The Sports Curmudgeon

When the Tim Donaghy story broke, there was a clamor in all of the sports media about how this could be devastating to the NBA. And I am not convinced that we have heard the last of that saga or the fallout from it. At the moment however, there is another “situation” ongoing in the sports world that is very similar; and yet, is has gotten only minimal play as a “top story of the day”. The Big Ten has an officiating crew – and specifically one of its referees – under scrutiny for some “controversial calls” in two games earlier this year and allegations that there may be “gambling ties” to the referee on that same crew. The referee in question filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and two of the creditors listed in that bankruptcy filing were gambling casinos according to a story on Yahoo Sports.

I do not want to get into the “gambling is evil” debate because it may or may not be. There cannot be a whole lot of debate on the assertion that gambling is inevitable and widespread in human society. But there is a question that has to be asked here and seems not to be front and center in the few stories on this subject that are making their way into the mainstream sports media:

Why didn’t the NCAA know about this years ago and why did it take some “unusual betting patterns” on a couple of Big Ten games this year involving this crew to bring focus to the situation?

Once again, the super sleuths who pretend to assure that NCAA sports are completely on the up-and-up seem to have been asleep at the switch.

Interestingly, one of the “games in question” is the Illinois/Ohio State game, which produced the only loss of the year for Ohio State. That was on 10 November. This particular officiating crew had been involved in the Penn State/Purdue game on 3 November and had drawn sufficient criticism for the Penn State/Purdue game that the crew was suspended for a week by the Big Ten - - but not until after the Illinois/Ohio State game. Jim Delany is the Big Ten Commissioner; he has had no comment on all of this. Dr. Myles Brand has also been silent on the matter - - which is to be expected since the only time it seems that he takes his head out of the sand is to jam it up his backside…

As the college bowl games continue, their glorification of mediocrity can best be seen in the confrontation between Colorado (6-6) and Alabama (6-6). The game is the PetroSun Independence Bowl; it used to be the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl. Given the records of these two teams, I’d say they are pretty much like “weeds” and the game needs a giant Poulan Weedeater to manifest itself and clean house here.

Bowl games do not matter all that much to schools and coaches. If you think I’m exaggerating, UCLA, Southern Mississippi and Georgia Tech all fired their coaches - - and those teams will be playing in bowl games. Meanwhile the coaches for Navy, Michigan, Arkansas and West Virginia all chose to leave their teams prior to those teams playing in a bowl game. Does that tell you how important those myriad bowl games actually are?

There is a chance history will be made in the NBA this season. In their first 24 games this year, the Minnesota Timberwolves were 3-21. If you project that to an 82-game schedule, that would give the Timberpuppies 10 wins. The record for NBA futility is the Philadelphia 76ers who once went 9-73. Keep track of the Timberpuppies; they could go even deeper in the tank and forge a place for themselves in history.

The Minnesota team got lots worse when it traded Kevin Garnett away to the Celtics who had an almost mirror image record of 20-3 over the weekend. So, maybe Kevin McHale should be a candidate for “NBA Front Office Exec of the Year” for his contribution to the ascension of the Celtics to elite status?

I try my best to keep politics out of these rants but when it creeps into them, I really cannot hide my disdain for the people on the extremes of both of our major political parties and for the agglomeration of these extremists that calls itself the Congress of the United States. Without taking sides on any of these issues, there is important business to be done by the Congress on inter alia immigration reform, changing the Alternative Minimum Tax, dealing with the international issues of war, environment and genocide. Nevertheless, the Congress has not been able to find the time to stop bickering long enough to get any of that done. However, according to the Denver Post, the Congress did find time to pass a resolution congratulating the Colorado Rockies for winning the NLCS and advancing to the World Series. Does that make me feel better about the Congress? No, it does not!

With Bill Parcells now going to Miami, it is interesting to consider the comments by many football analysts about how he “did not leave the cupboard bare” in Dallas. The Cowboys had plenty of talent on the team and it is showing itself on the field this year. That was definitely not the situation in Miami when Nick Saban left. I am a bit surprised that so few people in the media have pointed to what a flawed team Saban left behind and then how the Dolphins’ front office took that depleted roster and made it a lot worse with their drafting and their trading/free agency strategies. Bill Parcells has his work cut out for him to turn the Miasma Dolphins around…

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

Rusty and LeAnn Real of Mississippi named their newborn son ESPN (pronounced ES-pen). Rusty was quoted, ‘’We’re the talk of the hospital!'’ Yes, Rusty. But most of that talk began with, “Can you believe those morons who . . .'’

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…