Us, Weakly

There are many reasons I love sports and follow it the way I do. For one, I am a compulsive gambler. I also have nothing better to do than own twenty different fantasy teams. But I used to think the main reason was because I love competition. Watching men in real time battle physically and mentally is like nothing else; it's pure reality. Well, unless you're watching baseball.

But this whole Tiger Woods mess is shining a different light on what I may have secretly enjoyed about athletics all along; all of the information that I want, and the kind of information I want, is dependent on me. If you follow politics or celebrities, you only get what the newsmakers want to give you. Only after sifting through piles and piles of bullshit can you actually find unbiased information. Everything is blown up, polarized and branded for mass consumption. Barely any of it is real.

That's why the Woods story isn't a sports story. Yeah, it's all over ESPN and every other sports network, but hey, it's Tiger freakin' Woods. I wrote on Friday that we were lucky that Tiger crashed his car on Thanksgiving weekend because it would turn into a non-story. That was before it came out that he was having an affair. Now it's turned into a tabloid fiasco.

And all of these "revelations" about Tiger are fed to us. We can't look up stats for his marriage or break down footage of his parenting skills. We can only learn what we've been told, with no chance of finding out the truth for ourselves. This formula is what fuels the tabloid world and networks like CNN and Fox News. We either have no way to learn how Brad and Angelina are really doing or don't take the time to really read the President's health care plan. We take everything at face value.

But sports has layers that we can dissect ourselves. Everything is out in the open in three hours of game tape. It would be like watching a Zapruder film of Woods' car crash. There would be no need for sensationalism if everyone had the same knowledge to work with.

Not to say this whole incident has no sports angle. I can talk all day about how I think this could affect his career. Will he cave mentally and no longer return to form or turn into Michael Jordan with an "Eff You" attitude where he simply doesn't care anymore? It will be interesting to watch. But every piece of "news" that breaks from here on out will be basically meaningless, because it's coming from sources that make a living out of controlling the story.

Sorry, I'm a thinker, and I like to get the information for myself, because I can trust myself. I don't need to be told what to think, keep the tabloids to yourself. Plus, there aren't any bookies that let me gamble on Jon and Kate.

Lucky Stripes

Sometimes we get lucky. Like the time I accidentally put a $50 chip on 17 while playing roulette, and when that little white ball settled on my number, the dealer stood up, pointed at me, and yelled "DUDE!!!". Or the numerous times I've done karaoke and nobody had a video camera rolling. Luck happens even to the unluckiest of people.

There's a lot of luck in sports, but mostly it's in the form of tipped passes and glaring lights blinding Matt Holiday. Real luck - like Texas, Florida or Alabama losing so we can see the BCS screw over two more teams, or Andre Agassi winning that final US Open - rarely happens. But we lucked out in a huge way. This Thanksgiving weekend I give thanks to one thing: that Tiger Woods crashed his car on a Friday.

Because if the world's #1 golfer, who is as clean as John Daly is dirty, would've been in an accident on Monday, ESPN would be as unwatchable as the week following the World Series. Skip Bayless would assure you that this is a sign that Woods' head isn't in the game. Jay Mariotti would have barked that we should have seen this coming. Tony Kornheiser would have shown remorse, and Michael Wilbon, solemnly, would have said, "Yeah, Tony".

But it didn't happen that way. Tiger Woods crashed his car, and then was removed from the car by his wife after she smashed the window with a golf club, on a Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. Most sports personalities had taken their vacations. People weren't at work to be bored and sift through all the headlines. By Monday, the story will seem like a year old, and more than likely will not carry any weight. Thank God.

This is one of those unfortunate circumstances that happens to all people. It's the ugly side of life. Whether Woods was drunk or if there was some kind of domestic dispute can be left up to imagination, but what is certain is that the general public does not want a hero like Tiger Woods to have these things occurring in his life. It's the kind of blind faith that kept us from realizing Brett Favre was an egomaniac or that Michael Jordan is perhaps the meanest son of a bitch who has ever lived.

The reason Woods' car crash disturbed people at first glance was the same reason for the media uproar about Michael Phelps' pot use; we want to believe that given the same opportunities and advances that our athletic heroes have had, we would be mistake-free.

Of course, that's impossible. But ask a coworker sometime about their plans if they won the lottery. You always hear the same thing: take care of family and friends, buy a house, invest, etc. These are mature responses. You never hear someone say "I'm going to the strip club and making it rain!" or "I'm going to Vegas and gonna blow 100 Gs!" But that's what we would really do. We would celebrate and flaunt our newly given power, for no other reason that we can.

So when we hear of professional athletes making mistakes, we get angry because we feel that given the same life, we could do better. But I suggest that most of us could never be the stand-up citizen that Tiger Woods is if given his power. That makes his one mistake that much more impressive.

We all could be heroes, except for that one day.

Thanks For Tradition

I hate to reference the same book in one week, but sometimes writing has an effect on you that cannot be shaken for at least a month. Like the first time I read The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved, or the first time your daughter read Twilight.

Some interesting points were brought up in Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur. One of which is the parallels between football and conservatism. On face value, conservatives probably love this idea, but the point, as I recall, is that both football and the conservative movement thrive on one main perception; though their fan base thinks that their beliefs stand on solid ground, in reality, the core ideals of both movements have adapted with the times so as to keep their stranglehold on the American public.

As football fanatics still believe the game they are watching now still has the same rules and philosophies as the game of old, so do conservatives believe that their party is consistent with the men who ran on the same namesake when they were kids. And of course, as any NBA fan or liberal will tell you, those beliefs are completely misguided.

Just as right-wing government has been passing around cash like Pacman Jones and conservative leaders are throwing family values out their mistress's window, football to has not been sticking to their core beliefs. During Monday night's Texans/Titans game, a defender was charged a fifteen yard penalty for "horse-collaring" Tennessee's Chris Johnson, when all he did was tug the back of Johnson's jersey. You can't sack a quarterback anymore without being brought up on charges. The conservative game of today was the liberal game of yesterday. The NFL has yet to accept change, though their game has progressed further than any Ralph Nader supporter.

But through all of it, one thing remains the same: the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions will host games on Thanksgiving. The league has added a third rotation game to be broadcast on the NFL Network, but I (and more than likely you) do not get the NFL Network, so that doesn't count.

Debate has sprung on whether the NFL should scrap the Cowboys/Lions tradition and rotate all teams for a Thanksgiving game. A recent ESPN poll shows that every state except Texas and Michigan is in support of this idea, obviously. But would that be good for football?

I say no. In the Age of Information, certain things have come to light. Joe Namath wasn't very good, the worst team today (Raiders) would demolish the great teams of old. The game is different, as Klosterman pointed out. It's not the NFL you or I grew up with. Nothing is sacred. Al Davis is universally known as the worst owner, nobody outside of Kansas City knows who Lamar Hunt is.

But it didn't use to be this way. Al Davis was a genius at one time. It's true. But you wouldn't know it growing up with today's NFL. It's a completely different sport, and that's okay. Though, it would be nice to hold on to something old, something to remind us of what the league used to be like. If nothing else, that is watching the Cowboys and Lions play on Thanksgiving.

No it doesn't make sense, and it may be hurting the NFL. But just like conservatives, the idea of holding on to traditional values makes it all worth the while.

Mangino Isn't The Problem

I'm not sure if there is a growing epidemic in Kansas, or if the problems I see stretch as far as the swine flu, but one thing is for sure: the wave of sensitivity in sports is absolutely pathetic. I just wrote about the crying over Chiefs coach Todd Haley's fondness for F-bombs. Now, it's Kansas Jayhawks coach Mark Mangino.

We all know by now that Mangino repeatedly yelled at, berated, and put his hands on his players. He was, for lack of a better word, abusive, both mentally and physically. Reports of Mangino giving the same treatment to campus police also paint the coach as a mean, unstable man. Unlike Jason Whitlock, I'm not going to tell you he is this way because he's fat. I don't care why he's this way, but I know he is.

What bothers me is why all of this is coming out. Could the players just not take it anymore? Was it getting to be too much? From what I've heard, there aren't any players calling for Mangino's firing. Most of the reports are coming from former players. During a five game losing streak, mind you. Nobody wants to hear how mean the coach is when you're 12-1 and hoisting up an Orange Bowl trophy. But when you are in the midst of a hugely disappointing season? All of a sudden people become very interested.

If these reports were about Urban Meyer, I can guarantee you that the response from fans would be that this is all sour grapes; complaining from weak players who couldn't handle it. Obviously it works, the success is there. Remember, Kansas football was a joke before Mangino arrived. It was his toughness and his old-school approach which got results. Only, the results aren't there, so toughness is turned into abusiveness.

When I played football as a ten year old, I had a coach who day after day would tell me I wasn't good enough, made me run laps even when I didn't do anything wrong, etc. Truth is, I was small, weak and not really committed, and that abusive coaching would have resulted in two things: either me getting the message and working through it, or complaining and deciding to quit. I chose the latter. I was a weak kid. However, I did learn the lesson. I understand now what these former players obviously have failed to grasp.

We live in a blame-first society. Nothing is ever our fault. It's the mean coach's fault the team didn't get better, the conniving coworker's fault we didn't get the promotion. It's never the weak-minded players that lose games or your fault for not working hard enough for a pay raise.

Mangino said today that "I can’t do the work of some parents, what they should have done before they got to me. There’s some things for 18 years that happened in their lives that I can’t change in four years of college. Can’t change their behaviors, can’t change their attitudes." He surely can't change their minds, either. He's to blame, and that is that.

Just remember, KU fans, that when you're wearing your Orange Bowl shirts, old-school abuse brought those results in. So if you don't like the way Mangino coaches, fine. But you need to throw those shirts and those memories away. You can't have it both ways.

More Than Words?

Monday morning in Kansas City was so very different, yet so much the same. The weather went from a sunny November to the cold, rainy winters I was used to as a kid. And just like the November Monday mornings of the 90s, the city would wake up fresh off a Chiefs win. But there were no feelings of hope, no optimism in the air. I woke up, turned on the radio, and all I heard was this:

It's embarrassing to have a head coach cursing like that on national television.

He's out of control.

I couldn't even watch the game with my children in the room.

Yes, head coach Todd Haley has an affinity for the F word. (Couldn't find good video of the game, but here's a classic Haley-to-Croyle interaction that paints a good enough picture.) This time around, Dwayne Bowe got the brunt of the punishment, and the entire city's sensibilities have been offended. The team won, which nowadays is cause for excessive celebration, but the only talk of the town is how coach Haley is immature and offensive. But the only F word these "fans" are really hurt by is this one: football.

In "Eating the Dinosaur", author Chuck Klosterman notes that in 1905, eighteen players died while playing football, and that the violence of the sport almost caused President Theodore Roosevelt to ban the sport. The game was seen as a bloody mess between neanderthals. The gladiators of modern times. This had been the reality of football from its inception, until recently, where violence is seen as the root of all evil.

In the last decade, the rise of concern for the safety of sports has been dramatic, with football on the forefront. Studies on concussions and the effects of banging heads for thirty straight years have been headlines in newspapers and topics of books. The verdict: playing football hurts, both short term and long term.

How is it then, that in the Age of Information, that we are just now learning what was deemed common sense for a century? Football is brutal. It is only for men. It's ruthless and unforgiving and will make you drool all over yourself by the time you are fifty. This isn't breakthrough science. I've known this since I was a child. During Oklahoma Drills in practice, when I was ten, we used to bash heads. And I even knew then that this was not for the timid. Hence, the writing gig.

But NFL Commissioners Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue made a fortune on selling the American public that football was a game, not the rough and tough display of violence that it really is. And they bought it like it was a Shamwow. The perception of the NFL is completely different than its reality. These superstars may make millions on have reality shows and funny Twitter accounts, but make no mistake: these are hardened men that sacrifice their lives for the short starburst of glory. And that is what sports is all about.

This brings me to Todd Haley. He curses, he yells, he screams. He drops F-bombs like a sailor. Well, guess what. He is football. He is dirty, degrading and mean, which is everything the NFL stood for. This game is not for Gen X, Tipper Gore or soccer moms. Football was designed for men with no regard for their bodies who curse, spit and routinely try to end the lives of their opponents for the chance to one day hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

As Lombardi said himself. "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." This isn't a game. It is war. Deal with it.