Bleacher Report - Articles by GogolsNose

Revive The Magnolia League!!

GogolsNose — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:42:47 -0500

I'm in a re-districting mood, and recall a blurb I ran across about someone at Vanderbilt in the 1960's who tried (unsuccessfully) to create a "Magnolia League" made up of more academically-minded (read athletically-challenged) universities.

In the spirit of re-organizatioin, I am therefore presenting my "Magnolia League"...which should be invoked immediately. Of course, there will be some collateral damage to the milktoast conferences from which these schools are currently affiliated--but who cares? Geographic propinquity has been thrown a little out the window with the Magnolia League, which would naturally add to team travel costs...but distance shouldn't be the criteria (as long as we're talking the domestic US), and the following match-ups would blow their existing conference matchups out-of-the-water.

Here are the founding members of the "Magnolia League":

1. Vanderbilt

2. Stanford

3. Notre Dame

4. Northwestern

5. Duke

6. Johns Hopkins (if it didn't go Ivy, due to squatter UPenn)

7. UVA

8. Univ. of Chicago

Some close runner-ups would be... UC Berkeley, Emory or Rice, maybe even Univ. of Michigan or Washington U in St. Louis. Cal Tech, if excluded, could behave like MIT does towards the Ivies...like a competitor who doesn't compete.

Naturally, there would be some spilled milk. Duke would bitch and moan, claiming it'd "miss" its current conference rivalry with UNC (they love to fight over the color blue), but I posit that UNC's real Hatfield-McCoy brethren should be the Wolfpack of NC State (a like-minded, more jockish, state school), not Duke. And leaving the ACC wouldn't preclude Duke from still playing UNC outside of conference (so myopic diehards wouldn't be disappointed). Duke has a similar problem that Vanderbilt does...who claims to have a heated rivalry with a lesser, inadequate state school--namely the Univ. of Tennessee. I guarantee, that if Vanderbilt and Duke up-and-bailed on their respective, crappy, deficient athletic conferences, that they wouldn't actually miss them.

Of course, my sincere apologies go out to the Big 10, the SEC, the ACC and the Pac-10 for removing their dependable bitches from their dumb conferences. But, c'mon, who really cares what happens to those inferior, academic conferences anyway?

And Penn, if demoted from the Ivies (which it should be), wouldn't be invited into the Magnolia League Conference either. It should be taken out to the woodshed, and accidentally forgotten next to the chainsaw and rusted pruning sheers.

My apologies also go out to the following folks who didn't make the cut...Purdue, SMU, UNC, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, blah blah blah...

Why Ravens Quarterback Joe Flacco Needs a New Name

GogolsNose — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:54:03 -0500

When I think of great Baltimore quarterbacks, names like Johnny Unitas and Bert Jones immediately come to mind (sorry, Trent Dilfer). But I keep thinking to myself, can a guy with a name like "Flacco" ever really rise to become a legendary quarterback? Let alone a great one, or a decent one?

Flacco doesn't seem to ring well next to Montana, Favre, Elway, Marino, Bradshaw, or Staubach. Can you picture "Flacco" being indelibly tattooed into the memory banks of Baltimore sports fans for years? Dilfer suffered the curse of a bad name (not to mention an anemic offense), so nobody ever remembers his contributions to the team's SuperBowl victory.

For some reason, I find myself strangely rooting for Flacco, though. He has this undeniable awe-Shucks quality to him—like the semi-local guy done-good. (Think Cal Ripken Jr.)

Flacco has the hardware to become a great quarterback...6'5"-ish. With an incredible arm. We'll see how the software works out.

I posit that if Flacco had a cooler name—like Colt McCoy, he'd have a better shot at immortality. Colt's parents were astute enough to give their kid a super-cool name, with a built-in mystique to which to potentially live up.

But Joe Flacco's parents weren't so prescient. They could've easily done better than naming their son "Joe." (With all due respect to Joe Montana, who did OK with a similar fate—cuz his last name was so Hollywood).

That's why I propose that Flacco change his first name to "Jacket."

Jacket. Flacco.

Super cool.

Sounds tough. And indestructable. Like Johnny Unitas, and Bert Jones. And Colt McCoy.

Nobody named "Jacket Flacco" is gonna collapse in the pocket.

Vanderbilt: Bail on The Moron-Laden SEC!

GogolsNose — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:55:53 -0500

Anybody who loves following crappy sports teams as much as I do knows that Vanderbilt has this uncanny, consistent knack for fielding the most pathetic (albeit very well-dressed) football teams. Wow! You guys were 6-6 and won a bowl game (the first in 500 years); You're Awesome!! (dorky fist pump)

You guys are the only school (aside from Columbia) where a 6-6 record is lauded as an incredible achievement. Seriously, rooting for Vanderbilt in the SEC is like rooting for the Special Olympics kid in a 100-yard dash (running the wrong direction) with leg prosthetics and clackety arm crutches. Go, Vandy, Gooooo!!! You can do it!!

Any rational Vanderbilt fan knows that their wonderful university will never truly, be athletically competitive in the SEC (their 50-year football win/loss record speaks volumes). And for obvious reasons...they are competing in an academically inferior conference--the SEC, which boasts a bevy of state schools with clownish academic standards.

The average 6-foot-6, 320-lb. gorilla chugging around the gridiron for the University of Arkansas or "The Tide" has an SAT score in the cellar, and probably won't graduate. So trying to compete with these oafs, although admirable, is insane.

It's not a coincidence that every SEC school begs to play Vanderbilt for their respective homecoming games. If you wanna be a butch for the weekend, Vanderbilt makes the ideal bitch. A guaranteed W. Break out the Whoop-Ass.

I look at it this way: if the SEC were a prison, Vanderbilt would be the dazed, wobbly-kneed guy staggering around the yard, with an enormous hole in the back of his raggedy pants...and a sign taped to his back that says "Love You Long Time."

Vanderbilt can't compete athletically in a state-school, moron conference like the SEC, so why does it even try?

(for a solution to Vanderbilt's predicament, please read article on the new "Magnolia League".)

Kick Penn Out Of The Ivy League, Put In Johns Hopkins

GogolsNose — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:05:30 -0500

Let's quickly review the general personalities of the eight Ivy League Schools:

Harvard: solopsistic verging on sociopathic, deep-down highly insecure, sexually repressed, socially-challenged, ridiculously anal...not in a good way. Guiding conviction: Style-trumps-Substance. Desperately want to be the best, at the expense of having a soul.

Yale: second-place syndrome, highly sexual, frequently naked, pranksters, grinders who out-work their competition. Guiding conviction: Substance-trumps-Style. Love snatching defeat from jaws of victory.

Princeton: Norman Rockwell/J Crew "intellects", WASPy, safe, afraid they'll be exposed as dumb, forgettable (convinced they're not), but not nearly as bad as Penn. If Harvard-Yale is sexy Brangelina, Princeton is Jennifer Aniston.

Columbia: tough, rough-around-the-edges, solid, dying to protest anything. Think delusionally at 20 y.o., that one can actually change the world. Limousine liberals. Ideal relationship is transgender interracial.

Brown: laid-back, tree-huggers who don't really wanna be bothered. The sedated Koala bear of the Ivies. I'm sorry... What was the question?

Dartmouth: Dude, grab Chip, let's get drunk on the Zamboni.

Cornell: 6th or 7th place syndrome. I... just... caaaan't... take it... any...more...Let's head to the Gorge.

Penn: Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Invisible.

My apologies to everyone at the University of Pennsylvania, but it doesn't belong in the Ivy League. It's the worthless, bastard, red-headed stepchild of the Ivies. This is more of an overall, academic reputation thing than a sports thing, but since all conferences are structured around athletics, let's please remove Penn from the Ancient Eight. Anybody who's been to an Ivy League school knows that Penn blows. And everyone I know who attended there is utterly lame and milktoast. UPenn is like eggshell paint: practical, functional--and totally forgettable. Even M. Night Shamalama-ding-dong. Seriously, Wharton is the only thing it has going for it, so the seven other University Presidents need to grow some sack and give Penn the boot. Dump it. (By the way, if Wharton B School had any balls, they would secede.)

And who should the Ivies replace UPenn with? No brainer. Pick up Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Unlike boat-anchor, dead-weight Penn, Hopkins brings incredible prestige to the table. Number One medical school in the country, insane off-the-charts eggheads abound, and national champions many times over in lacrosse...a sport rich in Ivy tradition. So please, Penn, you're incredibly lame, and everybody knows it. You're just sucking up valuable oxygen even existing. So step aside, and let Hopkins in. It's better suited in size and stature with the rest of the Ivy League.

MLB: Clean Up The AL EAST!! Throw Tampa Bay And Toronto...Out!!

GogolsNose — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:55:40 -0500

Dear Imaginary MLB Commish who will change the Divisions, I have a simple, multiple-choice, brain teaser for you:

Which of the following, does NOT belong with the others in the group:

A) Red

B) Blue

C) Yellow

D) Green

E) Armored Tank

Now, if that question was particularly vexing for you, then don't bother reading any further.

Let's start with a basic, irrefutable fact. The AL East is the crown-jewel of MLB. The AL East is the best, most historic, and most interesting division in baseball...hands-down.

So, let's start treating it as such.

Someone with the intellect, perspicacity and the necessary authority needs to kick Tampa Bay out of the American League East. If politics is the bellwether of human foibles and transgressions, it can be affirmed without equivocation that unworthy crackheads frequently ascend to the highest levels of authority and somehow goof up the simplest of tasks.

Screwing up the AL East is like spending days baking the perfect, most delectable, wedding cake, and then dropping a 50 pound watermelon on it from a ladder. Seriously, that seems to be the type of thinking behind the groupings of MLB divisions. Tampa Bay (and Toronto) doesn't belong with the Big Boys. Neither are AL East material. Get 'em out.

Let's think of the AL East as if we were cleaning a disgusting, filthy house we just entered-- a house suffering from years of neglect and disrepair... We know it's bad, so we gotta go in there with chutzpah, masks, jumpsuits, a fumigator and a fully-juiced flamethrower. So, our first target should be Tampa Bay. Torch it.

As we progress with our spring-cleaning, let's take on a second room, and lose Toronto. Yup. Take it to the dump...the National League. Ship it off to where they go crazy for crappy, organ music.

And where they have a sempiternal love affair for cheap, lame, artificial turf-- where the baseballs bounce around like lacrosse balls. Toronto has all the makings and personality of a National League team... it plays on shitty, fake astroturf, and it has an annoying affinity for feminine, 80's-inspired uniforms.

Whoever had the cajones-- and the genius, to kick Detroit out of the AL East, I want to thank them seriously. Cuz Detroit blows. Always has. You can only shine a turd for so long-- until you come back to the unfortunate realization that the turd you've been shining-- is still just a turd.

Detroit is a crapland of overpaid, myopic CEOs, meathead union-thugs, and dilapidated houses 8 billions light years from the historic, NorthEastern corridor. So, thumbs up on losing Detroit. I liked Sparky Anderson, and the Red Wings should be in a different League, but that's all there is to Detroit. Oh-- sorry, forgot Eminem.

If the AL East were done PROPERLY it would include the following teams: the NY Yankees, the Red Sox, the O's, the DC Nationals, and the Phillies. We'd have to convert the Phillies, but since they play on grass now, and they have American historical significance, they need in. Just think about it... the rivalries would be so much better! And if pulled off correctly, the DC-Baltimore rivalry would be particularly great!

SEC, Start Playing Lacrosse!

GogolsNose — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:37:56 -0500

I wanna know what crack the Athletic Directors of South Eastern Conference schools are smoking that prevents them from including Varsity Lacrosse as a sanctioned SEC sport?

The NCAA Lacrosse Championships consistently draw stadium crowds upwards of 70,000 every year, and the SEC doesn't even field teams. How pathetic. The ADs at those schools always have some lame-O excuse for not supporting lacrosse. Like Crew and Volleyball. Or fencing. But none of 'em draws 70,000 for a Finals weekend. (And here I thought ADs loved money).

Personally, I can't figure out if the ADs are either A, lazy, or B, stupid. Wait. Maybe it's C... both.

No offense to Fencing. But get with the program, Southerners. Start playing lacrosse. It's an incredible, exciting sport.

We Need a Freezing-Cold Super Bowl!!

GogolsNose — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:27:20 -0500

I wish the guys making decisions at the NFL would consider--just once, hosting the Super Bowl in a cold, domeless city. The SuperBowl is too slick... it's like an over-produced, Hawaiian-Broadway show...not pro football.

I really would love to see the Super Bowl played in Green Bay or someplace rougher... some freezing place with snow or sleet or rain, with lineman puffing out huge plumes of CO2. I want freezing refs in nine layers of long-johns, and QBs blowing on their hands before snaps.

There's absolutely nothing "dire" about the weather in Florida, Arizona or California...Nothing. And it's the Super Bowl...let's make it Super Dire. And play it in the snow or freezing mud.

Tangentially, anybody notice how popular the new NHL Winter "Classic" became so quickly?! (that's the one where they play NHL hockey outdoors on New Years) That's because—it's played outside—in real weather! Which sports fans clearly love.

Orioles Owner Angelos Blows Doughnuts

GogolsNose — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:46:39 -0500

Years ago, in Baltimore, I was in a car with my brother and a friend pulling into this 7-11 when suddenly on the radio, it was announced that Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead had just passed away.

My brother (a punk-rocker, and not the most politically correct guy in the world) suddenly jumped up and burst out, totally ecstatic. He said: "Thank God that f-ing guy is finally dead!!" Seriously, he did a salute to the heavens. Then he added, as he went in to get a hot dog, "I had to listen to that guy's crap music at high school parties forever."

Now, I've never wished for anybody's death (still don't), but the death of Peter Angelos sure comes close on the fake-death wish list. Seriously, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Orioles in the last 20 years.

Anybody with half a cranium knows that the American League East is a two-team race, completely dominated by Boston and New York. New York has a gazillion-fabillion dollars because of TV money to buy the best team, and Boston has Theo Epstein, who makes up for money with brains to select cheaper players who kick ass. And don't gimme a bunch a crap about the Devil Rays (who nobody cares about, and should be unceremoniously kicked out of the classy AL East).

Know why? Because Angelos doesn't give a rat's ass if the Orioles suck or not. The guy's a class-action trial attorney... not a sports fan. Seriously, I see the shuckster injury-lawsuit ads in L.A. for his law practice; He's gone national. As long as that f-er makes money, he doesn't care what happens with the Orioles. And us Baltimoreans are such stupid suckers, we'll still go to the games, and buy tickets just to listen to John Denver in the seventh inning.

As a kid, I remember when the Orioles didn't blow; It was awesome. We had the crappiest stadium in the world... but our team was good. Now it's the opposite... we've got the best stadium and the worst team. Where is Earl Weaver? Boog Powell? Jim Palmer? Brooksie? Al Bumbry?

So, please, God, Pleeeeeeeazzzz, if you exist, please get rid of Darth Vader Angelos. Somehow. The f-ing lawyer has more money than God, and nobody has the dough to outbuy this monkey, and throw the uncaring shithead out on his ear.

I'm just sayin'. :-)