Is Crompton already the most hated athlete in UT sports history?
Friday, October 3, 2008
Rick Smith writes:
Clay,
Is it possible that Jonathon Crompton is the most hated athlete in the history of UT sports?
Wow, this is a great question that demonstrates how rapidly Crompton has fallen. From many UT fans calling for him to replace Erik Ainge last season to now, after only four starts, to many UT fans hating him.
I think this is indicative of how the internet has made everything move faster, including fan hate. Of course Crompton hasn't endeared himself to fans with his media responses after losses. The haters can keep doubting him after UCLA. Okay, they did. We were a few plays away against Florida. Okay, again. To worst of all, after the Auburn game professing that he wasn't sure how he performed that he'd have to look at the tape. Right.
As a general rule, I'm going to say that if you go 8-23 for 67 yards, don't complete a pass in the entire fourth quarter, and lose a football game that you don't need to check the film out to see how you played. But maybe that's just me. What do I know? After all, I'm not an X's and O's expert.
But, anyway, the question is a good one. Who is the most hated Vol athlete of all time? Amazingly, Crompton has surged up the list with his peculiar combination of arrogance, poor play, and generally dubious intelligence (trash talking the wrong Gator after getting decked on a quarterback draw while trailing 27-0). Prior to the UCLA game Crompton wouldn't have even been in the top 100 list of most-hated Vols.
Anyway, here's my top 3 list. Please send me your own nominations and eventually we'll revise it and make it longer. My criteria were as follows: a. you have to be prominent enough to be recognized by the average fan. Ergo, someone like Brian Darden who signed as a top running back recruit and never really saw the field despite pronouncements that he was the next Herschel won't count. b. even though he's not an athlete, Wade Houston has to be included. Just for complete and utter incompetence.
1. Tony Harris- Any list has to begin and end with Harris. No one choked more when the games really counted than Harris. Yet, every NCAA tournament you'd find yourself sitting in front of the television thinking, "This is our year, Tony's going to hit his shots and we're going to be unstoppable." Then we'd lose in the first round to Charlotte. To his credit he was a four year starter. To his discredit he never got a single bit better in four years. He was always infuriating.
2. Charles Hathaway- Another member of the Jerry Green era teams. What a clown show those years were. Hathaway was a McDonald's All-American who began talking about making the Final Four as a freshman. Then he did nothing to help make this happen. He was a fellow Nashvillian who was entirely overhyped. I think we're the same age. Which means I'm going to be out this weekend and Hathaway is going to stuff me into a garbage dumpster. Which sucks.
What sucks even more is that, inevitably, as he attempts to dunk me into the garbage dumpster Hathaway will trip, fall down, and throw me into the side of the dumpster. Rendering me more injured than I otherwise would have been.
3. Jonathan Crompton- I think it's way to early to make him the most-hated ever, but he's headed in that direction.
4. Wade Houston- Yeah, it's a bit jarring that a coach who lost 20 games could be below Crompton. But let's be clear, Wade gave us Allan. Jonathan has only thrown the football really hard.
5. The Clausen brothers- For all his success at UT, I never really got the feeling that anyone ever liked Casey. Of course, if we had Casey now we'd be 3-1, but he never really fit in that well with the fanbase. Perhaps it was a merely a sign of when he arrived, after the line-up of quarterbacks that included Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, and Tee Martin, but Casey was cursed. Put it this way, you'd take a bullet for any of those quarterbacks I just mentioned. Would you even take a papercut on Casey's behalf?
Didn't think so.
Don't even get me started on Rick. The only thing that spares him from being higher on this list was his sub-par talent. I'll admit it, I liked him better than Casey. Labels: most hated ut athlete ever tony harris jonathan crompton charles hathaway wade houston casey clausen
Posted by Clay Travis at 12:26 PM
2 comments
 
Permalink
Digg this Post
Email this Post
Previous Posts
Archives
| |
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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...
Read More...
|
