4/26/07: The Week In Sports

April 26, 2007

This week’s column looks into the current direction of sports, downward.
I suppose we should start with the oldest news, I didn’t get a chance to talk about Don Imus in the last issue because I simply ran out of room. But, as more of the story unfolded I knew I had to share my opinion.
For those who do not know, Imus has a daily nationally-syndicated radio talk show which is paid by CBS. He has been on the air for decades now and it shows in any picture of him. His comments are usually as odd as the hat he wears during every broadcast, but stay somewhat under the radar.
That is until he gave his opinion on the NCAA women’s basketball national championship game. He mentioned the day after Tennessee’s seemingly 43rd straight national title, that their opponent Rutgers had a negative look.
I’m not going to say exactly what he said obviously, but the point is he went way past the line. I have my own sports talk show here at KEOL, a college run station, and I know that it was way too much.
There’s a thin line in the media for what can be said these days and it is well known. For a man who has been in the business this long, I found it shocking that he thought what he said was okay.
The problem was after his statement about the appearance of the Rutgers female players, he continued, not only on his own show, but in terrible apologies to keep his job. To clear things up Imus visited the Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio show and said, “There’s just no pleasing you people.”
Needless to say Don Imus no longer has a job at CBS radio.
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One of the many reasons I hate professional sports is that as the NBA playoffs have started and the NFL draft nears, the media talks about the worst teams in those leagues losing games on purpose to secure first draft picks.
What is the point of playing the games? Actually, a better question is, why do they still charge the people to come watch teams who don’t care if they win or lose? There is no way that I’m going to pay 60 dollars to go watch a team lose a game just to get a 19 year old kid who will be good in four to five years.
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Two signs that the world is coming to an end, number one is the NCAA has just recently placed a ban on any coach making contacts with recruits through text messages. 77 year old Arizona head men’s basketball coach Lute Olson said he loves text messaging players.
So to any students out there hearing about high cell phone bills due to text messages from their parents, there’s a really old man who thinks it is a great way to communicate.
Number two, last week the head coach of the Pakistani national cricket team was murdered after an opening round loss at the cricket world championships in Jamaica. How far down the line has the world come when a cricket coach is murdered over cricket?
I’d also like to throw in; does anyone know the NHL still exists? Last week more people watched ABC’s Dancing with the Stars than every game combined in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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For any betters out there, make sure to put your money on Floyd Mayweather Jr. Saturday, May 5th, as he takes on Oscar De La Hoya in what could be the curtain call for boxing fans out there.
It seems we haven’t seen a marquee match-up like this in years. Will the sport die out with the new craze for UFC? Boxing may find itself down for the count.
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I’ll close this week’s column by giving my condolences to the families, friends, and anyone affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech University last week. We as students sometimes forget how great we really have it.
Just think those college students woke-up that morning just as we do every morning, with the only care being that they’d like to sleep five more minutes, and not that it would be their last morning.
College is suppose to be a safe place, a haven for higher learning, the lessons that were taught to the world that day were ones of tragedy and shock. I’m not asking for everyone to hold hands, but keep that in mind every time you want to snicker or whisper about the quiet or smarter student.