Let’s face it, athletes attending Florida State University weren’t recruited for their intellectual acumen. People like Deion Sanders and others went to school to play sports and every NCAA rule was bent if not snapped into little pieces by Bobby Bowden and the administration.
This week, after months of appeals, and wrangling over public records laws, an appellate court finally gave Florida State the go-ahead Wednesday to release a 695-page transcript of its Oct. 18, 2008 hearing before the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions. As a result of the NCAA investigation, the organization slapped multiple sports at FSU with probation, minor scholarship restrictions, and vacated football victories for playing ineligible players later accused of cheating in an online course (“Musical Cultures of the World”) in 2006 and 2007.
The New York Times said that the report painted “an unflattering portrait of Florida State’s professors and administrators,” but worse was the picture we get of FSU players. or the stops pulled out on their behalf by (to use FSU president T.K. Wetherell’s term) a “rogue tutor”:
Brenda Monk, a learning specialist hired to work with athletes who had learning and physical disabilities, was accused of improperly helping students type, edit and write their papers. Ms. Monk, who testified that some of those athletes had a second-grade reading level, was accused of committing academic fraud. In one case, she was said to have let students use a study guide that had answers to exam questions for an online music course. Ms. Monk has left the university and filed a defamation suit against Florida State.
I know that there is a popular game show that regularly shows that there are grown-ups that aren’t “as smart as a fifth-grader, but this is ridiculous. These are 18-year-old men who can’t read at the level of an 8-year-old kid!
Since the majority of these young men are African-American, they should know that the only way for us to progress is to be educated. Considering that despite playing for a football factory like FSU, the odds are still against them playing professional football. And all of them are 1 severe injury from never playing again. And, last I saw, the career average of those that DO make the NFL is still around 3 to 4 years, not to mention the reduced overall life expectancy.
I know that kids are young and make mistakes, but having a “back-up plan” in case they don’t make a living playing professional sports is a crime. Bowden and the school’s officials should know better, but it’s just the modern version of slavery – make millions on the backs of young black men who are kept ignorant. It’s sad.

There are times when African-American “Leaders” should keep their mouths shut. Both the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton sent letters to the NFL asking the league to reject the bid of racist conservative Rush Limbaugh to buy the St. Louis Rams. The letters have led the league to issue its own statement that the ownership bid was only in its earliest stages.
Gentlemen, here is another chance to keep your mouths shut (although we know that you both have never seen a microphone or reporter you weren’t compelled to talk to). Let the process go forward. The NFL is EXTREMELY image conscious and if Limbaugh did buy the Rams, he would face several other billionaires who would try to get him to shut up.
But, the biggest reason to keep quiet is that we cannot choose the parts of democracy that we like, and hold others to a different standard for those we don’t like. As detestable a piece of human excrement that Limbaugh is, if he has the money, one of the rights in a democracy is to buy whatever you wish, and if this odious filth wants to buy the team, it is his right. But it is also the right of African-American players, who comprise 70% of the NFL to not want to play for him. Of course, some will because money talks, but if the superstars stay away and the team sucks, trust me, Limbaugh’s investment will sink faster than the Titanic, which will again alarm the other owners whose franchises will also lose value if the Rams lose value.
I have always wondered why people protest things sometimes. I remember the hubbub over Martin Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ.” Right wing fundamentalists sent letters, picketed, and made a big stink over a film with a very small budget, that, if they had kept their mouths shut, most of America wouldn’t have seen anyway. But, by giving it attention, more people probably heard about it and wanted to see what the protests were about (even though the protests generally started without anyone actually watching the film beforehand).
In this case, the Reverends have brought even more attention to this bid, which may or may not succeed and which none of us have any real say on anyway. As I said, let Limbaugh buy the team, and, as fans, do your “voting” with your dollars. And let the socially astute players make their statement against working on “Massa” Limbaugh’s plantation.

All too often, today’s modern athlete is bashed by retired athletes for their seeming lack of social conscience or at least public comments on public issues. Part of this is that times have changed, and in most ways for the better, but it is also due to the big money and high profile of athletes from their teams, and also from corporate sponsors that influences silence.
In particular, African-American athletes have been criticized by more strident athletes from the turbulent 1960s. Two of the richest, most popular and influential black athletes of the past two decades: Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, have been noticeably silent on issues regarding social ills. Were they reticent on their own, or are they silent to placate their corporate (white) masters?
Anyway, a couple of African-American athletes appear to have broken that mold. Giants’ defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News (and quoted on SI.com) that while he loves his former defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, he would never play for Spagnuolo’s St. Louis Rams if Rush Limbaugh purchases the team. Both Kiwanuka and the Jets’ Bart Scott made it clear that they would never play for the Rams or any team owned by the fat, racist radio host.
The Daily News quoted Kiwanuka as saying, “All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on. I mean, I don’t want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play.”
If I were an athlete, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Limbaugh based on his comments as a “commentator” on ESPN several years ago. His comments about Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb “getting a pass from the media because he is black” shows that Limbaugh knows as little about sports as he does everything else.
In fact, all of the black money that goes into the NFL in the way of merchandise sold, tickets purchased, the whole thing, should be withheld from this franchise if Limbaugh buys the team. As Kiwanuka said, he has every right to buy the team; we have every right to not give him any support or money if he does.

Usually, I have good reason to hate a sports team. The teams that appear at the top of this site are either traditional rivals of my favorite teams (Packers, Indians), or have “traditions” or fans that are so obnoxious, that they deserve to be hated (Notre Dame). I can’t say that I have ever rooted against a team for their ownership.
Sure, I despised Chicago Blackhawks owner, the late “Dollar” Bill Wirtz for almost single handedly destroying hockey in an Original Six city, but I can’t say that I rooted against the team. I just refused to give Wirtz any of my money.
That may change now that fat, drug addict, racist, blowhard, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is teaming up with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts in a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams. The Rams, one time Super Bowl champions as “the greatest show on turf,” have run upon hard times, the owners of the NFL’s longest losing streak at 14 and just 5-31 since 2007.
Forbes magazine has estimated the Rams franchise has a value of $929 million, and according to the lying piece of excrement, he and Checketts would run the team.
I just wonder if the team would continue to suck under Limbaugh’s ownership. After all, the offense would never run or pass to the Left…

It didn’t take long for the Cleveland Browns to sever ties with former Michigan wide receiver Braylon Edwards. Less than one week after the NFL announced that it was investigating allegations that Edwards assaulted a man outside of a local nightclub, the team shipped him to the New York Jets in return for wide receiver Chansi Stuckey, linebacker Jason Trusnik and undisclosed draft choices
Edwards allegedly punched promoter Edward Givens, a friend of NBA star LeBron James, early Monday morning following an argument in downtown Cleveland. James criticized Edwards publicly over the incident.
In New York, people are saying that the Jets have acquired the number one receiver they have needed, but Edwards has underachieved in his years in Cleveland. How much of that was the unsettled quarterback situation is an excellent question. And before Jets fans start buying playoff tickets, they should remember that wide receivers have had run ins with the law in Manhattan (see Plaxico Burriss, now serving two years in jail for carrying a pistol into a nightclub where he shot himself in the leg).
I also guess that there are no hard feelings between Browns coach Eric Mangini and the team that fired him less than one year ago – the New York Jets. I have seen writers on the web blasting Mangini’s running of the 0-4 Browns (one called it the worst coaching hire in NFL history, but he doesn’t remember some of the Chicago Bears hires in the 1970s and early 1980s), and one does have to wonder if Mangini was trying to be more of a disciplinarian than necessary.

Coming into this NFL season, being a Bear fan, one had to feel for Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, beginning his first full year as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. They finished woefully last season, and despite playing in the weakest division in football, the NFC West, they were picked for another bad season.
Even in the draft, it appeared that the 49ers couldn’t catch a break. They drafted Texas Tech wide receiver Michael Crabtree, a true stud, but he has remained the only first round holdout in football. That is until today, with reports coming out that Crabtree has signed with the team for six years.
Crabtree and the team had been embroiled in a nasty stalemate over Crabtree’s desire to be paid as much as fellow first-round pick, Darrius Heyward-Bey, selected two spots in front of Crabtree. Of course, Heyward-Bey was a stunning pick that high in the draft, but then, he was drafted by the wacky Al Davis-led Oakland Raiders who are still mired in the mindset of the 1960s AFL.
I also think that Crabtree didn’t want to play for a bad team, but Singletary has to be a leading early contender for coach of the year with the ‘Niners leading the NFC West with a 3-1 mark and their only loss coming to the Vikings 27-24 on Brett Favre’s last second touchdown pass.
Suddenly, Crabtree signs with the team. Hmm, maybe San Francisco doesn’t look like a bad place to be after all.

I used to be a big Oakland Raiders fan. When Darryl Lamonica was bombing opponents into submission, I was a fan. Then, the Raiders brought in my favorite quarterback of all time, Ken Stabler, a man who partied all night before a game, and according to his autobiography “Snake”, huddled the defense on the sidelines before the game, imploring them to hold the other team until he sobered up. They held the team to one touchdown and then Stabler threw three touchdowns in the second half to win.
But the wheels have definitely come off the Raider bus. Not only has owner Al “Just Win Baby” gone certifiably insane, he refuses to let someone younger take the reins. As a result, the once proud franchise has been the losingest team since its Super Bowl appearance in 2003. The Raiders have drafted top picks who haven’t panned out; Davis fired head coach Monte Kiffin for “insubordination,” more likely for daring to tell Davis that he was far out of touch with the 21st Century NFL.
Rather than hiring another top coach, Davis hired Tom Cable, a company man through and through, much cheaper than a top college coach or coordinator. But the losing continues, and, according to Yahoo! Sports (and SI.com), the Raiders are bracing for the possibility that coach Tom Cable could be arrested soon for punching an assistant coach during training camp.
Cable reportedly broke a bone in assistant coach Randy Hanson’s face. The authorities have kept investigating the incident in the background even as the Raiders hobbled to their 1-3 start, but an arrest may be imminent. Criminal charges against Cable could lead to a suspension by the league. “Everybody is trying to figure out who’s going to take over if Tom isn’t here,” said an assistant coach, who quoted by Yahoo! on the condition of anonymity. “John Marshall has a lot of experience, he’s probably the guy. But it’s nuts. It’s crazy when you start to really think about it.”
That’s true, but it’s not the craziest this that has happened to this nutty franchise in the past 5 years. I have a feeling that the Raiders won’t truly become a good football team until Al Davis is taking the permanent dirt nap.