is, according to my calendar, less than a year ago) to "spend some time with his family".  I used the ".." because I think it's probably B.S.  And I'm not just hating on Meyer.  I know other coaches have done this as well, and and retiring to spend time with his family, only to quickly return to some other lucrative coaching opportunity.

At least Meyer did take some time off.  Yeah, he took off about a month and a half before he was hired by ESPN in January of 2011 to be a college football analyst.  This probably means one of three things:
1) He realized that he really doesn't like his family that much. 
2) He does like his family, but in that month and a half he was able to spend so much time with them that there was literally nothing else that they could do as a family.
3) Urban is really, really bad with money and just needed to get a job.

Of course, a fourth reason is probably that he realized Tim Tebow had graduated and that a string of 4-5+ loss seasons was looking him square in the face.  That's enough to send any coach to the hospital with chest pains.  I think coaches leave for this reason or that reason, and the "spend time with family" one is supposed to somehow dumb things down- like they're trying to convince us that they really are humans (just like us) and not simply overly-competitive workaholic megalomaniacs.
 
I wonder if his kids got really excited when they found out he was quitting the job that meant he was never, ever home (and probably distant/stressed out when he was home)- and what their feelings were when, less than two months later, he was going back to another job that meant lots of hours, phone calls on birthdays and 'hurry up and open your damn Christmas presents, I have to be at practice at 6 a.m. today' holidays. 

Note to future Urban Meyer players: If Urban Meyer ever refers to your team as 'family', then abandon ship- you know that you are about to be thrown under the bus.

-Speaking of throwing under the bus, Montee Ball from U-W decided that, in his quest to break Barry Sanders' single-season record for TDs (and by the way, when I read that, I realized how strongly I still feel about Barry Sanders because it sort of made me mad that someone was approaching his record), he would give his O-line the Marq-tran Heave-ho.  After the Badgers win against Penn State, he said (in terms of the record), "Whatever the offensive line wants.  If they want me to get there, then I'll get there".

Alright, so I guess it's not really throwing them under the bus, it's more like a well-time hip check just as the bus is coming by.

Still, I couldn't believe it when I read that.  You're putting the onus on your O-line to get you this mark?  That whether or not you achieve your record is dependent on their level of desire?  Never mind which plays the coaches call, down/distance, game situations, defensive game planning, what have you.  The latent statement here is "If I don't get it, it's because my O-line is a bunch of selfish slackers".  Which isn't really a message you want to send to the guys protecting you from the 250+ pound Ball-seeking missiles.

Montee, you've had a phenomenal season, even if you don't break the TD record (and I'm hoping you don't.  Just saying).  But could it be that maybe you got your sports cliches mixed up?  That is, you recognize that the O-line is a huge part of your success and you know that every player is an important part of the team but you had to answer a question about an individual record and there was some sort of short circuit in your brain...maybe?

It'll be interesting to see if the Badger O-line takes it personal (and I'm hoping they do.  Just saying).

-After a topsy turvey seasons end, the BCS is finally shaping up a little bit...unfortunately it looks like it's going to be an SEC title game in the NCAA title game.  As a football fan and SEC ambivalist, I'm not really looking forward to this.

I don't want to take away anything from the LSU Tigers- they were pretty much dominant in every game this season (only one win was by less than 2 TD- technically.  13 point win against Mississippi State) and they look like the best team in the country.  I'm still holding out hope that Georgia pulls the upset in the SEC title game but I'm not holding my breath.  And even if I were holding my breath, I'd wait until much, much closer to the actual game itself because I would surely pass out several times if I started now.
But after seeing Michigan lose out on a shot at a rematch against OSU a few years ago (when they met late in the season as #1 vs. #2) , I'm not overly keen on seeing LSU-Alabama II for all the marbles.  Yes, they're ranked #1 and #2- but my personal feelings are that those rankings are (maybe) more indicative of where they started the season ranked.  At seasons beginning, LSU was ranked #4 and Alabama was #2.  Now, they did each have an early season test (which they both passed)- but there was a lot of fluff to be had on those schedules as well.  And overall, the SEC had what I would call a down year. 

I've already written about the inherent flaw in the ranking system, so I won't get into that again.  In fact, I'm not even going to hyperlink to it.  If you want to read it, then by golly get up off your lazy butt and find it!  Sorry, I was just channeling my inner-Montee Ball there for a second.

As someone who likes to see underdogs succeed, it's very frustrating that teams like Oklahoma State (who admittedly had a really, really bad hiccup), Boise State (who lost a much more defensible close game at home versus a very good TCU team), and even Stanford (with only one loss, which came against a top-10 team) are going to be left on the sidelines while Alabama gets the second chance that Michigan didn't get five years ago.

- If Mark Ingram won the Heisman back in 2009 (which he did, according to my sources), then Trent Richardson deserves to win it in 2011.  I would vote for Richardson on principle, but he's had superior numbers to Ingram and ended his regular season with a monster game in the Iron Bowl against Auburn (unlike Ingram, who limped to the finish and pretty much won the Heisman because he had a captive audience the weekend the votes were cast).  There are plenty of worthy candidates- but Richardson has been a beast all year playing for the #2 ranked team.  He was held under 100 yards rushing 3 times- against Kent State (37 yards, probably only played like a quarter, did have 3 TDs), Tennessee (77 yards, had 2 TDs), and LSU (89 yards, with 80 yards receiving).  So even when he was "sub-par", he was still pretty "sup-er".  Did you see what I did there?  Impressive, no? 

So that's my football thoughts for now.  In the meantime, Go Snow Flurries!!!

*Obviously I knew about the scandal.  Even though I no longer consider myself a die-hard Michigan fan, this disdain for OSU has died hard, and I couldn't resist a little elbow-to-the-ribs of the Buckeye nation.  Nothing like a rivalry win to make me feel a little Internet bravery, eh?

Penn State and video games

This is going to sound extremely trivial, so you're going to have to bear (bare?  Gosh, I can never get this right!) with me for a bit- NCAA Football 11 for the PS3 drove home the magnitude of the Penn State sexual abuse/cover up scandal.

I don't mean this to belittle the severity of what happened or the pain of those whose lives have forever been shattered.  I just merely wish to point out that in the complexity of the human brain, we can still find surprises in the every day, mundane things.  In this instance, I spent several hours this past week reading articles about Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University and it took EA Sports and a year-old PS3 title for me to really process this historically awful event. 

Let me break it down.

Earlier this afternoon I was playing NCAA Football 11 while I try to get Shane to JUST FREAKING FALL ASLEEP ALREADY OH MY GOSH!!!!  Seriously he was not feeling well so I was doing whatever I could to get him to get bored and fall asleep.  Like a good dad should, right?  Anyways, what could be more boring than watching your dad relive his imaginary glory years than by quarterbacking a pretend school on a 27 inch television?

And ordinarily, you'd be right.

So I turned it on, started playing innocen...OH COME ON REF- THAT HOLD HAD NO RELEVANCE TO THE PLAY- GAH ALL THE COMPUTER DOES IS FRICKING CHEAT!!!!!  And that's when I started to realize what this whole Penn State fiasco means for football.

I don't mean that statement in a manner that belittles the sufferings of sexual abuse victims.  I spent about four years at a non-profit agency working with kids who had been abused and neglected.  So I have a slight idea, a limited understanding of what sexual abuse means to those kids.  It's probably the ugliest thing that can happen in our society nowadays.  So in the grand scheme, it really doesn't matter what it means to football.

But looking at college football as a separate entity...OH MY GOODNESS- how does this happen?  I know that sports are not immune to this sort of vile crime, and that I'm prone to thinking through my idiot lens.  But college football people don't do this.  College football people take steroids, and pay athletes under the table, and practice more than they're supposed to, and sell their swag for tattoos, and help their athletes stay eligible by cheating in the classroom.  College football people don't sexually abuse children.  They don't ruin innocence.  Yes, yes, I'm generalizing and type casting- but that's the college football image that has been cultivated in my mind over years and years of exposure.  Sure, we break the rules...but nobody really gets hurt.  They can't say that anymore.


The fact that it's Penn State just adds to the layer of shock.  Maybe it's just all the articles I've read in the past couple of days from Penn State alums talking about how great Penn State is/was...but this is probably the last institution I ever would have thought I'd hear that this sort of thing had happened at.  Maybe it's the boring uniforms or the lack of offseason shenanigans or the Coke-bottle glasses-wearing coach- the truth is I just never really thought about Penn State at all, which in our culture of Falling-Star worship is pretty much the highest praise I can give to an institution.  They excelled on the football field, but they kept their profile out of the tabloids.  You can't say that anymore.
And it took an afternoon playing a football video game for me to really get ahold of the concept that the Penn State scandal is not just about the loss of innocence for those 8 victims- it's about the loss of innocence for an entire sport.  Sexual abuse is no longer just something that that faceless villains to do innocent kids in nameless towns all over the world.  It's something that can happen anywhere.  Anywhere.  Even in college football, a place that I always thought was safe from that sort of thing.

Of course, having worked with a subset of the population that it has happened to, I knew this.  It's probably my biggest fear as a parent is that somewhere in the system, someone that we trust our children's lives with will brutally and shamefully violate that trust and leave our children with the most horrible and painful scars imaginable.  But I suppress it, largely because if you have that level of distrust of every person working in the system all the time- you turn into a paranoid schizophrenic. 

Still though...the lesson now is that as a parent, there is a need for some hypervigilance.  Those we used to write blank trust checks for are now the ones that we will take the closest look at.  By all accounts, Jerry Sandusky was a saint.  Now it appears he was merely a wolf dressed as a sheep.  And his alleged actions (and the actions of those like him) have made wearing wool the latest fashion faux pas. 

Today, I officially laid to rest college football's aura of innocence.  I don't grieve for the sport- rather, I grieve for those who have been hurt because of my (and those like me) obsession with it.  The culture of invincibility that we have worshipped at for countless Saturdays has been exposed as just another big business venture willing to do whatever to whoever in the name of self-interest.  That said, I will try to keep perspective in the weeks and months ahead and not just assume the worst of every coach, coordinator, and player I see. 

I just won't think they're Mr. Rogers, either. 

PIC- http://www.nickjr.com/flex_article/assets/wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper-standard.jpg

News Flash- Ohio State President is Idiot

There are things that I am, and things that I am not. And one of the things that I am not is afraid to sit here at my computer and say mean things about people. After all, isn't that what we bloggers do? Sit behind our fortresses of facelessness and beef up our bravado?

I read an article today on ESPN.com where The Ohio State U president E. Gordon Gee (Is that his real name? Was he born on Sesame Street? Thank you Santa for the early Christmas Present), or EGG as I will dub him, spouted off his opinion about mid-majors Boise State and TCU and their unworthiness of a national championship game appearance despite their undefeatedness. Now, the presidents of Boise State and TCU have already responded (which makes me smile), but I, the nameless and faceless hero, have not. But I can take it no longer- the silence has made my blood boil, and now I must unboil the blood by being unsilent. Besides, surely an NMU graduate calling out a major college president isn't the silliest calling-out to happen today.

First of all- let it be known that Gee is obviously biased in his assessment. After all- if Boise State and/or TCU get at-large bids in the BCS- well, there is a good chance that OSU is on the outside looking in, since they trail Wisconsin in the most recent BCS standings (and the BCS standings would determine the Big 10 champion if it ended in a 3-way tie), and they trail Boise State and TCU as well. There is a lot of money to be made, and right now, EGG is only in a position to window shop that money.

So what else to do, except go out into the media and plead your case to the masses. I remember Nebraska doing the same thing in 1997- Michigan and Nebraska were both undefeated, but Michigan was number 1, and there was no BCS back then, no way for them to actually settle it on the field. Naturally, what else is a Cornhusker to do except make a lot of noise about how they would just destroy Michigan on the football field (well, that and to have legendary Nebraska coach Tom Osborne retire just before their bowl game. Interesting timing Tom).

Now that we've established that EGG is at best unreliable because he is too close to the situation to be a really objective observer, we can begin to rip on the things that he said.

Far be it from me to judge another human being though. So while I allow the very words of EGG to echo throughout all of teh interwebz, I'll let you make the call. Well, I'll let you make the call after I tell you what he said and then provide my own possibly-slanted commentary.

The following are actual EGG quotes

-"Well, I don't know enough about the X's and O's of college football"- No commentary. Slam dunk. Anytime someone admits that they are ignorant about something, you just slide into 'pretend to listen' mode. If you are trying to speak authoritatively on a subject and then admit that you don't really know much about that subject- then you just laid an egg. EGG.

- "I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it's like murderer's row every week for these schools." First of all, I've seen The Longest Yard. Both of them. So I can definitively say that you do not play murderer's row every week. Maybe armed robbers row? Or white collar criminals row? I don't know- I'm sure Ohio and Eastern Michigan are not perpetrators of any violent crimes.

-"We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day."-Oh right, how silly of me to forget that the Big 10 is home to such football goliaths as Indiana (4-7), Purdue (4-7, lost to Toledo), and Minnesota (2-9, lost to South Dakota). On second thought, I believe you owe Little Sisters of the Poor an apology.

-"So I think until a university runs through that gantlet that there's some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to [be] in the big ballgame."- Aside from structurally being a confusing statement- you've already admitted that you don't know much about football. There's much more to the game then the name of the school, or the name of the conference.

-"If you put a gun to my head and said, 'What are you going to do about a playoff system (if) the BCS system as it now exists goes away?'"- What kind of sick masochist thinks of this kind of stuff? Why would somebody ask you a question like that with a gun to your head? They aren't making you do something against your will- they're merely asking for information. 'Give me your opinion or I'll shoot you'. Yeah, that's not how it works- trust me, I've seen Taken.

-"It's not about this incessant drive to have a national championship because I think that's a slippery slope to professionalism"- Because there aren't any athletes getting paid in college sports at this time.

-"I'm a fan of the bowl system and I think that by and large it's worked very, very well."- Let's ask 1994 Penn State about that bowl system. I guess the success depends on how you define your goals. If you want a bunch of meaningless games played in warm weather locations in front of sparsely populated stadiums? The bowl system has been amazing. If you want a definitive national champion? The bowl system sucks ass-assin.

-"You know, it's a mystery," Gee said. "We were No. 1 then No. 11 then No. 7 and we ended up playing for the national championship. I think I kind of like that mixed-up mystery."- You know what else would have mystery and intrigue? Putting the names of all the colleges in the country onto a dartboard, and then putting on a blindfold and throwing darts until you hit the name of a school on the dartboard, and then proclaiming that college as the National Champion.

Mr. EGG, I don't know much about you, other than the fact that you have an amazing name and that you are president of one of the most prestigious universities in all the land. As sole owner and contributor to this blog, I have made many posts that ended up making me look like a fool. This is, of course, in addition to the countless accolades of foolishness I have accumulated over a lifetime of being a fool. When it comes to being a fool, I am peerless as an expert.

So believe me when I tell you that your comments about college football- well, they made you look like a fool. Admittedly, there is no love lost between me and your university (well, there was a little love lost when my bestest cousinfriend Chris went to your school)- but please- I am extending the olive branch now. Leave football alone, and concentrate on the academics of your fine institution

If you continue to put your nose where it doesn't belong- you might just end up poached. Oh come on, I was on a roll. You know you love it.