The Tiger Woods fallout has been long and arduous. Pundits and sponsors turned their backs on him, and Brit Hume, in his wisdom, begged the embattled golfer to find Jesus. Now Tiger’s zombie father is getting in on it. In a Nike ad released this week, the disembodied voice of Earl Woods, Tiger’s dead dad, asks his son what he’s learned from his mistakes.
Well, the plodding ratings orgy known as the Super Bowl is over. Thankfully, there’s another absurdly over-marketed and borderline exploitive sporting event right around the corner.
Last weekend, Peyton Manning won a game while losing — and it was terrifying. It happened late in the first half, with the Colts down 17-6 to the New York Jets.
Superstars’ demand for the ball render them unimportant, making a rough transition into post-prime abyss If you’ve been paying attention to NBA All-Star voting, you might have noticed a bizarre trend. Alongside mainstays like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, two legends on the outs are getting quite a bit of electoral attention from basketball fans. Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady are once-in-a-lifetime talents — one an undersized offensive psychopath who never met a man he couldn’t score on, the other a stat-sheet stuffer who once put up 13 points in 35 seconds. There’s just one problem: A.I.
So, I was wrong about Brett Favre. Grossly, painfully wrong. I thought the aging gunslinger would drag an otherwise innocent Vikings team into the bowels of disappointment — exactly where he left the New York Jets last season.
Despite all the hoarse voices, painted faces and vague threats of violence, it’s about time we all admitted something: Basketball-wise, the Rio Grande Rivalry just isn’t what it used to be. Look no further than Saturday night, when the UNM men’s basketball team dominated the Aggies at The Pit. The 75-58 rout was the Lobos’ seventh straight home victory over NMSU, the longest mark for any UNM squad since the Lobos won 10 straight home contests from 1941-51. And the disparity is unlikely to change.
You may have heard of Brandon Jennings. He was a standout high school point guard from Compton, Calif., averaging more than 30 points and seven assists his senior year and winning a truckload of awards along the way. Then came the time for a new rite of passage for prodigious young ballplayers: Picking a college at which to waste a year before entering the NBA.
Tim Tebow is a remarkably detestable football player. There’s the endless media fawning, the squeaky-clean image, the dumbfounding Heisman acceptance speech and, of course, the God complex. Tebow, the bruising, gee-golly face of college football, is the ambassador from a world of early bedtimes and rubber wristbands.
Through thick and thin — and mostly thin — the Lobo football team has been able to count on one thing: the running game. From Don Perkins to Don Woods, from Winslow Oliver to Rodney Ferguson, almost every era of UNM football has had a marquee back to carry the team. So, when this year’s Lobo squad averages 38 yards on the ground and a dismal 1.6 yards per carry over its first two games, there’s some cause for concern among the UNM faithful. Even head coach Mike Locksley, who perhaps got spoiled by the dominant Rashard Mendenhall during his tenure at Illinois, is struggling to find a remedy. “With this same style of offense (at Florida and Illinois) we led the SEC and the Big 10 in rushing,” Locksley said.
Last week, the Earth rattled, rivers ran red and ESPN’s Ed Werder briefly caught fire. The Minnesota Vikings signed Brett Favre. The Internet promptly imploded under the weight of heavy-handed sports journalism.
Solutions by The State News
