Just in case a few of you are somehow caught up in the fictional construct that the Olympic Games are about the competition and rivalry and the pure sportsmanship of the events and not about the crass commercialism of other sports, allow me to focus your attention on Paul Hamm. If he had bought into the “sportsmanship” business and was not looking calculatedly at the downstream revenue difference for a gold medal winner versus a silver medal winner, he'd initiate the process by which the gold medal would go to the South Korean gymnast. The scoring error that put him in first place is not the same as the one that happened in figure skating where it became apparent within minutes that the judging had been preordained before the competition started. There is no evidence – at the moment – that the gymnastics judges were crooked; all we know for sure is that they were too stupid to record their scores properly and then add and subtract and multiply and divide them correctly. Don't send them to judging limbo just yet; buy them new Duracell Copper Tops for their calculators.
Hamm on the other hand is weasel. He was handed an award he does not deserve because he did not earn it. He knows it; everyone knows it. The people in charge are squirming like eels trying to get reporters to talk to someone else about why the medals cannot be re-awarded. Call that for what it is; it is horse hockey! If a gymnast won a medal and was found to have used a “performance enhancing substance” they'd re-award the medals. So I don't need to hear about how the rules do not permit such an outcome.
If Hamm believed the nonsense put out by the IOC about pure and honest competition, he'd insist that the gold medal reside in South Korea whilst he kept the silver medal. He'd be leading the charge to correct the clerical error that happened in Athens. But he's not because he is in fact completely in step with what the real Olympic spirit is and the essence of that real spirit is - - corruption! And every time he appears with his gold medal or refers to it or uses it to make money, he will demonstrate his own commitment to corruption.
Another of my least favorite hypocritical organizations – the NCAA – is in the news again. You may have heard about Jeremy Bloom who is a professional skier and who has endorsed skiing products. He also wants to play football for the University of Colorado but the NCAA says he is ineligible because of his endorsements, which violates their rules. [Aside: Would I be off base to suggest that one of the reasons he wants to play at Colorado is that he really wants to be able to attend the team parties? Yeah, probably…] Look, I have no interest in skiing or things like that; but somehow I have to think this guy is getting hosed.
I can understand if he cannot participate on the ski team at an NCAA school; he is a professional skier and has endorsed skiing products. But he wants to play football. Why does his skiing kill off his football eligibility? More than a few athletes have tried to play minor league baseball – and gotten signing bonuses and salaries for doing that – and then have returned to college to play in sports other than baseball. Trajan Langdon at Duke played basketball; Chris Wenke won the Heisman at Florida State. So how come a skier loses his eligibility for endorsing whatever he endorsed with regard to mogul skiing?
Oh, and don't even mention Mike Williams to me. Here is a guy who still has not had his eligibility restored after he returned to school and attended classes in an effort to pass time while he waits for next year's NFL draft. He is trying to get an education which is what scholar-athletes are supposed to do. But he is ineligible because he signed with an agent when the courts said that he was eligible for the NFL draft last spring and so now he sits. But other players who are convicted of crimes and are on probation and then commit other crimes that violate that probation are eligible to play. Ladies and gentlemen, there was a time when the NCAA was important. Then, they became a necessary evil. Now, they need to have the lights shut off and to disband so we don't need to suffer under their stupidity any longer!
Last we heard about André Rison, he had a warrant out for his arrest and an invitation by a court to stay in the pokey for failure to keep up his child support payments in Georgia. He also had the same difficulties with regard to another woman and had the Michigan authorities on his case. Well, André is playing wide receiver for the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL and has settled the Michigan “thing” but has not yet come to grips with the “Georgia issues”. The Toronto coach said that Rison was important to the Argonauts because in addition to his on-field performance, he could provide leadership and tutelage to help develop the other young wide receivers on the team.
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Memo to Argonauts' Coach: Be careful what you wish for. In addition to these minor skirmishes with the courts, Rison had another relationship that was so loving that his girlfriend tried to burn his house down. Then he had all those times when he was crosswise with the NFL substance abuse policies. Were I to construct a list of people I'd like to mentor my children, André Rison would be 500th on a list of five.
There was a time in my life when I studied quantum mechanics and actually pondered some of the theoretical constructs that are important in that field. One such construct was symmetry or the lack thereof in certain solutions. Well, I suspect that symmetry is a necessary condition in the NFL now that the Jets have signed Quincy Carter. Vinnie Testaverde was the back-up QB in NY and he signed with the Cowboys to become the starter; Quincy Carter was the starter in Dallas and is now the back up in NY. The symmetry of the NFL universe is maintained.
Life really does imitate art. I read in Jeff Gordon's column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that former pro rassler, Harrison “Hardbody” Norris, had been arrested. This was not a simple bar fight or drug possession; that would not be news anymore. No, it seems as if Norris had created a real life “storyline” for himself. He allegedly had been holding several women against their will and using them as prostitutes. Police allege that Norris would bail women out of jail take personal items from them as “collateral” and then force them into prostitution to pay off the bail and regain the “collateral”. Obviously, this all needs to be proven to a jury, but tell me that the folks who create those rasslin' characters aren't kicking themselves for not coming up with this first.
Finally, an item from Dwight Perry in yesterday's Seattle Times:
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“Seems a few couch potatoes worked themselves into a quivering mess last Friday trying to decide whether to watch the NEC Invitational or Michael Phelps,
“No big deal psychiatrists say - - just your classic case of Cink or swim,”
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