No more light New Year's resolutions here. Special orders still don't budge us, but you can flip a bigger burger. We intend to back up our complaints with logical and realistic solutions.
Dak Prescott yells, “Let’s go!”
The trampling and humiliation now so common among mismatched college and high school basketball teams – this week, the Grambling women's team defeated the University of Biblical Studies in an undeserved 159-18 victory. They never prayed. (Wise Crack is just as easy as his Grambling counterpart.)
Unless it's a “first game” for the Bible Study women's team, which will next play against Culinary College rivals Discomfort & Bloating, all schools recognize the Coach Feldman method to help revive sports. Now is the time to prepare and enact it.
Mel Feldman was a girls high school basketball coach in upstate New York whose kids were being beaten mercilessly with full-court presses, run-and-guns, and starter massacres.
So at halftime Coach Feldman suggested to his daughters that if it was so important to the opposing coach to win by as many points as possible, the kids might help him by putting goals in his own basket. .
Heck, if the opposing coach wants to turn the game into a farce, Feldman will provide a farce that makes the opposing coach the victim of “he started it.”
Coach Feldman's girls love this idea, not to mention the traumatized scorebook keeper, and are encouraged to score into their own baskets to score even more and create the ultimate final score asterisk. and was eager to give aid and comfort to the misguided conquerors.
This message was delivered and was discussed and debated locally for many days, but the final conclusion was reached. That means the opposing coach understood. He never again instructed his children, who are blessed with great talent every year, to humiliate his opponents.
In an era when Geno Auriemma, Kim Mulkey, and other school adults coached young men and women to trample their “guests” live, this coach's teams still won more than enough games and were polite. I was able to maintain a correct and polite attitude. It's a win-win.
Along similar lines, this year I also resolve to exclude any university with “Mercy” in its name from the competition of basketball. I have never seen a match, men's or women's, where Mercy was given mercy.
This week, Penn's women's team defeated Gwynedd Mercy University (Philadelphia) 89-34. Penn's coach came off the bench against Auriemma's standards, but why did the Quakers need (or want) to take 30 threes, block nine shots and make nine steals? I don't think it's very merciful.
In Connecticut, the Sacred Heart University women's team defeated visiting Mercy College (Dobbs Ferry) 73-41, with the game trailing 38-16 by halftime.
So in 2024, let us resolve to return to the quality of mercy instead of comparing it to schedules, portal transfers, and record strength to breadth.
College football full of farce
The best way to enjoy a bowl game is to play dumb with what has become expensive “college” football.
Or, as star quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who transferred from Washington to Indiana, said after the win over Texas Monday night into Tuesday morning, “I'm never quitting.”
Reader Bill Maloney: “No kidding, you've been in college for six years.”
ESPN has apologized after being ambushed by a woman who exposed her breasts while covering the Sugar Bowl. He also offers her a job as a sideline reporter.
Hey, not many people witnessed that scene. It's been three days, and I still haven't found a single football fan who stayed up past Monday night's Texas-Washington Sugar Bowl game, which ended at 12:50 a.m. Tuesday morning. We've read and heard stories of good games being lost due to a lackluster start on the hazy night after New Years and a return to work or school the next day.
How games are scheduled to maximize TV viewership, maximize TV advertising revenue and the financial terms of TV contracts, but end too late for more than half the country to watch. I still don't understand.
But television is full of such wonders.
ESPN's head of the Michigan-Alabama Rose Bowl, play-by-play man Chris Fowler, declared that UM coach Jim Harbaugh has been sentenced to a “three-game suspension for a minor recruiting violation.”
Hey, if Fowler knew they were in the minors, what exactly was that for and how did he know?
There is no such thing as a “minor” hiring violation, except for sharing gum. Harbaugh has been a questionable figure since he was hired in December 2014 and eventually became the de facto ruler of the University of Michigan.
Fowler made it seem like Harbaugh was suspended for a minor reason, but he was sanctioned for violating the rules to recruit players to help him and UM win ball games. Oh Chris, he was just caught cheating. No big deal.
As for the game, it was enough to overcome Kirk Herbstreit's repeated criticism that Alabama didn't play with great “eye discipline.” Yes, another clever-sounding alternative to saying nothing and doing the sensible thing.
I don't know what he meant by “eye discipline,” but Herbstreit said that soccer often involves well-concealed deceptions that cause opponents to lose sight of the ball. Do you know? Or is there a lack of discipline because the players' eyes aren't following commands?
Ravens pay tribute to Ray Rice, NFL's latest insult to civility
In 2023, it will still be impossible to shame shameless people. So on Sunday, blind Ravens fans were invited to honor former Rutgers and Baltimore running back Ray Rice as a “legend of the game.”
Mr. Rice's most legendary act was cold-cocking his fiancée into unconsciousness at an Atlantic City hotel-casino (the charges were later dismissed).
To get into Sunday's game, Ravens fans had to pass a blood-drenched statue of legendary LB Ray Lewis. Ray Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a double murder case before repaying the families of his two murdered victims.
Former Jets Pro Bowler and college student Temple Muhammad Wilkerson, who was arrested twice for DWI in 2019 and 2020, was arrested this week for DWI and was found in possession of a handgun loaded with hollow point bullets.
Also this week, Colts tight end Drew Ogletree, 25, a former Youngstown Street student-athlete, was charged with domestic assault of a woman in the presence of a minor.
Commissioner Roger Goodell will ignore what is most needed to change within $70 million per home, according to social messaging in the end zones, sidelines and behind the helmets that NFL viewers should consider. I'm still impressed with the choices I made.
Saturday's record-breaking non-conference game between Rutgers and 2-13 Stonehill (Mass.) was the backfire of the week. RU won 59-58, but — hooray! -It was a victory that made the faces of the NCAA Tournament selection committee glow in neon red.
As if TV executives couldn't get any lower, NBC selected professional scumbag Snoop Dogg for its Paris Olympics team. Reader Michael Temple: “They replaced Bob Costas with Snoop Dogg.'' Such TV executives chant Dogg's vulgar, women-degrading, N-word-heavy lyrics in public. We should demonstrate the courage of this belief and see how it works for us.
My friend Billy P. ordered chicken and eggs on Amazon to see which came first.
