Trends and fads run in cycles.

Anyone over the age of about 20-years old can pick up on this. It’s completely subjective in most cases, as some trends coming back resonate more with some because they evoke nostalgia from a time we look back fondly upon. For example, I love that the high-top fade is making its way back into vogue because it reminds me of those Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the early ‘90s watching The Fab Five and Jordan’s Bulls handle bidness on the hardwood.

When, in sixth grade, I began incessantly asking my folks to buy me a Yomega Raider yo-yo the response I got was “Why would you want one of those? They went out of style when I was in middle school [ in the late ‘70s ].”

“Because, Mom, THEY’RE BACK.”

A few weeks later, I had mastered the reverse-cradle-to-walk-the-dog transition. A few weeks after that, I tossed that thing in the closet never to be seen again.

But not all trends are awesome. Back when my Mom was rocking the baby with an inferior product compared to mid-90s yo-yo technology, she was also wearing bell-bottoms — which should never, ever make a comeback.

So imagine my surprise when scanning my Google Alerts (because seriously, who reads newspapers anymore?) I came across this story: Vikings’ New Stadium Will Accommodate Baseball.

O RLY?

Mixed-use outdoor facilities were cool in the ‘60s and ‘70s (Just kidding, they were never cool), but that consolidation eventually gave way to the Ballpark Renaissance of the late 20th Century. Ballpark cathedrals like Camden Yards, The Ballpark In Arlington and, sigh, even AT&T Park (which was known as Pac-Bell Park when I was at the very first regular season game played there) opened in that time. Even somewhat-charming football venues like Baltimore’s M&T Bank and Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadiums went up then, though the NFL lagged a bit behind baseball in that respect.

Full disclosure here, my baseball team is the only one left sharing its home with a football team, which it let ruin a great view to move back in an orgy of poor planning and fraudulent PSLs.

But I digress.

This trend of playing baseball in football-specific venues and vice versa is one that needs to go down for good. This isn’t a basketball vs. hockey situation in which the two sports are played in similar square footage and dimension – hence a lot of shared buildings.

Baseball calls for a more intimate setting (there are 82 home dates a year) with fewer seats, more gentle slope and tiered seating in a bowl or V-shape that keeps most sightline on the infield, where 90 percent of the action takes place.

Football, America’s most popular sporting spectacle, requires humongous big-box stadiums layed out in a rectangle or rectangular oval to accommodate the gridiron. Since there are less 1/10 as many games, demand is high for seats and many venues top 70,000 in capacity (Heh, unless you’re the Raiders). To achieve this, the slope is often much more steep to allow for as full a view of the field as possible.

Despite those obvious differences in necessity we have college football games played in baseball parks they never, ever should be and baseball exhibitions played in football stadiums all to the detriment of the people whose money keeps the whole thing afloat. Hahahahahahaha, not the owners, silly; you and me, the fans.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, there was a fierce debate over the specs of the Vikings’ new home as it related to the seating dimensions. The football team – you know, the anchor tenant – wants to place its famously vociferous fans as close to the action as possible. The problem? That would make too much sense.

All because “novelty.” Have fun watching the Gophers and prep baseball in terrible sightlines in the shadow of 50,000 empty seats, Minnesota. Hope you get what you paid for.

h/t KTSP, St. Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis Star-Tribune

The post The Mixed-Use Boomerang Effect appeared first on The Rebel State.

As if the penultimate game to crown the champion of the most popular sports league in North America isn’t enough of a spectacle all its own. Here are the storylines we at The Rebel State are already tired of:

The HarBowl

It was played-out the day Jim Harbaugh took the 49ers’ job. He even joked that the NFL would pit he and older brother John in a game that season. Turns out he was right – they played the nightcap on Thanksgiving 2011, a game the Ravens won 16-6.
It is incredible and a little hard to believe that Jack and Jackie Harbaugh raised the first two siblings to be named NFL head coaches. Propers to them on that. But that’s the last I want to hear about them or their sons this week, save for an injury update (yeah right! It’s the Harbaughs!).
Jim told the Associated Press last week: “Every minute you’re talking about myself or John is a minute you’re not talking about the players in the game.”
Well said, coach.

Is Joe Flacco an Elite Quarterback?

So much of this storyline depends on your definition of elite, which is why it has such legs. It’s tailor-made for the era of the screaming sportswriter TV debate infotainment extravaganza era.
There are 32 of these jobs on the planet (35 if you account for the Dolphins) so where is the cutoff? Top four? Top seven? Top 11?
When it comes to individual success in sports, I’m very much a “what have you done for me lately?” kind of guy, meaning that my elite quarterback list (if I kept one) would vary wildly from season-to-season, month-to-month. Hell, even Joe Webb (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, can’t even type that with a straight face) looked good for a month in 2011. It’s not like that list (or this column) is chiseled into stone for the Xerxces race of aliens to uncover in A.D. 3916.
So yes, in January and February of 2013, Joe Flacco starting quarterback of the AFC Champion Baltimore Ravens (and a former Delaware Fighting Blue Hen!), is elite.
Seriously, that’s it. Story over. We don’t need a Sunday Conversation (seriously, $50 says the next sit-down ESPN airs is with him) or a sabermetrics geek or a cutesy Media Day “what they’re saying” to tell us what we already know.

Young Colin Kaepernick’s Incredible Run (Because He’s SO YOUNG)

Why do we have to qualify his accomplishments by noting his age? By now you’ve been beaten to death by the numbers: Sunday will be his 10th start, he’s ONLY 25, etc.
Let’s just take a step back and admire the guy for what he is: A strong-armed, fleet-of-foot, field general who you can tell is having the time of his life. Instead TV reporters and some of the lazier columnists have been beating the experience drum. It’s simple thinking really: Canonize this guy, make him a modern folk hero and you’ll sell more papers/get more viewers; I get it.
The problem with it is, well, it’s so fundamentally flawed I don’t know where to begin.
Let’s start with the experience angle. Yes, Kaepernick, in his second year in the league, will be making his 10th career NFL start on Feb. 3 in New Orleans. Why do we need note that like it’s so incredible? It’s one of the most annoying things broadcasters, reporters and columnists do: “But he’s ONLY 24! It’s JUST his 10th start!” To hell with that. If you can play, you can play (see: Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Mike Trout, Kyrie Irving, Patrick Kane). There’s a reason the 49ers coaching staff (ostensibly more knowledgeable about their own roster than you and your buddy Blaze) decided to leave Alex Smith, he of 25 wins in his last 26 starts and a passer rating north of 100, on the bench. Reason being? Kaepernick is a goddamn boss. Let’s just admire him for who is.
Oh, to answer the hypothetical above: Tom Brady, that’s who. And that’s also a scary thought: that Kaepernick, with one of the finest (and youngest) lines in football in front of him, is entering his athletic prime. Just scary.

Ray Lewis’s Last Dance

Ever since the godfather of NFL linebackers announced this would be his last season in professional football, analysts and reporters have summarily lined up to slob his knob. Tony Gonzalez got a little bit of that treatment too as he, whether he thinks so or not, is nearing the end of his career too. To be clear: I’m not doubting the greatness of Ray Lewis as a football player, nor will I bring up hold the murder angle (too late) against him because I long ago learned to separate the man from the professional athlete (My team signed Michael Vick fresh out of prison). Lewis doesn’t need a two-week victory lap. That will come in five years when he is surely inducted into the Hall of Fame.
That all said, you bet your ass I’ll be parked in front of the T.V. for introductions for what figures to be a pre-game dance for the ages.

The Ghost of Art Modell

Oh god, just stop, stop it now.
The longtime Browns/Ravens owner passed shortly before the season began and, predictably, this season played in his memory. That’s fitting, though there are plenty of people in Ohio with long memories who don’t think so. What’s not fitting is the notion that the Ravens winning a Super Bowl would somehow be a fitting tribute. It’s not. He (nor his son David) owned controlling interest in the team when he died, that would be the super suave Steve Bisciotti.
Wherever Art is is, up there, down there, floating in distant existential galaxy, I doubt his spirit longs for another title. Another breath on Earth, maybe, but dude already won two titles – the NFL championship in 1964 (who could forget that team?!) and Super Bowl XXXV. The “Win One For the Gipper” narrative is among the most overused in sports and this one figures to be just as insufferable.
Because really, if Art Modell’s ghost is preoccupied with anything in the NFL right now, it will be ensuring that the Browns trade Joe Haden, Josh Cribbs and Trent Richardson to move up and draft Manti Te’o with the first overall pick in April’s draft.

The ‘Quest for Six’

This is a personal one for me.
Growing up in the Bay Area yet shunning the 49ers the very year they last won the Super Bowl (and remember, the Raiders were in L.A., where they should have stayed rather than ruining my childhood Cathedral) I’ve heard it for the past 19 years: “Why would be an Eagles fan when you could have FIVE RINGS?”
Because I’m not a front-running douchebag.
A quick aside: You know those Bud Light commercials with tagline “It’s not weird if it works”? OK, good, you know the one with “Rob” the old smelly t-shirt-wearing guy who surprises the young couple living in an apartment way beyond their means? “I lived (here) when the 49ers won the Super Bowl. I watched every game from this exact spot,” he says. Then the girl makes a crack about dude showing up NOW of all times. To me it’s the perfect embodiment of the fanbase: Rest on ill-gotten (more on that in a minute) laurels then when the team takes a shit for a decade you go A.W.O.L. Perfect.
If you’re under the age of, oh, 32, or can’t name more than three of the nine quarterbacks who started for them between Steve Young and Alex Smith, don’t fucking talk to me about rings. If you do meet those criteria, let’s remember that the owner in those days was a Federally-prosecuted crook named Eddie DeBartolo, whose family still owns the team (he ceded controlling interest in the team to his sister, whose son Jed, now for intents and purposes runs day-to-day operations). It was equal parts amusing and disgusting seeing Eddie get the George Halas trophy before Jed could even lay eyes on it on Sunday and then to watch as he barely acknowledged Eddie. I did admire the fact that he said “you have to start with one (title)” – trying to distance himself from Eddie’s specter, just the latest in a line of smart moves like hiring Trent Baalke and Jim Harbaugh.

The post Super Storylines We’re Already Sick Of appeared first on The Rebel State.

At the end of the day, we may still never truly know if Te’o was duped or how much he really knew or what The Usual Suspects-like twist will be in this one. We also know the media is at serious fault for this one too, perpetuating a bleeding-heart story without, you know, checking if a dead girl was in fact, actually dead, like most crime reporters do. (You know what happens when you assume….)

But the bottom line is this: even if Te’o realized he was duped, or he knew this girl wasn’t really his girlfriend, he still (supposedly) overstated the story himself just for the amazing publicity he got this past season.

Have we become so obsessed with celebrity and publicity as a society that someone would use the story of a dead girlfriend to catapult himself into the national spotlight?

What, playing for your dead grandmother that you were very close to wasn’t a good enough story? No, hey, let’s throw in another death on the same day to make it sound like a Greek epic!

Never mind that Te’o is actually a pretty good football player from a school that’s one of the biggest name brands in college football. No. MORE PUBLICITY. MORE ATTENTION. MORE, MORE, MORE. Attention is like a drug — it can be addicting.

I don’t think this is surprising, given this is a society that increasingly loves trashy reality TV, loves to see people make fools of themselves for entertainment, and has become more self-absorbed and obsessed with celebrity in general. We’ve taken a lot of cues from Hollywood. Instead of sticking with a really good — and entirely true story — we’ve gone the “based on a true story” route and taken dramatic license because nobody cares about you if you’re just good at something and don’t have an epic backstory.

It’s not good enough to be just good anymore, apparently. In an ADD society, you’ve got to have a good story or else you’ll be passed over, even if you have to stretch the truth a little bit. And that’s a sad indictment of society as a whole.

The story just got too big for Manti Te’o in the end. I don’t think he’s necessarily a pathological liar or isn’t right in the coconut. He’s really more like the Wizard of Oz, who told a little white lie that ballooned out of his control until he had the admiration and heartstrings of an entire nation and he didn’t have the heart — or the guts — to tear it all down himself. He probably became addicted to the attention and quite liked it, and again, who isn’t addicted to that drug?

The post Celebrity: It’s a hell of a drug appeared first on The Rebel State.

USC’s home schedule is seven games — the Trojans open in Hawaii, hence the extra game — which is unusual in itself, but the thing that really caught the attention of many people was a Thursday home game on October 10 vs. Arizona. The Trojans also play three weekday games — the opener at Hawaii (a Thursday), the aforementioned Arizona game, and a Friday date in Corvallis against Oregon State.

That three weekday slate saw this tweet come across my timeline:

3 freaking weekday FB games? Are you kidding me? That’s what happens when you end the season w/out a single vote in the AP poll. #irrelevent

— usc psycho uscsyco (@uscpsycho) January 10, 2013

No offense to Roy, who is a very rabid USC fan and also shot photos for the Daily Trojan when I covered football games there, but dude, really? (And to be fair, he wasn’t the only one who expressed the same sentiment above.)

RT @rivers55: @uscpsycho were that bad they got us playing on thurs night like a cusa team.

— usc psycho uscsyco (@uscpsycho) January 10, 2013

(I’m pretty sure that’s Keith Rivers, former linebacker at USC.)

USC is not playing three weekend games because the Trojans had a crappy season. And while three weekday games is more than the Trojans have played in a season, it’s not like USC has never played weekday games. In fact, one of USC’s biggest games last season — USC at Stanford — was a Thursday night game. Plus, the year before that, USC had to play a Thursday game at Utah and a Friday game at Colorado. I also remember USC playing Oregon State in a Thursday game several years ago and eventually losing (because I pretty much lost my marbles at work during said game).

Welcome to the reality of television deals and ratings.

The days when college football was played only on Saturdays have gone the way of the dodo. Schools have been playing on weekdays for years, thanks to ESPN. For better or worse, television dictates a lot of things, like college basketball games being played at midnight and Boise State playing a football game on a Tuesday. Some of those things are stupid, but the fact is, they’re here to stay.

It was just a matter of time before USC got saddled with a home game on Thursday night. They couldn’t keep doing it to Utah all the damn time, right? The Pac-12’s new television deal makes Thursday and Friday games a mainstay, as succinctly summed up by Joey Kaufman (a former DT sports editor):

.@jrosebud TV deal under Tom Hansen was so outdated that USC folks are just experiencing what most fanbases nationwide have for a decade.

— Joey Kaufman (@joeyrkaufman) January 10, 2013

Yes. Exactly. I guess things come late to the West Coast sometimes, eh?

It used to be that you’d see some “lesser” conferences in those random Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday games. A little Conference USA, a little WAC (RIP, WAC, by the way), a little Mountain West, maybe some Mid-American Conference. But I’m sure someone at ESPN started realizing how lucrative in terms of ratings these games were, so ESPN started gaining the rights to broadcast games from other conferences. So you started seeing the power conferences involved: the ACC, the Big East (well, OK, argue that one all you like), the SEC.

Yup, the big, bad SEC that everyone loves to hate. The supposed best conference in the land.

You mean to tell me the SEC is irrelevant because it plays some of its games on Thursdays and Fridays? That’s a load of hogwash. South Carolina played on a Thursday last year, the first game of the 2012 season, and I’m willing to bet a gazillion people watched that game even if they didn’t give a rat’s ass about either team involved because, hey, it was football!

So yes, the times are a’ changin’. As inconvenient as a Thursday night game at the Coliseum will be — good luck trying to park, folks — it is just another sign of how different the college football landscape is as a whole. That schedule is here to stay.

And really, the inconvenience of a weekday game is mostly for the folks actually attending the game; from a branding standpoint, it’s actually beneficial for both schools involved. On a Thursday, you’re the only game in town in a prime time slot on a national (albeit cable) network. You’re not subject to the stupid regional network rules that you would be subject to on a Saturday. And did I mention you’re the only nationally televised college football game in that timeslot on that given day? You can guess what the network execs and schedule makers are going to do, then, right?

It’s all about eyeballs and ratings. The reason college football started being played on days other than Saturday is so people could chase money and ratings. To hell with tradition if money’s involved. This is the same reason the NFL started playing games on Thursdays. The NFL wanted to give more teams a chance at “national exposure in prime time.” Tell me what college football programming executive worth his or her salt doesn’t want that, and what college conference doesn’t want that for itself and its member schools?

So yes, it will suck, but the reality’s already here and we’ll all have to live with it.

Maybe everyone will just have to illegally camp in the Rose Garden in Exposition Park on Wednesday. Or call in sick on Friday because you’re hung over.

The post The reality of scheduling and TV appeared first on The Rebel State.

These are our Top 5 stories of the London Games:

1. The Twitter Olympics
As the 140-character-or-less status blasting service gains more traction (depending on who talk to there are between 500-700 million active users) the world gets smaller, meaning that rather than hundreds of millions of individuals watching the Olympics, we were one, big community. That makes the London Games the first truly global sporting event.

Nothing underscored this more than the three nights Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt (above) ran in gold medal finals (he crossed the finish line first in all of them, in case you hadn’t heard) and Twitter damn-near exploded. Bolt himself was the most-discussed athlete of the Games, inspiring thumbs to type just as fast as he ran in generating 80,000 posts per minute for each final he ran. According to Twitter the Opening Ceremony generated 9.6 billion tweets alone – more than during the entire Beijing Games four years ago.

There were also journalists who had their Twitter accounts suspended for ripping NBC, users interacting with athletes and, of course, athletes tweeting some really dumb stuff.

2. Year of the Woman
Forty years after the passage of Title IX the U.S. delegation for the first time ever and they more than did their share. Of the 46 times The Star-Spangled Banner rang out during podium ceremonies, women made it happen on 29 of those occasions. Of the 104 total medals won, women won 58, more than the delegations from Australia, Germany, France and Japan.

The U.S. women’s basketball team rolled to its fifth-straight gold medal in winning its 41st-straight Olympic contest and they have seldom been challenged along the way.

The self-dubbed ‘Fierce Five’ won only the second U.S. women’s gymnastics team gold and claimed four individual medals including gold in the all-around for Gabby Douglas and on the floor exercise for team captain Aly Raisman.

The U.S. women’s soccer got a piece of redemption in claiming the gold medal in a thrilling match over Japan in a rematch of last year’s World Cup final.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings cemented their legacy as the Queens of the Beach with their third straight beach volleyball gold medal ahead of May-Treanor’s retirement.

As this Denver Post editorial points out, not all, perhaps even none, of these are directly related to the passage of the equal funding legislation, but it’s hard to ignore the influence. In Munich in 1972, women made up just 84 spots out of 400 on Team USA and accounted for 21 of 94 medals.

Makes you wonder what the face of our Olympic team will look like in 2052.

3. Michael Phelps, forever and ever
It was as much of a foregone conclusion as any coming into London that Michael Phelps would leave as the most decorated Olympian ever, in any sport. But he did his best to make it interesting anyway. Slow starts, after all, are his M.O.

Phelps failed to make the podium in his first event, the 400 IM, the first time he did not win an Olympic medal in an event he entered since 2000. That, combined with his performance in early heats fueled speculation that he may not have tapered properly, or that he was loafing. All he did from that point was dominate. Three days later he equaled Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina’s record of 18 medals with a silver in the 200 butterfly and later that night surpass it with a gold in the 400 medley relay.

He went on to claim three more gold medals pushing his career total to 22 with 18 gold.

Many wanted to start the debate immediately about who the greatest athlete of all time is, Michael Phelps or…

4. Usain Bolt, The Great Entertainer
Maybe you don’t remember which conference room that meeting next Wednesday is in or what you had for dinner two days ago. I bet you remember where you were when you saw Usain Bolt run during these Olympics.

While so many people want to debate whether he or Phelps is the greatest athlete or Olympian of all time, I have one label to slap on him that won’t be debated: Great Entertainer.

Bolt doesn’t entertain with a guitar, drums or a stage. He’s just himself, and people love it. That’s the thing with Bolt. He never looks like he’s trying: when NBC would cut to him clowning around with Tyson Gay or Yohan Blake on the warm-up track, it all looked organic. His celebrations were exuberant, spontaneous and at times just plain silly. Hell, even when he’s running he doesn’t look like he’s trying all that hard. That’s the mark of a natural talent: making the extraordinary seem normal, and he’s done it in consecutive Olympiads.

Here’s hoping he makes good on his suggestion that the long jump is the next event he will tackle, in honor of his idol, American track legend Jesse Owens. You don’t think he’d do it to honor Carl Lewis, right?

5. Men (and Women) Behaving Badly
Plenty of athletes don’t stick around for the entirety of a given Olympics (swimmers, for example, usually come home early since their events are all over a week into the Games) but that’s usually because they have other commitments.

Not because they were running around London three sheets to the wind looking for their apartment… which happens to be in Australia.

A record number of athletes were sent home early, in disgrace, from London, many because of PEDs, but among the more colorful reasons: throwing badminton matches, more public drunkenness, eating pot brownies (allegedly) and overt racism.

Alcohol and drug abuse, racism and cheating are rampant even in a civilized world, so really all this tells us is that despite their rippling physiques and great accomplishments, Olympians are not superhuman, they’re cut from the same cloth as the rest of us.

The post Looking back on the London Games appeared first on The Rebel State.

It’s also surprising that the NCAA, an organization known more for moving like molasses and handing out inconsistent punishment, acted less than two weeks after Louis J. Freeh’s report was released. That’s one of the many unprecedented things about this ruling today.

But as the NCAA often does, it fell short. Well short. It could have imposed the infamous “death penalty,” shutting down the Penn State football program for a year (maybe even two, if they really wanted to show they weren’t messing around).

It’s been said before that after the death penalty was imposed on the SMU football program in 1987 that it was like nuclear winter and may never be used again. But isn’t nuclear winter appropriate for a scandal so horrid, so awful that even the NCAA’s Mark Emmert, who announced today’s penalties, said that Penn State’s entire athletic culture needed to be changed?

The death penalty was imposed on SMU to change a culture of under-the-table payments and cheating at the school. Isn’t this a pretty appropriate place to make the same kind of statement? And maybe even for TWO years, which would also be an unprecedented punishment?

(Aside: If you haven’t watched the excellent Pony Excess documentary that details the before, during and after of the death penalty at SMU, find it now.)

There are those who say the sanctions imposed by the NCAA are worse than the death penalty. Really? How can you say that with a straight face? Let’s break down the arguments that people throw out when saying these punishments are just as bad as the death penalty:

There’s too much money involved for the NCAA to impose the death penalty.

The NCAA sort of got around the “it’s all about the money” argument in levying that enormous $60 million fine and saying none of that money can fund any programs at Penn State. The Big Ten also cut Penn State out of the revenue picture, saying it can’t get any bowl revenues from the conference. But really, if you’re willing to essentially shut down the program financially, why not just actually shut it down?

The scholarship reductions, bowl ban and recruiting restrictions will keep Penn State from being competitive for years to come.

Yes, bowl bans and scholarship reductions will impede a Division I football program. But has anyone taken a look at USC lately? (Yes, I realize I am a USC alumna, but really, take a look at the Trojans.) USC managed to field two relatively competitive teams — one of which would have played for the Pac-12 title had it not been for that postseason ban — while on its two-year bowl ban. Despite scholarship restrictions, the Trojans have managed to field a team that this fall is considered one of the best in the country. And while the Trojans are in their first year of scholarship reductions, it’s not likely that team is going to fall flat the next two years and go winless or something. Hell, most people didn’t expect USC to win even nine games in its first year of the bowl ban; most people expected maybe four or five.

You can’t look me in the eye and say Penn State can’t make a similar recovery. Maybe not as fast, but it will recover from its limitations at some point. For all the beating the Nittany Lions have taken, it is still a brand-name school. You can’t tell me there still aren’t kids in central Pennsylvania that will still want to play for Penn State. (This is actually the same argument I made when USC went on probation.) Maybe these kids aren’t blue-chippers, but maybe they’re still decent athletes. And not everyone is going to transfer from Penn State. There are those who are loyal who will still stay.

If you give the athletes a team to play for, they will stay. If you shut the program down and give them no team for a year or two, I guarantee they will all leave. That is the difference between having nothing in your athletic cupboard and a packet of sugar in your cupboard. That packet of sugar ain’t much, but it’s better than nothing, and you can still make a pretty sweet, intoxicating tea with that one packet of sugar.

Also, there is precedent for schools recovering from severe sanctions. Baylor men’s basketball saw severe punishment after the murder of player Patrick Dennehy and the recruiting violations that were subsequently unearthed in the wake of that investigation. It saw some lean years, but did recover under a solid coach (Scott Drew) who weathered the penalties and eventually brought in his own recruits. By 2012, it had made the NCAA Tournament a couple of times. And this isn’t even a marquee basketball program.

On the other hand, there are those who say that SMU never truly recovered from the death penalty, even nearly 30 years later.

These penalties will make schools think twice about covering up their crimes.

Really? I’m willing to bet someone at the University of Miami is doing cartwheels right now. Bowl bans? Scholarship reductions? That’s it? Pshaw. We’ve been there, done that in the 90s and 2000s. Whatever.

In the meantime, as stated previously, it can be argued that SMU never truly recovered from the death penalty.

You tell me which punishment would be more of a deterrent.

(Photo credit: The Associated Press)

The post Sorry, NCAA, you are still an abject failure appeared first on The Rebel State.

Yesterday, U.S. women’s soccer player and national team member Megan Rapinoe publicly declared she is gay. (Coincidentally, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper also publicly said he is gay as well, after years of people speculating it.)

After news of Rapinoe’s statement made its way through the Twittersphere, many reacted positively to it, mostly with “you go girl” and “this is great” and similar sentiment. Then there was this philosophical exchange:

For the record, John’s sentiment was not anything negative; what he really meant is that we should be blind to things like sexual orientation and ethnicity and skin color and just see everyone as human beings without labels. (We had a great conversation about it on Twitter, so yes, Twitter isn’t just all crazy people and sophomoric jokes.) Again, that would be great in a perfect world. But this isn’t a perfect world, and Rapinoe readily admits this in the Out article:

I feel like sports in general are still homophobic, in the sense that not a lot of people are out,” she says. “I feel everyone is really craving [for] people to come out. People want — they need — to see that there are people like me playing soccer for the good ol’ U.S. of A.

This is exactly why Rapinoe stepping forward matters.

There’s a great comfort in seeing someone who’s just like you in a prominent role. In sports, the spectrum of fans is much wider culturally and ethnically than the people who actually play them on a large stage. So when someone of your underrepresented group — be it a gay athlete, an Asian guy playing basketball or hockey, a black guy playing hockey, etc. — makes it big and proudly represents your people, you’re going to throw everything you’ve got behind that person.

This is exactly why a lot of Asian-Americans jumped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon. This is exactly why you saw so much Phillipine pride when Manny Pacquiao came onto the scene. This is exactly why many of my Filipino aunts, who know very little about basketball, wanted the Heat to win the NBA title this June — Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is half-Filipino and easily looks like one of my uncles or cousins, and really, how many brown guys do you see coaching in the NBA?

As a minority, this matters to you, no matter your walk of life. It either fuels your dreams — hey, someone like me did this! I can do this! — or makes you sit back and smile because your minority group might be desperate for positive role models or positive press and it’s an educational opportunity to offer the rest of the world a more positive narrative about your people (as opposed to one that involves cockfighting, poverty and corruption, in the case of the Filipino people).

And it’s a two-way street: The athlete needs to know that being a pioneer can be met with positive reaction, while the fans and aspiring athletes need to know that, in this case, you can be gay and a prominent athlete and be OK. Gay athletes who are afraid to come out need role models, need more positive images and need to know that it is possible to be just like Megan.

With more people like her, we can move toward a time when these things don’t matter. But before we get there, what she represents has to matter.

(Photo credit: Joern Pollex, Getty Images)

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(Editor’s note: The following is a post by Edward de la Fuente, lifelong L.A. Kings fan and husband of Jenn. He shares his thoughts on his team winning it all for the first time.)

By Edward de la Fuente

I wish I could tell you that I had faith all along. I wish I could say that I knew the Los Angeles Kings — MY Los Angeles Kings — had this in them. But no, to claim that now, after the Stanley Cup has been raised and the confetti from the parade has already been cleaned up, would not be realistic. Not if you know the Kings, or their fans.

When the Kings began the playoffs in April as the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference, I approached it with some optimism, but mostly apprehension. Oh, sure, you always harbor some deep-seated belief that they’ll pull off some crazy, magical run to the championship — but you don’t say much about it publicly out of (1) fear that you’ll jinx them somehow and (2) fear that your friends’ maniacal laughter will reduce you to tears.

In this case, reality told me that the Kings had lost their last two games of the regular season, both to the hated rival San Jose Sharks, and had blown their chance at a No. 3 seed and more favorable playoff position. Now they had to play the Vancouver Canucks, the team with the NHL’s best record, in the first round. I told myself, OK, I’ve watched the Kings play all season, and I know in my heart that if they play at their best, they can beat anybody. But, of course, I was more guarded, as though I was just waiting for the disappointment that inevitably struck every single year to happen again.

If you don’t know much about the Kings, or didn’t hear much about the franchise’s history during the Cup run, here’s the best way I can sum it up: On the wall of my home office I have a couple framed copies of the Los Angeles Times sports section from big Kings moments. One is from Game 6 of the 2001 Western Conference semifinal series against the top-seeded Colorado Avalanche, which the Kings won 1-0 in double overtime. They forced a Game 7, which they lost, and Colorado went on to win the Cup that season. So what I was basically commemorating by keeping that issue framed was the team’s last great triumph before it would end exactly the way it always ended. But that’s what happens when your team has no championships to its name — you find little victories here and there, and you celebrate the hell out of them, ’cause that’s all you’ve got.

So even when the Kings beat the Canucks to open the playoffs, and then did it again, and again, and then did the same to the Blues, and so on, I couldn’t let my guard down. I just couldn’t. That’s not the way 25 years of following this (pick your term) hard-luck/sad-sack team has conditioned me to think. You can’t help but gird yourself, so that when the disaster finally happens, it hurts slightly less. As one fellow Kings fan told me somewhere around the second round, “I’m just not going to feel good about it until I see Dustin Brown holding that Cup over his head.” And I could only nod in agreement.

Somehow, that actually happened. Dustin Brown really did hold the Cup over his head, and so did the rest of the Kings. And when it did happen, I think I had the expected range of emotions. I cried a little bit, yes. I felt exhilaration and euphoria and happiness and all that. But along with all of that, I also felt relief. Not only because the Kings, after taking a 3-0 lead over New Jersey in the Cup final, wouldn’t go down as the team that blew a 3-0 lead with the championship on the line, but because the disaster never happened — at any point along the way. And, let me tell you, relief feels just as good as euphoria.

I’ve always felt that the true test of whether you really are a fan of a team is after the most crippling of losses. It’s like being a parent and having your kid do something to thoroughly embarrass you in public — you show how much you truly love him by sticking by him, no matter what. And a team with a history like the Kings’ has done plenty over the years to make you feel sheepish about being a fan, but you always come back because the love is always there. That said, winning a championship can also demonstrate for you how you feel about your team. Case in point: I never much cared for the song “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance. But then the Kings used it for the pregame video they showed at Staples Center starting in the second round of the playoffs…

… and now I can’t get the damn song out of my head. And I’m perfectly OK with that. I hum the song to myself (the Kings-edited version, no less) as I run errands now. And I suspect I’ll be doing so all summer and maybe longer. I guess that’s the power of seeing your team win, something I haven’t had much experience with until the last couple months.

I’m sure I can’t imagine what it’s like to be, say, a Cubs fan, having to deal with 100 years of not winning anything. Or, maybe more to the point, a Red Sox fan, having to deal with 80-something years of it and then finally getting to the mountaintop. The Kings have “only” been around for 45 years, and I’ve been on board for 25 of those years. The idea of expecting to win is certainly new to me, but I’m sure that’ll be the case next season. No matter what happens next season or in the future, though, we’ll always have the success of 2012. To be able to say that is a pretty big change in itself, and boy, does it feel good.

Photo credit: Edward de la Fuente

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OK, it’s a little late, but at least I didn’t miss a week like I did a couple of weeks ago…

Porn video shot on Coliseum grounds, Paul Pringle and Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times

This brings a whole new meaning to scoring at the Coliseum, eh? But seriously, this was quite a talker last week. I can’t tell you how many friends of mine jokingly said they’d love to do this, but to know that someone actually did it is mind-blowing.

Junior Seau’s final days plagued by sleepless nights, David Leon Moore and Erik Brady, USA Today

The title says it all. It’s kind of a heartbreaking read.

Best day ever, Chris Jones, ESPN the Magazine

How would you react if you got to spend a day with the Stanley Cup? This is a great story about one person’s day with the Cup and the great reactions it elicits.

Behind the scenes at the NBA Draft Lottery, Sports Illustrated

An absolutely fascinating look at what happens at the draft lottery. It’s kinda cool. Did you know that if there’s a power outage, all the lottery balls get put into a basketball that has the top cut out? There are more great tidbits like that in this piece.

50-year wait finally over as Santana hurls Mets’ first no-hitter, Bob Klapisch, The Record

It still boggles the mind that the Mets, with all the amazing pitchers they’ve had in their history, had never thrown a no-hitter. This is a great column about that historic night in Queens.

Dustin Penner playing a big role in Kings’ incredible playoff run, Nicholas Cotsonika, Yahoo Sports

Nice tidbits here about Dustin Penner. It’s basically about how he played a small man’s game for a long time and then suddenly sprouted into a 6-foot-4 behemoth. Good stuff.

Hockey’s Highs and Lows From a Maestro of the Mic, Richard Sandomir, New York Times

However you feel about Mike Emrick as a hockey broadcaster, this is still a fascinating breakdown of how he calls the game.

Pissed-Off College Student Leaves Greatest Voicemail Ever, Deadspin

It’s not even sports-related, but I’m willing to be everyone wishes they could have spouted this much profanity at an institution at some point in life.

Lastly, if you didn’t see this CBC intro for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals — if you’re in the U.S. like me, you likely didn’t — watch it here. Great song and just a great video overall:

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Back in the fall of 2010, the San Francisco Giants were marching through the baseball playoffs on their way to their first World Series in 50 years. Northern California had Giants fever, and being in Sacramento, I saw a lot of this up close. As the Giants got closer and closer to that World Series, more people wore Giants gear. More Giants bumper stickers showed up. More people outwardly expressed fondness for the Giants. More people of the Northern California variety were posting pro-Giants statuses and tweets on social media.

It was sickening. And obnoxious.

(Two disclaimers here: First, I’m an Angeleno, so I already have the anti-NorCal thing going. Second, I’m a Phillies fan, and yes, I was a little bitter that the Giants eliminated the Phillies in the NLCS that year.)

But even if you remove those biases, it was still pretty sickening. Because there’s nothing more annoying in sports than bandwagon fans.

I admit, I openly rooted for the Giants to lose. Not because I don’t like them, but because I wanted all the bandwagon fans to just shut up. I have nothing against genuine Giants fans. Many of my closest friends in Sacramento were lifelong Giants fans, and I was happy for them when they got their championship. But I wanted the bandwagoners to pretty much shrivel up and die.

Do you expect me to take you seriously when you barely know anything about baseball (it’s a run, not a point, dummy) or don’t know half the players on the team or still think Barry Bonds is a Giant?

Exactly.

I’m sure all the diehard Giants fans were annoyed too. At least they should have been.

I understand the bandwagon is how some people get on the path to legit fandom. Winning generates interest. But if you’re going to be an obnoxious bandwagon fan, at least learn a little bit about the team and the game. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t piss off the hardcore fanbase. If you ask questions about the team, that’s cool. If you ask about the rules of the game because you want to know how this stuff works, cool. The hardcore fanbase appreciates people who want to learn.

But if you’re just there to be seen and don’t care if you’re displacing the hardcore fans, well, screw you.

In 2005, Ed and I finally moved back to California after spending four years on the East Coast. Even though we weren’t in L.A., we still wanted to buy football season tickets at our alma mater, USC. We were willing to make the trip south, we wanted to sit with our friends — all season ticket holders since graduating from college — and we relished the idea of being able to watch USC football games in person again.

But there was one problem: the Trojans were in the middle of their Age of Glory. And of course, it meant Trojan football games were a hot ticket.

We couldn’t get season tickets that season.

I was crushed. And really angry. I’m an alumna! I went to school during the really crappy football years! I cheered for this team when it couldn’t even finish above .500! I followed the Trojans religiously even when I lived on the opposite coast and couldn’t get their games on TV!

And now that I could finally see this team win, I couldn’t? What?

We had to settle for various game packs when we couldn’t get season tickets, which meant we wouldn’t be guaranteed tickets for all the games. We paid through the nose to see Nebraska and Ohio State. We didn’t bother to try and get tickets to UCLA and Notre Dame. Not having the guarantees was sad. It would be two seasons before we finally got our coveted season tickets. USC lost a couple of shockers along the way, so I guess enough bandwagoners jumped off so we could get tickets.

Meanwhile, some of these newer fans’ expectations also spiraled out of control. They came to expect dominance. They didn’t seem to appreciate the winning as much as some of us diehards did. It was almost like they had a sense of entitlement.

When the Trojans’ seven-year conference title run finally ended in 2009, people seemed genuinely disgusted. My friends? Sure, we were incredibly disappointed, but we also remembered the days when USC couldn’t even beat UCLA. We took it in stride and appreciated the incredible run our team gave us. We were realists. We knew they couldn’t be amazing forever. We also knew probation and sanctions were around the corner.

And you know what? We still came back. We will likely keep coming back until we’re 80. And now that USC is stacked again post-probation, I hope some of those folks who jumped off the bandwagon a couple of years ago trip on their way back and get run over by it. Screw you guys.

It’s happening again in Los Angeles with the Kings. All the fair weather fans are coming out of the woodwork. So are the bandwagoners. While some really do appear to want to stay for the hockey — it’s always nice to see hockey gain new fans — there’s still a lot of those annoying types around. It’s even worse in L.A., which loves a front-runner (see aforementioned Trojan success).

Ed is an L.A. Kings lifer. He’s seen a lot of terrible with this team. He seethes at the bandwagoners. Like his cousin, who attended Kings games with him in the Gretzky years. Back in November — remember, the Kings were kinda so-so in the regular season — he had a conversation with said cousin about the Kings. The cousin said, “Oh, I don’t really follow the Kings anymore.” He didn’t know anyone on the team. Ed took note of this and moved on.

Just before the Stanley Cup Final started, said cousin posted on Ed’s Facebook wall that he was going to try and get a ticket to the Stanley Cup Final games in L.A. and would root on the Kings.

The look on Ed’s face when he saw that could have killed the population of an entire country.

And again, the diehards are being threatened. Ticket prices are skyrocketing. Tickets are disappearing fast. We were fortunate to get Game 4 Stanley Cup tickets, but if a Game 6 is necessary, it’s not likely we’ll be able to get tickets, as much as Ed would give every limb in his body to be there to witness (potential) history. And that’s bittersweet.

Shouldn’t the championship be celebrated by the people who have endured through the bad times, who have waited their entire lives to see this? Those are the people that deserve front row seats at the parade, not the opportunistic Johnny-come-latelys who will forget who the Kings are if the Lakers decide to start winning again.

So, if you decide to hop on a bandwagon, any bandwagon, remember this: There is an entire legion of fans that went through years (decades, even) of crap, and all these people ask for is not to be overshadowed and crowded out when they want to celebrate their team winning the big one.

Respect that, and the bandwagon will take you in with open arms. And we’ll even answer your questions about our team.

But if you want to be that obnoxious jerk, don’t be surprised if someone pops the champagne cork right in your eye or shatters the bottle over your head. (I’ll be first in line to do that if I can.)

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