ESPN is Wrecking College Basketball

First appeared on February 6th, 2013
in The Lebanon Reporter

What is it about ESPN that makes them so loathsome yet completely irresistible simultaneously? From steroids in baseball to Favre and Tebow, ESPN truly is the only great, relatively inexpensive and 100% absolutely legal, mind-altering drug of our generation.

I’ll be the first to admit I once had a problem. My life revolved around SportsCenter. Days weren’t complete without it. When my cable was out for a week I became irritable and lashed out at others, going so far as to dress my dog in a Sanchez jersey screaming “You’re no Tebow!” at him. But I’ve since moved on, after discovering a whole new world outside watching sports highlights on television exists and also after it became clear ESPN panders to a demographic that sees me as old and creepy.

And so it’s only now, with the clairvoyant perspective one can only have from looking in from the outside, that things are clear. ESPN brings College Game Day to Bloomington and the masses turn out to holler and carry on as if ours is some great dark corner of the world where nothing of note happens and nobody matters. And in these moments, with the white hot spotlight upon them, the talking heads are contractually obligated to fill air time and generate tweet-worthy commentary.

It should be enough to say Victor Oladipo is a really good college basketball player. One who’s built himself from an unknown recruit to one of the best in college. Instead they’re compelled to predict all that could go wrong, as if a nine dollar snowglobe from the ESPN.com gift shop were a functioning crystal ball.
Different players wearing the same tired labels. He’s too short, he’s not the prototypical NBA guard, he doesn’t have the range you need on the next level and he’s too nice so there’s no way he’ll ever shoot up a night club or openly complain about having to practice.

Cody Zeller’s draft stock rises and falls on a near hourly basis as if being driven by the gravity of the moon. Yes Zeller was the single largest reason Indiana, and Tom Crean, turned things around. In fact, in going from 6 wins to the top ranked team in the country, we haven’t seen a resurrection like this since Betty White turned up at halftime of the Super Bowl. But he’s not going to be the next Tim Duncan and if you think this perhaps you should take all the money you have and bury it in the backyard right now.

It should be enough for Zeller that he helped Indiana return to glory. Mr. Basketball, High School State Champion, Trester Award winner. What else do we need him to do? Find a cure for cancer on his way to the basket? Leave the kid alone. Let him be a college sophomore. Celebrate him for who he is and not who he may or may not be someday.

It’s become simply exhausting, and hokey. Forsaking innovative programming, ESPN has instead become list happy, ranking everything from pregame meals to anti-inflammatory creams. Could it be that every player or coach they cover is the best at something? “He has to be the most talented left handed sixth man not born in the United States playing in college basketball today”.

Rank what they may and label what they will, ESPN and their millions still can’t fabricate moments like Christian Watford’s shot over Kentucky. The allure of these lies in the reaction, not the tease. So let your cameras roll ESPN for we want to witness all the nouns we wouldn’t normally. In the meantime live by the mantra “produce more, pontificate less”.

© 2013 Eric Walker Williams

A Match Made Somewhere other than Heaven

First appeared on March 27th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Throughout history there have walked the earth that very few men who’ve changed the world. A number so select one may count them upon a single hand; Hammurabi, Guttenberg, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Mr. Speckowski (6th grade Science at Lincoln Elementary).

But alas, if we were capable of springing a sixth digit like children born within the Chernobyl exclusion zone, then one man would make the list. One who lingers a Super Bowl win away from finding his face chiseled upon Mount Rushmore. One born destined to become the first man to spend U.S. currency possessing his own image. A trailblazer spreading his message of faith with a rock jaw and harder head. Of course we’re speaking of one Timothy Richard Tebow.

The problem here is Jets coach Rex Ryan thought we were talking about him. And now a star- crossed trade has brought the NFL’s two biggest caricatures together. Ryan is the blustery head coach who loves guarantees and a good continental breakfast. And Tebow, the quarterback who’s used his superstar status to become a spokesman for sandal wearing carpenters everywhere.

Both are exhausting yet refreshing. Frustrating yet somehow strangely inspiring. One simply cannot look away when either is on TV. Ryan the “King of Blusterstan” and Tebow a Kardashian in shoulder pads. Like moths to a flame or hot dog carts to an Overeaters Anonymous convention-we’re suckered in every time.

So the Jets can’t win a Super Bowl and the front office decides the best way to steal headlines from their roommate who could (the New York Giants) is to bring Ryan and Tebow together; thus adding a fourth ring to their already world famous circus. If Donald Trump has taught us anything, other than you too can become a bizillionaire by simply making ridiculous statements, it’s that there’s only room for 1 dominating personality in the board room. Now the Jets have two.

The impact each has had upon the world is inarguable. The Global Language Monitor recently recognized “Tebowing” as a word while Rex Ryan has a half tribal art, half sea monster tattoo on his calf. But to believe the coexistence of these two is the recipe the Jets need to win a Super Bowl is to believe socialized medicine and cars that don’t need gasoline will solve all of America’s problems.

While Tebow loves quoting passages from the Bible and pausing to thank a higher power, Ryan is more about ripping large chunks of raw flesh from your posterior region while quoting lines from “The Idiot’s Guide to Talking like a Trucker”.

Tebow’s a superhero whose Justice League of America card was earned by persevering despite draft experts arguing the NFL wouldn’t have his awkward delivery and upright, run the ball down your throat style. Yet lost in the chatter over his unorthodox passes and propensity for taking linebackers head on is the fact that, unlike Plastic Man or the Wonder Twins, Tebow is apparently immune to arrogance. The guy’s everything that’s right with sports and Americans love him for flying in the face of conventional wisdom. For this he’s become the stuff of myth.

And so now this Sasquatch in cleats meets a modern day John Wayne armed with clipboard and Burger King headset. A vampire who feeds on arrogance, Ryan learned the ropes from his legendary father (see the man whose defense MADE Mike Ditka) and he makes no apologies.

Both men are occupiers in a league that breeds conformity. And while the result may not be a Super Bowl it will certainly be worth more than the price of admission.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams