Tomarrow Is A Big Day

Well folks tomarrow marks the day in which alumni set with baited breath as high schools senior football players make their final choice of the school they will attend. I rank recruiting right up there with fantasy football in terms of total waste of time. Before I go on I have to say that I find myself following recruiting just like most alumni do but I also recognize that it is unrealistic to expect these players to be the next superstars of college football. While recruiting is a big part of the game and it extends the excitement of college football into Febuary, once these players step onto campus they will have to produce. While this expectation is held by many alumni it is not always the case. What we tend to forget is, while these kids are talented, they are still kids who act like kids. There are many examples of highly recruited athletes that have fizzled out once they stepped on campus and all Memphis fans have to do is look at the basketball roster throughout the 1990's. You could have the number 1 recruiting class in the nation but if you don't have a good coach than the recruiting means nothing. A perfect example of this is Gerry Dinardo. When he was at LSU he had a couple of #1 recruiting classes but where is he today? Fired from LSU and Indiana he now works for ESPN Radio. So here is a note to all those Ole Miss fans who believe that they are on track to be a national champion contender because someone rated their recruiting class #13, look south and ask yourself "Where is Gerry Dinardo?"

Can Men Be Men?

In today's society there is a growing debate concerning issues of masculinity and men. This was reinforced this week with Newsweek's cover article titled The Boy Crisis. The article focuses on the problems that boys are experiencing today in terms of socialization, education, as well as behavior issues. The article compares the problems that boys experience versus the problems girls face. This issue touches on an idea that I have been thinking about for a while now and that deals with the social problems that men experience and the popularity of college and professional sports. I believe that the reason that the reason that viewership and attendance to sporting events has increased is due to the fact that sports is a safe vehicle for men to be men.

Wherever you turn today men are being told how to dress, how to act, how we need to be more caring and nurturing, and how we need to be more emotional and sensitive. Media entities have grasped on to this notion and run with. Men's magazines tell us that we need to have six pack abs to attract women. Queer Eye For the Straight Guy tells us that we can't dress, we don't know how to style our hair, we need to wax our eyebrows, we need to organize our spaces just so, and we need to have the right wine to go with the Pate that we need to serve to our dates. Today's modern man needs to be an androgenous metrosexual much like that big toothed entertainment reporter Stephen CojoCaru. We are to be feminine and reject much of our masculine traits. So where is the last refuge for men? You either hunt or you can lose yourself in sports. There is a comfort zone in the world of sports. Sports bars and arenas are safe havens for men in which we don't have to care about all of this stuff. We can go to a game with our buddies drink beer, dip, spit, cuss, eat all the red meat that we want, take our shirts off, yell, and be as roudy as we can without going to jail. It is acceptable and we don't have to worry about what people think because the majority people, in the arenas, are other men. Sporting arenas are also an acceptable place for men to cry. It is not acceptable to cry at funerals, weddings, the birth of a child but it is ok to cry when your team has just won the Super Bowl or the National Championship. Hell it is a source of pride because you are more of a fan when it means that much to you.

Sporting events are where fathers and sons bond, where male freindships are built, and where men are comfortable being free. I know that there will be people who disagree with me but if you sit down and apply this idea to your own life, you will see that there is some truth to what I say; that is unless your are a woman then forget everything you just read.

The Two Man Line and Joe Lee

Memphis fans know what I am talking about when I talk about the two man defensive line. This year, due to the number of injuries, the Memphis Tigers started playing a two man defensive line. We had two tackles play inside and the linebackers would come up were the ends would play. Now why am I talking about this? During the playoffs I have noticed that the Steelers have played this front before them the Patriots palyed this front as well. This is the first time that I can remember seeing this front played in the NFL but the Tigers played this at times last year. Now could the Memphis coaching staff be innovative enough to be impacting the game of football as a whole? I think it is pretty cool that the pros are copying colleges again.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, today we moved up to number 3.

Who will the NFL be rooting for?

This question is a good one considering that the NFL needs the Steelers and the Seahawks to play in the Super Bowl. Why? They will need viewers in order to maintain the ad rate that they are currently receiving. The Steelers bring a large national fan base, something the other three don't have. What Seattle has is a marketable player in Shawn Alexander, The NFL MVP. While the Broncos have a following it is nothing compared to what the Steelers. The Panthers have been to the Super Bowl but they do not have the national following or the appeal for the novice fan who watches the NFL sporadically. This year's game while not reach the numbers of previous decades or even come close to Super Bowl XXX, when the Cowboys beat the Steelers.

What will be sad is if the commercials outshine the play on the feild and the NFL cannot afford that because viewers while tune out and the broadcast will lose out. We can't have the game that we did last year but we can only hope that we don't return to the days of the massive blowouts.

What happened to Indy? Up until yesterday I thought I had seen both of Peyton Manning's tank jobs, the 2000 divisional and 1996 game against Memphis but yesterday he just flat out did not show up niether did Marvin Harrison. I hated Peyton in college but love to watch in the NFL and I kind of felt sorry for him until he began to blaim his line. While it was true he should have kept his mouth shut. Oh, I wonder how he feels about that stupid kicker? One name comes to mind Scott Norwood.

So much for the Bears vaunted defense. God, I truly hate Steve Smith and I am not a Bears Fan.

The only joy that I had, watching football, was watching the Redskins lose. As long as I live I will never, and I mean never, root for the Redskins, Yankees, or the UT Volunteers. I don't care if Jesus Christ himself played for these teams, I'd still would root for the opposing team.

Writers Block

I am currently struggling to find my wit and wisdom from which my posts come, therefore I have decided to add a little wit and wisdom from other people.

Violence, in its many forms, is an involuntary quest for identity. When our identity is in danger, we feel certain that we have a mandate for war. Marshall McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village

I've known women who thought football was worthless and brutal. But they just don't understand the nature of the male. Most of those big time collisions don't really hurt. The players are dressed and protected. They are young and strong. Anyway, the fact is that young men enjoy it. Nothing is going to stop it. If we could just have a Super Bowl between Russia and the United States, instead of all those tanks and ballistic missiles, things would be alot better. Paul Brown

Jonesing for a Game, Man!

I am sorry that I haven't written in awhile I have been going through detox and I have been having football dts. This is always a sad time for me because I go from engrossing myself in football every day of the week to a few games on the weekend and finally to nothing. The NFL playoffs have been anticlimatic and I have yet to get excited about them. I pray that next weekends games are better than this past ones. These past games can't be fairly judge anyway because we had a week of some really great bowl games and anything and the NFL truly had a hard time competing with the bowls. Well anyway I am off to find a fix either in a book aboout football or tapes of old games.

What Happened To the Greatest College Football Team of All Time?

This is what happens when the you count your chickens before they hatch, sometimes they don't hatch. That is what happened last night when USC lost to Texas. The Longhorns wheren't given much of a chance because they were going up against the Greatest College Team of All Time. How could USC loose? I will tell you how play a team with a defense that is fast and hard hitting. They play a team that isn't intimidated by the Trojans and who are willing and able to go toe to toe with them. They play a team who truly has the best player in the country and who has a chip on his shoulder. I just wish that next years greatest team of all time actually lives up to the hype. Oh and we saw why Reggie Bush won't be the superstar that he is hyped. As was shown last night you can rattle his cage when you hit him and neutralize his speed.