No Losers, Only Whiners (or "Wah")

Please don't think I've gone right-wing nutjob on all of you, but Rush Limbaugh has inspired me to write this week's column.

I'll explain.

Last Monday, Rush was paying tribute to the late Dale Earnhardt and noting that his style of racing was such that everyone either loved him or hated him. If you loved the way he drove, it was because he was aggressive, he wouldn't back down, he was "The Intimidator", and of course, he won. If you hated him, it was because he cheated, NASCAR wouldn't crack down on him, and yes he won, but it wasn't fair. This is perhaps the biggest example of a problem that unfortunately has made its way into all levels of sport. It's impossible to lose something anymore. Either you win a game/match/race or something happened to prevent you from winning. Think of it as sports' answer to conspiracy theorists.

In the world of high school basketball, the blame for a loss seems to only go two ways; either it's the coach's fault, or it's the fault of the refs. I normally sit on the sidelines when reading the high school basketball forum on our local newspaper's website, although I do occasionally post stuff about my alma mater's squad. However, it got to a point where I could no longer just sit and watch fans of another local high school team from Cicero-North Syracuse consistently calling for the head of a head coach whose team was among the best in our league. I think you know how I feel about unfair criticism and unfair dismissals of coaches who are doing a good job; if you don't, you need to go back and read column #18. Hank Fengler has been ripped up one side and down the other all season for a variety of reasons, but mostly because people, mostly students and (I fear) some parents, felt he wasn't doing well enough with the "talent" he had. Mind you, they went 14-8 this season, including an impressive first-round playoff win. However, in these people's eyes, 14-8 just wasn't good enough. I read post after post about how such-and-such wasn't playing enough or playing at all, how whats-his-name should get the ball more, or something along the lines of "I don't know what they're doing wrong, but I know it's Fengler's fault."

Unfortunately, it was a more shocking thread that upset me even more. A person who I would say ranks up there with me in terms of level-headedness over all this placed the blame on all this on where it belongs, the uptight parents and know-it-all students. Someone, a parent I'm assuming, responded with a "how dare you" type post, essentially saying that it was his/her right to criticize the coach, since their kids have been or are being "screwed" by coaches they feel are less than legendary (to put it mildly). In other words, calling for a coach's head because your son/daughter is not playing enough is justified because your kid has essentially been "screwed" by someone who you of course know more about the game than. This is a joke. If the coach didn't know what he was doing, he wouldn't have the job. That guy worked his way up through the ranks (CYO, freshman, JV, and so on), and devotes a lot of his time to working with these kids to make them better athletes and better people (better people than their parents in some cases, it seems), and for not a lot of money I might add. If they lose, if their system doesn't work, if the kids aren't inspired and just don't feel like playing, I can see a coach getting fired. However, that should be in only those cases, remember, it's only HIGH SCHOOL, not college, not the pros.

Now to the other "usual suspects" when the team loses: the refs. Far be it for me to take up for referees, especially when I occasionally have the penchant to voice my displeasure with a call or in some cases throw my foam "bad call brick" at the TV. However, some people just seem to use referees as a convenient crutch when their team loses: "we lost, therefore, it's the ref's fault, cuz he called everything against us, and did you notice the fouls were 10-6 or whatever against us..." Again, I unfortunately have to point the finger at C-NS, and in this case a certain parent (if you're reading this, you know who you are), who has gotten a reputation for yelling and screaming his disgust with every call that goes against his team. As a longtime sportswriter, I have seen a lot of games and I have seen a lot of parents. I've even seen a parent ejected from a college game for yelling at the refs. Now maybe this person said "the magic word" or something, but his behavior wasn't anywhere near as bad as this particular C-NS parent. I'm glad others have stepped up to take issue with this guy and how he is giving their school a very bad name.

My alma mater was involved in a very exciting first round playoff game last week, where they came back from 11 behind in the closing minutes to win. The first reaction from the opposing team's fans was predictable, that the go-ahead basket by our point guard should not have counted due to "an obvious charging call". Let me right here note that there were no, absoultely zero charging fouls called in the entire game if memory serves. Anyhoo, closer examination of the situation revealed that the ref making this call has a son who plays on my school's JV squad. An obvious conflict of interest in many eyes. This may be true; however, I have to give a ref the benefit of the doubt that he will be objective. Let's face it, in the heat of competition, when you are running up and down the court trying to watch the action, there is little chance you can think to yourself, "now remember, I have to make sure I tilt the calls toward my son's school..." This unfortunately led to an increasingly inappropriate series of posts that eventually caused the whole subject to get deleted (and perhaps rightly so, in my opinion).

I hope more people would just watch the game. Feel free to voice your displeasure with officiating if you wish, but I wish more of you would give the benefit of the doubt to the refs and your kid's coach. This is supposed to be a fun game, a chance to get excited about what your kids and their teammates are doing. It's the time of your kids' lives that is supposed to be all about having fun and loving life, before the "real world" takes over and things get serious and they start to pine away for the days when they had more fun. Wednesday night, I was treated to an outstanding game, as my Wildcats and East Syracuse-Minoa slugged it out (not literally, of course) in an exciting game in front of a packed gym with everyone cheering wildly and loving the moment. And even though my side lost, yeah I'm a tad depressed over it, but there's no excuses. We lost. It wasn't a case of "we lost because..." or "we would have won if...", we just lost. If more people could react to losing a game, even an important playoff game like that, maybe we'd be better people and better influences on each other and the kids.

On the other hand, I just read a post from one of our fans that it's time for our coach to step down because we didn't win the championship. OK, maybe it'll take a little longer than I thought...

Writing in Stengelese

As I sat down to write this week's column, I had a ton of different possible subjects swimming around in my head. Unfortunately, none of them could possibly give me the material to fill an entire column, not even the really short ones where I cheat on the size of the page to make it look like I wrote a normal-length column, but I actually didn't. Also, I have to write this quickly as my current work schedule is giving me just enough time to take five seconds to stop and breathe before I have to call it a night in order to get the requisite sleep to make it through the next day without passing out in mid-shift. Therefore, I decided to write about ALL of the topics I was thinking of, all at the same time. It's a concept called Stengelese, it goes back to Casey Stengel, the manager of the Mets way back when they first started out. He had the uncanny ability to go from one subject to a second to a third and so on, and then in midstream, he'd completely turn right around and finish his first thought. So, I figured if I could write like that, it would sure make this column a heckuva lot easier (and quicker) to write. And so, here goes nothin'...

So this whole Napster thing comes down the other day, and it naturally sends both me and the housemate to our computers along with the rest of humanity to get while the getting is good. Kinda like the Internet version of a massive fire sale, only of course we're not paying for anything, and isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? Oh by the way, if you were wondering about my stance on Napster, you gotta go back to column #6. Anyhoo, as with any fire sale, there's all manner of odds and ends available to find. Jay is downloading left and right, going effortlessly from Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy" to Marvin Gaye to 80s cartoon theme songs.

Speaking of the 80s, as much as a lot in my generation try to forget that we lived through the 80s, inevitably you always go back to it, cuz it was so damn cheesy! Some people, mostly Democrats, refer to it as the "Me Decade", but perhaps the better name would be "The Decade of Cheese". Between big hair held up by enough hair spray to create personal ozone holes over most of the heads of those who wanted to make a statement in that god-forsaken decade, the LOUD colors that were necessary in anyone's wardrobe (not to mention acid-washed and ripped jeans, can't forget those), and the ridiculously bad music, it's the decade you love to hate and hate to admit that you love at least some of it. You know the situation: you're riding in your car, poking around the radio dial, and you land on a song you haven't heard since the 80s, and it's a terrible song, but naturally, you are A) super excited that it came on, cuz you haven't heard it in so long, and B) shocked that you actually still KNOW ALL THE WORDS. And we loved the cartoons, cuz we were completely playing right into what the brainiacs of the time wanted; they were pretty much putting out 30 minute ads for some of the crappiest toys ever created, but you didn't care, cuz you watched the shows, bought the toys, and then went to school and made fun of the kid on the playground who was convinced that the Go-bots could kick the Transformers' asses.

Which brings me to guilty pleasures; everyone has them, and yes, even I do. You would have to figure that I as one of the most outspoken people in the world when it comes to pop culture, that I've gotta have some really impressive skeletons in my pop culture closet, and it's true. For one thing, I like a lot of the Bee Gees' stuff (stop laughing). Yeah, they were disco; let me try that differently: they WERE disco, as in think disco, you think of Bee Gees. However, they weren't like every other disco act that came down the pike that all sounded exactly the same, and of course, that's why disco died; you can only play one kind of beat just so many times. But take "Nights on Broadway", for example, which incidentally is my favorite Bee Gees song; it's just a great song, it's done so well. Again, cheese, but cheese people like (behold the power of cheese).

And then there's the new version of "roadkill television", which is defined as TV that you just shouldn't watch, but you have to for whatever reason, there is just some disgusting appeal to it for you. For many these days, it's that stupid show on MTV, "Jackass". What an idiotic premise, but then again, the people who watch it are obviously even dumber, as you can see in all the stories of dumb-as-a-box-of-hammers teens who get burned, arrested, or maimed imitating the stuff done on this show. The latest example is some yayhoo who copied the "swipe the Taco Bell drive-thru order as the guy's giving it to the person in the car" bit, only when this moron did it, he accidentally broke the Taco Bell guy's arm by smashing it into the edge of the drive-thru window. The worst part about it is that the yayhoo's buddies were sitting out front of the place taping the whole thing. I cannot even conceive why; after all, there's a disclaimer at the end of the show that proclaims, "Do not tape imitations of these stunts and send them to us, WE DON'T WANT THEM!!!" Okay, yes I actually had to watch some of the show in order to have seen that, but it was only a couple minutes. I swear.

The unfortunate problem with this all is it just shows that these human wastes of space have way too much time on their hands, and more will probably have more of this unnecessary free time soon if Napster truly does get shut down (see how I got it back to Napster?) Let's hope these people are never allowed to breed; what role models they'd be for their kids, huh? And furthermore... wow, I'm almost out of space, I did it, got to the end of this thing, and it didn't take that much time or effort (nice, huh?) Of course, this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't shrunk the length of this page. Oops, did I just say that? Um, better wrap this up, my download of the theme from "Danger Mouse" is finishing...

V-Day

Everybody do me a favor and stay away from me Wednesday. Please do not ask me why I'm wearing black and why I refuse to call the day by its full name. I just do not want to be bothered, the day will be tough enough as it is. Thank you.

OK, you REALLY want an explanation. (Sigh) Fine.

Wednesday, as you may know, is the 14th of February. The Feast of St. Valentine. Valentine's Day. Or, as I simply call it, V-Day. I mean why call it by its full name if it is a holiday you refuse to observe anyway? It's always been a lousy excuse to sell greeting cards and flowers and chocolate and all that stuff. I mean if you have to be reminded for one super-special day out of the year, beaten over the head by endless TV commercials about how "a diamond is forever" and all that junk, that you have to do something special for your significant other to prove your feelings for him/her, then you probably shouldn't be in the relationship in the first place. It should be an everyday thing, not just reserved for one day a year, especially as commercialized a day as it is.

All right, you're probably at this point thinking I'm laying on the bitterman routine a little thick. However, I feel I have the right, no, more than the right every year at this time to spout off about the pointlessness of this "holiday". After all, it is perfectly reasonable to think that there are those out there in this world who at this time most years (and in my case, at this time EVERY year) who have no reason to celebrate this day. We are the unlucky, the unfortunate, yes, you may even call us the pathetic (although not to our faces, thank you), the ones who have nobody to share this day with. Some add to our population every year, some are removed from it by fate or whatever higher power you choose to believe in. This holiday reminds us that we were the ones who in elementary school worked just as hard as you all did on your little homemade mailboxes that you stuck on the front of your desks, and when the big moment came, very few people stopped over to drop a valentine in our boxes. Those that did were probably given more than enough for the whole class and were made to feel sorry for us.

Now I'll admit, maybe today some friends will consider me important enough to toss an envelope my way, and for that I appreciate them very much. This isn't about the little slip of paper that they sell at Hallmark for $5 per box of 100 or whatever. This is still about finding someone. Even the mere thought of it bugs the hell out of me. Not that we the romantically challenged haven't tried, mind you. We're just not all that hot in the success department. This is the day where legend and Cosmo has it that we are supposed to do the right things, say the right things, sweep him/her off his/her feet and forge that match made in heaven. I counter that by simply saying the following: We can't seem to be able to do that the OTHER 364 days each year, what the hell makes you think we'll magically be able to figure it all out on this particular day?

Let's face it, and I'm directly addressing all of you out there who have that special someone in your life, who are all set for V-Day, who have that loving relationship all squared away: You would rather not be reminded on this day that we exist. You would rather not have to recognize the looks of depression and frustration on the faces of those of us whose hopes cannot seem to avoid being dashed when it comes to affairs of the heart. We are non-persons on this day, and we'd rather not be reminded that our situation exists either. By wearing black, we'll be happy being cynical about the day and you can go on in the bright and shiny world of your happy-go-lucky life with the one you love, and starting tomorrow when all is back to normal and you realize that you don't have to make such a special effort again until the inevitable anniversary or birthday or even Christmas, we all condense back into our everyday society and go on with life.

That is the intent anyway, but you know that by wearing black, I am also sticking out like a sore thumb. I mean, honestly, don't you think any normal person is going to wonder at least a little bit why we're wearing black? Then, of course, we run the risk of bringing them down, cuz there are those who are so sympathetic to our cause that they almost start to feel guilty that they have someone and we don't. And that, folks, is downright nauseating. Enjoy your good fortune, please do not feel sorry for us, doing that only reminds us that yes, it's still February 14 and will continue to be until the day ends.

And so, that is why I ask that I not be bothered at all on Wednesday. Just go about your business; we'll all be much better off for it, trust me on that one.

Of course, if you're the one who has been nervously waiting for the chance to try to say or do the right things with us and sweep us off our feet, none of the above applies and by all means, feel free to give it a shot. After all, given the choice between continuing this yearly ritual and staying in the population known as the unlucky, unfortunate, pathetic, etc. or dropping that population by two, believe me, we want out!

You Can't Go Home Again (But You Can Sure as Hell Try)

Back in the 20th century, there was that part of my life known as college. I didn't have the "traditional" college experience in many ways. First of all, I spent the whole time bouncing between Susquehanna University and community college, so I only spent two and a half years living the real college life and only one and a half consecutively. Secondly, I was busy trying to set myself up for the painfully mediocre career I have today, so I worked a lot, and as such didn't have much of a life. I was starting to feel like college was just another part of the career journey and that there really wasn't anything unique and exciting about it. Considering the fact that I still go up to OCC a couple times a week to see my friends anyway, the time I spent as a student there, though it was only one year, was starting to be the better representation of what my time in college was. As for Susquehanna, I unfortunately had a negative attitude toward the place; let's just say the lasting impression I had of the place resided in several holier-than-thou characters who did not make my commencement weekend experience all that pleasant.

And so, possessing this negative attitude, I went back to Susquehanna this past weekend for the first time since my class graduated last May. As it turned out, I wasn't alone; I guess I missed the memo, but somehow an unusually large number of alumni descended on "sleepy" Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania this weekend. Call it a smaller winter version of Homecoming weekend.

Living in the 9-to-5 (or in my case 1-to-7) every-day-is-the-same world of Syracuse meant I had forgotten about some things unique to this part of the world. Like the REALLY BAD DRIVERS. I have previously mentioned that CentralPADriver is possible the worst in the world and the most predisposed to driving like a crazed psychopath. However, I realized that my little road rage quiz from column #12 was missing one aspect of the drivers in central and northeastern Pennsylvania. Let me correct that oversight here:

9) You are following the driver in front of you too closely if:
A) You are one car-length behind him
B) You are less than half a car-length behind him
C) Your bumper is welded to his

Once again, if you answered C, you're from Pennsylvania, and furthermore, you were on my tail for about half a mile on 81 South in Wilkes-Barre and I really did not appreciate it.

Having survived the trip back to Susquehanna, I then was able to get the traditional grand tour of the stuff my tuition dollars helped to pay for that I never got a chance to enjoy before I graduated. No, I'm not bitter (yeah right), but I couldn't help but think as I looked at the new stadium, fitness center and work-in-progress field house that they do these things deliberately so that if you should ever decide to come back and visit, you will hardly recognize the place and as you have no memories of using these facilites yourself as a student, the only logical result is you feel OLD. Not to mention thanks to the layout of the new stuff, confused. Thank god my friend Jim knew his way around the twists and turns of the ever-growing athletic complex or else I might still be wandering around somewhere within the bowels of O.W. Houts Gymnasium looking for the exit.

The other notable change in the Susquehanna athletic department is the idea of a mascot. When your teams are called the Crusaders, you are somewhat challenged as to a, well, non-threatening depiction of the team name (read: suit of armor and sword need not apply). So what they instead came up with was a tiger with an SU cape dubbed the "Caped Crusader".

You may stop laughing now.

Having heard about this new mascot, I have to say my first impressions were as advertised, and summed up in a simple one-word question: "Why?" However, feel free to ridicule me as you will, but the "Caped Crusader" grew on me over the course of the basketball game I saw on Saturday. They did it right with the mascot, especially the person they got to be the mascot. You don't want the mascot to just sit there and look like part of the furniture. You want the mascot to breakdance on the floor during timeouts, to shadowbox the referees as they run past, to have to be told to get away from behind the basket because he's distracting the other team's free throw shooter. Now as long as they stay in character with this guy, I won't have a problem with him.

Back to Jim for a moment; after all, he was the guy who was pretty much responsible for this pilgrimage as without his couch I would not have had a place to crash (pay for a hotel room? I think not) If ever there was someone who is a perfect example of both the college and radio lifestyle, it's this guy. He has somehow managed to work at about twice as many stations as I have in his young career (and considering how few stations there are in central Pennsylvania, that's saying something). However, unlike me, he decided to take advantage of the, um, social opportunites available at Susquehanna University, which is another way of saying that not only is he a fraternity brother, but as a fellow sports nut, someone who insists that the national anthem be sung before drinking games. Thanks to him, I was able to hang out with his segment of college society for the weekend and reacquaint myself with certain long-forgotten weekend rituals.

And as I observed and at some points took part in this slice of college life, I realized two things. First of all, I was right to not rush a fraternity while at SU, because I am not someone who shall we say holds his liquor well. More importantly, this time in my life known as college, however brief it was, was certainly a unique time in a unique place and will never be repeated again. It is much better to remember the positive things about that time period, the friends and the fun rather than the few bad apples and less-than-happy moments. So I say cherish those college memories, because as Billy Joel once sang, "Captain Jack will get you high tonight, and take you to your special island..."

What, did you think I was going to start quoting "This Is the Time To Remember"? You forget who is writing this column, my friend...