sports

The Gator sports blog Orange & Blue Hue consistently has some of the best writing on the web. Check out this quote from an article on the upcoming Florida @ Vanderbilt game:

You want a pushover wallflower opponent for Homecoming? [Vanderbilt] would be happy to oblige. The ‘Dores would like to storm the dance, pee in the pineapple punch, punch you in the balls, take your girlfriend behind the gym for an unrespectable encounter and then impress her parents with their Cotillion-refined manners.

There is a reason that Tebow’s nickname at Florida is The Chosen One. Here’s a terrific example of the man’s character taken from the recent New York Times article, “X’s and O’s: Tebow Studies How They Work”:

He said he was annoyed by NCAA limits on his charity work. He said that he could not play in a golf tournament to raise money for breast cancer earlier this year and that he saw football as a way to spread his faith.

“It’s just smart,” he said of exploring his NFL options. “If you get an opportunity to take care of your family for the rest of your life.”

“But not just that, to start all the ministries I want to do and everything. I mean, that’s something that you’ve definitely got to look at it.”

• Stocks skidded Monday, with the Dow slumping nearly 778 points, in the biggest single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government’s $700 billion bank bailout plan.
• The Yankees will sit out the postseason for the first time in 15 years.
• Vanderbilt is in first place in the SEC East.

Time to start stock-piling water, kids.

Do you remember when Robin Williams attempts to teach Nathan Lane how to be a real man in The Birdcage? It’s one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies. Williams asks,

How do you feel about that call today? I mean the Dolphins! Fourth-and-three play on their 30 yard line with only 34 seconds to go!

Today it was the Gators and fourth and one with a little under a minute to go. Either way it’s the same. I just can’t believe it. Again. How does the Heisman trophy winner fail to get a single yard? You really can’t blame Tebow, though. That game was lost on the sidelines.

It was another brutal early season weekend in college football. (Didn’t this happen last year, too?) Yes, seven of the AP top twenty-five teams lost, but that doesn’t make it any easier if you happened to be on the losing side.

[click to continue...]

In his first season the UCLA Bruins head coach Rick Neuheisel has lost one game by a total of 59 points.

In his first seven seasons the USC Trojans head coach Pete Carroll lost 14 games by a (combined) total of 59 points.

Yesterday morning on ESPNRadio’s Tirico & Van Pelt Show, Mike Tirico asked if the NFL was in jeopardy because of the season-ending knee injury suffered by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Scott Van Pelt — rightfully, in my opinion — argued that the NFL is going to be fine. Tirico countered by asking if Tiger Woods’ injury is hurting the game of golf right now. I don’t remember Van Pelt’s response, because somehow they got off on a tangent about how Scott doesn’t like Oreos. (Who doesn’t like Oreos?!) I really don’t see the comparison, though.

Tiger Woods is without any question the best golfer in the world. He is arguably the best golfer ever. Brady is a great quarterback and is surely an integral part of the Patriots gameplan. But he’s not the best player in the NFL. Brady is not even the best quarterback in the NFL. (I hate to say it, because he went to the hated University of Tennessee, but Peyton Manning currently holds that title.) Yes, it really stinks for millions of fantasy football players who have Brady on their starting lineups, and it is certainly going to have a tremendous impact on the ratings, but the NFL is a team sport.

And, assuming you agree with the last line of this brilliant news item, Tom Brady is doing just fine.

[click to continue...]

Every year around this time I get to enjoy one of my all-time favorite acronyms. (You know I’m an acronymphomaniac, right?) All of the important data utilized by the National Football League is stored in the “Game Statistics & Information System” — GSIS.

As far as the NFL is concerned, GSIS is awesome and GSIS knows all. This leads to some wonderful conversations …

• Want to know who’s got the most rushing yards right now? Ask GSIS.
• Who scored first in last week’s Steelers game? Check with GSIS.
• Did Tom Brady get a rushing TD in week 7 last year? GSIS can tell you.
• When do the Broncos play the Jets? GSIS knows.

In less than 24 hours I will be once again sitting in front of a television and watching college football. The Gators kick off at 9:30 AM (Pacific) tomorrow morning and I’ll be watching them play Hawaii on DirecTV channel 788. And so will begin the most wonderful time of the year. Go Gators!

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports criticizes IOC President Rogge:

Jacques Rogge is so bought, so compromised, the president of the IOC doesn’t have the courage to criticize China for telling a decade of lies to land itself these Olympic Games.

All the promises made to get these Games — on Tibet, Darfur, pollution, worker safety, freedom of expression, dissident rights — turned out to be phony, perhaps as phony as the Chinese gymnasts’ birthdates Rogge was way too slow to investigate. …

Rogge’s ripping of Usain Bolt’s supposed showboating in two of the most electrifying gold-medal performances of these Games has to be one of the most ill-timed and gutless acts in the modern history of the Olympics.

BMX? Men’s BMX and Women’s BMX? Water Polo? Volleyball? Beach Volleyball? Badminton? Table Tennis? Kayaking? Basketball? Field Hockey? Trampoline? Race Walking?

Look. I know that Ping-Pong Table Tennis and Synchronized Swimming have been in the Olympics for a long time. That doesn’t mean they need to remain in the Olympics. Can’t we just all agree that these were silly mistakes, sudden displays of horrible taste, fads gone wild? And who fell asleep at the controls and allowed these new ridiculous “sports” into the Games? Good grief.

And I know I’m alone on this one, but I can’t even get comfortable with Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, and Softball. Hello? These are team sports. What happened to the Olympics being all about individual achievement?

There is an excellent glossary of rowing terms on the NBC Olympics site.

Mac users: You can use this link to subscribe to the Florida Gators 2008 Football iCal Schedule, published by Yahoo!.

We are then introduced to the shabby state of both the grounds keeping and of stadium security at the Polo Grounds, as we see an angry rabbit (Bugs Bunny, RHP/UT) is able to heckle the visiting team from left field, where he has dug a fairly substantial hole, and is enjoying a carrot-dog and (it appears) has consumed a large bottle of wine through a straw.
…
In a tense confrontation at home, we see the Gorillas replace the umpire by force with one of their own so that they can call Bunny out at home in the next play. Bunny, to his credit, then manages to argue the fake umpire into reversing his own call.

Vote756.com: I’m going with option B, the asterisk.