Oh Say, Can You Please, Stop Hurting My Ears (and other complaints)

I’ve been really positive lately.¹ Whether writing about the transformative greatness of Steph Curry or the mental toughness of great athletes, my posts have been heavy on acclaim and short on grumpy-old-man-ishness.

You should have enjoyed the positivity while it lasted, cause now it’s gone. At least for a week. There will be basically nothing positive about this post.

Any list of the worst things in sports is bound to be subjective. I mean, annoying is in the eye of the couch potato, right? But I tried to make this list as universal as possible. You never hear anyone singing the praises of these ten things. On the other hand, I don’t want to have all of them be too obvious. Of course no one likes it when their favorite team loses, but that goes without saying. These are things that we all see all the time that make us want to vomit. These things need to be fixed, pronto. Thus, without further ado, here follows my compilation of the ten Worst Things in Sports.

10. Singers who murder the national anthem.

No matter how patriotic your allegiances, it’s never pleasant to hear the Star Spangled Banner made to sound like a squawking shower experiment. It has nice melody; why not try singing it? This isn’t about you, famous singer. Just belt out the traditional tune and let us get on with our dang game!

9. People who refer to their favorite team as “mine”.

You do not own, manage, coach, or play for your beloved franchise. They are not “your” anything. I understand the desire to identify yourself with your heroes, but if you can keep the implication of ownership to a minimum, I’m sure everyone would appreciate it.

8. Tanking.

A lot of people would probably rank this higher, but I get the long-term reasons for wasting a season or two in the interest of stockpiling draft picks and salary cap space. That doesn’t make it any less annoying, though. As the late, great Al Davis would say, “Just win, baby!”

7. Cheesy sports movies.

There are some truly classic, inspirational films out there with sports themes. But unfortunately too many of them become predictable, formulaic nonsense. I’m not going to name off a bunch of examples for fear of offending diehard fans,² but we all can agree that there’s only so much ham-handed inspiration we can handle before we take a baseball bat to the television screen.

6. Flopping.

Again, I understand the reason for it, really I do, but “diving”, as it’s known in soccer, drags down everyone’s enjoyment of any sport and complicates the hard enough job of refereeing. I can’t say what I really think of serial floppers, but suffice it to say that I wouldn’t argue if someone compared them to a certain female organ. If you catch my drift.

5. People who constantly complain about sports.

We all know them, our friends and relatives who get no enjoyment from watching sports and look down on those who do. Such people usually claim to like playing sports, but they like to gripe about what a waste of time such armchair entertainment is. We get it, it’s a waste of time, but you’re just a waste of airspace, you old gasbag!

4. Loud-mouthed talking heads on TV (and radio).

Yes, I know you make a lot more money than me, but that doesn’t mean you know everything there is to know about tonight’s game. So please don’t talk down to me, don’t insult people who disagree with you, and for heaven’s sake, don’t act like anybody who wears a hat backwards is a thug (Cowherd!).

3. Hack-a-Shaq.

Whether it’s DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, or anyone else getting intentionally fouled, missed free throws don’t exactly make for the most entertaining basketball. In fact, any free throws interrupt the beautiful, hectic pace of the game, and when it’s happening on every other possession, it’s enough to drive a fan truly insane.

2. Poor officiating.

Right now you’re probably wondering, how is this not number one? Well, you’re about to find out. But perhaps, in any other week, it would be. Bad calls by the zebras/blues ruin literally everything. Wins are tainted, losses have a permanent excuse, and everybody suffers. We watch sports to be entertained, I’ve said several times before, but bad refereeing sucks all possible enjoyment from the experience.

Before I reveal the number one, here are a few honorable mentions: Using athletes as role models, cheerleaders in professional leagues, teams that catch all the breaks, cheating (too obvious), league commissioners, the NCAA, blind homers, people who refuse to stop screaming at the TV about EVERYTHING (totally me), loud drunks in sports bars, and athletes/coaches who guarantee wins.

1. Corruption.

And now we see why I’ve chosen to compile and present this list this particular week. It’s all FIFA’s fault. When mass corruption is alleged like in this case, or the infamous Black Sox, or Tim Donaghy, it makes every fan wonder whether we can trust what we’re seeing in that sport, or in any sport for that matter. Is it really just a bunch of superhuman athletes engaged in heated competition, or is all of it predetermined?

When there is as much money being thrown around as there is in modern sports, corruption is sadly inevitable. We can only hope the scope is narrow, that FIFA doesn’t represent the fraud lurking in every major league in the world. What if it was all rigged? After all, the revenue of the owners and the players’ salaries are just the tip of the financial iceberg; most of the sports money lies in largely underground gambling. Such billion-dollar industries are ripe for exploitation, bribery, and backroom deals.

Probably similar to most sports fans, I accept the fact that there’s a lot I don’t know and then pretend nothing could possibly be wrong. I plead ignorance when my Negative Nancy acquaintances pontificate about the Hong Kong gambling rings that manipulate my beloved sports, then I go back to guzzling my Big Gulp and hollering like a madman at those idiotic refs. Don’t bother me with facts; I’m just trying to enjoy a football game.

I’m prone to pining for the “good old days” when sports were more pure, played more for the love of the game than for money. But we should all remember that the Black Sox scandal, in which several Chicago White Sox players were paid by gamblers to intentionally lose the World Series, happened almost a hundred years ago. People are corrupt, in any era, so… well, that’s that.³

Let’s hope that with the exit of Sepp Blatter, FIFA will clean itself up and we can all begin to just enjoy the sport again. So much of the world is so passionate about its football, it would be a shame to see the global organization that oversees it rot away to nothing. But I’m not holding my breath.⁴

 

 

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¹ At least in the last two posts. That’s as far back as my memory goes. Don’t accuse me of being no elephant!

² But if I did, I would mention Field of Dreams. I have simply never been able to grasp the hype over that movie. Can someone please explain to me what the big deal is?

 

³ I couldn’t think of a satisfactory way to end that sentence. It is what it is; what else is there to say? People just suck.

⁴ I feel like I used this exact phrase at the end of a post at least once before, but I’m too lazy to go back and check.

Seriously, Enough Deflategate Nonsense Already!!!!

Walking the block from my job to my favorite coffee shop¹ a few minutes ago, a debate was brewing in my mind.² What should I write about today? I have a profound take on Deflategate, an angle more focused on Roger Goodell than Tom Brady. I should probably write that, I told myself. It’s what everyone is talking about. Gotta stay relevant.

But that’s exactly the problem. I could not be more sick of Deflategate if it were fried okra and beef liver.³ I wrote about this, and the NFL’s broader problems exemplified in the controversy, back when it first happened before the Super Bowl. I don’t much feel like complaining about Goodell yet again while making a few obligatory jokes about the Patriots’ shrunken balls.⁴

So the more selfish side of me wins.⁵ No deflated balls in this space today. Except in a more euphemistic sense, because my topic stems from comments I recently heard from Keith Olbermann about what he calls the lack of menace in baseball.

Almost everyone acknowledges that baseball has a problem. Game attendance is in a freefall, and viewership isn’t much better. Widespread enthusiasm has largely been replaced by regional pockets of support for various teams. Youth participation in the sport has been slowly declining for years, especially in lower income and minority communities. Homegrown talent is more and more sparse as baseball continues to grow in Latin America and Japan. Major League Soccer now has more fans in the 12-18 demographic than Major League Baseball. I could go on and on here, and although profits have yet to suffer, the law of supply and demand⁶ insists that eventually, inevitably, owners’ pocketbooks will take a hit.

What people disagree about is the cause of the declining interest, and how to fix it. Pace of play is the easy scapegoat, and I can’t deny how hard it is to sit and watch a nearly 4-hour baseball game while listening to Joe Buck, Tom Verducci, and Harold Reynolds drone on about some random piece of trivia from the 1977 Astros. “I remember… Joe Niekro…” drones Verducci. “Fastball down and away, ball one,” declares Buck gravely.” “…just beginning… to perfect…” “Kershaw gets Posey swinging at a curveball upstairs, a ball and a strike.” “…that knuckleball… that he learned…” “Just outside for ball two.” “…from his brother Phil… before the…” “That one gets away for a 3-1 count.” “…before the Braves… traded Joe…” “As that one’s fouled back to make the count full on Posey.” “to Houston for… basically, for nothing…” “Buster fights off Kershaw again.” “…thirty-five thousand dollars… I think it was…” “A high fly ball to center,” announces Buck, suddenly picking up the tempo of his voice a few notches, “and Pederson is there to make the grab for out number one,” he concludes, as if apologizing for the insipid outcome. “Joe Niekro was vicious with that knuckleball in the late 70s, early 80s,” Reynolds chimes in. “I faced him…” “Hunter Pence makes his way to the plate,” Buck interjects. “…a couple times when he was with the Yankees, and he was nearly impossible to hit earlier, when he was in Houston.” “Pence digs in as Kershaw readies to deliver the pitch with one out here in the bottom of the second.” And… I’m asleep.⁷

But baseball has always been slow, and we liked it fine in 1977. Has our attention span really gotten that short that quickly?⁸ Olbermann attributed baseball’s near-precipitous decline to a lack of menace. The competitive fire has all but died as the sport has shriveled from an intense display of passion and rivalry into a rich white gentleman’s hobby. Gone are the days of Nolan Ryan putting Robin Ventura in a headlock or Jackie Robinson stealing home against Yogi Berra in the World Series.

  

Just last night I was watching MLB Tonight and the hosts were lamenting the lack of hustle and zeal for the game by many of today’s teams. This isn’t me saying this; this is former all-stars whose assessment seems to line up uncomfortably with Olbermann’s.

Then you have the Kansas City Royals, trying their best to play with “menace” and passion, with an “us against the world” mentality so prevalent in great teams of yore and so absent today, and they get treated like pariahs because they are labelled “aggressive” as if such a thing has no place in this dignified sport.

Menace is easy to see in America’s new pastime. Football is built around the principal of trying to physically harm one another, and while I’m not saying baseball needs to somehow become a contact sport, the tension is noticeably missing from a viewer’s standpoint.

Not that there isn’t any tension. I wrote before about the palpable tautness of each pitch in the World Series. It’s a pressure cooker, and the boiling point could come at any moment. But the tension seems more inherent to the slow buildup of the sport than caused by any intensity from the average player. For every mercurial Yasiel Puig and hyper-competitive David Ortiz there are twenty plodding Robinson Canos. A sport dominated by cool heads, strategic double switches, and, increasingly, advanced metrics and defensive shifts can earn but a small foothold in today’s instant-gratification society.

A perfect example is the stolen base. Nearly a lost art for the last decade or so, the swipe is struggling to make a comeback, encouraged by speedsters like Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon, but you still don’t see very many who threaten to steal any base at any moment. There is no Lou Brock, Jackie Robinson, or Rickey Henderson in today’s game, nor is there very much in the way of strategic stealing. Swiping a bag is a risky, exciting play born of a desire by the runner to prove that the best efforts of the pitcher and catcher are no match for his speed and skill.

Instead we see pitchers who throw 95 on every pitch, collect their millions, and burn themselves out after five years. We see batters who transform themselves into giant human beings, some by legitimate means and some not, hit a bunch of dingers, then sit back and enjoy their impossibly long guaranteed contracts. We see managers unwilling to gamble in big moments, trusting in pitch-tracking nerds who never set foot on a baseball diamond to rule the minutiae of game operations.

In short, baseball is boring, especially during the regular season. Even fast-paced or high scoring games fail to hold the attention of the average viewer, inducing snoozes and empty ballparks across America.

Perhaps it was always like this. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t around in the glory days, whenever you might reckon those to be.⁹ But everything older fans have told me, everything I have read, every highlight I have watched has shown a fervor, a self-assertion that is sparse in 2015 pro baseball.

I, for one, will continue to watch. Occasionally. But even with such a tepid commitment, I am increasingly in the minority. If Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera or Clayton Kershaw walked down the street outside of their club’s home city, how many people would recognize them? Ten out of hundred? I doubt I would. A star-driven sport has become remarkably anonymous.

We watch sports to be entertained, and if people are bored, they are not going to watch. It’s that simple.

I only wish I had a solution. It’s hard to find a solution, though, without knowing the root of the problem. Perhaps the money has just gotten too big, creating a cynicism, ripping the fun from the players. Or perhaps the issue is a broader cultural one, brought on by sluggishness and lack of ambition among the public. Maybe it’s just the glut of players brought up in privilege who don’t know what it’s like to fight for everything they get. Baseball has, after all, become one of the most expensive sports for children to play.

In any case, I don’t think all the pace of play changes in the world are going to “fix” baseball. Either the sport is simply beyond fixing, beyond returning to the level of prominence it once enjoyed, or the solution must be much more comprehensive and grassroots. Limiting how often the batter can step out of the box cannot solve this.¹⁰

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¹ Not my favorite because of their coffee, though. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I never drink the stuff, so I wouldn’t even know. But sipping their heavenly Italian soda, a different flavor every week, has become my Friday ritual while I write this, followed by a massive burrito on my way home. Sure, I’m spontaneous, just not on Friday afternoons.

² Yes, I have debates with myself. Is there a problem here?

³ Ew. There goes my appetite for a massive burrito. Good thing I already finished my Italian soda.

⁴ “My, my, grandmother Belichick, what flat balls you have!” “All the better to beat up on you with year after year, my dear.” That’s all I got.

⁵ Although I’m guessing I’m not the only who is more than ready to move on from the PSI of a few footballs, for heaven’s sake!

⁶ That sounds right. I’m no economist. But I did take an economics class in high school once. For a couple months. Not that I remember anything from it, except that I have no interest in owning a business.

⁷ Had I ever heard of Joe Niekro before about 5 minutes ago? Of course not. I totally looked up the Houston Astros on Wikipedia, picked a name out of a hat from their history, and looked him up on Baseball Reference. In the year mentioned, 1977, Niekro went 13-8 with a 3.04 ERA. Aside from pitching in the big leagues for over 20 years with seven different teams, he’s famous for being suspended 10 games in 1987 with the Twins after umpires discovered a nail file in his pocket, used to shave the baseball (or something, I’m not real clear on what the purpose of such a tool might be), a famous video which I actually remember seeing before. Fun fact: in 973 career at-bats, Joe hit just one home run, in 1976 off his brother Phil’s pitch. I bet Joe never let Phil live that one down!

⁸ It probably has, in fact, but I just don’t think that’s the sole source of baseball’s problem.

⁹ Although I don’t hear one single person claiming the “glory days” are right now. No one.

¹⁰ I tagged this article with everything from Jackie Robinson to Italian soda to Deflategate to Keith Olbermann. Now that is what I call variety!

Don’t Be Dumb

This week’s NFL draft has come with far less drama than expected, as only two relatively minor trades occurred in the first round. For three players, though, the draft came with much more drama than they would have liked, and it is all their own doing.¹

We don’t know much yet about La’el Collins’ situation, but we do know that both Shane Ray and Randy Gregory recently made exceedingly foolish choices that jeopardized their very lucrative future. Both young men were possible top-10 picks in this draft, and both slipped considerably because of their recklessness.

During a routine traffic stop earlier this very week, Ray was cited for possession of marijuana found in his car. While he wasn’t under the influence and this appears to have been an isolated incident, the poor judgment he showed caused him to fall to 23^rd overall, and he will spend his rookie season on probation with the NFL’s drug program.

Randy Gregory’s decision-making appears to be more of a pattern, a red flag which has dropped him from being mentioned among the top two or three best players available to sliding out of the first round altogether. At the combine in February, Gregory tested hot for weed, and then he made matters worse trying to justify himself by saying that, while he hadn’t smoked since December, he had inhaled so much for so long that it took more than two months to clear out of his system. Setting aside the fact that this doesn’t really make scientific sense, his proclamation of just how thoroughly he enjoys pot did nothing to assuage teams’ concerns about whether he’ll actually have the willpower to stop smoking. Notably, he also was late for meetings with several teams, and didn’t even show up to at least one meeting. No team wants to spend a first-round draft choice on a guy who will spend more time in legal trouble and/or suspended² than actually playing, and who seems to lack the motivation to put in consistent effort to change. Just ask Josh Gordon. Or Ryan Leaf.

Now, most people today don’t have a huge issue with a little weed, myself included. I have never smoked anything at all, and I honestly don’t condone anything that is mind-altering, but I would much rather people smoke pot than drink alcohol from the perspective of mental and physical effects, and for medicinal purposes I generally support the use of natural substances over pharmaceuticals. But what is troubling in these two cases is not the marijuana itself, or even the legal ramifications, so much as the utter lack of maturity to make responsible life choices. Yes, I know college students don’t very often make “responsible life choices,” but then high-profile NFL players are not expected to behave like typical college-aged men. There is a higher standard expected because of the amount of cash being forked over by the teams, the role model nature of professional sport, and the inherent intellect and acumen required to survive in today’s NFL. It’s not a good sign of the maturity needed for the daily grind of pro sports when you are nearly squandering a priceless opportunity at a multi-million-dollar pay raise mere days before it is set to happen.

Ray and Gregory aren’t alone in their recent failure to display any modicum of responsibility. Prominent UFC fighter Jon “Bones” Jones has been stripped of his light heavyweight title and suspended indefinitely and is currently out on bond with a felony hit-and-run charge. Jones allegedly hit another car driven by a pregnant woman whose wrist was broken in the wreck, began to flee the scene, returned to grab a wad of cash from his car, and finally left both his car and the injured woman behind. Jones later turned himself in.³ He’s previously pled guilty to DWI and tested positive for cocaine.

I guess my point is this: choices have consequences,⁴ and if you have a good thing going, don’t risk losing it all by doing dumb things. Don’t gamble on life; you will always lose.⁵⁶

 

 

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¹ Really four: if not for his two marijuana arrests, assault allegations, and subsequent dismissal from the University of Missouri, Dorial Green-Beckham would be a no-doubt first round pick too.

² Not to mention getting fat eating entire bags of Cheetos late at night while watching Scooby-Doo instead of game film. No, I don’t ever use stereotypes, why do you ask?

 

³ Police also found a substantial amount of marijuana is his car. Notice a theme here? I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’…

⁴ Unless you’re Jameis Winston or Floyd Mayweather, then you can be accused of rape and repeatedly display immaturity in really stupid ways and still be drafted number one overall, or you can be convicted of domestic violence charges six times and still make almost 200 million dollars on a single fight. I guess choices have consequences unless you’re really, really good. And yes, I will be pitching in financially to watch the fight at a friend’s house. Don’t judge me. I’m rooting for Pacquiao, after all.

⁵ Again, unless you’re Winston or Mayweather.

⁶ No, I didn’t mean to say ⁵⁶ as if it was one number. It’s two separate notes. This post ended rather abruptly, you may have noticed. I actually had thought of other examples of stupidity by professional athletes, but once again, it’s very late, this time because I was too busy watching YouTube highlights of Panthers first-round selection Shaq Thompson. The guy is a terrific athlete, and I simply could not be more excited about him. The Panthers just became even scarier on defense. Now if only they could protect Cam Newton… But I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too, right?

Don’t Look at Me, I’m Hideous

From time to time I like to take a break from writing about serious stuff¹ to take on a topic that is completely asinine. While I always make a few humorous jabs, usually at myself, most weeks the subject matter itself is more solemn, but once a month or so I try to invent an issue that has no bearing on anything and run with it.²

That will not be happening this week. This week’s subject is so grave, so monumental, that it may leave you, my voracious readers,³ in a state of shock, awe, fear, and possibly even bawling uncontrollably with the sheer glory of it.

I’m talking, of course, about beards. That wonderful appendage that so improves upon the facial structure of the male Homo sapiens  as to render the females of the species powerless against his advances. The beard is, beyond scientific doubt, simultaneously the most beautiful and most potent substance in the known universe, producing a stronger force than electromagnetism or the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Beards can both calm the fears of weaklings and strike fear into enemies, charm the coldest heart and reverse global warming.⁴ If looks could kill, then beards could commit genocide.⁵

I shaved this week, and if I didn’t have a job, I would be cowering in the dungeonesque depths of my basement apartment in naked shame. I can’t bear my skin’s creamy, smooth texture, my 15-year-old’s-first-driver’s-license-photo look, or my accentuated double chin. So, as I await the six months that my stupid face requires to procure acceptable whiskers again,⁶ I thought I would bring you my personal evaluation of the best beards to found in sports. As I already pointed out, this is serious business, and I expect you to treat it as such.

Any discussion of sports beards must begin with hockey, where facial hair has been a tradition for decades. When Sidney Crosby grows out his pitiful playoff “beard” year after year, you know it must be customary. Why else would the man-child embarrass himself?

In contrast to Crosby’s youthful stubble (which, incidentally, looks almost exactly like mine), Scott Niedermayer had a salt-and-pepper blanket wrapping his face.

Lanny McDonald (left) has perhaps the most famous facial hair in NHL history, while more recently defenseman Mike Commodore (right) has set the standard.

     

Outside of hockey, the beard conversation has always focused on longtime Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel, and for good reason:

I mentioned in a previous post the lusciousness of Ryan Fitzpatrick’s bush last year.

My personal favorite is the imposing shaved-head, black-bearded look of Pero Antic, the Macedonian forward for the Atlanta Hawks.

Now that we’re talking about basketball, I fully expected to give James Harden the championship beard belt for his forest, but in my research I found one that even The Beard himself can’t top. Still, I wouldn’t want to argue with Harden’s beard if I met it in a dark Houston alley.

Chris Anderson of the Heat might not have the most grandiose beard all the time, but when he does, it certainly adds to the overall frightening effect that is Chris Anderson.

If we’re talking crazy, then Portuguese former soccer player Abel Xavier unquestionably takes the cake. What exactly is going on here?

I’m also not sure what’s going on with Australian professional dart player⁷ Simon Whitlock, but I think I should be afraid of whatever it is.

UFC fighter Kimbo Slice probably wouldn’t even be anybody apart from his beard, but that thing was enough to make him a quick few million as a terrible pro after YouTube made him and his whiskers famous.

Baseball has had some notable playoff beards over the years, most famously the 2013 Red Sox, who as a team forwent razors for the entire season as a display of unity in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, then proceeded to win a stunning World Series title.

The best facial hair from that bunch belonged to Jonny Gomes, but it couldn’t compare with the best beard in baseball. Relief pitcher Brian Wilson⁸ made a living off the “Fear the Beard” slogan during the San Francisco Giants’ 2010 World Series run, as his fake-looking facial accessory coupled with a tremendous save percentage made him perhaps the Giants’ biggest weapon that year.

But only one lucky fellow can own the title of Best Sports Beard, and I promise you’ve never heard of him. First off, if you want to watch REAL men playing sports, you seriously need to watch rugby. Now THAT is a sport. Not that I’ve ever watched it, outside of the Matt Damon/Morgan Freeman movie Invictus, but that’s what I’ve heard.

The best beard in sports, and I expect zero argument here, belongs to Canadian rugby player Adam Kleeberger.

How could anyone play alongside that and not be inspired, or opposite it and not quake in their cleats? It’s not like rugby players wear helmets either, so all of that goodness is free to flow. Now that is what I call a beard!

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¹ Don’t laugh.

² Also known as not being able to come up with a better topic.

³ Or should I say reader singular, as only one of you now reads this on a regular basis. You know who you are, and you have my gratitude.

 

⁴ Don’t get the idea that I actually buy the whole global warming propaganda. Because I don’t. I’m just making a point, and not exaggerating at all, I might add.

⁵ Too soon?

⁶ If sparse reddish stubble can be called acceptable. Really, is a good beard too much to ask for?

⁷ Which is a thing, apparently.

⁸ Not to be confused with Brian Wilson, the leader of the Beach Boys.

You Would Think We Would Be Used to This by Now

Note that this post is not called The Schottenheimer Effect. If you have been reading this blog on a regular basis, then you know what I’m talking about. If not then… shame on you.

I do apologize, however, for my recent lack of posts. I swear I have a valid alibi, but if I told you about it, you wouldn’t believe me. There’s no way one person can be so technologically unlucky. Let’s just say I’m tempted to take a sledgehammer to this accursed laptop.

I know this will come as a shock to you, but I have never had a girlfriend. In fact, I’ve never really been close. No dates, no phone numbers, nothing. At 23 years old, I’m still so clueless when it comes to the beautiful denizens of that exotic land known as Women that when I come into contact with one of reasonably corresponding age I lock up like a manual transmission accidently thrust into reverse instead of fourth gear while driving at 50 miles an hour.¹ I stutter, I laugh nervously, but most of all, I just have no idea what to say. I feel totally lost in situations that seem natural to ordinary humans.

Silas Nacita is a walk-on running back for college football’s Baylor Bears.² At least he was until a couple of weeks ago. On February 25, he announced that the NCAA had declared him ineligible to play and that he was therefore dismissed from the team. Nacita elaborated that the ineligibility allegedly³ was a result of benefits he had received that the NCAA deemed to be in violation of its rules. What were these egregious violations, you ask? What was so heinous that the powers that be of college athletics ended this young man’s dream?

When Nacita walked on at Baylor after working his way through community college with partial academic scholarships, he was without a place to live. Rather than see him spend the next several months homeless, a concerned acquaintance let him crash at their apartment. Which, as has been covered before in the bizarre case of Boise State’s Antoine Turner, is illegal. No matter who is offering the assistance or how pure their motives, student athletes are not permitted to receive any help, financial or otherwise, outside of the NCAA’s very strict guidelines for the use of a special fund doled out to each school. Because Nacita didn’t have an athletic scholarship, the university couldn’t offer him any housing, which meant no one else could, either.

Now, the NCAA has categorically denied Nacita’s claim, and the statements from Baylor staff have been a bit ambiguous as to the true source of the declaration of ineligibility. But even if the school itself determined that Nacita couldn’t play, it did so using the NCAA’s own rules and track record regarding benefits infractions, preempting an expected ruling that would have probably had the same effect. Regardless, Silas Nacita has suffered by a strange, austere interpretation of rules meant to preserve amateurism, not prevent common decency.

The point is that the National Collegiate Athletic Association, like me around girls,⁴ has no clue what to do with itself, saying and doing all the wrong things with more tone-deafness than me in the shower. The inconsistent enforcement of the rulebook has the NCAA awkwardly shuffling its feet like a teenaged boy standing alone at a school dance – taking away Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy for having the audacity to talk to an agent one moment, for years turning a blind eye to multiple allegations about a host of violations by North Carolina basketball the next; first turning Penn State upside-down and yanking several years of wins for the actions (or inaction) of some disgraced former school officials and a deceased coach, then abruptly giving back all the wins and scaling back almost all of the sanctions a couple of years later.

To the casual observer, the inconsistency and convoluted rules lack the appearance of common sense and smack of, at best, total incompetence or, at worst, widespread corruption. Whatever the case, the governing body needs to get its act together, or risk sinking from a laughingstock to an afterthought.

And, for the sake of all things good, give Silas Nacita back his spot on the team, and let the poor kid stay wherever the heck he wants.

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¹ If you’re lucky enough never to have committed this particular driving infraction, I’ll explain that it causes a horrid grinding sound reminiscent of Steve Buscemi’s bones getting crushed by the wood chipper at the end of Fargo and simultaneously making you feel like you just caused several hundred dollars’ worth of damage and compelling you to look around you in red-faced shame to make sure no other drivers noticed.

 

² This will tie together with the previous paragraph. I promise. Have some faith.

³ Now say that 5 times fast: Ineligibility allegedly, ineligibility allegedly, ineligibility allegedly, ineligibility allegedly, ineligibility allegedly.

⁴ That’s right, another terrible attempt at a humorous analogy by me. And you wondered why I don’t have a girlfriend.