Somebody Made a Stinky

The hiatus has been a little bit longer than I suspected. In case you almost care, I've picked up a interim role as snot-nose cleaner at work until December. It sure was hard to turn down an offer that results in no additional pay, lot's of angry end-users and people who have been trained to panic and throw stuff every time they don't get exactly what they are looking for.

Anyway, I just wanted to pop in to chat about sports, kids and the ethical standards of being an adult.

Indiana University had pretty much the best weekend in major college sports this past weekend. Our football team, who was once only a grade away from actually been the choir team, beat the #15 Iowa Hawkeyes at home 31-28. In the 10 years since I went to school there, we never pulled one upset (although we did come close to beating Ohio State in 1995 no thanks to a 4th quarter fumble). They managed to pull this off just a day after the number one basketball recruit in the nation, Eric Gordon of North Central in Indianapolis, decided to back out of his verbal committment to the University Illinois to become a Hoosier.

Now, if I'm an Illini fan, I'd understandably be pretty bent. After all, there is a gentlemen's agreement between basketball coaches in the Big Ten that when a player verbally commits, it is hands off. Well, Kelvin Sampson is the new kid on the block--he missed the entired 2007 recruiting cycle and needed to convince the state of Indiana that, unlike Mike Davis's tenure and the latter Bobby Knight years, the best talent in Indiana would stay in state. They contacedt Gordon's family, they were interested, and a few months later, Eric Gordon decides what's best for him is to play for Indiana. Illini fans are outraged, claiming maleficence and I think it is ok to criticize Indiana and their coaches for breaking a gentlemen's agreement (although, the first rule in any business transaction is that it ain't over until the ink has dried on the paper, and Illinois coach Bruce Webber should be spanked not fully understanding this).

However, at the end of the day, what we have at the center of this "controversy" is a 17 year-old kid. But, not everyone has the same perspective.

Here is what sports columnist Bill Liesse of the Peoria Journal Star had to say about this 17 year-old kid:

Now that Eric Gordon has decided he wants to wear candystripe pants and play for a coach (Kelvin Sampson) who has as much to do with the NHL as he does the NBA, we thought we'd dedicate this week's (NFL) Lines to that steaming pile of two-guard.

Charming. Liesse has been so aggreived by a kid (who isn't even old enough to vote or buy a lottery ticket), he's been reduced to calling him a steaming pile of shit in print. Internet chatboards and personal blogs admittedly have a very low editorial or ethical standard, but shame on Liesse, a supposed professional, and the Peoria Journal Star editors for printing a scatalogical reference towards a 17 year-old kid that was surely a more fitting description of the lumpy blob that sits between their collective heads.

At the end of the day, I'm not shocked that I see stuff like this in print, or that a grown adult could be reduced to such hostility. On the scale of transgressions, this is about a two on the continuum of misplaced rage when compared to the mother that killed her daughter's cheerleading rival, the father that tackled (read: drilled) a pubescent boy playing his son's team in football, the little league coach who beat up a teenage umpire over a "bad" t-ball call, or pretty much anything Philadelphia sports fans have done in the past 20-years.

As long as humans exist, people like Bill Liesse will keep finding ways to leave a giant shit stain on this earth before they leave. Liesse should appologize, first from the standpoint of being a human being and an adult, and secondly to uphold the supposed standards of his profession.

But, knowing the standards in journalism today, I won't hold my breath. Or maybe I should, because it really smells like caca in here.