Tag: sports

A Different Breed

It’s fascinating to see how the young Christian athletes of today are increasingly bold in public about their faith. We’ve already seen it with Notre Dame, Boise State and with Georgia. Ohio State released a pretty solid hype video ahead of their Cotton Bowl game against Texas in which one of their leaders can be seen taking the eye black that we’ve been seeing a lot more of lately to a new level.

Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

That being said, where was THE Ohio State University? Perhaps it’s only the alumni in the NFL who say that.

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Reject Diversity

There is absolutely no benefit to giving into the demands for diversity. If you don’t give in, you’ll take the heat but you won’t suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization. If you do give into them, you’ll first suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization, then you’ll take even more heat for trying to fix the new problems the diversity created for you.

Since two black NFL coaches were fired, one who was unprepared and abysmal and one who was merely overmatched, the social justice warriors on ESPN and social media are going crazy about how unfair it is that some white coaches who didn’t have good seasons weren’t… even though three white coaches and the only Arab coach were. This was a particularly stupid complaint:

Interesting how Black head coaches get 1 year to turn around terrible teams…. Meanwhile, Brian Daboll…

Brian Daboll of the New York Giants wasn’t fired after the 2024 season for three reasons. He’s already won a playoff game, he’s won Coach of the Year, and the Giants ownership is famously patient by NFL standards. He is also a very highly-regarded offensive coordinator who developed successful offenses at Buffalo and at the University of Alabama.

Jared Mayo and Antonio Pierce were both promoted too soon and they were put into positions where their failure was all but guaranteed in the name of diversity. That’s what promoting diversity in the place of competence, let alone excellence, does. It puts unprepared and incompetent people into positions where they cannot possibly succeed. Hiring Mike Tomlin is not promoting diversity; Mike Tomlin is a great coach and I was very unhappy when he was hired away from the Vikings by the Steelers before the Vikings could replace Brad Childress with him. Hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah isn’t promoting diversity either, as based on the way he overcame an incredibly difficult preseason, he may be the best young general manager in the entire league as well as one of the smartest.

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The Thumb on the Scale

It didn’t take long to see that the NFL really wants to keep the Lions in the game, if not to guarantee their finishing #1 in the NFC. Two major “missed” penalty calls against the Lions, plus Sam Darnold throwing every single pass two feet higher than when he’s actually trying to hit the receiver, and it’s the inexplicably inept second half against the Packers all over again.

I understand the NFC has to keep the games close. They have to script the excitement or half the TV audience turns off the game. But it’s really annoying when you can correctly call what’s going to happen after an organic play takes place that goes against the script.

I’m just hoping the script permits the Vikings to play all out in the second half.

UPDATE: Obviously not.

UPDATE: 4 times reaching red zone but not scoring a TD. 3 times having goal-to-go but not scoring a TD. 2 failed 4th-and-goal attempts. 1 missed FG. No other NFL team in the last 30 years has done all of that in the same game.

I guess the Lions defense just had their number, right? Just a lights-out game and the Vikings just came out a little flat, right? And how unfortunate was that shanked kickoff, right? It’s like listening to WWF fans insisting that wrestling is too real. It’s unfortunate that people won’t pay attention to genuine sporting contests that aren’t close, but I do wish the NFL puppetmasters would content themselves with keeping things close and dramatic instead of outright dictating the outcomes.

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Erasing History

It’s one thing to change a team’s name and logo. It’s another to pretend it never existed.

NFL fans were buzzing when they noticed something important missing from a graphic used on Sunday Night Football.

Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels broke the record for most rushing yards by a rookie QB while facing off against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

The NBC broadcast highlighted Daniels’ record-breaking night by comparing Jayden to Robert Griffin III, the former record holder.

Daniels’ 820 rushing yards this year surpassed RGIII’s 815 from his rookie campaign.

But something appeared off in the picture …

The broadcast deliberately omitted the logo of the Washington Redskins, the team rookie RGIII played for in 2012.

Look, we all know they’re going to bring back the Redskins name sooner or later. Even a significant majority of American Indians – including me – support this. It is not better to erase a popular reference to the American Indian, even if some find it offensive, than keep it. Do what Florida State does and donate a percentage of the merchandise revenues to the local tribes in the area if there is any need to assuage one’s conscience over the supposedly negative aspects of the term.

And there is no excuse for erasing history. That way much wickedness lies.

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False Marketing

Women’s athletes and the Texas Attorney General are waging a war against baphometism and Clown World institutions like the NCAA:

San Jose State women’s volleyball star Brooke Slusser warned the NCAA after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the organization over transgender inclusion in women’s sports. Paxton filed the lawsuit on Sunday, accusing the organization of deceptive marketing practices for allowing transgender women to compete against biological females. Paxton said in a news release the NCAA violated the Texas Trade Practices Act “which exists to protect consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick them into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised.”

Slusser, who was a part of a lawsuit against her own school and the NCAA for allowing a transgender woman on the Spartans’ roster this season, posted about Paxton’s suit.

“Hey NCAA, just in case you haven’t realized yet this fight will just keep getting harder for you until you make a change!” Slusser wrote on X.

Paxton accused the NCAA of “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”

“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and well-being of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions,” Paxton said in a statement. “When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women – not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”

Paxton said he was seeking a court to grant a permanent injunction to prohibit the NCAA from allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports in Texas or “involving Texas teams, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop marketing events as ‘women’s’ when in fact they are mixed sex competitions,” the news release said.

The false marketing angle against men who compete in women’s sports is a much better and more legally powerful angle than the “fairness” angle that was borrowed from feminism. Because a man is not a woman, it is easy to demonstrate that a man is not a woman, and it is obviously false marketing to claim that coed sports are “women’s sports”.

Lawfare is a side that cuts both ways, but it needs to be intelligently applied, and it must be kept in mind that the rhetoric for one side is seldom as effective for the other.

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Three Deep Against Cancer

As a lifelong Vikings fan who will never forget the amazing 1998 season, it was good to see Jake Reed and Chris Carter leading the public support being shown by the entire Vikings organization and fan base for Randy Moss. To this day I’ve never seen a better three-WR set in all of football; even The Greatest Show on Turf had Marshall Faulk as its number three and he was a running back.

I’ve got a good friend who is battling cancer too, and although his prospects look good, it’s still a matter for concern. Everyone here knows what’s going on, but regardless of the cause, they are victims and it’s important to show them love, support, and information about ivermectin’s potential utility in fighting their disease.

“Sometimes it’s better to just be really good than have a good play call.”

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Don’t Bet Against Him

On Wednesday, the unbelievable happened. Bill Belichick agreed to become the head coach at North Carolina. It’s an incredibly exciting and interesting development for the football world as a whole, and there will be many eyes on Chapel Hill over the next 12 months as the all-time great NFL coach makes his mark in the collegiate realm.

So much has changed in college football that it wouldn’t be even remotely surprising if Belichick managed to figure out how to game the system and take UNC to the college football playoff. I don’t think this would have happened in the time before NIL, the transfer portal, and the professionalization of college football. And I have to admit, I’m more interested in college football than I’ve been since I was nine and watching SWC teams play the option with tearaway jerseys.

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Suddenly in Serie A

A Fiorentina midfielder collapsed in the middle of the game against Inter yesterday. Medical experts, as you might expect, are totally mystified and baffled as to the cause:

Fiorentina midfielder Edoardo Bove is in a medically induced coma after collapsing on the field during his team’s Serie A match at home to Inter Milan on Sunday, with the game abandoned shortly afterward.

Bove’s teammates immediately called for medical help and both sets of players surrounded the 22-year-old while he was being treated before he was swiftly stretchered off to an ambulance near the pitch and taken to Careggi Hospital in Florence.

“Fiorentina and the Careggi University Hospital announce that the footballer Edoardo Bove … is currently under pharmacological sedation and hospitalized in intensive care,” Fiorentina said in a statement.

We don’t KNOW it’s the vaxx… Speaking of which, I’ll be sharing my theory on the true purpose behind the vaxx on a UATV-exclusive Darkstream tonight, which I suspect some of you will find interesting.

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Too Egregious for Employment

The Chicago Bears uncharacteristically, but quite rightly, fire their head coach in the middle of the season:

After yesterday’s debacle, the Bears have done what they had to do. Chicago has fired head coach Matt Eberflus, according to multiple reports. He ends his tenure as Bears coach 14-32, including a 4-8 record in 2024. This is the first time in franchise history that the Bears made an in-season coaching change. But after what happened on Thursday, unprecedented action was warranted.

After I watched what had to be some of the worst clock management in history, I was not even remotely surprised that Eberflus was fired. It was so bad that I suspected the league had ordered the Lions to let the Bears back into the game after halftime, with the assurance that the Bears would flop at the end. Which flop Eberflus duly provided; he was a dead coach walking anyhow, so perhaps he was just being a good league soldier rather than exhibiting dyschronometria.

In a league where a good quarterback can get a team in field goal position with only 13 seconds and no timeouts, failing to even get within field goal range when you’ve got 1 and 10 on the 50 with two minutes left and two time outs is terrible. And to run out of time on fourth down without snapping the ball when you’ve still got a time out is absolutely inexcusable. In the last 30 seasons, there have been 1500 games when a team is at or inside the opponent’s 30 with a time out at the end of the game. This was the only one of those 1500 games where neither the special teams unit came on to the field nor was a time out called. To put that in perspective, you’re 45 percent more likely to die by drowning in the next 30 years than to see that happen again.

“That guy is so fired,” was my immediate response yesterday after watching the debacle play out. And I’m a little disappointed that I was correct, since I would have preferred to see him coaching the Bears for the next 20 years. The NFC North is already difficult enough with LaFleur and Campbell in the division.

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Excellence in Everything

The pursuit of excellence, in even the most humble of responsibilities, is never a waste. Indeed, it can be recognized and celebrated, even in the most humble of responsibilities:

It’s been quite the week for Trevor Skogerboe. Skogerboe, an assistant equipment director at Cal, went viral over the weekend for tackling a fan who was trying to steal a helmet as the Golden Bears faithful stormed the field following a 24–21 victory over rival Stanford at California Memorial Stadium.

That tackle—which has gained the praise of many across the college football world, including Cal head football coach Justin Wilcox—earned Skogerboe a spot among the sport’s greatest talents in February.

Jim Nagy, the executive director of the Reese’s Senior Bowl, announced Wednesday that Skogerboe accepted his official invite to the annual showcase set for Feb. 1 at South Alabama. No, Skogerboe won’t be suiting up at linebacker at the 2025 Senior Bowl. But he will be a part of the equipment staff responsible for working the postseason college football All-Star game.

Don’t ever be content with just doing the minimum required. Pursue excellence, even if you’re the only one who will know the difference. Persistence plus excellence will not guarantee success – nothing short of taking the ticket will do that – but it lays the foundation that makes success possible.

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