There is an old adage that says, “Try not to be a fool.” Apparently, OJ Simpson wasn’t around when they came up with that one.
Mr. Simpson is apparently going to give a series of interviews for Fox entitled, “If I Did It, Here’s How,” or something like that. I don’t really care. I may or may not watch it. My interest in OJ Simpson begins with “The Naked Gun” movies and ends with “Not guilty.” Oh, yeah…and his fine ass daughter.
OJ, we know you’re broke. We know the Goldman family has taken you for everything you have. We know that you’re making about $3.5 million for this and probably stand to make a lot more, if America takes interest in these interviews. (and they probably will). Your trial was a racial flashpoint back in 1996. Things aren’t exactly sunshine and roses in 2006. Why do you want to bring all that back up now?
Okay, so you can’t get tried for the same crime again. Okay, you already lost the civil trial. Most of America already believes that you did it. So you want to feed into that just to get paid now? You’re going to go on TV and give a confession that’s not really a confession? I just don’t see the point. You can’t be hurting that badly financially, because you still don’t have a job, yet all you do is play golf all day and yell at people that you hit with your car. Where is all this going? Really, unless you’re going to admit to doing it or name the person who did (because if you didn’t do it, you know you did), there’s no sense in even going there.
Then again, $3.5 million is hard to say no to. I can be bought for way less than that.
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Bobby Knight has sent the world into an uproar again.
This time, in a game against Gardner-Webb (yet another no name school that gets more airtime than Jackson State), he forcefully nudged guard Michael Pierce’s chin upward, so he’d make eye contact with Knight. The first time you see it, it looks like he stole on Pierce. After the shock (or eye-rolling) passes, you can clearly see that he was just nudging his face up. He just did it really hard. He didn’t punch him. He didn’t slap him. No one who’s actually involved (or matters) with the situation didn’t have a problem with what happened, including this boy’s parents. But that’s not good enough for the sportswriters’ community.
“Oh, you should never put your hands on a player! Oh, he should be suspended! Oh, he punched this boy in the face! I knew something like this would happen! He’s such a bully! When will he learn?” I swear, sportswriters need to pull their heads out of their asses.
Let me state here that I am no fan of Bobby Knight. I think the man is a walking disaster and I’ve always believed that one day, he was going to openly beat up a player. He carries way too much anger inside of him. There have been times in the past where I’ve felt that he was clearly wrong and that he should have been fired for things that would have landed him in jail out in the real world. This time wasn’t one of them.
I think the only reason why the sportswriters have taken this position that Knight did something wrong is because they thought America would go along with it. Usually, that’s why they take the moral high ground, I believe. But when the ESPN SportsNation poll came back, 72% of America didn’t see anything wrong with what happened. But the sportswriters were out there already, so they had to stick with their position, even though they knew they weren’t right.
All Knight was trying to do was get the boy to make eye contact and encourage him to play his game, by all accounts. Yet, if another coach had done the same thing, it wouldn’t have been a big deal at all. For example, in last year’s NCAA Tournament, UNC coach Roy Williams grabbed one of his players and forced him into a chair so he could yell at him. Didn’t even make a blip on the radar. I am a huge North Carolina fan and watch all their games and I didn’t even remember this. That’s how minor it was. But had it been Bobby Knight doing the same thing, the world would have been in an uproar again. Just like if Roy Williams had done what Knight did on Monday, you would have never heard about it.
This story has been news all week, but what story was glossed over a few weeks back? The one where Knight suspended his star player for not reaching HIS academic standards. The player wasn’t on academic probation and his wasn’t in violation of NCAA or Texas Tech standards. Bobby Knight holds his players to a higher standard academically than the NCAA does. And when the player didn’t reach that standard, he was gone until his grades came back up. Why wasn’t that one being discussed until people rolled their eyes at the mere mention of the topic?
I guess reading about the outrage of Knight’s anger outburst sells more papers than reading about something good that he did. I’d buy that if it wasn’t for the fact that no one buys a newspaper based on anything a sportswriters says or thinks. I hate sportswriters.
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Randy Moss has stated this week that he can’t play well unless he’s happy. Of course, everyone’s up in arms about his one. ESPN’s football analysts are pissed. Everyone is saying that his comments are a slap in the face to football players everywhere and that a leader wouldn’t do this. They feel that no matter what, he should still go try his best, no matter how much the team sucks. And they’re right.
The thing is, none of this is a surprise to me. You all should have been ready for this. But most importantly, you all were the fools for buying the crap he was flinging in the offseason about being a leader on that Raiders team. Had you done like I did, and brushed off all that “leader” talk, this comment wouldn’t have even fazed you.
I don’t care how good Randy Moss is/was. I would have never looked him to become a leader. He would have never become a captain on any team that I was coaching. Actually, it’s a telling sign that Oakland is in serious trouble, if they’re forced to look to Randy Moss for leadership. Let’s face it, Randy Moss walking off the field during a game or fake-mooning the crowd wasn’t that long ago. It’s either the captaincy of Randy Moss or the captaincy of Jerry Porter. Neither option really screams, “good situation.”
Personally, I commend his honesty. He could have just let us go on thinking that something was wrong with him or maybe that he had lost a step. In a way, it’s similar to Vince Carter admitting that he didn’t give his all for Toronto in those last years. I didn’t hold that against Carter because he had watched management destroy a team that was two points away from going to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001. They hadn’t made any effort to make that team better, yet he’s expected to carry a subpar team year after year? The difference is, Randy Moss has only been in Oakland for two years and all he does is the equivalent of running wind sprints for two hours.
If that’s all he’s doing (because that’s all most receivers do), maybe he should just shut up and play.
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The Boston Red Sox have paid a Japanese baseball team $51.1 million for the right to talk to a pitcher that they have on their roster. They have 30 days to sign this player to a contract. Let that sink in for a second. They didn’t pay $51.1 million to the player – they paid $51.1 million for TEMPORARY RIGHTS to NEGOTIATE with a player. So they have to pay the player on top of paying the team for permission to talk to him. It’s the most expensive peep show of all time. Chances are, you think that’s as stupid as it sounds. For that kind of money, he better not give up a single hit all season, on the way to a 100 home run season that sees the Red Sox win two World Series at the same time. What’s that, you say? That sounds ridiculous? So does paying $51.1 million for permission to essentially talk to a guy’s interpreter and agent.
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