Yes, this idea is blatantly cribbed from Philadelphia altie paper The Beast, who does an out-of-the-park job with their "50 Most Loathsome People in America" feature about this time every year. But mine's restricted to college football, and to bring you, the reader, into the process, I'm taking nominations.
I'm looking for people who coached, directed the operations of, commented on, played, or otherwise had some kind of notable effect on college football (in a loathsome way, of course). I'd like to try and restrict it to people who were involved in the game sometime during the 2006-07 season, or at least during the 2006 calendar year; however, actions taken before 2006 may be submitted as evidence of their loathsomeness. And what the hell, for people who are no longer in college football per se, but whose loathsome actions continue to reverberate, we'll make an exception there too. (We'll call it the Marcus Vick Rule.)
And the "evidence" part is important: I don't want you to just throw a bunch of names at me, you have to tell me why they're loathsome (even if you're nominating someone like Phil Fulmer whose loathsomeness seems self-evident). And I don't want stuff like "Brady Quinn 'cuz he shouldn'ta won the Maxwell Award" or "West Virginia 'cause they're totally overrated." Maybe Quinn shouldn't have won the award, and maybe WVU is overrated, but if you think that's the case, then your beef is with the people who give the awards or make the ratings. I don't want this becoming nothing more than a venue for die-hard fans to grind the same old traditional-rivalry axes, so no Texas fans nominating Oklahoma because "Sooners are OMG SUXXORZ," or Alabama nominating Auburn, or Ohio State nominating Michigan, or anything like that.
In short, I'm looking for people who have made college football in general less enjoyable for the country at large than it should have been. I can't promise your nomination will make the final list, of course, and to be honest I could probably come up with 50 all by myself right now if I had to. But I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. Or I can at least do a pretty convincing job of pretending to be interested, in any case.
Leave your nominations and whatever evidence you can dig up against them in the comments thread, or e-mail them directly to me at paris_1968 (at) hotmail (dot) com. Get them to me no later than Saturday, December 30 -- I've got, like, shit to do between now and New Year's -- and the final list will be posted in installments over the week leading up to the national-championship game on January 8.I look forward to hearing from you.
22 comments:
can we put forward Maurice Clarett, from OSU? He continues to reverberate well after leaving there - arrested in August this year with an assault rifle and handgun wearing bullet proof clothing...
-Don't forget the lent brush, the mustache, and the vodka!
-Lee Corso, cause he's a penis and has way too much influence for his level of knowledge.
-Anyone from Fox sports that covers the NFL, but were chosen to present the BCS rankings and talk about it like they care.
1) Ellis T. Jones, III, DB for San Jose State, who was charged with 13 felony counts including five counts of robbery, four counts of assault for using a Taser gun on some of his victims and one count of kidnapping to commit robbery for allegedly locking one victim in the trunk of a car.
2) Mitch Cozad, backup punter for Northern Colorado, who pulled a Tonya Harding, stabbing the starting punter in the leg.
3) Someone at Nike.
Lamar Thomas for his comments during the UM-FIU brawl.
Kellen Heard for the cheapest shot I've ever seen (on Colt McCoy in UT-A&M).
Jim Walden, Tim Neverett, Larry Keech, Gene Ponti, Paul Zeise and every other Harris Poll voter with a f'ed up final poll.
Dave: Cheap shot. Seriously low blow. There are plenty of uglier uniforms out there, and you're just bitter because Phil Knight didn't personally fund your school's stadium/xboxes in the locker room/freshly painted helmets every game...what the hell am I saying? For his blatant lack of acknowledgement that his alma mater does ANYTHING other than football (and didn't really do it all that well this year, sadly), for wasting millions of dollars that could instead be spent improving LEARNING at the school that taught him how to be a ruthless businessman, for failing to acknowledge the sweatshops that make his products probably aren't such good things, I nominate Phil Knight.
I'm going to go with Tommy Tuberville before anyone else. I could say it is just his mere presence, but there's more to it than that.
His smug attitude leading up to the game against Arkansas about possibly being left out of the BCS game only to be pounded by DMac and the rest of that Arkansas team that seemed to vanish in the SEC title game. His attitude and "the world still owes me" attitude make him incredibly loathsome and his inability to back up his game just makes him a second-rate Steve Spurrier.
And can I nominate Herbstreit and the Gameday Crew on principle?
Jen, 2 quibbles re: Phil Knight. He put up $10 million for the Knight Law Center (named for his father), which counts as supporting learning. And he also interferes routinely with Oregon Track and Field, so it's not just football.
Damned by faint praise, I know, but there you are.
I nominate GA Tech's own Reggie Ball, for reasons that should be fairly obvious.
Rule 3-2-5e, and the NCAA & Corporate midwives who birthed it.
Michael Adams. There's all the bullshit in the past, of course, but this year saw the infamous Dooley-trashing AJC editorial. And when Dooley called bullshit on it, Adams ended up having to admit that he'd lied. That son of a bitch.
4) From this moment on, anyone who decides to use P.O.D.'s "Boom" as the soundtrack music for their team's YouTube highlight video.
5) Four words: BIG. N'. FUCKING. RICH.
How does Orgeron make college football less enjoyable for anybody? He's like having a comic book character in conference.
I'll second the Nike thing. The past two days back to back have brought us the 81 Sugar Bowl vs ND and the 89 Gator Bowl vs Rison's MSU Spartans on ESPN Classic, and our uni's were so awesomely classic back then as well. Such a deep, dark candy apple red and all... now we have almost red orange for a color and last season we were basically wearing beige britches. Then there's Oregon and everyone else who wore the two tone bionic sleeve look of Nike's from time to time... and maybe off topic but let's not forget how many deep balls the baseball team hit that looked gone off our aluminum Nike bats that ended up only having warning track power compared to rivals' Easton bats and what not... F Nike, F em right in the ear.
Second, I'd love to keep it at one or two individuals at ESPN such as Grandma Lisp or Mark May (who was recently crying again about UGA's NC shots in the early 80's) but I can't, everybody there pretty much blows save maybe Rece Davis and Jim Donnan. Herbie usually just states the obvious and picks the favorite, and of course Corso plays the villain all too well (though lately he's been right more often than not and I've found him more humorous than ever this past year) but Fowler is another off the wall one I take exception with. He does it in sneaky ways, but if you've ever read interviews of his you'd know that for every bit of praise he has about the SEC he really has two shots at us in return. I can't remember every specific example I've seen through the years, but a few that come to mind right off hand are when he said how he really doesn't see what's so special about a bunch of overdressed frat boys in Athens and Ole Miss and the atmosphere isn't THAT great, or that football played out West is just as good, etc. :rolleyes: I guess I really shouldn't expect much more from a guy who considers XGames real sports, he's probably from Cali anyway.
Oh, and this is slightly off topic too but oh well, Imma throw it out anyway. Open letter to Qadry Ismael on ESPNews Hotlist NFL talk Sundays... GIRL, cmon now. Here's two snaps and a twirl ala In Living Colour's "Men on Film" hopin that you come out of the closet in 07, let's make it a New Year's Resolution already. Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, hell I have a gay Aunt who's cool as hell. Just sayin, honestly... who do you really think you're foolin these days sister!?!
Back to the matter at hand, I'll close for now with the parents of the Springdale High kids at Arkansas, and their AD for agreeing to hear their "concerns" about the direction of the SEC West Champion Arkansas Offense. In case ya missed it, they were basically crying that little Johnny wasn't getting as many touches as promised and that they weren't spreading it out as promised either. Well damn, good call. I mean who cares that you have the fricken Heisman Runner Up in the backfield if Johnny's not gettin his touches in the spread! Scores be damned, it's all about individual stas baby, mainly your boy! What a bunch of idiots... if it was my list they'd definitely crack the top 20.
One more, though I feel bad about it...
Pam Ward. Seriously, when I hear her voice calling the noon Big Ten #4 game on the Deuce, I can't change the channel fast enough. Anyone who makes me want to watch less college football deserves to make the list.
1.)David Boren, the President of the University of Oklahoma,who squealed like a stuck pig following his school's jobbing by PAC-10 refs in the Oregon game. I could go on for pages about it, but I alrwady did that here:
http://macondawg.blogspot.com/2006/09/oklahoma-president-david-boren.html
Somebody beat me to Lamar Thomas. Shoot.
I'd just nominate all the D-I university presidents en masse for continuing to make sure college football has no satisfying outcome and keeping it a few clear notches below the NFL in all aspects but pre- and postgame tradition.
Ooo... I second the Mike Adams nomination. Because football is more fun when you've had a drink. Or two. Or five. And he's desperately trying to restrict that. (It should be noted that the "Family Friendly" area got smaller every game. And that grumpy people who can't drink are a lot less "Family Friendly.") Further, for being a total dumbass about the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" instead of things that actually matter.
Also, though unrelated, he teaches a seminar on the constitution, but when asked at a debate society meeting (yeah I'm cool), he had no idea how many amendments there were to the US constitution.
Terry Bradshaw, for a lot of reasons.
Urban Meyer, likewise.
The Zooker, for snagging a bunch of talent that he's just going to waste for the next four years.
and I second the Reggie Ball nomination. What were the odds that Chris Rix had a short, black twin brother?
1.) I second any motion on Mark May and Lou Holtz. The fromer is a homer for USC and the latter a homer for Notre Dame. I'm from the SEC and seeing those two dip shits commentating makes me want to chop my balls off and shove them up my ass. It is just the resonance of their voices. They give off the oder of band wagon fans and it disgusts me.
2.) I pose Brady QUinn simply because he receives acclaim for events off of the field versus on it. The media is biased towards him because a.) He is a good looking guy, b.) His sister and girlfriend are HOT, and most importantly, c.) he is the QB at Notre Dame. If you ask me, Jeff Smardizja (sp?) desrves more acclaim than Brady does. Don't get me wrong, Brady is a good QB and can be a great one, but all of this praise is way premature for a guy who I just don't see as measuring up to the Troy Smith's or D. McFadden's of the college football world. So i not Brady, I nominate the biased media who know less about college football than Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit.
3.) I nominate Urban Meyer, simply because I can never respect a coach who cries after a loss and shows no emotion after his team is granted a berth in the National Championship. Urban, you dick, I'm sure Michigan would have loved to have had that chance, so show some damn appreciation to the college football gods for getting that chance you stuck up bitch! Everything is not going to be handed to you on a silver platter, especially not in the SEC. If you think it is, then you are in for a Hell of a surprise next year when you realize you did a shitty job of balncing your recruiting classes and have too many WR and not enough OL. Act like a human or don't coach. Spurrier was great because he showed emotion, Dooley was great because he showed emotion, Woody Hayes was great because he showed emotion, hell, Bobby Knight IS great because he shows emotion. Do you see a pattern forming here Urby? Coaches are loved because they do more than lead a team, they lead the DAMN franchise. I'm a fan and I know this. Your getting paid big bucks, so earn it.
1) Can you nominate ESPN as an entire entity? Their coverage has become so asinine and completely useless, it's enough to waarant an indictment on the entire network at this point. In addition to May and Holtz, just the other day Desmond Howard spent an entire segment analyzing Texas vs. Cal in the Holiday Bowl. Of course, the onnly minor problem with this otherwise excellent analysis is that Texas is NOT PLAYING IN THE HOLIDAY BOWL. I eagerly await information from ESPN on the fantastic West Virgnia / Georgia rematch in the Gator Bowl.
1. Lamar Thomas - for his inane diatribe during the Miami-FIU cell block 5 lockdown.
2. Kirk Herbstreit - for his continual cries of "(fill in team) doesn't get enough national respect! (player) doesn't get talked about enough on national tv!" That's your job, dipshit.
3. Michael Adams/Bernie Machem - The respective prez's of UGA and UF for their attempted bastardization of one of the most recognizable phrases in all of American sports. Don't fuck with my cocktail sirs.
4. Mal Moore - I get the feeling he broke up with several Hawaiian Tropics models before settling on the female equivalent of Micky Rooney. His continued traveshamockery of a job search is making a once-proud position look less desirable than that moldy BBQ chip that you discovered under the couch last Tuesday.
(sorry if this double-posted)
I like the idea of Mal Moore sa one of the top screw-ups; ditto for the heads of UGA & UF - it's a cocktail party.
However, I think the most loathsome is Jim Tressel. He, the one who brought us Maurice Clarett. I mean, he seems so squeaky he's gotta be dirty.
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