Category: Sports

Mostly stuff about football…

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Monday Randomness…

– The (New York) Daily News stole the Empire State Building recently for an in-depth article about the growing problem of mortgage fraud. In mortgage fraud, scammers generally forge paperwork with local governments to transfer property to their aliases; they then use the property to apply for mortgages. They then take the money and split. In most cases, the genuine property owner has no idea the scam has even happened until a foreclosure crew shows up to seize property due to the unpaid, illicit mortgage. In the Daily News’ case, the newspaper’s forged documents contained several “tells” that should have tipped off the people in the NYC deeds office: star of the original King Kong film Fay Ray was listed as a witness, bank robber Willie Sutton was listed as notary, and the company purchasing the iconic New York building was “Nelots Properties LLC” (stolen spelled backwards). You should check out the article; it’s a good read!

– Watch out: Microsoft is planning to make their own version of WordPress.

– Shopping at a Circuit City liquidation sale? Be careful! The closing Circuit City stores are no longer owned by the company but by a liquidator who apparently has no qualms about doubling the MSRP on electronics and taking a discount off that absurdly high price. For example, one woman stopped by a closing Circuit City in Parker, Colorado looking for a deal on a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray DVD player. She’d seen the player at Best Buy for $299 and Amazon for $249, and figured Circuit City’s “50% Off” offer might save her a few ducats. However, the liquidator’s “saleperson” assured the shopper that their price of $309 was a huge 50% discount over their “list price” of $618!

– Good karma and “get well” wishes to Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who is now on the heart transplant waiting list. I’m not a fan of your team sir, but you are, by all accounts, a good man and a swell NFL owner. Get well soon, and God Bless!

– With his win against the Ratbirds yesterday, Ben Roethlisberger became the first quarterback in NFL history to win 50 games in his first 5 seasons. Congrats, Ben! It’s been a hell of a ride so far!

– Epic Carnival – a website that’s half pictures of hot celebrity chicks and half snarky NFL news, a mash-up of The Superficial and a slightly more serious Kissing Suzy Kolber, if you will – has become one of my favorite new sites. Check out this list of Top 10 amazing but true NFL facts. Some excerpts: “There is, in fact, no NFL law on the books that prevents the Cardinals from hosting a playoff game”… “Minnesota actually trailed for most of its game against Detroit, and became the first professional football team ever to be concerned when Gus Frerotte got hurt”… and “Despite the fact that he’s been on the losing end of a great deal of football games, Terrell Owens still screams and cries like a little girl when it happens again.”

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Steelers Win AFC North!

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 13-9 this afternoon, thus winning the AFC North championship and securing a first-round bye in the playoffs. The Steelers defense looked great as always, but their offense is making the few hairs I have left turn grey:

Steelers-Ravens

Yes, complain about that call all you want… I don’t care! My team is 11-3 and sitting pretty!

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NASCAR in trouble?

I hate NASCAR. To me, driving a car is not a “sport”, whether it be NASCAR or Formula 1. Sure, many consider it an “entertaining pastime”… but a “sport”? No, not hardly.

But the fact is, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, the birthplace of NASCAR and home to hundreds of companies that support the sport. Oh, and the future NASCAR Hall of Fame, too. NASCAR is huge here. In fact, the sports reporting on our local TV news usually goes Carolina Panthers > NASCAR > NCAA basketball > NCAA football > Charlotte Bobcats > Charlotte Checkers (and, if there’s time left in the broadcast) > Carolina Hurricanes. So whether I like it or not, I hear a lot about NASCAR. And what I’m hearing lately isn’t good.

You probably know that the Big Three automakers are in a world of trouble. You might not have followed through on that thought: the Big Three are huge supporters of NASCAR, to the tune of millions of dollars a year. As much as the automakers would like to keep their NASCAR sponsorships, they are at the point where it simply might not be feasible to keep pouring millions into the sport. And any government bailout of the industry might actually make things worse for NASCAR, since the government might question why they should give taxpayer money to NASCAR by way of the Big Three. After all, several Big Three  executives recently appeared before Congress, and were given tounge lashings for using private jets to get there. What do you think Congress’ reaction would be to find out that the automakers gave $20 million of that supposed bailout money to NASCAR?

Just last night there was a bit on the local news about how Petty Enterprises cannot find a sponsor and thus might go under or be forced to merge with another team. Again, I’m not a NASCAR fan, but I know who Richard Petty is, and if he can’t get a deal, you have to wonder about the stability of the sport in general. And then there’s this bit where NASCAR president Mike Helton literally begs fans to support the “sport’s” sponsors.

What happened to NASCAR? My grandfather was big into NASCAR starting in the late 80s, so I heard about it all the time from him. It seemed for a while in the mid 90s that NASCAR would eclipse the NHL or MLB as one of the “Big Three” sports. And now the wheels are falling off (punny!). What the hell happened?

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Friday Fun Random Post

It’s Friday! Woo-hoo! That means the weekend is upon us… better yet, that means only two days until football comes back! Rejoice and kick back with these random images!

First, we have Gemma Atkinson! Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard:

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Hey, does anyone remember this “video game” from the late 70s or early 80s:

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I saw a picture of the game online, and it brought back a flood of memories. I had that game, and I used to play it for hours. I love pointless nostalgia!

Here’s a picture of Jenna Fischer looking cute as a button on the set of The Office:

Jenna Fischer Office Christmas

And lastly… because it never gets old, here’s one more pic from the Cowboys\Steelers game last Sunday, at the point of the Steelers’ victory:

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R.I.P. Jan Kemp

Jan Kemp, a notorious figure in Georgia sports history, died this past Friday. She was 59.

Infamous among UGA football fans, Kemp was a University of Georgia professor who blew the whistle on the school’s preferential treatment of student athletes. Fired for refusing to pass athletes in her classes, People magazine hailed her as “a hero of the 80s” for filing a lawsuit against the university in 1986 in order to get her job back.

The trial brought many of UGA’s unseemly practices to light, especially an infamous tape recording of remedial studies director Leroy Ervin saying that “I know for a fact that these kids would not be here if it were not for their utility to the institution… They are used as a kind of raw material in the production of some goods to be sold as whatever product, and they get nothing in return”.

Such revelations about a university producing functionally illiterate athletes led to the resignation of longtime university president Fred Davison. They also led to a million jokes from Georgia Tech fans, as well as a humorous “UGA Athletes’ Exam” that was chain-faxed thousands of times in the Atlanta area.

Reforms were immediately instituted at UGA and across the NCAA as a result of Kemp’s lawsuit – which she won. She was awarded $2.58 million, although this was later reduced to $1.1 million. Kemp, although a pariah that was often verbally assaulted by UGA football fans who blamed her for the program’s later difficulties, refused to leave her Athens home. Indeed, she lived there until around six months ago, when a combination of a broken hip and Alzheimer’s Disease forced her to move to a nursing home.

Q. What did the average UGA football player get on his SAT?
A. Drool

God bless, Jan!

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The ACC Champio.. zzzzz

This is a picture from the first quarter of the ACC Championship game in Tampa this past weekend:

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Although the ACC’s official attendance number was 53,927, you can clearly see that the “real number” was far lower than that. The ACC officially acknowledged that BC and Virginia Tech sold less than 5,000 of their 20,000 allotted tickets… yet somehow they come up with 53,927… when “less than 20,000” would be more realistic. Word is that the game was such a snoozer that scalpers were actually giving tickets away outside the gates. And no, I don’t mean “giving them away” as in selling a 50-yard line seat for $10… I’m talking about actually giving them away, as in “here… no one wants these… you can have them for free!”

That’s friggin pathetic! The SEC Championship, held at the Georgia Dome this weekend, was like a bowl game unto itself. Meanwhile, fewer people show up for the ACC Championship than a regular season game at perennial football powerhouse University of Delaware.

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The new Steel Curtain?

Back in the 1970s, the Pittsburgh Steelers defense was badass. In 1976, for example, the Steelers started off the season 1-4 and lost Terry Bradshaw to injury. The defense then stepped up, pulling off three consecutive shutouts. The Steelers’ defense didn’t allow a single point in five of their last nine games that year, and only one opponent (Houston) was able to score in the double digits (a 32-16 Steelers win). Eight of the Steelers’ defensive players were chosen for the Pro Bowl that year, and four of those would go to to enter the Hall of Fame. All in all, the Steelers defense of the day was so badass that they earned a legendary nickname: the Steel Curtain.

Since the 70s, the Steelers have generally had pretty good defensive teams. After all, a good running game and a bruising defense is “the Pittsburgh way”. It’s “smashmouth football”, and no one has consistently done that better than the Steelers. But this season’s Steeler defense is different. It’s like the defense of years past, but it’s “clicking” on every level. Consider the statistics:

– The Steelers have not allowed a 100-yard rusher all season.

– The Steelers have not allowed 300 yards in offense all season.

– The Steelers have given up ten (or fewer) points in four of their last five games.

– The Steelers defense has allowed nine total points in third quarters this season.

– James Harrison and Lamar Woodley have already combined for 25 1/2 sacks between them this year, a team record.

– Troy Polamalu has had interceptions in three consecutive games, and leads the league with six total picks.

– Overall, the Steelers defense is giving up the fewest yards rushing, passing and overall, and the fewest points in the NFL.

– The Steelers are giving up an average of 238 yards per game, easily the lowest in the NFL.

All this was on full display last Sunday when the Steelers traveled to Foxboro, where they had previously been 0-2 in Gillette Stadium. Patriots QB Matt Cassel was riding high on back-to-back 400-yard passing games. Darth Vader was looking like a genius (again) for his pick at backup QB.

Steelers-PatsSo what happened? The Pats managed only 169 offensive yards. Cassel threw two picks and fumbled twice. The Pats went 1-13 on third downs. Had Large Benjamin not thrown that interception deep in his own territory at the beginning of the game (which gave the Pats the ball at Pittsburgh’s 14 yard line), it’s possible that the Pats might not have gotten into the end zone at all.

The 1976 Steelers – the epitome of “Steel Curtain” – led the league in giving up the fewest points, yards rushing and total yards. As good as they were, however, they only managed to be #3 in yards passing. The 2008 Steelers – the “New Steel Curtain” – is leading in all defensive categories, something that hasn’t been done since at least 1991, when the Eagles led the league in the three yardage categories (but did not give up the fewest points).

I’ll admit that the Steelers’ offense is struggling. Just as the Bears had “Good Rex” and “Bad Rex”, I’m never sure if “Good Ben” or “Bad Ben” will show up. I’ve watched many games on the edge of my seat this year, hoping and praying that the offense will get the job done. But after the game’s over I take a deep breath… and remember what the defense has done. The Steelers’ defense destroyed the Redskins, Chargers and Bungles.

Let’s hope they can keep it up against Dallas!