Texas QB Vince Young was visibly unhappy about finishing second to Reggie Bush in the Heisman balloting. “I’m just basically emotionally upset about that,” Young said. News flash: Everyone who doesn’t win is upset about it, but the protocol is this: Congratulate the winner and move on. Have some class. Grow up. You’re not in third grade anymore. I’m Vince Young. I’m upset because I didn’t win. Boo-hoo-hoo! Man, I hope the Trojans kick his ass in the Rose Bowl. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Sports
USC 66, UCLA 19
I’m glad it was a blowout. Most of the season, I had to listen to “what a great job Karl Dorrell, Drew Olson and the Bruins are doing.” I didn’t think they were doing a great job at all. They were 9-1, but given all the last-minute, come-from-behind wins over bad teams, they were pretty close to being 5-5. Hence the lack of respect in the polls and the 21-point spread on this game, which turned out to be way too low. Read more →
Hunter Thompson’s High-Caliber Doldrum-Buster
Rolling Stone magazine has published Hunter Thompson’s suicide note, which he titled “Football Season is Over.” Thompson wrote the note last February, four days before fatally shooting himself in his kitchen. Douglas Brinkley, Thompson’s official biographer, writes, February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year. February, by contrast, was doldrums time. I don’t understand “avid” sports fans — they depress and frighten me — but I’d certainly encourage other sports enthusiasts to consider Thompson’s high-caliber doldrum-buster . . . Read more →
Fighting Words
The NCAA has put together a list of colleges with “hostile and abusive” team nicknames, including the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Utah Utes and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Remind me again why Fighting Illini, Utes and Fighting Sioux are hostile and abusive, but Fighting Irish, with a dopey guy prancing around in a leprechaun suit, is okay? Read more →
NARCh – Day 4
Semifinal – 1:35 P.M. vs. NW Rebels The NW Rebels are from Oregon. We saw them play a little bit in the round-robin games. They have one very talented kid, but hockey is a team game. Final score: Bulls 8, Rebels 0. Read more →
NARCh – Day 3
Game 4 – 9:00 A.M. vs. Mission Cooler Selects The Selects are from Georgia. They fall behind 2-0 on the first shift and go downhill from there. Final score: Bulls 8, Selects 0. Read more →
NARCh – Day 2
Game 3 – 9:00 A.M. vs. Extreme Wolfpack Extreme Wolfpack is from New Jersey, Like the Bulls, they are 2-0 so far in the tournament. Final score: Bulls 4, Wolfpack 1. Read more →
NARCh – Day 1
My son’s team, MPC Bulls Blue, is playing in the NARCh 12-and-under Squirt Silver division. Sixteen teams qualified in this division. Each team will play four round-robin games, after which the top eight teams will be seeded into the quarterfinals. Read more →
One Day to Rest
The hockey tournament starts tomorrow . . . the first game’s at 9 in the morning. We’ll need to be there by 8 to check in, so we’ll have to leave the hotel by 7:30. Read more →
Off to Florida
My son and I are off to Florida, land of hurricanes and shark attacks, where his team will compete in the North American Roller Hockey Championships. Read more →
Hockey Boy
My son’s hockey team won the TORHS West Coast Conference championship. They got jerseys and a trophy. I took some team and individual photos. Read more →
The Great Chair Race
We’re having a fundraising event at the office today. Executives will race around the parking lot in office chairs. Wagering is permitted, with proceeds going to the United Way. Here’s how I handicap it: The CFO is pretty fit and looks like a winner. On the other hand, the Sales VP is a Snidely Whiplash type who’s probably loosening the wheels on the other guys’ chairs as we speak, which makes him a dangerous guy to bet against. No one else in the race looks remotely capable of winning any sort of athletic contest. It would be fun to run a side pool on which fat-ass will be the first to go down with a torn ACL or other crippling injury . . . Read more →
Sports Parents Are Ruining the World
To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your children that they are very naughty — much naughtier than most children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority . . . This is called moral influence . . . — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh One of the moms from my son’s hockey team tells me that there’s too much “silliness” on the team, that the kids need to prepare for games with a little more seriousness. Read more →
A Way of Life
Of course it is only a game, but somehow the Trojans, bursting out of that stadium tunnel, have come to stand for a way of life. The sight of those USC teams rolling across the Coliseum grass, dominating their opponents — and without a single penny of government aid that the UCLA’s and Oklahomas and Nebraskas depend on, damn it. All of it happened, year after year, because the school annually turned out a phalanx of new achievers, men who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and went on to become the cream of their crops and the captains of their industries, men who started companies and expanded businesses that created jobs and took people off the welfare rolls, men who took care to plow back their superabundance into the institution that launched them, so that the Trojan tradition of independence and excellence would go on and on. Yes, the… Read more →
Do It Yourself
A fellow parent at hockey practice asks me, “Does your son lace up his own skates?” Read more →
A USC Man Looks at UCLA Football
A crazy thing happened after this year’s USC-UCLA football game . . . because the Bruins were able to keep the score close for the first time in years, UCLA coach Karl Dorrell was rewarded with a two-year contract extension. Read more →
Bird Teams
It’s getting hard to find a restaurant without a TV set anymore. Evidently, Americans don’t like to leave home if it means being away from television, even for an hour or so. Read more →
The Meaning of Golf
But what do I get from existence? If it is full I have only distress, if empty only boredom. How can you offer me so poor a reward for so much labor . . . — Arthur Schopenhauer Another weekend approaches, bringing leisure hours that we don’t know what to do with. As the busy work week winds to a close, we have a couple of days in which to ponder the emptiness of our lives. How dreary! How much more pleasant if we could fill up the time with other activities. Hence: Golf! Intoxication is another option. Or both at the same time! Read more →
Ancient History as Told by a 6th Grader Who Watches Too Much SportsCenter
Hammerin’ Hank Hammurabi here, bringing you today’s Peloponnesian League matchup between the Akkadians and the Assyrians. Sargon the Great gives the Assyrians some much-needed leadership . . . Read more →
My Fantasy Football League Fantasy
My workplace is teeming with idiots who know more about some steroid-amped freak and how many yards he ran with a ball in his hands than they do about their own family members and whatever babysitter is raising their kids for them. Kee-rist! I wish I could go back in time and strangle them all in their cradles . . . Read more →