A couple of coworkers are playing a board game called Incan Gold. “What’s the objective of the game?” I ask. “To decimate an indigenous civilization and plunder its riches?” Evidently Incan Gold requires a lot of concentration because neither player answers my question. “Why is ‘Redskins’ a bad name for a football team but ‘Incan Gold’ is an acceptable name for a board game?” I ask. No response. “Is there a board game called ‘Aztec Genocide’?” No response. “How about ‘Mayan Massacre’?” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Football
Are There Any Intelligent People Currently Living?
I was at LA Fitness this morning . . . one of the TVs was showing an interview with Jameis Winston on ESPN. Winston is borderline retarded but thinks he’s articulate — a deadly combination. He’s a very talented athlete. Just show clips of his athletic accomplishments. They’re impressive and fun to watch. Why would anyone want to talk to him or listen to him talk? The interviewer is paid to endure it, I get that, but why foist it on the viewing public? Maybe it’s the train wreck element. It was very painful to watch and yet I couldn’t look away! Rarely is one person gifted in multiple ways. Some people are great athletes, some people are intelligent and interesting . . . the overlap between the two groups is very small. Listening to Jameis Winston talk is like watching Milton Friedman take batting practice or Albert Einstein work… Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: Tony Dungy Edition
“What’s your beef with Tony Dungy?” “He said he wouldn’t draft Michael Sam. He’s not showing the requisite level of tolerance and inclusiveness toward people who are different than he is.” “Isn’t Dungy himself entitled to tolerance and inclusiveness?” “Oh, no. No. Absolutely not. Because he’s being different in a way that’s totally unacceptable.” “So you’re not against intolerance as a matter of principle, so long as the ‘right’ people and groups get ostracized.” “Right.” “I don’t remember anyone until fairly recently saying that having openly gay players in the NFL is a good idea. Now that we’ve reached a point in history where everyone in America has a breezy indifference to homosexuality . . . everyone knows people, works with people, has people in their family who are openly gay . . . every single TV show and movie has at least one gay character — NOW people like… Read more →
People Who Don’t Want Me to Know Things
What I want to know is why there are so many people who don’t want me to know things . . . What the 1% Don’t Want Us to Know Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About 20 Terrifying Facts Food Companies Don’t Want You to Know 11 things the Koch brothers don’t want you to know What hospitals don’t want you to know about C-sections 5 Things Hackers Don’t Want You to Know The Sad Secret Successful People Don’t Want You To Know 7 Rip-Offs Corporations and the Wealthy Don’t Want You to Know About Something Most Christians Don’t Want You to Know 11 Secrets Supermarkets Don’t Want You to Know Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know The 25 Shadiest Things Drug Companies Don’t Want You To Know 11 Secrets Pilots Don’t Want You To Know Bottled Water: 10 Shockers “They” Don’t Want You… Read more →
Random Thoughts on Paying College Athletes
Where is the money going to come from? Most people seem to think that college athletic programs are big money makers. They aren’t. Despite the big revenue dollars associated with two sports — football and men’s basketball — 90 percent of Division I athletic programs, because of the much larger number of non-revenue sports, operate at a loss. They’re subsidized by the general fund of the university. Paying athletes would require additional dollars to be directed away from academic endeavors: hiring and paying professors, funding research, offering financial aid to non-athletes, etc. Title IX requires gender equity. You couldn’t just pay football players and men’s basketball players. Everyone would need to be paid equally in some sense, even in non-revenue sports. How much money are we talking about? Let’s say at a medium to large school, we have 500 to 1,000 student athletes and we’re going to pay… Read more →
See You in Hell, Carl Douglas
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] “It put a smile on my face that finally [Donald Sterling] would be unable to deny the racist allegations against him,” said Carl Douglas, a lawyer who represented former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor in a lawsuit against Sterling. — FOX Sports Carl Douglas is best known as a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team. O.J. Simpson has done some regrettable things, like murdering a couple of white people, but at least he’s never made negative remarks about Magic Johnson photos on Instagram. See you in Hell . . . P.S. Carl Douglas the lawyer should not be confused with Carl Douglas the “Kung Fu Fighting” singer. Him, I like. Read more →
See You in Hell: The Fritz Pollard Edition
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] The head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which monitors diversity in the NFL, expects the league to institute a rule where players would be penalized 15 yards for using the N-word on the field. — NFL expected to penalize players for using racial slurs in games – ESPN The N-word. Let’s see . . . the N-word is “National,” the F-word is “Football” and the L-word is “League.” Wait — what?! I’m now being informed that the N-word in this case is “nigger.” That’s what the Fritz Pollard Alliance wants to penalize. OK, that’s a great idea, Fritz Pollard Alliance, and by “great” I mean “bullshit.” Has anyone at the Fritz Pollard Alliance read the Harry Potter books? In the Harry Potter books, Voldemort is known as He Who Must Not Be Named. He’s so powerful… Read more →
The 12th Man
The home crowd of the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks is known as The 12th Man. Isn’t this awfully sexist? Doesn’t it marginalize female Seahawk fans? Wouldn’t The 12th Person be a more appropriate appellation? I’m surprised there isn’t more outrage over this. It seems like the kind of thing that someone should be really bent out of shape about. Read more →
Which Experts Predicted a Florida St-Auburn Title Game?
A few months back, we outlined the prediction ineptitude of baseball pundits, who went 0-for-63 on predicting either the Red Sox or Cardinals to make the World Series. In fact, not one pundit picked the Red Sox to win even their division. Well, the MLB pundits now have some company, as none of the 30 college pundits we tracked (from ESPN, CBS, and NFL.com) picked either Florida State or Auburn to make the BCS Title game. — Pundit Tracker Read more →
Indian Givers
Via Best of the Web Today: Read more →
You Say Anarchy, Sir, Like It’s a Bad Thing
Frankly, one of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is. They have descended from the realm of reasonableness that was the mark of conservatism. They dream of anarchy, of ending government. — Bruce Bartlett My fellow Americans — I’ll tell you who’s insane: anyone who’s not dreaming of anarchy at this moment in history is insane. People forget that this great nation was founded by anarchists, born out of an armed revolution against a corrupt government. As I said at the time, “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” I assure you, though, that regrettably neither current political party dreams of anarchy. They both dream of exactly the same things: self-aggrandizement and rewarding their most powerful supporters with political spoils. The well-known liberal cartoonist Ted Rall wrote a book a couple… Read more →
An LSU Football Fan Reacts to the Cam Cameron Hiring
The Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors Wednesday approved newly hired LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron’s three-year contract but not without faculty members voicing concerns. According to the terms, Cameron will receive $600,000 for the 2013 season, followed by $1.3 million and $1.5 million in the last two years of his contract. — NOLA.com LSU has faculty?! Donald McKinney, director of wind ensembles and conducting and associate professor in the school of music, said he was “disheartened” in LSU’s handling of the future. He said the morale has been low and hopes LSU would change to retain faculty. McKinney, who’s a newer faculty member, said he’s heading to another university at the end of the semester. . . . Nathan Crick, an associate professor in communication studies, echoed similar sentiments. Crick said he was sold false goods and now “it’s time to return them.” The professor said he’s leaving LSU… Read more →
Tedford Relieved of Duties, i.e., Fired
BERKELEY – Jeff Tedford, who has overseen the Golden Bear football program for the past 11 seasons, has been relieved of his duties as head football coach at the University of California, Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour announced Tuesday. — The University of California Official Athletic Site Tedford must have seen this coming back in August when he put his house on the market for a cool $5.35 million. He was saddled with a doofus quarterback as a throw-in on the Keenan Allen deal and the team’s 3-9 record speaks for itself. Tedford did a lot of good things at Cal. He took over a 1-10 team in 2002 and won seven games his first season. In 2004, Cal went 10-2, finished ninth in the final AP poll, and in 2006, the Golden Bears went 10-3. Tedford was getting NFL offers during that time and turning them down. He was… Read more →
Jerry Kill, (Minnesota) Gopher
We’re watching SportsCenter when a picture of Jerry Kill, coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team, comes on the screen, accompanied by the unfortunate news that Kill suffered a seizure following the team’s 21-13 loss to Northwestern. “He’s still alive?” my son asks. “He didn’t die?” “He had a seizure,” I say. “So he’s still alive, right?” “Yeah.” “In that case, I’m going to go ahead and say that he looks like a gopher.” Read more →
Card Stunts
We’re in Berkeley for Parents Weekend, watching Cal and UCLA battle it out on the gridiron. One of the halftime highlights at Cal football games is card stunts. I know, welcome to the 1920s, right? Everyone held up their cards, which were either blue or gold. The cards on the opposite side of the stadium from us spelled out “Memorial Stadium” but we couldn’t see what our own cards spelled. “I hope they say ‘UCLA Sucks,’” I said to my wife standing next to me, but unfortunately loud enough for a nearby husband-and-wife team of Bruin fans to hear me. “Did you really just say that?” the woman asked. “We’re helping.” Meaning that they were holding up their cards to support the card stunt and didn’t deserve to be insulted. When you venture into enemy territory, you have to expect some derision. Read more →
Cal 43, UCLA 17
We’re up here in Berkeley for Parents Weekend. I was saying since we arrived that this looks like a winnable game for Cal and couldn’t find one person — student or parent — to agree with me. Cal was 1-4, UCLA was 4-1. Cal fans are conditioned for disappointment. I’m a USC guy and USC fans were the same way in the pre-Pete Carroll era. Fans showed up for games not to cheer on the team but to bemoan another disappointing performance. This is a nice wakeup call for the Bruins. Despite their record and ranking coming into the game, they’re not very good. Read more →
Replacement Refs Are Just What the Sport Needs
I hope the NFL keeps replacement refs around forever. I hope they bring in a new batch of them every season. I hope they bring in replacement refs for the replacement refs. Why do people think the “real” refs are actually good? Was last night’s Seattle-Green Bay game really worse than the “Tuck Rule”? Was it worse than 2006 when the “real” refs cost the Seahawks the Super Bowl? Sports fans are the biggest cretins on the planet. When their team wins, they gloat, usually in the first person: We won! We beat those guys! There are no bigger mental and emotional retards than people who refer to sports teams in the first person. It’s an inability to separate fantasy from reality. (Imagine a Roger Federer fan screaming, “I just won Wimbledon!” When ther team loses, they blame it on one of two things: 1) Bad coaching; 2) Bad officiating.… Read more →
Aside
The U! – Kansas St 52, Miami 13
What is Rick Neuheisel Doing on the Pac-12 Network?
What is this simpleton Rick Neuheisel doing as a studio analyst on the Pac-12 Network? How many Pac-12 football programs has Rick Neuheisel destroyed? Let’s review . . . You wouldn’t know it from watching them lose at home today to Colorado State, but the University of Colorado was an elite program, a national championship winner, when Neuheisel inherited the program from Bill McCartney. Colorado football has never recovered from Rick Neuheisel. Washington Husky football, thanks to Steve Sarkisian, is just starting to recover from Rick Neuheisel. I can’t say that Neuheisel wrecked the UCLA football program because there wasn’t much to wreck, but he was at least as bad and probably worse than his abysmal predecessor, Karl Dorrell. Neuheisel’s last game at the helm was a 50-0 dismantling by USC, the worst loss in the rivalry in 70 years. Neuheisel is a stupido. He looks stupid. He sounds stupid.… Read more →
Nevada 31, Cal 24
How does Jeff Tedford have a $5 million house?! Cal opened their new stadium with a 31-24 loss to Nevada. The Bears looked sloppy, more like a high school team. FIRE TEDFORD! That said, time to switch over to Fox and watch some REAL football at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum as the top-ranked Men of Troy take care of some Unfinished Business! FIGHT ON! Read more →