Friday, October 2, 2009

Pittsburgh Panthers vs Louisville Cardinals

Pittsburgh vs. Louisville

Tonight, in about an hour and a half (as I begin this blog), there will be a Big East matchup between the Pittsburgh Panthers and the Louisville Cardinals. And you know, if you actually DID put a panther in a cage against a cardinal…well, talk about bite-sized snacks….

And this matchup could possibly go this route…or can it? Let’s look at these two teams and see who has the advantage.

Pittsburgh comes in this game after a 9-4 record last year, living big time off a strong running game, but missing key components of that team from last year. The Panthers suffered a humiliating loss to Bowling Green at the beginning of the season, losing 27-17. They then went on a 5 game winning streak, beating teams like Buffalo, Iowa, South Florida and Navy before losing big to Rugters.

Pittsburgh won their next two games over Notre Dame and Louisville before losing on the road to Cincinnati, then finished the season beating West Virginia and Connecticut before losing 3-0 in a bowl game to Oregon State…

(ONLY 3 points in the game…what’s up with that?)

The Panthers come in after losing a road game to NC State, but is still 3-1, which isn’t so bad. Beating Buffalo and Navy again shows that this team is still in the mix for the Big East, but losing on the road is how they lost 2 regular season games, and the bowl game. You gotta win on the road if you wanna be a champion.

But what has happened to Louisville? Was it not just a few years ago when they were the darlings of the Division I? Did they lose ALL their swagger the same year when Michael Bush broke his leg early that season a couple of years ago? They haven’t been the same since.

Last year the Cardinals finished only 5-7, which was a mystery when this was one of the highest scoring teams in the nation a couple of years ago. You’d have called me a liar the way they started last year, losing to Kentucky 27-2. But they rallied by beating Tennessee Tech 51-10, then beating Kansas State before losing to Connecticut. Four home games in a row and splitting them 2-2.

Things looked pretty good when they won the next two games, beating Memphis 35-28 and then Middle Tennessee 42-23...but one had to wonder…why was so many points being given up? And a heck of a lot of those games were in very close confines… the first 6 games were either in Kentucky or Tennessee… hmmmm….

The Cardinals were 4-2 before beating South Florida at home, bringing the record to 5-2...and still playing only in the tight confines of two states. So is it any reason to wonder why they lost AT Syracuse and AT Pittsburgh? Louisville limps back home with a 5-4 record only to play…and lose, to Cincinnati, then another home loss to West Virginia before a mammoth beat down AT Rutgers.

This year, so far, Louisville is 1-2, beating Indiana State but losing AT Kentucky 31-27 and AT Utah 30-14. Like Pittsburgh, you can’t be a champion until you can win on the road. And with 4 more road games, they better get it together quick.

South Florida was the Cardinal’s only credible win last year, and that was a home game, it is critical that they have this game tonight…it is past critical. A loss here makes Louisville 1-3 and will be wiped off the face of any BCS bowl contention. But IF there is a chance, it can happen here, against Pittsburgh.

Now I know Pittsburgh beat Louisville last year 41-7, but the Panthers have to establish a new running game. Pittsburgh didn’t play so hot on the road last year, and Louisville can make it a game while in that Papa John’s Stadium…..

Mmmmm…pizza…..

Anyway, I think the advantage goes to Pittsburgh, but this is one of those games where the home team has a very slight advantage. I am very tempted to say Louisville CAN win this game…because Pittsburgh isn’t that threatening, but I am going with Pittsburgh by 3 points. My gut says that Louisville needs this win like a pizza needs extra cheese, sausage, mushrooms and a liter of some ice cold soda….

And friend with me to enjoy the game tonight!

Why Chicago lost the Olympics: Theory 531

Why Chicago lost the Olympics: Theory #531

Today I checked the tv at about 11am to see who the IOC would select for the 2016 Olympics, with the remaining cities being Tokyo, Rio, Madrid and Chicago. I had been watching the sports shows on how our President, and others went to Copenhagen to try to influence the IOC to select Chicago.

From many that talked about it, there was a serious shot.

I remember talking to my mom about it, and I really wasn’t that sure that Chicago could get the Olympics. Sure, it would be great…but to me just didn’t seem that possible.

So when the voting started about 11:15, the first round was complete, and Chicago was immediately dropped from the list.

Ouch!

And I feel sorry for all those people in Chicago who were out in the streets, expecting the IOC to select them. My heart does go out to those that for some reason or another, actually believed that the Olympics were coming to Chicago.

But when you consider that they only got 18 votes out of 94 or 95...something was glaringly wrong with the selection. I read one report that said that Tokyo was already out even before the voting began, which obviously was incorrect.

I mean, this was not even close…Chicago got dropped like the proverbial red-headed step child. A humiliating loss to one of our American cities…so why was this loss so bad?

Of course there are numerous reasons, but one report made some sense. The IOC questioned the level of security that the United States has, with travel being so much more difficult in the US after 911. It’s become quite a pain in the butt to travel, with all this Homeland Security going on, and the IOC perhaps wondered if this would become a detriment to the rest of the world.

Remember folks, for Chicago to have been booted out with so few votes, there had to have been some very strong opinions against it. I think that it was fair for Rio to have the Olympics, because it had never been in a South American country before, so I am cool with that.

But here is another thing that rings against Chicago…the last time the Olympics were in the US was where…Atlanta. Wasn’t there a little thing about a Centennial Bombing that happened? Again….security. And it didn’t help that the person they accused of it was completely innocent…talk about innocent until proven guilty…

And we also have to consider the sportsmanship of Chicago fans. Now I say this as a guy that was a Bears fan when Walter Payton led the Bears to the Superbowl, and I am a huge Michael Jordan fan, but true sportsmanship should NEVER exceed human compassion…

I give you the Bartman incident.

This to me is an ugly blow that reminds us that fans can, at times, be stupid. I love watching “Pardon the Interruption”, or “PTI” to be short, on ESPN, and I love both guys that work there, but when Michael Wilbon talks about his hatred of the Bartman, it shows the ugly side of Chicago that really needs to be dropped.

I mean, come on, get a life!

It is a shame that many people of that city persecuted and crucified a fan who was only doing what 99% of all fans would do if the ball was coming their way. And let’s be honest, the Cubs did not lose on THAT play. Yet this man, YEARS after the incident, is still not forgiven by his own town…

How then do you expect to host a world event if you can’t even embrace your own?

I mean, we all had a good laugh the day it happened, or even the week after that, but after awhile if you still hold such bitterness, you no longer embody any sense of sportsmanship. If the IOC took that into account, the hopefully they saw the need for a city to make amends for rejecting their own.

And I know there may well be many other reasons, but I say again, for Chicago to ONLY get 18 votes, there were some very strong opposition against the city. Maybe over time we may learn of them. It would have been cool to see the Olympics in Chicago, but I am content that the IOC picked the right city. Rio, as I hear, is beautiful, and South America deserves an Olympics. Madrid would have been excellent, and Tokyo equally fine. But if I had to pick in order who I would have selected, I think Rio would have been first, then Tokyo, Madrid and last, Chicago.

That does not mean I hate Chicago, it just means I think those other cities would have served the Olympics in 2016 better. Maybe by 2020 Chicago can take better steps to make itself more attractive to the IOC. We shall see.

Was Terrell Owens right?

Was Terrell Owens right?

A few days ago there was a story about a recent interview held by Bills receiver Terrell Owens, and in the clip the questions asked to him seemed to be more…loaded, than neutral.

Terrell Owens dismissed the question, refusing to answer, as the person edged him on, trying to get him to answer, to which “TO” did not.

Owens refused to answer because he felt that no matter how he answered it, the media would take it and run with the most controversial side they could.

This makes for an interesting debate, in whether Terrell Owens was right in what he said and did, and then the question of the credibility of said Owens, and the supposed sincerity of the media.

This is interesting because had it been almost any other player in the NFL (outside of the diva receivers), this would have been a one-sided issue. But because we are dealing with one of the most out-spoken players in the league, there are twists to this story. It leads us to ask, was TO right in how he addressed this issue…but then immediately begs a second question… how credible was his actions?

When I was in college, I took journalism classes and Radio and Television was my major. I worked as a Sports Director for our campus radio station and was the Sports Editor for our campus newspaper. And being a very avid football fan, I watched a lot of sports…especially football.

But in college I learned by our professors that the media should always operate on the side of neutrality, but with respect to the person. Now we know that isn’t true for many journalists because the sad fact is that sensationalism sells more than normalcy. As the old saying goes, “nobody cares if there is a story of a dog biting a man, but everybody will be interested in a story of a man biting a dog”.

In this information age, where so many are looking for that edge, many people who call themselves journalists are not really looking for a story, they are often looking on CREATING a story, which undermines the very existence of the media. When that happens, you get a lot of people who feel that it is their job to “ask the right questions” to get the answer they want, which unfortunately traps a person to say something they maybe should not have said.

These are called “loaded questions”. If I asked you, “have you stopped smoking weed yet, answer yes or no” how would you answer. Either way, you are incriminated, even if you never did any illegal drugs in your life.

A few weeks ago a reporter asked a male tennis player where the best women tennis players would rank if they were put in with the men. To his credit, the male tennis player did not want to answer that, but was edged on by the reporter. He tried to dismiss the question because he felt it was not a really fair question, but they continued to ask for his opinion. When he responded that the best female tennis players might rank somewhere in the top 700 of the men tennis players, it made news and made the guy look like a chauvinist pig.

This was unfair to the athlete because the reporter dug an unfair question out of him, even when he did not want to answer. And this is common now, because it seems that many forms of media believe that the controversial stories are the ones that sell… and sadly they are right because we as a public seem to crave controversy, rather than good old fashioned reporting.

So the questions asked of Terrell Owens were indeed loaded. How many of you remember the incident a year ago when a reporter asked Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun if he was willing to take a cut in his salary? It was a loaded question, and unfair to ask him in front of the public. But it served the purpose, creating controversy and five cheap minutes of fame for the idiot that asked it.

The same can be said for the reporter that asked TO those questions. There is no honor in asking one-sided questions in the sake of creating a story. So to be sure, the line of questions was clearly wrong, and for that reason, I believe Terrell Owens was absolutely right in what he did.

BUT there is the other side of this…how credible is Terrell Owens?

This is a man that has been the proverbial “cancer” everywhere he has gone. Once with the San Francisco 49ers, he has whined and cried like a baby. When he went to the Philadelphia Eagles he was a self-centered joke. Nothing different when he went to Dallas Cowboys. And now with the Buffalo Bills, it is only a matter of time before he does what he ALWAYS does.

Terrell Owens has created himself to be one of the most selfish players in the history of the NFL, and maybe is the originator of the diva receiver. Sure there were other receivers before him, but Michael Irving wasn’t as much a diva as TO. It just seemed that this guy ushered in the era of “me me me”. Keshawn Johnson, Randy Moss, Chad Ochocinco, even this nut Michael Crabtree who hasn’t even played one down yet, all these guys have that “me first” mentality.

Lots of people think that what Terrell Owens does is fine, because he is “speaking his mind” and does have the right of free speech. So if he criticizes Jeff Garcia, Donavan McNabb, Tony Romo or whomever, it’s cool because he has that right, and he is just speaking his mind, right?

Uh… not exactly folks.

Let me remind you that there are CONDITIONS to free speech. You will notice that the Miranda rights, the Constitution and even the Bible all agree that you can say what you want, BUT you can and will be held accountable for what you say. The Bible says that life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those that love it will eat thereof. The Miranda rights say that what you say can and well be held against you in a court of law.

Folks, you can SAY what you want…but you better be ready to handle the consequences of what you say. When Terrell Owens opens his mouth, he needs to be ready for any backlash that his mouth creates.

I tend to call him, “Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting”, based on a old hip hop song…( I betcha can’t remember which song).

So yeah, Terrell Owens has a right to say what he wants, but he also must assume the responsibility of what he says…that is NOT an option. When you call out your quarterback, as he ALWAYS does, don’t be surprised when the locker room splits and you’re on the outside looking in. Don’t be surprised when fans start to boo you, even when you are with the home team on the home field.

And the idea of “speaking from the heart” is way overrated. The problem with that is that most times when a person “speaks from the heart” there is no wisdom. When you talk from how you feel, it often does not account for sincerity, wisdom or discretion. As one person said, the values of speaking come first from wisdom, then intelligence, and in a far distant third, emotion.

But all this is negated when fame is the result of your speaking. Terrell Owens is clearly one of the most outspoken athletes in the NFL, probably in sports. Not because he speaks wisdom or intelligence, but because he shoots off his mouth. This is his mode of operations…he ALWAYS does that. Why? Because he knows that as long as he is doing that, the media will always be looking at him.

This is what he does for a living, outside of being a very good receiver. But this is also what the media expects from him. You come to see the dancing bear, then the dancing bear must dance. You don’t pay to see the dancing bear in slumber, you come to see him dance.

So DANCE Yogi!

This creates the confusion of what Terrell Owens did, because although his answers were righteous, his actions before, and even after that incident, lead many to question it. Just recently TO criticized Rodney Harrison and make a comment about Harrison taking steroids… low blow there TO.

At that moment, he had a chance to turn his comments and way of communicating with the media to a more sincere approach, but opted to go for the shock value, which is why so many stick a microphone up his nose. Just as he was making a positive move in how to answer reporters, he jumps back 10 steps with something stupid like that.

So, was Terrell credible in how he refused to answer those reporters when they asked him those loaded questions… yeah, I mean even the worst of us can have a ray of sunshine hit us, and mind you, there may have been some humility involved here since TO also didn’t catch a ball in that game, the first time since he was with the 49ers.

It’s quite interesting, of the all time receivers of the NFL, Terrell Owens has the second most touchdowns, trailing one other person…Jerry Rice. Such a contrast in personality, yet the media values Terrell Owens far more because of the comments he makes. It’s almost as if being insincere is a greater value than being respectful.

So Terrell Owens will keep doing it, because the media keeps eating it up, and then slinging it in our faces over ESPN, Fox, NBC and every media outlet, force-feeding us of Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting. It’s sad too, because TO came from UTC, a Southern Conference school, like me. I should be cheering for the guy…and I used to…

But that was then, when NFL athletes respected each other and didn’t throw others under the bus like a certain receiver in Buffalo. Just a matter of time before he does it again.