What Ugly Things To Say About Sports

  I enjoy watching sports, but find myself less and less impressed with the overall state of it as time goes by.  I've determined that there are two main reasons for how I feel.  One, it seems 99.9% of all management/ownership decisions in sports are made with money as THE ONLY factor and I'd love to see at least a few percentage points worth of change in favor of fans, tradition, and, don’t laugh… common sense.  I've learned not to hold my breath on that last one.

  Reason number two, we are now beset by a tidal wave of things that are, in my humble opinion, strikingly "ugly".  Most radio and television sports talk reduces sports to money.  Money is a pretty dull subject to me if it's not mine.  So I'm countering with the aesthetic factor.

  Sitting pro players for fear of injury is ugly.

  Tearing down old stadiums and ballparks is ugly work.

  Nike, in their perceived wisdom, has brought us "special', one off, ugly uniforms (IMHO, after a team wins a major championship in a uniform, it should never, ever change- even if it's ugly {see Green Bay Packers}). “Throwbacks" are just around long enough to remind us of how much nicer the old unis were.

  I hate ugly conference realignments which often do away with traditional round robin conference formats.

  The BCS, like all of it’s equally ugly predecessors, is despised by most everyone with credibility who is around the game.

  How about the ugly delays brought about by instant replay?  And they STILL get the calls wrong more than half the time.

  I loathe the new "safer" ugly football helmets which make the players resemble pathetic, little, scared turtles.  I consider pathetic, little, scared turtles an ugly association for a football player.  All this and they still can’t make a chin strap that won’t come unfastened?  I wonder if they know about Velcro?

  I hate The Chase for whatever ugly Cup NASCAR happens to be offering as well as the undeniably ugly "Car of Tomorrow".  Take this down.  I’m GONNA watch college football on fall Saturday nights regardless of what Mike Helton and NASCAR decide to do.  They may have naked Playmates driving the cars before it’s over.  In all seriousness, the possibility of this might make the NCAA want to be real careful about the changes THEY make.

  Major League Baseball’s inter-league play is ugly and beside that, pointless.  I did always kind of enjoy the uniqueness of the inter-league component of the World Series.

  The NBA as a whole is ugly, selfish basketball that is ruining the game at ALL levels.  It's a dunk fest and three point shooting competition that’s a step down from college ball and everyone knows it.  Except for those in the college game who inexplicably feel compelled to try and make things more like the ugly NBA.  From the looks of thing, they've been pretty successful.  And while I can’t prove it, I firmly believe that the lure of “showcasing their game” and “doing their own thing” for the NBA scouts makes many college stars close to UNTEACHABLE in their final year.

  The ugly train rolls on with rules such as the dreaded "helmet to helmet contact”.  More egregious still is the ban on "horse collaring" instituted in the last few years.  If it’s more offense you want, why not just send the eleventh defender to the bench and make the defense play a man short?  Oh, it’s about safety you say?  Safety in football and racing means you watch it… at home.  If safety is a primary concern, why is “spearing” NEVER called anymore?  Most college ballplayers today don’t even know what spearing means.

 Then there's the ugliness of post officiating at the college level.  "Let the kids play" is a ridiculous example of supposedly sophisticated and “enlightened” thinking.  Why not call, as consistently as possible, the things that are listed in the rule book regardless of who is playing and what stage of the game it is?  Believe it or not, this is how the rules were conceived- as a PRESET limit on what is allowable.  Otherwise, officials are going to be too concerned with whether or not it’s “too late” in a game to call a charge/block or a travel.  Remember Michigan’s Chris Webber in the ’93 final with North Carolina?  He was given an ADMITTED “break” in the form of an uncalled, but obvious travel just before his ill-fated time out?  Some break, huh?  Things like this have destroyed much of the credibility of sports competition.  I say, instead of  "Let the kids play", how about "Let the kids read" the infernal rule book and be able to expect that the game will be officiated based upon it’s contents! 

  Those are all good examples of sports ugliness, but the Epitome of Sports Ugliness In a Single Small-minded Knee-jerk Move Award goes to the NCAA for it's new rule in college basketball which specifies that the coach of the team which committed an intentional or flagrant gets to pick a shooter from the other team to shoot the free throws.  This comes into play only IF they did a "good" enough job of "flagrant" that the player fouled is unable to shoot the free throws.  I couldn’t make up something that ridiculously ugly if I tried.  Honestly, who thought there was somehow something wrong with a coach being able to send his best FT shooter to do the deed?  Isn't it uglier for someone to be singled out in front of everybody as being the poorest FT shooter.  Funny, but this doesn't seem to me like a walk on the sportsmanship side from the pre-game handshaking crowd.  They're ALL hat and no cowboy anyhow.

  For a change, I’d just like to hear the rationale behind some of these things BEFORE they happen.

  Enough already with ugly.

Philip D. Stroud