Fall sports, come save me

Football training camp opens today, which means that the fall sports season is kind of, sort of, maybe, just about, almost finally here.

That might make today a good time for a column with some hard-hitting, inside analysis of our sports teams’ chances heading into the new year. After a sports summer that alternated somewhere between boring and horrifying, that’d be great. Except that training camps starting up now means two things:

1. We only have a to wait a little longer until our sports teams start making real news.

2. We still have to wait a little longer until our sports teams start making real news.

So as the sports-obsessed of us out there twiddle our thumbs, dream up obscene names for our fantasy football teams, and get ready to step out of an offseason spent theorizing about how good our teams might be and into a preseason we’ll spend predicting how good our teams can be, I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask a few lingering questions I have after the sports non-season that was. In no particular order:

“¢bull; What’s Les Miles’ problem? In early July the LSU football coach criticized USC’s strength of schedule because it’s filled with Pac-10 cream puffs, rather than the beasts LSU will face in the SEC. But after going to Pac-10 media day, I can personally assure Miles that every single one of the Pac-10 coaches thinks their conference is as outstanding as any in the country. Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh even thinks USC is the best team of all time. Isn’t that kind of impartial opinion good enough for Miles? I mean, sheesh, it’s not like coaches are inherently biased toward the leagues their teams play in or anything.

“¢bull; How much time has to go by before I can start making jokes involving Michael Vick and dogs? I mean, without people cringing and mumbling, “too soon?”

“¢bull; Three years from now at the 2010 World Cup, who will be the more relevant soccer player: midfielder David Beckham, whose Los Angeles Galaxy resume currently contains 12 minutes of playing time and approximately eleventy bajillion ounces of oxygen wasted on speculations of how he’ll revolutionize U.S. soccer, or former Bruin Sal Zizzo, who recently left UCLA to sign with Hannover 96 of Germany’s Bundesliga?

“¢bull; What do I have to do to convince ESPN to create a new “Who’s Now?” bracket to determine who’s the most “Now” out of Vick, Tim Donaghy, Barry Bonds and the ESPN production team that decided that “Who’s Now?” and three hours of daily NASCAR coverage were good ideas. I even have an idea what we can call it: “Who’s Now-torious?”

“¢bull; Seventeen. That’s not a question; that’s UCLA football’s national ranking in the first USA Today coaches poll. Preseason, baby. Keep hope alive.

“¢bull; Which is the worse sign for the U.S. Army: a) that Pat Tillman ““ the NFL safety turned Army Ranger who, unlike most sports figures, actually deserved the label “hero” ““ likely died from friendly fire, and the Army botched its attempt to cover it up and was finally forced to demote several ranking officers following another ethical scandal they didn’t need; or b) that answering questions about Tillman has to be roughly 1,000 times more pleasant than anything else their generals could be doing right now?

“¢bull; Can anyone name one Galaxy player other than Beckham? Seriously ““ just one?

“¢bull; How awesome is it that the Arena Football League held the Arena Bowl last week in the New Orleans Superdome? AFL, I may not care about your league or the San Jose Sabrecats “dynasty,” but I love where your heart’s at. Nola still needs all the help it can get.

“¢bull; If a San Francisco Giant hits 756 home runs in the woods, and nobody’s around to care, do we still have to call him the home run king?

“¢bull; How much longer is it until fall sports start up again?

If you’d prefer your sports columns to be actual, cohesive columns as opposed to cheesy, directionless lists, then:

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