Category: Sports

  • Open Letter to the NCAA

    Dear NCAA,

    Congratulations on another year of controversy! Congrats to Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators. They are the BCS Champions but not the National Champions. This year we clearly don’t have a National Champion because your system is broken.

    Congrats to USC. Congrats to Texas. Congrats to Utah. Congrats to Florida.

    Each legitimately claim they are National Champions this year! That’s right, with 5 BCS games, 4 of them ended with a team legitimately and openly claiming they should be the National Champion. (The fifth game played by Cincinnati and Virginia Tech didn’t deserve to be a BCS game. The Holiday Bowl was really the fifth BCS game. Did you watch it? It was a great game! How did the Orange Bowl go? I didn’t hear anything about it. Was it on TV?)

    And yet the BCS claims this is somehow fair? Just because the bowls make bucketloads of money doesn’t make them right! It’s time you, the NCAA, kicked the BCS to the curb.

    We all know that in every other NCAA Division IA sport there is a playoff. And we also know that in every other division in college football there is a playoff which ends with a national champion. It’s time the players of Division IA determined who the champion will be on the field instead of in a vote.

    Here’s are two simple solutions:

    Option A: After Thanksgiving weekend take the top 16 teams based on the AP/Coaches polls and put them in a simple bracket based purely on their rankings. #1 plays #16 and so on. With 4 rounds the best team may not win, but the hottest team will. Since win did the #1 team in the AP/Coaches poll win the Division IA basketball championship?

    Option B: Set up a system where each of the top 11 conference champions get an automatic bid to the playoff. Then have a committee chose 5 at-large teams and place them in a 16 team bracket. Just to clarify, that’s the Big 10, Big East, Big 12, ACC, Conference USA, Mountain West, MAC, Pac 10, SEC, Sun Belt, and WAC. Yes, that means that teams like Notre Dame don’t get an automatic bid. Tell the Irish to get over the 1960s slight and join the Big 10. How will those conferences determine who is their champion? It seems like most of them are smart enough to figure that out. Playoff. Conference Champion. Rock, paper, scissors, who cares? They pick their best team and you take that.

    What about the money? In case you didn’t know… March Madness makes a bucketload of money for everyone involved. Just share it. Champion gets 4 shares. 2nd place 3 shares. Final 4 teams get 2. Everyone else gets 1 share. How is that not fair?

    For the bowl games not included in the playoff allow them to pick teams like they do now and have exhibitions. Their fans will still come. They will still be on TV.You know that line of arguement is

    What about the big bowls? Do what you do now! Pick 8 bowls to be the Saturday of Christmas. In case you haven’t noticed all of the non-football fans will go to the mall and all of the football fans will stay home and watch TV. You’ve got 4 BCS games on New Years so that’s covered. Then the Championship game could be the weekend between the NFC/AFC Championship and the Super Bowl. I don’t know about a lot of other football fans, but I’m willing to move New Year’s day to line those final 4 games up with the NFL’s schedule. Do we have to talk to Congress about that? Let me know… I know some people over there. President Obama emails me all the time.

    It’s about the money! Fair enough… trust me… give us a playoff and it’ll be just as big as March Madness. Rabid fans really will go to 3 bowl games! Ask the guys in Vegas to kick in a few bucks.

    Who gets the championship? This is where the fairness ends. Make the championship game the Rose Bowl every year. It really is the grand daddy of them all. The Rose Bowl is beautiful… make it there every year. Tell the Big 10 and Pac 10 to earn their way in and get over it.

    Thanks for your consideration. Get to work on that and let me know.

    God Bless America and God Bless the NCAA,

    Adam McLane

  • Don’t Fire Charlie Weis

    I just read Pat Forde’s latest attack on Notre Dame. All season long, he’s called the players names, the coach names, even the fans names. Now he thinks that his pens will fell Charlie Weis. I hope that doesn’t happen.

    Here are some reasons why:

    1. The team is young. I have watched most of the games this year and I think it’s a joke that when they win the commentators talk about how young the team is, when they lose they talk about how horrible a coach Charlie Weis is. Most of the offensive starters are freshmen and sophomores. That means that next year they will be a year stronger, smarter, and more hungry to beat teams who humiliated them.

    2. It won’t stop the cycle of change. The first two years under Weis he was dealt a perfect hand by his predessesor. Let’s say they fire Weis and hire somebody else… of course that guy will look great for the next two year as Weis’ young players will mature and begin to win. But that just means in 4 years we will be right back in this same spot, firing a coach.

    3. 12 non-conference games makes it impossible to win a national championship. It’s now been 20 years since Lou Holtz, Tim Brown, Tony Rice and Rhagib Ismael brought a championship to South Bend. 1993 proved why the Irish need to be in a conference. (Beating #1 Florida State, then losing to unranked Boston College.) Join the Big 10 and give them 2 divisions with a championship game like the SEC or join the Big East and beat up on South Florida every year. Heck, start your own conference!

    4. Ditch the NBC deal. Pundits like Forde think buying out Weis’ $30 million contract is doable. Why not go all the way and dump NBC? Since the deal in 1990 they haven’t won a national championship. In fact, only 1993 and 2005 have they been in remote contention.Think about it, for most of the teams on their schedule this is their biggest game of the year. If you are a player at BYU or North Carolina you are only likely to get on National TV in front of every NFL scout is when you play Notre Dame. Unlike every other major football powerhouse, every Notre Dame game is a big deal. For teams like San Diego State it is their Super Bowl. No wonder the Irish struggle.

    5. Academically, the Irish are strong. For 5 years we had to listen to Bob Davie whine about the academic requirements of Notre Dame. With more than 90% of football players earning college degrees, Weis has proven that he can maintain a program of academic excellence while still recruiting solid players.

    I hate to sound like a Cubs fan, but I think the next 2 years are going to prove the Weis is building a program that Irish fans will be proud of for years to come.

    Let’s just hope that the President of Notre Dame and the new athletic director don’t listen to ESPN.

  • College Football Check-in

    Here’s a mid-season check-in of my favorite teams.

    #1 Notre Dame For a team that barely won 3 games last year, I’m please with their progress. I actually think some fans expected the Irish to win 8-9 games based on their week schedule. Essentially, they have beaten the team’s on their schedule that they were supposed to while gotten beat by ranked opponenents. With Syracuse and USC left on their schedule I think they will end up 7-5 before getting waxed in a bowl game. Some have said Charlie Weis is on the hot seat, I don’t see it that way at all. This is a rebuilding process, his team is very young. Now if they are 8-4 next year or less… I can see dumping him.

    #2 Michigan State I’ve watched a couple of their games and been quite impressed. They have climbed to #15 in the polls and if they can manage squeak past Penn State and Michigan pulls off the upset of the millenium, they would be rose bowl bound. Most importantly, they didn’t collapse after the Michigan game. Kudos to State for finally figuring out how to play a whole season.

    #3 Michigan Back in September I said it would be a down year and boy has it lived up to that hype. At 3-8 they have often been stunningly bad. I also said that they would have a chance to beat Ohio State. As long as the bus brings the Buckeyes to the correct stadium on Saturday morning I don’t see Michigan having a chance. That said, it’s a rivalry game and anything is possible. No, I take that back. Michigan has as good a chance of beating Ohio State as Jennifer Graham does in getting re-elected in 2010.

    #4 San Diego State At 1-10 it is tough to find anything good to say about the Aztecs. Sadly, I never made it to one of their games either. When they played Notre Dame I thought they may have a chance to be .500. I must have been on crack that day. The good news is that I may be able to enroll in the grad school and walk on for the Aztecs. Sure, I’ve never played high school football. But I’m pretty good at NCAA 2008 for the Wii.

  • My favorite football teams

    College football gets into full swing today. Technically, it started last week yet it wasn’t a full schedule. I thought it was good to clarify just who I get excited about in college football for this season.

    #1 Notre Dame (I grew up about a mile from the campus, been to a ton of games, love me some Fighting Irish.)

    #2 Michigan State (Not sure why I like them, but I enjoy watching the Spartans. I think they can have a decent year.)

    #3 Michigan (This is a rebuilding year for them. I don’t expect them to be above .500 as the new coach wasn’t left with a lot of talent. But I still like watching them. The crazy thing is that it doesn’t matter how bad they are, they still have a shot against Ohio State.)

    #4 San Diego State (I know they aren’t good this year, but they are the closest D-1 team to us. They play about 3 miles from our house.

  • Photo Post: Padres Game

    I think he’s the 3rd base coach
    3rd Base Coach Talks to a Runner
    Everybody Dance!
    No idea who this is
    Synchronized dusting
    This is the sad part of the picture
    Full of nachos, lemonaide, and cotton candy the boy is out
    Down by 5, not sure the urgency

  • My Olympic Rant

    Beijing Olympics

    So the Olympics are over. A little over 2 weeks ago the world watched the fabulous spectacle that was the opening ceremonies. Then for 16 days the nation was captivated while new stars were born and China sold itself to the world as the new mecca.

    At the same time there was a large group of people uncomfortable with the Olympic spectacle. For me, these thoughts ran rampant through my mind as I tried to watch the closing ceremonies:

    – China is not a free nation. No freedom of speech, freedom of press, or freedom of movement. 

    – China is among the worst human rights violators. There is no doubt that thousands of people were rounded up and imprisoned for the games. I don’t think I heard NBC talking about China’s one child policy, did you? False imprisonment? The fact that the United States #1 religion is illegal in China. Did you hear that?

    – China has a labor problem. I couldn’t watch the opening/closing ceremonies without thinking about child labor, slave labor, and human trafficking. 

    – China is not a nation of middle class. There are extreme rich and extreme poor. Watching them drop $40 billion on the games… an injustice.

    NBC OlympicAnd I was disappointed to see NBC be a party to all of this. The story in China is not Michael Phelps or the basketball team, volleyball team, gymnastics success or relay team failure. To see NBC Sports play along and not mention it shows that they are more interested in corporate profits than covering the story. It’s pathetic to me that now, once the games are over, they are talking about how they were censored and how they observed things. 

    The American people needed a chance to see for themselves what is happening. And instead of C-SPAN we got The Disney Channel. 

  • Sportsmanship on Display

    sportsmanship at central washington universityOn April 26th, Central Washington faced Western Oregon for an important softball match-up. When Sara Tuchholsky, a player for Western Oregon, settled in for her at bat she would have no idea it would be her last.

    With the swing of the bat Sara did something she’d never done before in her softball career. She hit a 3 run home run to put her team in the lead. “Surprised by her accomplishment, Tucholsky missed first base as she ran past it. She turned around to tag the base, but her knee gave out, sending her to the ground with a painful injury. It was later determined to likely be a torn ACL.”

    But the story didn’t end there. What happened next has made this a national news story. When Sara simply couldn’t run the bases and her home run at risk of not counting, two players from Central Washington asked the umpires if they could carry Sara around the bases so her home run would count.
    “Umpires conversed and decided that yes, it would be allowable. So Holtman and Wallace, locking their hands under Tucholsky, gently lifted and carried her from base to base, allowing her to tap each base with her left foot. The three players exchanged giggles as they made it around the field.”

    “We didn’t even know that while we were carrying her around the bases, people in the stands were crying,” Holtman said. “We just thought it was the right thing to do.”

    It was the right thing to do. What an awesome example of sportsmanship! I hope this story gets printed out and pinned up by every athletic director in the country.

    HT to Robin

  • Boycott the Olympics?

    olympicsIn the next few weeks there will be a growing public outcry for the United States and many other major nations to boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing.

    It bears refreshing our memory that China is, indeed, one of the worst human rights violators on the planet. Up until 2008 China was on the State Departments list of 10 worst human rights violators in the world.

    Obviously, the Tibet issue is front page news today. But let’s not forget about the other continued violations. Organ harvesting. No political freedom. No freedom of the press. No freedom of speech. No freedom of movement. No freedom to work. No religious freedom. And of course the one-child policy which has led to female infanticide, forced abortions, selective abortion, and abandonment.

    There is little doubt that the last 10 years has seen lots of reform in China. But I think it is worth thinking through… should the United States support an Olympic Games in a nation with such widespread human rights problems? How can we sit idly, pretend everything is OK, watch coverage on NBC and do nothing? Of course, the Olympic Team from our country will go. A boycott is not plausible. It’s all about money and everyone would say that a boycott would be bad for the economy. And it would be bad for US/China business relationships. There are a lot of palms to be greased, a lot of hospitality tents to fill, and a lot of complimentary freebies to give to one another in the name of the Olympics.

    If we don’t come up with an answer, expect to see a lot more stuff like this…

  • Notre Dame is a Lock for the Big Dance

    notre dame logoAs a Notre Dame fan there hasn’t been a lot to be excited about for football. But with the basketball team things are looking great. At 21-5, Mike Brey and his Irish team have pretty much sealed the deal for getting into the group of 64 for March Madness.

    I’ve watched them in about 4 games this year. In each they have been in control, working together, and are always displaying great sportsmanship.

    The hope is that they make it to the Sweet 16 or beyond. It’s awful fun to have something to cheer about out of South Bend.  

  • Unbelievable whiffle ball pitcher

    First of all, I didn’t know how popular whiffle ball was. We played a lot growing up… but this kid is sick.

    HT to Digger