Penn State garnered top party school honors this year in the annual Princeton Review's ranking of top party schools. The top 20 schools are listed, and as I wistfully scanned the list and daydreamed about a time when all I had to worry about was whether the kegs would make it through the night or whether we'd have to scramble for more cases of Natty Light, I came to a startling conclusion: It's almost as if major college football and partying go together.
Shocking, no?
So in honor of college football's apparent impact on the most important ranking this side of the Harris Interactive Poll, let's run through the 20 party scenes -- including one college you've never heard of, ClayNation style.
1. Penn State
People have already started drinking in Happy Valley because they think it will make their arguments better as to why an undefeated Penn State team should get to play Texas over a one-loss Florida team.
2. Florida
I've had a lot of fun with Gator girls and their bingo wings. But the school knows how to party. Except on football Saturdays when the cops turn into fascists and will arrest you for having an open container on University Boulevard.
And if you get arrested you have to spend the night in jail. Talk about a kick in the ass. This is definitely going to happen to several SEC fans this fall. They're going to roll into Gainesville, get put in jail, and listen on the radio as their team loses by 50.
Come to think of it, I just hope this doesn't happen to me.
3. Ole Miss
Anyone who has ever been to Ole Miss is jealous that they aren't on Ole Miss's campus right now. Even at this exact moment when it's 438 degrees in the Delta and all the coeds have decided to spend the day drinking by the pool in their bikinis ... I can't go on.
I'm already plotting my trip to Oxford this November. This is something you have to do since there are only 14 hotel rooms in the entire Oxford area. So we're compromising by staying in a Tunica casino. Basically I'm trying to lump all my sinning into the same weekend.
How wild is it at Ole Miss? They have raves at the library.
4. Georgia
I've called Athens the Cleavage Capital of the South and suggested that the tagline for the city should be, simply, Athens: Where Boobs Are Fun.
I don't know how any football recruit in the country visits Athens on a weekend and ends up going to another school.
Honestly.
It's that much fun.
Now imagine if Bulldawg undergrads could drink for enjoyment instead of to dull the pain of another collapse by the Georgia defense under Willie Martinez.
5. Ohio University
Long overshadowed by their neighbors in Columbus, the Bobcats of Ohio toil in comparative oblivion in the MAC. Which explains why they party so hard.
If you drink enough you can almost convince yourself that you're a student at Ohio State.
6. West Virginia
The Deadwood of college campuses. Remember how Yoo fed all of Swearingen's victims to pigs? At West Virginia they do this if you can't finish an entire bottle of Maker's Mark before a football game.
Two weeks ago, I issued a call to rename the BCS. Your nominations arrived via e-mail, Facebook, and carrier pigeons. You'll recall that the renaming idea came after we uncovered the fact that the BCS doesn't actually exist as a legal entity. So we decided to give the non-existent entity a name.
Now, after several days sifting through the nominations, we're ready to put the contest to a vote. We've collected 10 finalists below. Read each, then cast your vote to determine what we'll call the BCS for the 2009 year. As you'll see below the six chosen nominations (to be paired with my four selections from the original column) ran the gamut from cartoons to physics, history to personal-care products. Without further ado, here are our 10 nominations along with the gentleman's name and first initial (to protect them from aggressive Googling) who gave us those nominations.
Video of Woody Paige Holding Up On Rocky Top On Around The Horn
Tip of the beaver pelt to Tim F. for linking this to me on Twitter. Woody's holding the paperback advance reading copy version of the book. I just got the first hardback hot off the presses yesterday. Release is 19 days away. Not that I'm counting.
It's going to be awesome. Fox hasn't slept in his own bed for three weeks now. Every night or early morning he wakes up and comes down the hallway, I lift him into our bed, and I wake up the next morning with his feet pressed against my face.
Fatherhood is awesome.
Good news though, On Rocky Top is now hot off the presses, UPS delivered one of the first copies to me. I want to keep y'all as updated as possible since I enjoy meeting you out on the road. So here's the early signing/event schedule for the book.
Book Launch Party: Tuesday August 18
Otter's Chicken Tenders, East Nashville and live ClayNation Radio broadcast from 7-9 central.
We're going to have books for sale, food and drink specials, it should be really fun. I can't wait. First signing: Wednesday, August 19 7 in the evening
Davis-Kidd Bookstore, Green Hills Mall, Nashville
Memphis signing Wednesday August 26
Davis-Kidd Bookstore, Memphis
Wednesday, September 2 Corner Pub Green Hills, Nashville 6:30 to 8
Speaking to UT Alums in Nashville
Vol Village on UT's Campus UT-UCLA September 12 all day
These are early ones. There are going to be a bunch more events. But just wanted to give you a head's up.
As for now, I'm about to hop a flight for Hilton Head, South Carolina for a long weekend with the family. I'll have my laptop so I'll post a few updates from there. But much more good news forthcoming.
Hope the tail end of everyone's summer is going swell.
I thought ClayNation readers might enjoy the attached picture. In the words of Kenny Powers, "Effin good times on the reg...yachts on the reg...basically all the $hit most men fantasize about." And it might also tag along nicely with the Tebow stuff."
And by tag along with the Tebow stuff you mean, be the exact opposite as the Tebow stuff.
Anyone else doubt me about Athens being the cleavage capital of America? I'm not even sure what complicated amalgamation of physics is necessary to keep pink/purple bikini's top on. God bless her: the theory of canzzz relativity is strained to its essence right now.
It's good to see they're all patriotic though. Thanks to the girl on the right.
Also, girl on to the left of canzzz bikini, holding the red party cup. Odds she's looking down thinking, "F---, my boobs are going to look tiny in this picture."
I've been critical of Matthew Stafford in the past because I don't think he cares that much about winning football games. But, be honest, if this was you, would you care very much about winning football games?
Phil Mickelson wants to own my Waffle Houses. And by "my" I mean the Waffles Houses in Nashville and surrounding environs that I have been eating at after midnight for a decade. Why? Because he and several other men believe the 105 restaurants in Tennessee and three other states currently owned by SouthEast Waffles are good investments. How good? They've bid $20.2 million for the chain.
That's a lot of waffles.
So far as pro golfers go, Mickelson isn't the first golfer you'd suspect to be involved in a Waffle House purchase. Not with John Daly, Boo Weekley, and J.B. Holmes tearing up golf courses throughout the Southland. Daly's going to be the most disappointed to hear about this. As if Phil Mickelson hadn't taken enough money from him on the course over the past 15 years, now he's got to think about him when he stops in a Southern town that isn't big enough to boast a Hooters? But how will Phil make sure he fits in with his new purchase and doesn't come off as a latter-day Yankee carpetbagger swooping in to buy up our assets? I've got the advice for him.
But maybe this isn't much of a surprise. Mickelson's button-down corporate persona has always conflicted with his own personal battle of the bulge. Mickelson is the PGA Tour's own Oprah, one day thin, the next day wobbling down the fairway like a corpulent cow in need of milking. So would it really surprise you if you rolled into a Waffle House at two in the morning and saw Mickelson diving into a big stack of pecan and syrup covered waffles? I don't think so.
That's the great thing about Waffle House, more than just about any restaurant in the country, it's a melting pot. We're all scattered and smothered. Rich, poor, educated, and uneducated, drunk or sober, Waffle House is the DMV of fine dining. And I mean that in the most positive way possible. Founded in 1955, the chain now boasts over 1,500 franchises from just across the Ohio River to, wait for it, Arizona.
Yep, Arizona. Phil's a west-coaster. As much time as he's spent in the South, I feel like there are things he doesn't know about the chain, things that only someone born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line would know. I've alternated those points of knowledge with helpful ideas for how Phil could mix in the Mickelson life with the Waffle House culture. We're still a little leery of carpetbaggers down here, even if they have a green jackets in their carpetbag.
So here we go.
1. Every woman who works there is named Phyllis or Carla Jean. I don't know how this is possible. Waffle House is a private corporation so their corporate charter is hidden. Maybe the founders required this as an honor to their mothers? Maybe every waitress has to legally change their name? I don't know.
I just know it's true.
Around 1994, Waffle House got an infusion of Asian waitresses down in the Gulf Coast region. I thought this might lead to a change.
Nope.
I sat down in Biloxi, Miss., one late night in 2006 after gambling at the Beau Rivage casino. An Asian woman took my order. Her name?
Carla Jean.
I'm not lying.
2. Don't change the seating rules. One of the great things about Waffle House is the egalitarian nature of the table assignments. There is no call-ahead seating, no better treatment for those with more money, no way to get food without the time-honored and advanced system Waffle House implements: Waiting until a damn seat opens.
Do you know how great this is in the 21st century?
Is there anything better than somebody wearing a tuxedo having to wait on a guy who hasn't bathed in four months to vacate a booth so he can eat? The guy in the tuxedo keeps checking his Rolex. He's furious. Meanwhile the guy in the tattered jeans luxuriates over his coffee.
This is the only time tuxedo has ever had to wait for anything in the past year.
I love it.
3. Every day Waffle House sells 2 percent of all the eggs consumed in America. And most of those eggs will be prepared by grumbling ex-felons with tattoos covering their arms.
Waffle House cooks like to talk, they're jovial fellows. Particularly about sports. Most people take sports arguments in stride, as part of the ordinary course of work. But never argue with a Waffle House cook that Pacman Jones didn't deserve his NFL suspension. Or anything else that might be controversial.
They have sharp knives and little to lose. That's a bad combination.
4. Don't change the decor.
With its stylish white and yellow interior, brown floors that all resemble a movie theater parlor from 1936, and booths that don't move, Waffle House reminds you of those futuristic houses that everyone was supposed to end up living in around 1954. Only they've never changed. Or been washed.
Some people, such as your stylish wife Amy, may argue it's time for an update. She may even bring consultants with her that support her opinion. Fire drivers at these consultants from 200 yards away while they stand in the center of the fairway with a shield that is large enough to only cover half of their body.
Eventually they're agreeing with you. Or your wife is calling you off. Either way everyone wins.
By now, if have you haven't heard that Tim Tebow is saving himself for marriage, you've been living under a rock. I asked the question, explained why I asked it, and watched as the question rather than the answer took center stage. For the record, I'd ask the same question tomorrow, the next day, and the day after. I still don't understand why the question got more attention than the answer.
Y'all have been sending me links (and mostly) supportive emails since the question. So thanks for that. I've collated all those opinion pieces, both good and bad, from people that I've ever read anything from before. As a preliminary, the reason I'm using the readership standard is because I generally believe these guys and gals do a good job with sports. I don't always agree with them, but I'm aware of who they are, and I've read their columns before. Here goes.
"Since Tebow was outed, I'm going to out the questioner. He's Clay Travis. He used to work for us. I've met him once. He's written books on SEC and Tennessee football. He's a lawyer, humorist and columnist. I guess.
His latest job is with AOL Fanhouse. The site currently employs some of my favorite writers. Clay Travis is not one of them. Not now, because it sickens me to be reminded again that journalism has become a hobby instead of a vocation. Radio talk-show hosts who have never set foot in a locker room call themselves "journalists." Give an out-of-work linebacker an analyst job, and suddenly he's the "media."
Nice day at work. Rest up and come back fresh tomorrow, Clay. There will be plenty of chances on Friday to ask a player if he has herpes. I'm sure the public is dying to know if Lane Kiffin ever "read" Playboy or if Les Miles watches HBO after midnight?
...
You broke the seal, Clay. Why hold back now?
There's a setting for all this: It's called open mike night. The rest of us, we're trying to get some work done here.
First, on the "outing", I wrote about the question online, twittered about it, blogged about it, and went on the radio to talk about it. But I'm glad Dennis Dodd "outed" me. Otherwise no one would have had any clue who asked the question. As if I was hiding, please.
Isn't it the ultimate irony to write about the question (while conveniently leaving off the introductory premise that featured a. his religious background and b. the fact that he was beloved across the SEC) and then complain that "we're trying to get some work done here?"
By asking the question, I've given you something to write about. If it's not news or it was an irrelevant question, ignore it and do your "work."
Finally, I didn't think about it until after, but if I'd really had mega-balls, I would have stood up in front of Les Miles and said, "Les, Clay Travis here, Dennis Dodd from CBS is afraid to ask the question, so I'm asking it for him: Do you have herpes?" Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution:Was Tim Tebow "virginity" question out of bounds?
After our talk Tebow again showed why he is different than any other athlete I’ve covered. In a large interview room he was asked a totally inappropriate question—whether or not he is still a virgin (I am not going to mention the person’s name who asked the question or his website. It’s out there if you really want it).
Tebow was within his rights to get up and walk out of the room. He was within his rights to tell the questioner that it was none of his damned business. Instead he said “Yes, I am.” The reporters in the room—at least the ones with integrity—were clearly uncomfortable at the line of questioning. Tebow laughed and put them at ease.
He took a situation where a “reporter” was clearly out of line and made light of it. It was a move few us could have made so deftly.
There are several things wrong with this post by Barnhart:
1. I didn't actually ask whether or not Tebow was a virgin. I asked if he was saving himself for marriage. There's a fairly substantial difference between the tone and substance of the way those respective questions are phrased. But, and this is my point, the entire prelude to this opinion by Barnhart is about Tebow's off the field reputation as an angel. So he's writing about Tebow's reputation and religion, but he thinks a question about Tebow's reputation and religion is out of bounds?
2. I didn't ask Tebow the question in the "large" print/internet media room as Barnhart writes. I asked it in the small one, the radio/internet room. I could have been in either given that I co-host a radio show and write on the internet. But why is that significant? Because the radio/internet room only had about 50 people in it, vs. over 500 in the other. Not to mention that the radio/internet room wasn't being broadcast live on television and the internet.
Was it a completely intimate setting?
No.
Was the Florida Gator media relations staff ever going to let me have a one-on-one interview with Tebow this year?
No.
So if I thought the question was relevant, which I obviously did, I had to ask it publicly at some point. This is the the most "private" I could get to ask the question before the season started and actual football commenced.
3. Not naming me, really? On Rocky Top is currently sitting at Mr. Barnhart's house after he passed along his address for an early copy. I respect Barnhart's work, it's why I'm very interested in what he thinks of the new book.
I mocked Dodd a bit above for "outing" me, but at least he got his facts correct and quoted (albeit shortened) from the exchange. Barnhart did his readers a disservice by not taking three minutes to actually get the facts before he opined. Or at least linking the above video.
It goes without saying that Tebow is the most visible college athlete in the country, maybe one of the most visible college athletes of all-time. And, yes, he's been very outspoken about his Christian faith and some of his mission work.
But asking about his virginity? Come on.
That's nobody's business but his own.
The story here, though, is how Tebow handled himself, how he kept his composure and how he had the guts to answer an impossible question.
1. Chris should know all about "impossible questions." Such as when he ran with the story about South Carolina recruit Alshon Jeffery accusing Kiffin of saying if he went to play for the Gamecocks he'd wind up pumping gas for a living as a front-page lead on ESPN.com. That same story led SportsCenter. All before Low got around to asking Tennessee's Lane Kiffin whether or not he'd ever said it. In my mind the only "impossible question" to answer is one that never gets asked.
Again, even eliminating the opening to my question, I asked "Are you saving yourself for marriage?"
There are two easy answers.
Yes.
or
No.
In neither case is the response impossible. The question and answer doesn't even require that sex be involved. If you answer, "No," it doesn't mean you've had sex, it could just mean that you aren't waiting for marriage but are still a virgin.
2. Doesn't it defeat the entire premise of your position to have a headline that involves virginity? Especially when I didn't even use the word "virgin" in the question?
So your company deems the virginity angle worthy for headline purposes, but you don't deem it worthy as a single question at three days of press conferences? This goes for the AJC and ESPN by the way. Irony defined.
There were more giggles. This is what it had come to for a player who has hit the star stratosphere like few college players ever.
"I think you're all stunned right now,” Tebow smiled. "I was ready for the question. Ya'll weren't."
So there you go, Tim Tebow is a virgin and he's proud to admit it. Apparently people ask all the time.
He was fine with the question and wants to let everyone know that not even the coeds in Gainesville could break him of his commitment to Christianity. And if you've ever strolled through the UF campus, you’d know Tebow has just redefined the word "devout."
Forget preaching to prisoners, circumcising children on third world missionaries or giving impassioned speeches after losses to Ole Miss. The legend of Tim Tebow may have just peaked. At this point, just about anything this guy does would seem believable.
"The No. 1 way you minister to people is through your actions,” Tebow said. “They see how you act, how you treat people, how you love people, how strong your relationship with Jesus Christ is.”
It's worth noting that Dan Wetzel was the only national columnist who was actually in the room when the question was asked. I think that allowed him to do a better job of grabbing the context. It's not like bedlam ensued and the Florida SID came out and tried to strangle me. The room died down after much laughter and Tebow answered another five or so questions before leaving.
For some reason, Tebow's chastity admission -- which came at SEC media day on Thursday when Clay Travis of AOL's FanHouse.com asked if he was a virgin -- has caused great debate in the sports world.
Should we care that the most popular athlete in college football hasn't gotten his freak on?
Was it an appropriate question?
Should Tebow have even answered?
Yes.
Yes.
And, yes.
Asking Tebow about his virginity wasn't out of bounds, and his answer was more important than people realize.
Tebow has used his enormous platform to promote his Christian beliefs. He utters the words "Jesus Christ" almost as often as "spread offense." At media day, he spoke in detail about ministering to prisoners, and he's been praised considerably for doing missionary work overseas.
I liked the guts it took, and the insight it required, to ask that question of that athlete. He's not just an athlete. He's the most famous Christian athlete in the country, and he's walking on a campus -- I went there -- teeming with temptation. Are you saving yourself for marriage? is the wrong question to ask every athlete but one in college football. But it's the right question to ask Tebow. He's The One.
Tim Tebow is a big boy. If he thought the question was inappropriate, he certainly could have answered it with something like, "That's a private matter." But as you might expect, Tebow came through in the clutch and handled it perfectly -- with humor and honesty --- and now the whole world knows he is a virgin who is saving himself for marriage.
Good job, Clay Travis.
Good job, Tim Tebow.
Tebow is not just a football player, he is a cult figure whose story has always encompassed more than just his sport. His faith and spirituality are a bigger part of who he is than his ability to convert on 3rd-and-1. That's why I think the question was appropriate.
Travis asked a question that everybody has always wondered and Tebow answered a question that further solidifies his legend as not only a great football player but as a decent God-fearing human being.
Open Mike commends Tim Tebow for getting that message out.
And I commend Clay Travis for allowing him to get that message out.
On its face, whether Tebow has been some sort of Greek god of studliness or saving himself for marriage seems like a ludicrous issue to be talking about at a football conference, even in the SEC.
But Tebow has always been about more than football -- necessarily been about more than football.
Tebow's career -- on and off the field -- has been about mythology. Not in the "Clash of the Titans" fictional way, but about myth-making. So as not to confuse people, I try to use the word "mythic," because it means "as if a myth...," the implication being "...but very much real."
I think that's a representative sample of national voices.
And, finally, for some levity that I guarantee you'll love, check me and Chris Vernon, radio show host from Memphis who created Colonel Reb is Crying, on the Paul Finebaum show here.
Click on: Was Verno Right? I guarantee you'll be entertained.
Read it here. By the time you read this, I'll be on the road to Birmingham. Probably.
By now, you or someone you know has forwarded a link to you that may or may not have included the Erin Andrews video, the now famous video ostensibly of the ESPN reporter naked in her hotel room, filmed through a peephole. It's possible you got a woman having relations with a horse instead. With Internet videos you never know quite what to expect. (Or so I've heard.) I think virtually every person who has seen the video agrees that it crosses the line of propriety by a large stretch. But what hasn't been really talked about very much is why Erin Andrews represents more than just herself, she's a symbolic figure, a Rorschach test for modern sexual politics. Don't believe me? Dive into my mind. If you dare.
I'll begin by answering this question: Can a very attractive woman ever be so good at what she does for a living that her attractiveness is ignored by men? I think the answer is no. No matter how equal the sexes ever become. And I get why that totally sucks for professional women.
Let's get this out of the way, if any perpetrator is found, he should be penalized to the fullest extent of the law for secretly filming Andrews inside her hotel room.
Period.
That could be under federal or state law for initial or subsequent distribution. The legal complexities of this situation make my head spin.
But I don't think we'll find this person. Why? Because the most brilliant computer minds in the country can't track down those who upload viruses on the Internet. Why do we believe we'll be able to find one pervert who uploaded the Erin Andrews peephole video in a country filled with millions of perverts?
Proving he can utter a positive comment about the Florida Gators, Kiffin turned into a gushing high school girl on the subject of Tebow today. From his press conference.
“I said, ‘I don’t know what you guys see, but I think he’s great.’ Does he throw a perfect spiral all the time? No. But so what. A lot of great ones don’t.
“The guy’s a winner. I read where someone says he’s potentially the greatest college player ever. If he does it again this year, that’s probably the right statement.”
“I think he will be a great NFL quarterback.”
Kiffin is aware that others won’t concur with his NFL assessment of Tebow.
“I’m sure there will be nine million articles written about how he can’t play quarterback in the NFL,” Kiffin said. “And he’ll go there and win a Super Bowl.”
I'm headed up to Knoxville next week to do a feature on him for FanHouse. Look for it late next week. In the meantime here's the link to the campaign website. Can Berry get into the mix? The Vols would probably have to get to 9-3 to make that happen as a team.
By the way, Berry is also really entertaining to follow on Twitter. I have a new Twitter rule, you have to pick one player on each team you follow to keep up with via Twitter. My two so far, Berry and Chris Johnson for the Titans. I'm hoping Wayne Chism finds his way to twitter as well.
I think everyone is afraid to ask, but wouldn't this be the ultimate testament to his religious faith? Even if you accept that your average Florida girl is carrying six-to-eight extra pounds of fat on her arms, how many women would Tebow have turned down carnal relations with over the past three years of college? Fortunately, I know. 3,468,946,253.
Yep, Tebow turned down your Mom!
And my mom.
And if he wasn't a virgin wouldn't this at least prove that Tim Tebow has violated a Bible verse? Something that, to be honest, there is no evidence of thus far. Put it this way, if Tebow got shot and we all thought he was dead, and then he came back to life, wouldn't you be convinced that Revelations was unspooling before your eyes? (And, if so, would you expect the disciples to be wearing jorts?)
2. Will Les Miles prove he's a bona fide long-term fit at LSU, or will this be the season when he demonstrates that a temperament consisting of equal parts insanity and supreme self-confidence doesn't work in the SEC?
Miles went 19-5 in the SEC his first three years with an SEC and national title. But then he went 3-5 last season, equaling the SEC losses that he put up in his first three seasons combined. As if that weren't enough, the LSU defense imploded, allowing over 50 points to Georgia and Florida and going 3-5 in the final eight games of the regular season.
The Tigers rebounded to smoke Georgia Tech in the bowl game, but was that indicative of what's to come or was the preceding eight weeks more representative of what LSU has become? We'll know soon.
Secondary question, how much less fearsome would Les Miles be if he went by his given name, Leslie? Is he even a head coach right now? I mean that honestly. Do you think someone gave him advice on this years ago? The name Leslie standing alone probably disqualifies him from coaching everywhere in the SEC except Vanderbilt.
3. Is the SEC still Southern?
I'm going to write on this later this week, but in an era when non-Southerners like Urban Meyer, Bobby Petrino, Lane Kiffin, Dan Mullen, and Nick Saban (although my editor says West Virginia is like Mississippi in the mountains) are five of the most recent seven hires in the SEC, what percentage of coaches would use the word fixin' or y'all and not sound like they were doing it to fit in? Like politicians who develop accents as soon as they leave Washington.
Everyone but Spurrier is my call.
In the ultimate kick in the groin to Southern regionalism, have we outsourced our coaching to the rest of the country?
4. Does Dan Mullen ever watch Mississippi State practice and think to himself, "Dear Lord, what have I done?"
I know that getting an offer to become a head coach is tough to pass up, but why would you leave Florida before this year? You have the potential to be associated with a three-time national championship winning team, lock down another SEC title, and further burnish your credentials as offensive coordinator by coaching Tebow for another year of offensive explosions.
Or you can take over the only SEC football team with an all-time losing record. And, oh by the way, the last SEC title the team has won? 1941.
Isn't this an easy decision? Or does Mullen worry that he's never going to get a head job because everyone will believe that Tebow's success carried Mullen's offense.
Regardless, I guess it could be worse, Mullen could have been ridiculously successful as a coordinator for 10 years and not gotten a head job because he was black and married a white woman. (See, Strong, Charlie)
Far be it for me to predict it, but 2010 Vol athletics could be a terrifying experience. Truly terrifying, at least for football and men's basketball. And I'm not trying to push the alarm bell here unnecessarily. In football, Nick Stephens is our starter with, and this is even scarier, no reliable back-up who has taken snaps other than Gerald Jones. Eric Berry is gone, four/fifths of the starting offensive line, and the schedule is brutal.
2010 SCHEDULE Sept. 4 Akron Sept. 11 Oregon Sept. 18 Florida Sept. 25 UAB Oct. 2 at LSU Oct. 9 at Georgia Oct. 23 Alabama Oct. 30 at South Carolina Nov. 6 at Memphis Nov. 13 Mississippi Nov. 20 at Vanderbilt Nov. 27 Kentucky
At LSU and at Georgia in back-to-back road games? Not to mention Oregon is going to be a top 25 team in 2010. Just seven home games. And is it just me or does it seem like LSU is always our rotating SEC West opponent?
Meanwhile, in basketball, we're talking about Tyler Smith, Wayne Chism, J.P. Prince, Bobby Maze, and Josh Tabb leaving. Five guys gone guaranteed. If Scotty Hopson truly makes the leap that people seem to think he's going to make, we're talking about six guys potentially leaving.
Now minus Josh Selby, we're screwed. Honestly, we're going to be very good in basketball in 2009 and in football I think we'll be better in 2009 than in 2010. It's possible we've got some real horses coming in football. Maybe. But somebody tell me who on the basketball front is going to make us anything better than an NIT hopeful in 2010.
The most grating thing about the Selby decommitment is what assistant coach Tony Jones has already said, “I’m not going to comment on any specific player, because I am not allowed to do that,’’ Jones said. “I’ll just say something smells right now.’’
And what I'll say right now is that we all better enjoy 2009 and the spring of 2010 as much as we possibly can. Because things aren't likely to get better in the following season.
Remember Tajh Boyd, He's Recovered From His Torn ACL
And competing for the starting job at Clemson this fall. Meanwhile Tennessee's depth chart at quarterback for next season suddenly looks like this: Nick Stephens (who the UT defensive backs have fondly nicknamed "PickNick." Some guy who was playing in the Boston Red Sox farm system.
The hits just keep on coming.
Interesting takeaway from the article:
Boyd tore his anterior cruciate ligament three games into his senior season at Phoebus High, yet played the rest of the year and threw for 1,455 yards and 23 touchdowns. He ran for three more scores and was a co-MVP of the Army All-American Game, a high-school showcase for the country's top seniors.
He was the MVP of the All-American game with a torn ACL.
I really think this is the recruiting decision that is going to come back and haunt the first few years of the Kiffin experience more than any other. Especially if we miss out on Scroggins (as seems likely) on Wednesday. What's this all mean? It's time for our old friend Lane Kiffin in a goatee.
Maybe thirty or forty-five seconds too long, but the first minute is killer. Look, I watch and the second episode was better than the first. But I'm afraid the magic is gone.
Note I didn't even include the fact that he's grown a beard as one of the reasons why this was ludicrous.
Introduction here.
"Today the SEC released the Coaches' Preseason Football Team. There were three unanimous selections: Tennessee safety Eric Berry, LSU offensive lineman Ciron Black, and Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones. Noticing something surprising? Yep, someone didn't vote for Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. And before you throw Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt under the bus, assuming he voted for his player, Jevan Snead, over Tebow, keep this in mind, coaches weren't allowed to vote for their own players. So presumably someone other than Nutt left Tebow off the first team.
Wow.
But that's not even the most surprising detail.
The SEC, home of the last three national champions, is as weak at starting quarterback as the league has ever been. Snead of Ole Miss was a second-teamer. But third team? How about a tie between Stephen Garcia and, wait for it, Kentucky's Mike Hartline, the same Mike Hartline who was replaced for the second half of the season by a punt-returning freshman wide receiver named Randall Cobb.
I'm heading down for SEC Media Days next week (check back then because we'll have some cool coverage), and I can't wait to see every coach squirm when they're asked whether they voted for Tebow as a first-team selection. Unless it was Lane Kiffin who did it. In which case Kiffin will lead off his opening remarks to the media by saying, "I just don't think Tebow's that good." Odds that someone other than Kiffin admits making that decision? Zero percent. It's one of many reasons these ballots should be public.
Otherwise, I just fundamentally refuse to believe that any SEC coach could have seen Tebow play over the past three years and not think, "I would sacrifice my first three children for a chance to coach a team with him at quarterback."
Seriously.
And I'll even make this argument, if you put Tebow on Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, or South Carolina, they automatically become the team to beat in the SEC. Put him on Florida, already the most talented team in the conference, and the Gators have put more distance between themselves and the second best team in 2009 than any SEC team has in my life.
Nashville's Tennessean Sitting On Steve McNair Mistresses Story?
Nashville's Tennessean has identified several additional women who were also involved in sexual relationships with Steve McNair. They've done even more than that, there is currently an article quoting those women and how they're dealing with McNair's death. (The women are quoted anonymously because they fear revealing their identities. The Tennessean, to their credit, has a policy against using anonymous sources for stories. Even, evidently when there are multiple women telling the same story. As a result none of us have seen this article. Why? Because of a combination of reasons: a. the women are anonymous and b. the Tennessean bigwigs are convinced the city of Nashville can't handle the news.
If you wanted to trace the decline of print media via a single newspaper, Nashville's Tennessean would be a perfect candidate to reflect that slide. At one time the paper employed brilliant young reporters like David Halberstam and Al Gore under the visionary leadership of John Seigenthaler. They snagged one Pulitzer after another. From being on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement and countless other seminal stories and investigations that impacted the city to failing to produce a single front-page article that anyone with an IQ over 100 would want to read. Now the Tennessean's best-known columnist is named, wait for it, Mrs. Cheap. In case you're confused she writes about things in the city that are...cheap.
How cute.
As the paper has declined the newspaper has been shrinking, eliminating talented writers, and slowly becoming a repository for AP articles, condensed New York Times articles that lose their thrust in the cutting, and warmed over press-release drivel. Awful is probably a generous adjective to describe the paper.
What's most amazing about the Tennessean's decline isn't necessarily how awful it is (though it is most assuredly that), but how much the paper has diverged with the city of Nashville. As the city has become better educated, more diverse, wealthier, and more cosmopolitan, the newspaper has become dumber and more parochial. No section of the paper hasn't suffered.
The Tennessean sports section, for the past seven or eight years the only section of the paper with more than five original articles per day, has even felt the brunt of the collapse. For a time it held on, managing to occasionally entertain.
No longer.
Now The Tennessean can't be bothered to send reporters to college road games featuring the University of Tennessee or the Vanderbilt Commodores. This past March they didn't even bother to send a single reporter to cover the SEC Basketball Tournament. Not one. This year they eliminated the beat writer position for the University of Tennessee. One of their lead columnists, Joe Biddle, has not written an original idea in a decade. If he posted on fan message boards no one would read him. You can't even accuse him of mailing in his columns, because that would mean he was willing to stand up from his desk and find a stamp. It's shameful really, because some of the younger Tennessean sports writers who don't have columns are actually very good at what they do. As is David Climer who has been writing a column for The Tennessean for as long as I can remember.
Steve McNair's killing jolted everyone awake at The Tennessean. You can quibble with their reporting (for instance, why did Steve McNair and their countless updates on the killing never lead the BlackBerry or any other mobile device page?), but in general they did a good job.
Until now.
There is no doubt that the fact that Steve McNair was engaged in multiple affairs is extremely newsworthy. He was, after all, killed by one of these women. Already the Tennesseanhas reported that there was a third woman involved in an affair with McNair. Why draw the line there? Especially when articles citing police and other sources have already hinted that Ms. Kazemi may have been motivated in her murder/suicide by uncovering the existence of these other women. She's 20 and believed she was the love of Steve McNair's life. Then she uncovered that she was merely one woman of many that he was squiring about town.
That's a legitimate story that needs to be told, demands to be told even. But it isn't running. Because the editors at The Tennessean don't have the backbone to run a story that their reporters have already anonymously sourced.
No one doubts that Steve McNair was beloved in this city. But telling only a part of the story of how he died does a disservice to the community that loved him. We all deserve to know the truth. Or as close to the truth as we can get.
The fact that The Tennessean doesn't have the guts to stand behind their reporters work speaks more eloquently than anyone else could about how far they've fallen beneath the city of Nashville.
They don't think the people of my city can handle the truth? Put simply Tennessean editors, you aren't good enough at what you do to make a decision like that for the city of Nashville.
(FYI, the Tennessean's managing editor denies that they have held back anything.)
Okay, this just went up on FanHouse. I've given four potential renames for the BCS. I want your best other names. Then we vote. Prizes will be forthcoming. Here's the article. Below are my four nominations. In case you've forgotten, the reason for the renaming is because the BCS doesn't exist as a legal entity.
"Last week, we learned that the BCS doesn't exist as a legal entity. Most of us found that shocking. At least those of us who can define the word "entity." (Sorry, Ohio State fans. As much as we all might wish the word involves the female breast, sigh, it doesn't. If it did the drafting of legal documents would be an awfully lot more interesting.)"
My submissions:
1. The Null Set: Ø
In ninth grade geometry, we once had a teacher give a geometry test where null set was the answer for five consecutive questions. You talk about a war of wills, a diabolical form of instruction if there ever was one. Making someone believe that a teacher would design five consecutive questions with the null set as an answer was like being the only boy in a pink shirt one day. Not that I would know anything about that.
Not one single person in the class was willing to pick null set all five times. Later, she cackled at us when she revealed her duplicity. (The next year she left teaching. I like to think she now works in a yearbook factory gluing the back page to the cardboard all day long.)
I'm no mathematical expert, but the final BCS equation that determines who plays for the championship always makes me think of the null set
2. B+S
I like the simplicity of this redesign. It's sleek, modern, and it removes the C that stands for Championship. It also sums up the BCS in a more cogent fashion by commingling it with cow dung.
3. Lorenzo White
True fans of Tecmo Super Bowl will know that Houston Oiler Lorenzo White was the worst starting running back in the game. He was awful. In fact, continuing the analogy, if college football, the greatest sport on earth is the sports' equivalent of Tecmo Super Bowl, the greatest video game ever, then one might even deduce that Lorenzo White, the worst starting running back of the game, was the BCS of Tecmo Super Bowl.
See, it works.
4. CUBA!
The only thing in the western hemisphere less American than the BCS is Cuba. But to Cuba's credit Raul Castro has been faster to modernize during his tenure than the BCS has been.
In terms of the new name, you merely add one letter and an exclamation point. So you don't lose much in terms of shortness. But you gain so much in spelling out how un-American our selection of a college football "champ" actually is.
These are my four, all we're waiting for is your six. Then we'll vote. Even if one of these four wins, whoever comes in highest of the top six wins. And if you beat me outright? Well, the prize will be even more sterling.
Interview on BCS Antitrust Questions and Another Interview on Southern Culture
Somewhere my Vanderbilt Law Professors are sadly shaking their heads. The fine gents at Blatant Homerism (an Oklahoma fan blog) sent along questions and I did my best to answer. Read that here.
Also, a very good article about the culture of football in the South. My quotes take it down a notch, but I think you'll enjoy it regardless.
Enjoy.
Also, you may notice that I'm recycling photos. That's because my wife looked at the pictures I had saved the other day and said, "How many pictures of girls in bikinis do you have?"
If only she knew.
Regardless, I've decided to recycle favorite photos sometimes now. Saving photos is time-consuming. And by time-consuming I mean it takes approximately 1 minute to find and save one. But when your time is as valuable as mine, I can't afford to waste any.
Speaking of which, anyone else down for a summer Saved By the Bell marathon? I've got the first four seasons on DVD.
Childhood Awesomeness Draft (CAD) On ClayNation Radio Last Night
The above link is courtesy of listener Leighton L. who writes:
"Good Show last night,
This is what the ShowBiz band is up to these days..."
For those of you who didn't get a chance to listen, Withrow and I had another draft in the second hour of the show. It started off slowly, looked like it might potentially end up Withrow and I going back and forth with our selections for the final hour. But then took off.
Eventually Withrow announced that he will never doubt any of my ideas again. Which means the show just got a lot more interesting.
We made it through 21 picks in the CAD and had loaded lines throughout. (Several people have already emailed expressing their dismay over not getting in to make their selection.) So we'll continue it for the remainder of the summer. Here were the first twenty picks:
1. Clay Travis: Tecmo Super Bowl 2. Chad Withrow: The Wonder Years 3. British Knights 4. The Man on the Moon 5. Saved By the Bell --Andrew Braverman 6. Stretch Armstrong 7. Evil Knieval Stunt Cycle 8. Big Wheel 9. Showbiz Pizza (courtesy of the above link) 10. Zoobaz pants 11. Big league chew--grape (Tardio called in with this selection) 12. Dukes of Hazzard 13. Starter Jackets 14. The Atari Football Game 15. The Transformer that turned into a rifle 16. The 1991 Tennessee Volunteer football team 17. Pogs (neither of us knew what this was) 18. Dual cassette boombox 19. Underoos 20. Clackers (two rocks that you bought that slammed together) 21. Ordering Pizza
In case you weren't listening, Withrow confessed to playing with wagons when he was a kid. This explains so much.
Buried in the details surrounding the BCS contract extension signed by the Mountain West and the WAC was this nugget in an Idaho newspaper: "The conference (WAC) will attach a letter 'that will lay out the concerns we have and basically express our strong objection to the current BCS structure,' Boise State president Bob Kustra said."
Yep, a bona fide letter. (Possible illustration, right). Thanks to the tremendous connections of the ClayNation column in conjunction with the awe-inspiring power of FanHouse, and the action news team that, er, located Gene Chizik's inaugural address to Auburn, we were able to artfully re-create this letter below:
"Dear BCS,
You are so wack. (The bad wack not the good WAC!) We hate you. Every single one of us. From Louisiana Tech (yes, that is an actual school) to Hawaii, every single person who has ever graduated from our football programs, all 28 of them, hate you. Or as the players say, "H8 u!!111"
We hate your pointy shoes, and your paltry money, and your BCS standings that are so complicated the rules might as well read, "Minus-488 points for not being in a Big Six conference." We hate the smugness of the Big Six, like those programs are all legitimate powerhouses. Have you been to Starkville, Mississippi? It makes Logan, Utah look like Beverly Hills. That's in California. You know, the same state where we have the 18th best football team in the Silicon Valley. (Not counting high schools.) San Jose State, baby. And San Jose State is loaded, baby.
You want millions.
They got 50 of them.
Yep, their entire endowment is $50 million dollars. Put it in a stack of singles and it would reach to Jupiter. Then, if we wanted to, we could push the stack over and it would make it rain all the way to Boise. Fifty millions, that's almost as much as Alabama makes from football each year, son. In the whole university.
And we've got a blue field. Do you have a blue field? Do you know how much technology that takes? I'll tell you, all the technology in Louisiana. That's why we brought in Louisiana Tech. Because, let's be clear, when you think, "Scientific revolution," you think, "Louisiana."
ClayNation Radio Tonight Nashville's 104.5 7-9 Central
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
As nothing is going on in the world of sports tonight's a special show, we'll be doing a pre-adolescence awesomeness draft. That is, you call in and select an object that you were in love with before you hit puberty. Listen live here.
A couple of early picks, I'm taking Super Tecmo Bowl, Withrow is taking big league chew. Then we're breaking the selections down Todd McShay, Mel Kiper style. This should be golden for those of you who aren't watching the All-Star Game.
In other news, we're five weeks out from the On Rocky Top release on August 18. Just to reiterate, we're double-barreling the release in Nashville: A book launch party in tandem with the radio show at Otter's on Demonbreun and a book signing and reading at Nashville's Davis-Kidd bookstore the next day. It should be fun. Personally, I can't wait.
Mountain West, WAC Take the BCS's Pieces of Silver
Monday, July 13, 2009
I wanted to take a look at the actual economic impact of the BCS on the smaller schools in the non-big six, aka, the slim five: Mountain West, WAC, Conference USA, Sunbelt, and the MAC. The time is appropriate given the new deal extension that everyone just signed. Here's the column.
Just a few days after the monumental Senate committee hearing on whether the BCS violated antitrust law, the WAC and the Mountain West put pen to paper, extending their deal with the BCS. And by "their deal" I mean the "big six conference and Notre Dame deal" that happens to include all other teams by the magnanimous generosity of the entity known as the BCS. Even if, you know, that entity doesn't actually exist.
Yes, the BCS is like Prince, it's name is an unpronounceable symbol. Or a pronounceable curse word. Later this week, I'm going to do a column where we come up with a symbol to represent the BCS for the 2009 season since it doesn't legally exist. But before we can do that, I have to figure out how to unlock the symbol collection on my keyboard. And let's be honest that could take me months.
In the meantime, the real question to ask here is why did the Mountain West and WAC sign the agreement and has it strengthened or weakened their case against the BCS? Proceed, fearless reader.In 1984, BYU won the national championship from outside a power conference. That year's team was nowhere near as accomplished as last season's undefeated Utah team. Don't believe me. The good Doctor at Yahoo has broken down its season. This was not a team that destroyed all competitors and left all others trembling in its wake. BYU beat four teams that finished the season with a winning record. None of the teams they beat finished ranked in the Top 25.
But in the last 25 years, no team from outside a big six conference has won a national championship. (Although Penn State won in 1986 before they joined the Big Ten in 1990.) Could this ever happen again? I'm going to tie this in as we look at the primary question: What happens if both conferences didn't sign on to join the BCS extension with ESPN?
To begin, they'd forgo the BCS television money in the new $500-million, four-year deal. The five non-big six conferences will receive a combined $13 million or so a year, an increase from the $9.5 million they were getting. So each conference nets in the neighborhood of $2.6 million. Divide that number by nine (the number of members of the Mountain West and the WAC) and you're talking about each school in these two conferences netting about ... wait for it ... $300,000.
It's been a while since Pacman made it rain over NBA All-Star Weekend. Over two years. For some reason the Las Vegas newspaper is now running a three-part expose. Here is the first part via Deadspin. Along with the accompanying picture.
At about 2:30 in the morning on Feb. 19, 2007, Jones went by limo to the Minxx with a group that included his business manager, Chris Horvath, and a bodyguard he hired for the weekend, Robert "Big Rob" Reid.
As the group entered the club, they walked through a portable metal detector, which was installed for the weekend to help keep weapons out.
"Pacman's in the house!" Horvath shouted as they cleared security.
It was doubtful anyone heard him.
Harlem Knights, a Houston strip club, had leased the Minxx for the weekend, organized the events and recorded them on video. The video from that night shows a lively party with loud hip-hop music and male partygoers enjoying the attention of nearly naked dancers. Champagne was flowing and the smell of marijuana was thick, several Minxx employees later said.
"They were very, very mellow," club employee Leon Malanowski said of the crowd. "Everybody was cool. We had the right kind of music. They had enough girls there, so it was all smooth. ... No tension whatsoever."
'MAKING IT RAIN'
The relative calm at the party ended abruptly, and Pacman Jones was a main reason why.
Jones, dressed in a white jersey-style shirt and wearing a large gold chain supporting a medallion depicting the "Pacman" video game character, had walked into the club with about $100,000 in cash inside a Louis Vuitton backpack. He exchanged $40,000 of that with a club manager for singles. This was in preparation for the celebrities gathering on stage to toss money into the air and in the general direction of dancers -- a practice in the nightclub world known as "making it rain."
And how has this all played out since?
Two months ago I took Fox to the neighborhood playground so we could play on the slide. Two kids were playing in the woodchips. One was around 5, the other about three, both boys. As we neared, I could hear the younger boy say to his older brother, "Stop making it rain on me."
Yep, kids in Nashville are making it rain with playground woodchips.
Anyone who has read anything that I've written about college football over the past several years knows that I'm obsessed with college football lines. Here are some early lines from the Golden Nugget.
Two that are also included, Alabama as 14 point favorites over Tennessee and Ole Miss as 13 point favorites. A personal guarantee, Tennessee will win one of these games. Those lines are way too high. But those are the preseason lines. They'll adjust quite a bit as the games get closer. For now, something to enjoy checking out.
Six key points to takeaway from Tuesday's hearing. Read it here. Below is the opening excerpt.
Tuesday afternoon, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing in the U.S. Capitol to examine whether or not the BCS violated antitrust laws. The question, essentially, was whether the BCS functions as a monopoly or a cartel and, if so, whether it violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Much of the coverage of Tuesday's hearing focused on the usual arguments for and against a college football playoff rather than actually looking at the question at issue in the hearing: Does the BCS as presently constituted violate United States antitrust laws?
It's a simple question with a complicated answer, but after reviewing the submitted documents, the testimony of those called before the committee, and applying my legal education that set me back almost $150k (that I'm still paying off), I'll give you an answer: Yes.
As a preliminary point, one of the best stories I've ever heard about the value of a legal education goes something like this. Someone takes the stage to speak to the graduating lawyers and begins, "Before you entered law school, if someone asked you a question about the law you could say with true sincerity, 'I have no idea.' Now, three years later, if someone asks you the same question, you can look them directly in the eye and say with great sincerity, 'That depends.'"
The story gets at the complexity of legal analysis and how opinions can govern our own perception of what's just. Even for lawyers, these can be difficult questions. That's why I think so many of the articles that came out of Tuesday's hearing focused on two main points of analysis, the tired arguments for and against a college football playoff and the rationale or lack thereof for Congressional analysis. This was summed up by ESPN radio host Colin Cowherd, "Let sports take care of sports," he eloquently argued.
The rest of the article is here. You may not agree with everything, but I think you'll agree that it's one of the most in-depth looks at Tuesday's hearings.
Dave Neal won't ever die. He just won't. He'll be back for the 12:30 eastern game with Andre Ware and Cara Capuano. The rest of the list was released yesterday. So dive in here if you're interested in seeing who will be calling the college football games.
This announcement helps temper my amazement when I looked down at my BlackBerry in between kid's rides at Williamsburg's Busch Gardens and saw this from reader E.H.: "C’Lay-
Take all this with a grain of salt, but I thought someone should look into it. I would do it myself except baby #3 is coming in 9 days….yes, my wife and I aren’t that bright.
So, a friend of a friend ran into Dave Neal at lunch recently in Atlanta. Dave conveys that he and the JP crew will be doing the early ESPN game this season. Have you heard this? Are they bringing their non-HD cameras, 3 week late scoreboards and ALL the Dave’s?
Please don’t use my name on this one. I need to protect the innocent."
You'll recall that I buried the JP/LF/Raycom hatchet after Dave Neal reached out to me through a third party. Even still, I had cold chills.
In light of our make-up, I don't know how ESPN overlooked me as his partner instead of Andre Ware. So I don't have a Heisman, I can match my subjects and verbs together in the correct tense...usually. Regardless, the only analogy that really fits here is that Dave Neal got too big for the other two Daves. Yep, he's Beyonce to their Destiny's Child.
Anyway, the 11:30 central game will never die. Ever.
I've still never seen anyone reading one of my books that I didn't know. Friends have had sightings. But not me. Tip of the beaver pelt to reader Brian M. for sending in the following beach shot.
Later today there will be a 2k word look at the Senate Judiciary Committee's BCS hearing. In the meantime, enjoy the bikini. It's almost like she's wearing the bikini to match the book.
Outside Mississippi, Steve McNair was a famous NFL quarterback, one known for his toughness. Back home, people remember him as a happening. For four years in the early 1990s, a fever took hold of the state. Everyone woke up Sunday morning and gawked at the stats before church. Many got into their cars and went south to see for themselves. Later, people would wear those journeys as a talisman, a sign of their true Mississippi-ness: I went to see Steve McNair.
The lack of television coverage made the myth seem elusive, somehow more gothic. Sports Illustrated came, put old Steve from Mount Olive on the cover. A myth sprung up, about a country-strong kid who picked beans before sunrise and enjoyed great fame with humility, a narrative befitting someone so far off the beaten path. Paul Bunyan with a gray Toyota Celica for an ox. He didn't seem like a real person, which I guess is what we wanted.
The governor wrote a letter to Heisman voters. The past governor went to see for himself. Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward came. Spike Lee came. Writer Willie Morris drove down and decided to skip the rest of his beloved Ole Miss games. He'd follow McNair, and he'd bring friends. Even George Plimpton came. Thousands of Mississippians, white and black, made the drive out Highway 552, out past East Jesus, as a friend puts it. They were there for the entire ride, right to the end, when Steve "Air II" McNair broke the NCAA record for career total yards. They released purple and gold balloons into the sky that afternoon, and the world stopped for a moment, though it would soon start to spin again, faster than anyone ever could have imagined. Steve handed the game ball to his mama. In the stands, Willie Morris cheered alongside his friends, novelist Larry Wells and his wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, niece of William Faulkner.
After two weeks on the road, we got back around 6 tonight. I can't tell you how good it feels to be back in the saddle after all day spent driving on the road with a 17 month old.
More details to come on a variety of things, the book, radio, the column. Until then, I feel like I could sleep for 24 hours straight. Here's a video, I've been holding for a while (we're doing one for the book that will be up at some point.) It's me running through the T at Alabama. And right now it won't upload. So I'm going to bed. At 8 in the evening. This is what vacations with infants lead to, going to bed when it's still daylight.
Two months ago, Steve McNair walked into a bar named Loser's near downtown Nashville. It was after midnight. McNair wore blue jeans, boots and a black T-shirt hanging tightly on his broad chest. The patrons inside Loser's, a country-themed bar with wood panels on the walls, wooden floors, and a wooden porch, were swaying to "Country Roads" in front of a live band. McNair walked to the bar and ordered a shot -- straight vodka. He took the shot glass, tiny in his large right hand, the one that had thrown touchdown passes for 13 NFL seasons, and tossed it down. Then he turned to look out over the scene. For just a moment he winced, then he opened his mouth wide, an orange peel held between his teeth.
McNair's mouth hung open in a bright orange smile. My friend elbowed me, "Can you believe that guy came within a yard of winning the Super Bowl?" he asked.
On that spring night, McNair's drink was the perfect metaphor for his time in Nashville, brutally strong yet with a sweet aftertaste. If ever there was a better connection between a city and a player, I haven't seen it. McNair and Nashville were a perfect pair, the lovers who never could quite get it right, the Super Bowl-losing quarterback with a golden arm who was born on Valentine's Day, and the city that turns its failures into ballads heard round the world.
I'm not 100% sure it's necessary, but I know we're headed full-speed ahead into an awful lot of major controversies as is. Here's the column.
Virtually every college athlete in the country is on Facebook now. This makes sense, it's hard not to be on Facebook if you're under 35, impossible if you're under 25. But Facebook has become a public relations minefield for major athletic programs across the country. Whether it's players being kicked out of school for making a threat in their status message (Wake Forest), posting racist comments about the newly elected President (Texas), setting off an internet firestorm over whether or not you actually posted messages on another person's wall (Georgia) or just having your idiotic responses to quizzes posted all over for others to enjoy (Michigan). This is just the tip of the Facebook iceberg, every program is in danger at every moment of every day. All of this attention and all of this danger raises an intriguing question: Is it time for athletic departments to ban their athletes from having social media profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and the like?
This week the University of Arizona took action to combat the dangers of Facebook, announcing that all of their athletes in every sport must set their profiles to private. Setting the profile to private means that only those people you select as friends can see your profile. Otherwise the profile remains visible to the entire network (generally your college). How serious is Arizona about the new policy? Athletes who don't comply risk losing their scholarships if their online conduct fails to "reflect the high standards of honor and dignity" expected by the school.
But Arizona's policy reflects a tenuous middle ground, once a student accepts a friend request from anyone, their profile becomes accessible. Putting this into context, while researching my new book, one University of Tennessee official confessed to creating fake profiles and then friending the athletes to keep tabs on them. How did he get the athletes to add him as a friend? He took the best looking girl he could find on the internet and built a fake profile around her. When the attractive girl's profile picture showed up in their friend requests, bang, they all accepted.
Knoxville Police were called to a home on Franklin Station Way, in the Fort Sanders area. When officers arrived, they heard the caller screaming. They busted into the home, and saw the woman running out of her bedroom, screaming that a burglar was in her room.
Inside, they said they found former UT quarterback Jim Bob Cooter in the woman's bed.
Any woman who doesn't want Jim Bob Cooter in her bed is a no-talent floozy. There, I said it.
Good comments from y'all on the below comments. And good recovery on FanHouse from several of the posters. Many made constructive points. Like I said, I hope we can gradually take over the comments and have some interesting conversations over there and here. Many of them will be funny, some of them will be serious, but hopefully all of them will give evidence of what I already know, the column, books, blog readership and community that we're fortunate to have is the best in sports.
Couple of things that I didn't break down further in that piece that I want to address here:
1. I think looking at the structure of the NBA and NFL vs. MLB and the NHL is instructive to a degree as it pertains to the development, i.e. minor leagues vs. using the colleges as a de facto minor league. I should have spent more time on it. So here's a discussion on that.
What I should have broken down further is that I think the structure of the league systems are intertwined with the race of the players. In other words, I truly believe that if 79% of NBA players and 65% of NFL players were white, there would be a different draft system. The NCAA in conjunction with the leagues would not have been allowed to run roughshod over those leagues and restrict the ability of the best players to make a living.
In other words the racial paternalism is so endemic that it goes to the root of the draft systems themselves. Why? Because the relative bargaining powers of the parents, the coaches, the administrators, the people in positions of power, are all structured to benefit the majority. I don't think this is racist per se, I think it's much more complicated, a systemic disadvantage.
Now, plainly minorities who play these sports benefit from the structure too. For instance an 18 year old black kid who plays baseball very well can access the market value of his skills at 18 in that sport, he can't in the NBA and the NFL.
I think it's more than a coincidence that if you you plot the racial make-up of every pro sports league, the relative bargaining power of 18 year old's corresponds almost exactly: The more young black kids play, the less bargaining position they have in the sport at the age of 18. The more white kids play, the more bargaining position all 18 year olds have.
I think that's pretty systemic.
2. Now I don't think the NCAA, the NBA, or the NFL are racist. Far from it, I think they're corporations that act in the way they see as most beneficial to them. In fact, my intent wasn't to call anyone racist, just to point out that race influences our perceptions in ways that we often don't acknowledge. For me the 26 baseball players with college degrees illuminated the disconnect. My point on the leagues is that poor minority groups can't combat them in the world of popular perception. And perception governs our reality. So the NCAA, the NBA, and the NFL can argue that players need an education and as a society we accept those arguments from them. But we don't accept that argument from the MLB or the NHL, or tennis, or golf, or you name it.
Anyway, one of the things I'll be doing as we revamp the site, is using this format to respond to interesting reader points. (Don't worry, we'll still be doing the mailbag). But if someone raises a truly engaging point, I think we can carry on the debate.
FanHouse will have a couple of thousand words up from me on athletes and Facebook shortly. In the meantime, here is Jessica Biel from behind to prove that we all still know what's most important in life, a fine ass on a woman.
Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
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When Clay Travis, acclaimed author of Dixieland Delight, decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he—and every other college football aficionado—thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. After all, when the Vols kicked off the season on September 1, the defending SEC East champions were ranked 18th in the country. As head coach Phillip Fulmer prepared for the game, he reflected upon a coaching career that included an astounding 147 victories, two SEC championships, and a national title. With 34 years at UT under his belt as both a player and coach, the Tennessee native had just signed a contract extension that projected to keep him at the university long enough to become the winningest coach in program history.
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There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.
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The newly favored man is not really a man at all, but a hairless, effeminate, germ-fearing, non-meat-eating, exfoliating, wristband-wearing woman of the worst order. We as men are told that we must embrace the sacred feminine in ourselves, even if it doesn't actually exist, and become the very quintessence of woman, plus penises. This situation is untenable. This trend must stop.
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Clay Travis is the only former student manager in the history of college athletics to marry an NFL cheerleader. He managed to pull this off despite an irrational affinity for the television shows Dawson's Creek and My Super Sweet 16. While being raised in Nashville, Tenn., Travis developed a healthy obsession with college sports and Alyssa Milano. As a teenager his greatest accomplishment was taking a doo-rag wearing Luke Duke (balling as Tom Wopat) to the hole at the Nashville YMCA.
In the midst of a stellar legal career during which he specialized in rewarding the unjust and punishing the oppressed, Travis began writing for CBS Sports's SPiN section in September 2005...
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