The Demise of the Cup

Ok.  Full admission here.  I've spent some time recently looking at male appendages.  No, I haven't been perusing the gay porn pages, thank you GG, Hammer, Mudge and Tom de Plume--I've been watching NFL Football.  It seems that the penchant for tight, spandexy trousers, technologically advanced slow motion photography and and the large scale eschewing of the old fashioned jock strap and cup have teamed up to provide the average Sunday (or Monday, Thursday, or Saturday) NFL fan with near anatomically correct closeups of the male phallus.  It appears that the same aversion to undercarriage shielding prevails in the college ranks.

I wondered whether it were only me who noticed this trend....but apparently not.  This article says that there hasn't been a cup worn by a Philadelphia Eagle since 1999!  Holy Moly. 

Monday Sports Roundup

By popular request (ok, Hammer's request) we'll institute a new regular feature, and that is the Monday Sports Roundup.  Use the comments section here to unabashedly pull for your team, to bitch about them, or to discuss some other cosmic injustice in the sports world.

The Sports Drought

I defy you to find any real sports news worth reading in this morning's Post..  Please college football, hurry up and get here.

King James

I am not a fan of pro basketball, and I don't think I've watched more than two or three minutes worth of footage of Lebron James in all his seven seasons of play.  That said, I am aware that he is generally considered a fine basketball player (or "cager" as our old high school yearbook used to call them).

Mr. James apparently decided last night that he would sell his services to another team, and so he left Ohio for sunny Florida, joining the team in Miami and its already star-studded lineup.  Many people believe this choice was driven by Mr. James' desire to win an NBA Championship.  But maybe there is another reason....

I was listening to Hannity on the radio this afternoon (yes Dad, I do sometimes tune in), and he made a straightforward economic argument--that had James gone to the NY Knickerbockers or the New Jersey Nets--the additional taxes he would have paid during the life of his contract would have amounted to $12M.  Hannity didn't say this was definitely why James went to the "no income tax" state of Florida--but I gottta believe it didn't hurt. 

Sports News

What a fantastic final game last night's Duke-Butler contest turned out to be--you almost could sense from the start that it would be tight. I kept waiting for Duke to put them away, and well, they never did. That final shot clanging off the rim was the first time in the game I thought Duke had a defensible lead. Wonderful.

Also, my traditional hometown football team--the Philadelphia Eagles--have traded their aging, injury prone quarterback (yes--Donovan McNab is both of those things) to the Washington Redskins. For some reason, people here in the DC Metro region think this is a good thing. I think it is yet again, a sign of Danny Snyder's incompetence. But what do I know.

Wahoos Dump NC State 70-62

This was Coach Bennett's first ACC game and his first ACC win--and it was on the road. NC State's program's in a bit of trouble these days, but a win's a win.

ESPN 360

I discovered ESPN 360 this year trying to find the lowly Wahoos playing football on Saturdays. What I've discovered is a veritable cornucopia of sports that just don't get covered on the big networks. Cricket, European Football and (yes Doc Milnamow)--Gran Prix Auto Racing.

Cricket is a fantastic game. Half the spectators are reading books or newspapers. They stop for tea. They stop for lunch. Wonderful.

Redskins Fire Zorn

I follow Pro Football only tepidly, watching it plenty but having no particular team as a favorite. I like to see the Eagles do well, and the Giants, and the Redskins and the Patriots I suppose--but I don't plan my Sundays around football to any extent. Saturdays as you know, are a different story.

And so I post this story on Jim Zorn's firing with some trepidation, as I'm sure that there are a lot of pro football fans who read this blog and who have opinions on this matter. So here goes anyway.

Jim Zorn wasn't ready to be a Pro coach. An inexperienced coach, coupled with a fool of a VP and a bigger fool of an owner, resulted in a team that just couldn't get it done. That's all I'm going to say about Zorn as a coach.

But I've watched Zorn as a consumer of DC area sports propaganda for two years now, and I have come away from the experience thinking that this is a good man, a man who never complained, a man who never laid blame, a man who never brought ANY disrepute to the organization he represented. He just kept trying hard to win.

I think Jim Zorn will be back. I think he needs to go somewhere and be an offensive coordinator--probably college. I think he needs a couple of years of seasoning, then a college head coaching job. Maybe then back to the pros.

I'd like to see this man succeed.

UPDATE: Heard today that Shanahan (likely next Skins coach) has won exactly one playoff game without Elway.

Mike Wise is Tiger Woods

Haven't heard of Mike Wise? Well, don't be hard on yourselves. He's a sports columnist for the Washington Post. And in this bit of day after Christmas of over the top exhibitionism, he reveals to readers his link to Tiger Woods (and Rick Pitino, and Mark Sanford et al) by making tangential references to his own weakness (several times, while each time assuring us that this was not the place to discuss such failings).

What was the point of this? After reading and re-reading several times, I just can't figure it out. Is it an act of public contrition, made as an offering to she who was hurt? Is it an act of public masturbation by a dweeb who desperately wants all the boys in the sports page to read that he is some kind of Casanova?

No Mike--you're not Tiger Woods.

Wahoo Men Win NCAA Soccer Championship

Great day to be a Hoo on Sunday, as the Men's soccer team beat previously undefeated and top-ranked Akron to win the NCAA Soccer Championship. Played right down in the hear of North Carolina (Cary--near my folks, brother, sister and The Hammer), the game ended in a 0-0 tie, then there were two scoreless overtimes. UVA won on penalty kicks, an admittedly crappy way to win--but that's the way the game is played.

Wahoowa, Wahoowa, Uni-V Virginia, Hoo Rah Ray, Hoo Rah Ray, Hey, Hey UVA!

Groh Gone

Al Groh has been sacked as the Head Coach of the UVA Football Team, a move I've been advocating for four years now....his 2007 season gave him a new lease on life as coach, one that should have ended in 2006.

Tiger's Wood Lands Him In Trouble...

...or insert your own golf-as-a-sexual-euphemism headline here. There are unsubstantiated reports out this morning that the lacerations Tiger Woods suffered early Friday morning were not as a result of a car accident, but rather a scorned Swedish supermodel.

Apparently, Tiger prefers the company of leggy brunettes.

Remember to follow through on that backswing, Elin.

Tom Watson Leading the British Open

With today's round yet to be played, 59-year old Tom Watson sits atop the British Open leaderboard (you know, the tournament in which Tiger Woods missed the cut). Fifty-nine years old. Unreal.

I'm 44 years old, and I feel every ache and pain in the morning. My golf swing is a mere shadow of what it was twenty years ago, when I possessed a lower back that didn't yell at me with every swing. The thought of a 59 year old body playing four rounds of championship level golf is mind-blowing.

Tom Watson's always been a favorite of my father's, so I'm pretty sure he'll be watching every shot. But watch out for Retief Goosen....