Hummer as the Clue to Why Futbol Will Never Surpass Football in the USA

So I've delighted in World Cup soccer as much or more than the average American over the past several days. But one moment crystallized for me why soccer will never get traction in the average American heart.

I was tuning in to a late-afternoon game. The horns were blowing happily (you either love those things or you hate them, I personally find them delightful). The commentator had a cool British accent. And he was preparing us for the game to come.

As he did so, he referenced the game that had just concluded: "If you missed the earlier game, it was a thrilling 1-1 tie."

Stop it right there. In American English the words "thrilling" and "tie" do not belong in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence. An American football coach once said that getting a tie is like kissing your sister. He spoke on behalf of Americans everywhere.

Americans hate ties. It's why hockey ratings are just below the QVC Home Shopping Network.

Americans need clarity: one winner, one loser. It's why we invented the Hummer.

Before the Hummer, it was unclear which road vehicle would crush the other in a WWF-style cage-match. Hummer invented, case closed. Ninety-percent of Americans slept much better once the Hummer was safely on the road--the rest of them were worried about small things like fossil-fuel consumption and ozone depletion. Silly tree-huggers.

And so, until soccer can figure out a way to move beyond "thrilling ties" it will remain a quaint after-thought....no amount of horn-blowing or cool British accents can overcome that feeling of kissing one's sister.

Hailing Dook, Beat Up By My Little Step-Sister, and Other Post-NCAA Basketball Thoughts

Great game last night, a couple quick thoughts this morning:

-Dook was the best team of the past ten days. They played great, they peaked at the right time which is what college basketball is all about. It pains me to write it, but there it is. The better team won.

-Butler was able to dictate the game--they got exactly the game they wanted. But here's the deal: you can't go 9-plus minutes without making a field goal and expect to beat one of the top teams in the country. Give Dook lots of credit for that, they played great defense all night.

-Since only three of us watched, just wanted to let you all know that UNC lost in the NIT championship game against the Dayton Flyers on ESPN 62 last week. If a championship game end-game buzzer goes off and no one's there to hear it, does it make any noise?

A football coach once famously said that ending a game in a tie is like kissing your sister. Losing the NIT championship game is like getting beat up by your little step-sister. Hooray for a great recruiting class for next year.

-Memo to the NCAA tourney as they consider expanding to 96 teams next year. Please read "How the Mighty Fall" by Jim Collins. In his vast study of great companies that stumble into oblivion, the number one reason why they fall is...OVER-REACHING! Please, spare us.

Post-First-NIT-Win-Euphoria Grab-Bag: Tribe Pride, Tar Heel Codependence, and Cheering for the Pack

So I realize that not everyone cares about UNC basketball.

But after last night's heady win against the William and Mary Tribe (and given that I had the pleasure of getting to know many kind and warm Tribe alum in my nine years living in Richmond) I feel that there is much to talk about.

So without further ado, here's my first (and hopefully last ever) NIT Grab-Bag:

-Along with many other UNC fans, I'm conflicted about being in the NIT at all. Several weeks ago, I was all for it. This team needed playing time, more practice, more reps, more games.

But as the season wore on, a sudden realization hit me: this team doesn't need more practice. No amount of practice is going to make this a good team. This team needs to be dismantled and re-booted next school year. They stink.

I was hoping we wouldn't even get invited. But we did, and at least one win in the tournament proves that we belong in the tournament. Not sure if that's a good thing, but there it is.

And I gotta' say, winning last night's game made me a believer that this is, after all, probably a good thing for our young and fragile little team.

-I'm grateful for my William and Mary friends who taught me some important bits of W&M information.

For example, the most common cheer at a William and Mary sporting event is (or at least was at one point) a call-and-response between the fans. One set of fans shouts: "TRIBE PRIDE!" And the rest of the fans respond: "GET SOME!"

Now I find this to be a singularly strange phenomenon. Going to college at UNC, we had many cheers directed to the athletes on the field of battle (as in the simple, "Go, tarheels, go!"). And we had some cheers directed at mocking the other team (as in the perennial Clemson favorite taunt: "ORANGE. IS. UGLY!").

But never in all my days of fandom have I ever experienced a cheer that is fundamentally directed at the other fans, exhorting them to engage in more rabid fan-like behavior.

-Having dispatched the Tribe and their sweetly self-encouraging fans, I'm particularly enthralled at the prospect of being in the same bracket at NC State. Just one win each away from a third-times-a-charm rematch of our favorite team in the ACC. I will be thoroughly pulling for an NC State victory against UAB.

-Finally, I have to confess that I am less dialed into the Big Dance given the lack of Tar Heel presence. I suppose this is the litmus test of true fan-dom. I will watch professional football no matter who's playing--I just love the game.

And I love college basketball. But I actually have a deep affinity (okay, unhealthy/co-dependent relationship) with one team in particular. And they're playing in the "Not In the Tournament" tournament.

I've still got my brackets picked out. And I'll be tuning in if nothing else than in the hopes that Dook gets exposed for the weak team that it is.

But in the mean time, I've gotta' brush up on Mississippi State--we play them in our next NIT game and I want to be fully prepared in case we actually show up and play like a real basketball team.

Post-SuperBowl Grab-Bag: Exploiting Women, Selling Out, and Lots of Links

Yet another year of our annual, uniquely American event that is the SuperBowl. A couple of grab-bag thoughts for tonight:

-This from Andy Crouch on FB/Twitter this morning: "Was there any Super Bowl ad _other_ than Focus's that featured a realistic, admirable woman in a central role?"

Which led to someone linking to this article and then someone else to this article. Plenty to think about.

-My brother (who's back in the blogosphere after a several month absence...huzzah!) also started to tackle this issue today in his post...linking to the Christianity Today cover-article that I just started reading this morning.

The question: have Christians sold out to a sports-worshiping, crazed, broken nation? I'm not sure that I really want to answer it, to be flat out honest with you.

-The game itself--a good one. Growing up in the 80's and 90's, the rap on the SuperBowl was that it was never actually a game, it was always a super-blowout. But this is certainly no longer true. Blow-outs over the past decade have been the rarity, for the most part they have been very close games, if not always the best-played games due to the super-pressures players feel.

I have to confess that I was somewhat cheering for the Colts. I just like Peyton Manning and how the Colts play the game. But I was glad for the Saints to bring home their first title...but does Bourbon Street really need any reason get the party started early?

Back to regular programming tomorrow.

Baseball v. Football

Try as I might, I can't really respect baseball all that much. It's quaint, cute. And the games finally get interesting around Halloween. But mostly it's a lot of standing around. There are some magnificent moments but it takes a heck of a long time to get there.

I can't help but remember one Atlanta Brave interviewed about ten years ago who said that after baseball season was over and he was in shape he could dunk a basketball.

Seriously.

Football kicks baseball's butt twice daily and once extra recreationally on the weekends.

As college football cranks up into mid-season form and the NFL is also running full-steam ahead, I'm just not sure I'm all that interested in watching the Yankees make yet another World Series run. As fun as it might be to root against the evil empire. given my limited recreation time (got to save it for important stuff like blogging, you know) I'd much, much, much rather watch a game where interesting stuff actually happens before hour number three of the game.

Sheer Joy

Perhaps nothing is as revealing about the depravity of my own heart in regards to the aforementioned addiction to college basketball as the deep and sinister joy I take in checking the scores and (hypothetically speaking) finding out that Dook got demolished, destroyed, embarrassed and humiliated by (hypothetically speaking) the aforementioned Clemson Tigers that we demolished, destroyed and embarrassed a couple weeks ago here in Chapel Hill, by the score of oh, let's say, 74-47.

Clemson fans, did I say that orange is ugly? What I meant was that orange is ugly on me. You, however, pull it off spectacularly well.

Tennessee and Texas fans, I'm gladly willing to make a similar concession should you also prove to be so useful to my addiction.

A Moment of Sanity

Two weeks ago, Kelly and I went to the UNC-Clemson basketball game. Early in the first half Tyler Hansbrough, UNC's Mr. All-Galaxy center, went to the free-throw line and a hush fell over the crowd.

And for a moment, it was as if the veil was lifted and I could see through all of it, how disturbingly contrived this whole experience was. Ten 18-22 year olds were running around a hardwood floor in a glorified gymnasium. Rules about this game had been developed over several decades and had been modified from time to time to ensure a more engaging spectator event.

And there were millions of dollars in revenue and cheerleading outfits and band practices and marketing strategies and corporate sponsorships and game apparel and travel expenses and ticket prices and restaurants and buses and facepaint and angst and outrage and joy and tribulation and pain and sadness and hope all built around ten 18-22 year olds running around on hardwood floors within the contrived limits of the rules of this contrived game.

And around me were grown people who spent $45 per seat in order to spend the game yelling at 18-22 year olds about their lack of basketball playing ability or at the refs for their lack of sound judgment.

These were people who were here night after night, their lives were built around sitting in this nosebleed section. Or when they were not here, they were gazing at stats on the internet or chatting about it at work or calling up sports talk radio shows and/or otherwise building their lives around 18-22 year olds, running around on a hardwood floor, under a contrived set of rules created in order to make it a more engaging spectator sport, in order to make lots of someones a lot of money, all housed in this super-sized gymnasium,

Normally I laugh these grown, irrationally opinionated people off, but not in this moment. This moment I realized it would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

Hansbrough (as is his wont) made the free throw. We all cheered.

I leaned over to Kelly and whispered, "Sixteen thousand grown-ups just held their breath while a 22-year-old shot a basketball." She nodded. Later she told me that the same veil had been lifted for her at the same moment.

Fortunately for me, I was able to pull the veil back down and enter into the glorious bliss of feigned ignorance. We won. Clemson still hasn't beat us in 54 (55?) tries here in Chapel Hill. Orange is still ugly. Go Heels.

Later Kelly told me that the veil didn't go back down quite so easily for her. Her un-ease about the contrivedness of the whole event stuck with her...and try as I might, it's kind of stuck with me, too.

I just finished watching UNC polish off Maryland (a tasty dish, no one's fearing the turtle this year, I don't think) and I'm glad that we won. But I'm wondering about the power that's been given over in my little corner of the world (and in my own heart) to five 18-22 year olds running up and down a glorified gymnasium, under contrived rules, developed to create a better spectator experience, in order to make a lot of someones a lot of money.

Magic Carpet Undone by Yellow Flags

With apologies to those of you who don't care about football...

You can't have 100 yards of penalties and beat a team that's more talented than you are.

The Cardinals had way too many stupid penalties. One particular drive, they had over 35 yards of penalties including a roughing-the-holder penalty on a field goal try that gave Pittsburgh another three shots at a touchdown.

They held them to a field goal, but here's the deal. By the time Pittsburgh had driven to 1st and Goal with roughly a minute left in the game, the Cardinals had already held them out of the end zone for nine plays inside their own ten yard line. Those were some tremendous defensive stands, but how many times can an average defense keep a good offense out of the end zone?

Apparently approximately nine times. The Steelers scored the winning TD and that's the ball game.

The Cardinals also had a number of holding penalties that killed drives on offense. I hated it for Warner that his interception at the end of the half hurt them so much. Couldn't somebody have tackled that guy...or at least pushed him out of bounds?

But it was a great game and a lot of fun to watch. And Pittsburgh isn't so deplorable that I'm miserable today...except that it's a long wait until August and the NFL kicking off the 2009-2010 season!

Meanwhile, time to get serious about college basketball. March Madness isn't but so far away.

Back to more important stuff tomorrow.

Ain't Contemplatin' bein' Competitive

A few thoughts following the college football kick-off weekend.

1. I hate Eastern Carolina athletics.

ECU is like your perpetually drunk little kid brother who parties his way to a six-year undergraduate degree in psychology while grousing at family gatherings that he doesn't get the respect he deserves from your parents.

So it took me a little while to get behind them on Saturday as they took Virginia Tech down in a shocker in Charlotte. But as the game wore on and they kept it close, I found myself irresistibly drawn to the underdog factor. When they blocked the kick and ran it into the end zone with just a minute and a half left, I actually let out a little yelp of joy.

Way to go, ECU Pirates. Maybe the kid brother is starting to make something of himself after all.

2. The Virginia Tech loss was just one in a string of extremely embarrassing losses (and a couple of embarrassing wins) by the ACC. Ever since the ACC went corporate-raiding and stole a couple of teams from the Big East to create a super-conference, the quality of football has been atrocious.

Clemson was slaughtered on national t.v. in prime-time (zero rushing yards for the game!?!), Virigina Tech was upended, UNC barely got by McNeese State, NC State was embarrassed and nobody expected UVa to beat University of Southern California, but man was it ugly.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's in the NFL, the NFC experienced about a decade-long run of dominance in the Superbowl. One columnist I read took to calling the AFC the "ain't feeling competitive" conference.

I'm calling for it right now: ACC: Ain't Contemplating bein' Competitive conference. When's basketball season start?

Tar Heel Dilemma

Okay, so as I'm watching way too much Olympic coverage, there's an uneasy shadow that looms over everything. And not just for me, but for every UNC fan.

Team USA basketball is coached by Coach K, the Dook basketball coach that we affectionately refer to as "rat face" among other things.

So allow me to share how I've come to peace with this. Perhaps this will help other UNC fans out there, or just people with the good sense to know someone who's got serious and deep character issues when they see it.

First, if Team USA basketball wins--huzzah! Go USA! I mean, they've got more talent than should be allowed on any one basketball floor at the same time, much less all on the same team.

Second, if Team USA loses, huzzah! Coach K lays an egg and all Tar Heel fans everywhere can delight in his misery!

It's a win-win! Everyone's a winner at the Olympics.