Manning Bowl II Long on Hype, Short on Results

The list of things I have rooted against in my life is short. Global warming, Communist China, anyone coaching professional football in a hooded sweatshirt. But, this being said, for some strange reason I was apathetic about the 24 first half points the Colts put on the board Sunday night.


Somehow I was hoping “Manning Bowl II” would leave the Colts 0-2. It’s not that I want to see the Colts fail. It’s just that 0-2 is far more dramatic than 1-1. 0-2 means a direct flight to Panicville. 0-2 means angry mobs of people in the streets with pitchforks and torches. 0-2 forces terrified Colts fans to buy newspapers out of fear while 1-1 sells newspapers to terrified fans with pet parakeets.

I suppose in my mind 0-2 would have become 0-4. Then the greatest comeback in NFL history would follow as the Colts would rise like a Phoenix from the depths of ineffectiveness powered by the laser-rocket arm of their soon to be five time league MVP. And, after embarrassing whatever NFC poser was offered up for ritual sacrifice, Indianapolis would hoist another Lombardi Trophy. But the Colts won and now finding something to write about just became much harder.

Unless you’re a Colts fan “Manning Bowl II” didn’t meet any of the pre-“Manning Bowl II” hype generated by the talking heads at NBC. In fact if the Peacock wanted a competitive game, they’d have been better served pulling Papa Manning out of his luxury suite and putting him under center for the Giants.

And don’t go telling me not to take all this winning for granted; I’ve already done that. I’m no different than any other Colts fan. I look for the negatives in every win. “Yes we won by 24, but how many rushing yards did we have? How many rushing yards did they have? Our back-up quarterback couldn’t pass a bad Taco and did you hear Bob Sanders needs total hip replacement surgery?”

The games most exciting moment came in the third quarter when a disgruntled Brandon Jacobs fired his helmet into the crowd. Or fired it off the equipment cases only to have it ricochet into the crowd, or tried to spike it off the bench only to have it slip out of his; well let’s just say his helmet found its way into the stands “magic bullet” style. To be clear, if Jacob’s helmet wound up in my lap, I’d have been out of Lucas Oil faster than the Giants were out of Sunday night’s game.

Which of course forces one ponder the legal rights of drunk and disorderly fans. What does the Constitution say about professional football team paraphernalia that finds the hands of irrational people? Surely this isn’t a scenario the Framers overlooked.

Clearly the gaggle of people circling the fan with the helmet each appeared to have their own interpretation of the situation. Judging by all the gesturing and pointing, it was evident Hoosiers are fully aware of their legal rights when it comes to stray athletic equipment. And while I’m not a licensed lip reader, I’m almost certain one of them was telling Security “possession is 9/10ths of the law.”

So climb down off the ledge Ye Colts fans for all appears to be well with your Boys in Blue. Just be forewarned, should you happen to have a helmet fired your direction by a 6’4-265 pound running back, run for the exits like the building’s on fire or not only will you lose the helmet but you’ll come off looking confused and weak on national television.

Houston: Indianapolis has lots of problems

First appeared on September 14th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

John D. Rockefeller was famous for turning disasters into opportunities. That mindset, and more money than the Federal Reserve of Uganda, are the only two things separating Rockefeller from me. But turning a disaster around requires learning from mistakes and while the Colts may be above this, their 34-24 loss at Texas Sunday taught me much about football and life.


I discovered one apparent off season goal of NFL brass was to find a way to keep Peyton Manning from dominating their league. Evidence of this can be found in a rule change that slows play down and the fact they made the four time MVP play without an offensive line for most of Sunday’s game.

I learned Bob Sanders is 2 inches shorter than me which felt pretty good; that was until they said he was 50 pounds heavier. Sanders could punch my ticket to the hospital quicker than a UPS truck delivering sand bags, but I’m pretty confident I could find a way to survive more than 1 series if you gave me 7 months to prepare (I was REALLY good at Dodgeball back in the day).

I found out the lagging economy has finally trickled up to professional sports. Apparently the NFL can only afford “one size fits all” shirts for referees. And while this look might work for most, one noticeable exception is Ed Hochuli (Imagine Lou Ferrigno wearing a shirt made for Gary Coleman).

In an effort to make up for its wardrobe budget shortfall, the NFL is trading spandex for an increase in safety. By moving Umpires behind the offense they take a 50-something out of a busy intersection jammed with 20-something super-athletes trying to behead each other.

Of course, as only they can do, the NFL has complicated things as much as possible. Considering there are several scenarios where the Umpire has to relocate behind the defense, it would seem the league that made instant replay has somehow found a way to increase the level of “human element” in their game.

To summarize, Indianapolis still can’t run the ball or stop someone from doing so, Pierre Garcon is still an expert of catching all passes meaningless and the Colts are still most effective playing without a lead. Things were so bad Sunday, Houston’s riding an undrafted player to a win stands as clear evidence they were simply showing off.

Dan Dierdorf’s honesty taught us much. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a defense… completely shredded… like that” the long-toothed color man pontificated in the fourth quarter, which revealed not that he hasn’t watched much football, just that he had never seen the Colts play before.

Manning’s frustrations boomeranged him back to darker days when he often came off the field frothing at the mouth. Protection issues and missed opportunities had the Colts QB, as my wife and I say of our 2 year old when he’s unhappy, “speaking whinese” most of the day.

So what can Colts fans look forward to? Well, the defense team officials boasted “could be one of our best” gave up a franchise record for rushing yards in a single game to an undrafted running back Sunday; so you’ll have to get creative.

And then there was poor Devin Moore, reminding us all why the NFL should just eliminate the kick off all together. For every time somebody returns one, a penalty immediately negates the games most exciting play. I guess when it comes to the Colts refusing to address the obvious every year, or fast food restaurants having Facebook pages, some things are best left unexplained.

Chasing the American Spirit Lance Armstrong Style

First appeared on September 8th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

There was a time when the American Spirit was a great source of pride in this country. And while she had a good run, for our purposes here the American Spirit is dead and gone. Of course this declaration is based solely upon America’s alarming obesity rate and the staggering amount of people voting via text during the American Idol results shows.


It’s depressing to realize future generations will never know the American Spirit as our fathers and grandfathers knew it. Yet somehow we must come to terms, in the same way we struggle to understand why we’ll never witness a Dodo in the wild or get to see David Hasselhoff performing live in German.

Of course determining where the American Spirit was first born is a debate rivaling the greatest man has known. Something comparable even to Original Captain Crunch versus Crunch Berries.

Whether first etched on cave walls thousands of years ago, or discovered at the bottom of a Sam Adams pint, the unique belief system that would evolve into the American Spirit was once indomitable. American Spirit persevered through the Civil War and carried us through the Great Depression and Second World War. The American Spirit led us to the Moon in 1969 and has brought us tremendous leaders and innovators like Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight David Eisenhower and Vince Shlomi (the Sham Wow guy).

Unfortunately the American Spirit lost steam somewhere. And as the identity of Americans began to melt away, many took solace in color television, foreign cars and fast food. And while most logical thinking people are right to point a judgmental finger at Rock and Roll, others realize Americans have simply gone rogue, turned selfish and fallen prey to the two greatest threats the American Spirit has faced since Nazi Germany; the political rationalizations of Hollywood movie stars and Facebook.

Theodore Roosevelt once romanticized the brutality of football embodied the American Spirit, but if Roosevelt were alive today he would surely recognize a more accurate analogy is likely competitive eating or sleep number beds.

Enter Boise Idaho’s Vogel family who, after trekking 14,000 miles via bicycle from Alaska to Bolivia as a family, have once again reignited the fire formerly known as the American Spirit. Navigating the Pan-American Highway in true Lewis and Clark fashion, the Vogels will have gone a total of 18,000 miles when they reach their final destination of Tierra del Fuego.

Corralling the sense of exploration and adventure that once formed the backbone of the American Spirit, the Vogel’s have given hope to every American family struggling with vacation ideas or a reason to go bike riding together.

Yes it would seem, before their story at least, the only thing most Americans felt compelled to explore was the internet or a bag of cool ranch Doritos. Now, considering the Vogel’s have survived 14,000 miles, it would seem no destination is off limits. China, Kenya, the U.S.S.R. (OK, so maybe pedaling to the U.S.S.R. is going to be tough).

Before the Vogel’s inspirational trip I’ll admit that I believed the American Spirit was a relic of years gone by. An oxymoron of sorts, like “jumbo shrimp” or “Accelerate Indiana”. This being said, let their story serve as a wake-up call; life doesn’t stand still. It’s up to us to saddle up and pedal after it. Whether that means riding a bike to Mongolia or simply finally putting down that Doritos bag, get out there and be an American. The good news here is that as Americans we can do whatever we want; and for that we can thank the American Spirit.

This college season expectations are everywhere

When the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they surely expected the King of England wouldn’t take it well, just as Marty McFly surely expected one wild ride when he climbed into Doc Brown’s DeLorean Motor Car. Expectations are nothing new.


Few know expectations better than college football coaches. Those writers suffering from TCA (Tired Cliché Addiction) might opine “they come with the territory”. Expectations follow college coaches around like the paparazzi and when things go south they hover overhead like vultures spying a trash dump.

Yes it would seem expectations are not unlike Justin Bieber, they’re everywhere, they’re overhyped and they’re often taken way too seriously. Except that is when you are the head football coach at Indiana University. Expectations haven’t been seen in Bloomington since the Cutters expected to lose at Little Five.

Despite notching only one Big Ten win last year, IU still harvested their largest

attendance numbers since 1992. This is due in large part due to AD Fred Glass marketing Memorial Stadium as Indiana’s version of a “one tank trip to Disney World”. Head coach Bill Lynch is competent enough to realize the only successful battle strategy in a war against empty seats is winning football games however.

By returning a duo of talented wide outs who ranked 3rd in yardage last season, Lynch has perhaps his best shot thus far. Returning Senior Ben Chappell averaged the second most passing yards per game in the leauge. Combine this with the NFL storylines generated by Tracy Porter and Roger Saffold and the Hoosier football program appears to be gaining the traction they’ve so longed for.

Unfortunately, this is the worst news Lynch could have gotten. In real expectations, he suddenly finds himself flirting with a fickle lady. No expectations allowed Lynch to quietly reshape the program in his image, real expectations could wind up sealing his fate.

With Purdue’s long strange love affair with Joe Tiller firmly planted in the rearview, the Boiler’s first campaign under Danny Hope brought mixed reviews. After a horrendous start, a surprising upset of Ohio State triggered an avalanche finish that saw the team win four of their last six games. All this of course leads to definite uncertainty.

Was their strong finish more the product of Danny Hope’s coaching, or was it simply Ohio State’s ineffectiveness that struck like a steroid shot to the psyche strong enough to carry the team through six games? This season should go a long way towards answering that question. Safe money knows Purdue fans won’t be nearly as patient as fans in Bloomington have been however.

Hope’s season, and career likely, would benefit from his finding lightning in a bottle early. His best shot comes this weekend. Hope needs to go into Notre Dame Stadium and deck new head coach Brian Kelly in his first game. After that, the Boilers should benefit from not playing Iowa or Penn State during the regular season.

Notre Dame begins a new era under Brian Kelly and, like a bad Lifetime Movie, it’s looking like the one where the husband (aka head coach) learns the hard way that flirting with his co-worker (aka expectations) is dangerous. At a non-football school Kelly devoured expectations like a trucker inhaling a five dollar steak. But after alerting NBC exec’s to shorten commercial breaks because his offense is faster than the German Blitkreig, Kelly may have opened the door for expectations. Somebody should pull him aside and remind him that expectations bought the billboard that helped run Charlie Weis out of town. Either way, fans can expect an interesting season.

"Now there's a steal by Bird!"

First appeared on August 25th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

If uncertain economic times have taught us anything it’s that good deals are hard to come by. And before you lose interest, this isn’t one of those tired “gas was only 95 cents when I was a senior” columns (although it really was). No, I’m afraid this is a tired column of a different sort.


For proof times are hard, and to see how far the mighty have fallen, one need look no further than high society’s long-time standard bearer. Of course we’re talking about Denny’s, home of the Grand Slam breakfast and godsend for heart surgeons everywhere.

Born from their obvious love of the Colts and a less obvious, but more understandable, desire to increase the number of hands on their menus, Denny’s is offering fans free coke or coffee anytime Indianapolis beats an opponent at the Luke by more than 24 points. Really? 24 points? The only deal more generous would be McDonalds giving away free ketchup packets if Peyton throws for 6,000 yards and 18 touchdowns in the third quarter of a Thursday night game.

But just when it seemed the days of cheap coffee and free television were gone, the Pacers may have stumbled upon the deal of the century in trading for point guard Darren Collison. OK, so maybe it’s not the deal of the century but it is a trade that doesn’t involve money or the all too popular “player to be named later”. It’s not uncommon for trades to force the part-time sports columnist to report the facts and do what we as Americans do best; point out all the shortcomings while predicting the ultimate doom of professional sports itself.

In a four team trade the Pacers sent Troy Murphy to New Jersey and received point guard Darren Collison and small forward James Posey from New Orleans. Other players involved were Indianapolis native Courtney Lee who left the Nets to join the Rockets as former Laker Trevor Ariza who went from Houston to the Hornets.

Pacers President Larry Bird made it clear earlier in the summer that the Pacers needed talent at the point guard position. After targeting Collison in college the Pacers were forced to wait until last week before finally landing him. In Collison, a former Bruin and Rancho Cucamunga native, the Pacers get a second year player who showed promise while covering for an injured Chris Paul. He is also a player who, as his former college coach Ben Howland put it, ‘only cares about winning’.

The unfortunate thing for the Pacers is, when you’re a franchise with more issues than British Petroleum, this trade likely becomes a mere Band-Aid. In dealing Murphy a team that was already one of the leagues worst at rebounding loses its top rebounder. In getting veteran James Posey, the Pacers gain the last thing they really needed- another talented wing.

Posey’s acquisition is intriguing however, considering he has two championship rings and is a proven winner (playoffs 6 of the last 8 years). But the Pacers depth at wing likely relegates him to being the X factor who may never get the chance to be an X factor for he would have to take time from either the Pacers best scorer (Granger), their best defender (Dahntay Jones) or their top draft choice (Paul George).

These issues admittedly appear more manageable now that Bird has secured a talent who might be able to fill some seats. For now the Pacers should keep Collison around, if for no other reason than fans will get to hear Mark Boyle wrestle with “Rancho Cucamunga” on a nightly basis.

August not the best time to give up on Baseball

First appeared on August 22nd, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

After much thought and intense Phil-Jackson-like soul searching, I’ve decided to make one of the boldest predictions in the history of part-time pretend sports columnists. I am ready to say, with a record of 20 games under .500, the Cubs won’t be winning the World Series again this year.


Just writing those words alone has forced me to call upon every power I have as both a writer and Cubs fan. It’s like Ronald McDonald eating a Whopper or Neil Armstrong admitting he never went to the moon.

With their baseball season lost for another 8 months, Cubs fans now find themselves on the hunt for a new sport to fill their downtime. Meaningful football is still a month away which means we’ve entered an uncomfortable lull in the world of sports. And, with officials breaking up the Cockfighting ring in Shelby County earlier this summer, another option has been eliminated for those of us who lack a social conscience or have gambling problems.

Perhaps like me, most Cubs fans turned to Shark week on Discovery to fill the void a combination of quality starts and anemic run production has left within us all. Shark Week taught us a lot. Like the fact the male Bull Shark’s testosterone level is a staggering 900. Knowing the average human's level is closer to a measly 40 suddenly makes cleaning the Gulf look far less pressing.

It bears mentioning the last time I had it checked my doctor said, instead of a Bull Shark, my testosterone level was somewhere closer to that of a wildebeest; a rabid wildebeest with access to performance enhancing drugs and a vendetta against a high school English teacher who once compared his writing to something off a Bazooka wrapper no doubt.

With 125 reported shark attacks last year off the coast of South Africa alone it’s clear the campaign launched by Great White’s everywhere to restore the despotic reputation Jaws helped them build in the seventies is going well. Forget the 8,000 miles one must travel to get there or the fact you don’t fill a bathing suit as flatteringly as you once did, now there are 125 more convenient reasons you should never swim off the coast of South Africa.

Gambling requires money, Euchre requires thought and playing sports requires actual physical activity. I need a sport I can watch that allows me to achieve a state of vegetativeness while remaining as horizontal as possible. That sport was baseball until I gave up on the season.

If there’s a silver lining anywhere it’s the fact the Cubs aren’t the only ones playing meaningless baseball this late in the season. Currently there are six Major League teams who are more than 20 games out of first place.

So it is in a Bermuda Triangle of apathy Cub fans must remain adrift until real football arrives. Another depressing September and fruitless October await. We can only hope ours will be a fall full of warm temperatures, bright foliage and highlights of anyone besides the Yankees or Cardinals.

In the meantime I suppose my free time will be filled tackling the insurmountable task of potty training our 2 year old. Exciting, maddening and unpredictable-it contains all the elements of sport and, at the rate we’re progressing currently, chances are he will keep us busy until opening day 2011 anyway.

Given the progress we’ve seen to this point, one must wonder which will happen first; his shedding his last diaper, or my beloved Cubs hoisting another championship banner. Here’s an insiders tip straight out of Vegas- My son is more stubborn than me, smart money rides on the North-Siders.

This just in: Tiger Woods is human

First appeared on August 11th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

In December of 1975 Earl and Tida Woods welcomed their son Eldrick Tont (Tiger) Woods into the world. That’s right, he came out screaming and covered with cow snot just like the rest of us. He is not, contrary to popular opinion, the incarnation of Eastern Blok scientists laboring for a new class of super-athlete capable of resurrecting the iron curtain through the domination of American sport, or a castaway from the third planet from Altar. There’s a real human being under that black swoosh hat and red polo.


Coming off one of the worst finishes of his career at the Bridgestone Invitational over the weekend, Tiger’s troubles on and off the course are center stage again. Like the Bat Signal glowing on the horizon, we’ve seen the headlines of a very public divorce and turned out en masse to rescue our hero by dumping advice on him like toxic waste in a Jersey landfill.

Diagnoses range from his having a George Steinbrenner-like relationship with swing coaches to the obvious inability to focus as his world crumbles before him on the most public of stages.

Before I go on, allow me to stray from my point like a poorly struck 3 wood. But if anything, his performance this weekend has simply affirmed what many of us have known all along. Golf is the most frustrating sport in the history of man. And as we watched the myth that was Tiger Woods slowly deflating to human form Sunday let it be a reminder that no man is above the media. And don’t kid yourself, even as bad he’s playing right now, you’re better off dancing in the fairway to “Anyway you Want It” Rodney-Dangerfield-style than going so far as to fool yourself that your game will ever approach his.

The thing that gets lost in all of this is that Woods is a human being just like you and I. Well, I guess I shouldn’t speak for you considering the Japanese have robots capable of reading newspapers to the elderly and those too young to read. Yes Woods can make a golf ball do amazing things, but the basic fact remains there are grocery clerks who possess skills Tiger does not.

Who knows what they are. Maybe Woods can’t change a spark plug or read Latin, whatever it is for every one Tiger there are 10,000 others out there whose skills are just as, if not more, valuable. It’s just too easy to turn on ESPN and forget ours is a diverse world full of people with varying strengths (the most by far being outside the sports world). The hang up is, at least in our culture, the value that we place on athletic skill is undoubtedly out of balance.

Which brings me to my point. This isn’t about Tiger Woods. This is more about how wrapped up in sports we can get. Sports are entertainment, a wonderful form of escape. We love sports, but in true American fashion watching sports simply isn’t enough; we want more (see the Louisiana Purchase or Oprah starting her own network). We want our athletes to be other-worldly. We don’t want them to be ordinary people with everyday problems.

Perhaps in Tigers case everyone is to blame. We as a public for rubbernecking at Woods like a train on hippo collision and Tiger for not taking a break from the tour to focus on getting his personal life together. Either way we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that he’s only a few shanked tee balls away from being the accountant living down the street.