“Two Muslims walk into a Jewish supermarket” sounds like the opening of a joke Henny Youngman might have told on the old borscht belt circuit. Youngman, “The King of the One Liner”, would have been performing his act at a summer resort in the Jewish Alps or what many people refer to as the Catskills.
Unfortunately, after today’s events in Paris, it is not the prelude to a zinger but it’s the tale of another terrorist act on a soft target.
– Killing cartoonists.
– Two terrorists robbing a gas station with a rocket launcher comfortably relaxing in the backseat of their car.
– Making a political statement by taking hostages at a Jewish grocery store, because your Gefilte fish is too heavy on the matzo.
It all sounds a bit comical, surreal, or the plot of a B movie made by Golan-Globus, but these are the current state of affairs in Paris with the exception of a matzo heavy Gefilte fish.
Young adult fiction has been besieged by an endless supply of post-apocalyptic tales, but shouldn’t these same writers start looking at a post-jihadist world?
This week’s events in Paris may mark a tipping point in the consciousness of the Western world to the real threat of radical Islam, which equates cartoonists as suitable military targets in their war versus the West, but radical Islamic group, Boko Haram, has torched more than 10 villages in Nigeria and 2,000 people are missing in the last week. Americans and Europeans are fixated on events in Paris, but Boko Haram is an African killing machine.
Of course Boko Haram translates to “Western education is sinful”, but why write a novel about a post-jihadist world?
Many Americans enjoy poking fun at the French. We tend to question how tough they are as a nation and as a people, and laugh at the thought of the Maginot Line stopping the advance of Hitler’s tanks. We choose to eat Freedom Fries instead of french fries, and view French cinema as something akin to attending an opera or a chamber music recital.
As Western nations who share a history of championing the ideals of liberty and personal freedom, yesterday’s terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, by two radicalized Muslim brothers had an eerie familiarity with the Boston Marathon Bombing. With Djokar Tsarnaev’s Boston Marathon Bombing trial initiating jury selection a day earlier, the world was once again reminded of how words, thoughts and images, can become bullets in guns to perform a mass execution.
For those who choose to fault the editors, journalists and cartoonists, of Charlie Hebdo for ridiculing Islam, and making themselves easy targets for an ideological attack not waged with words but bullets; the organizers of the Boston Marathon and the runners who keep this great event alive were completely innocent of waging satirical cartoon attacks against The Prophet or Islam.
The Boston Marathon takes place on Patriots’ Day, which is a holiday only celebrated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Children have the day off from school, parents take their kids to view the race and the army of runners who breathe unique life into this special event, and college students use the day to cheer the pack of runners and hoist a dozen beers. Charlie Hebdo and the Boston Marathon have nothing in common with each other, but each has been used by a pair of radicalized, extremist Muslim brothers to punish the infidels of the West; and in a strange set of circumstances, each attack has perhaps done more to forge a bond between the people of France and the United States.
As the world has witnessed, Western journalists and aid workers have been beheaded when ransoms were not paid to secure their release. Performed as righteous acts to resurrect a lost caliphate, these acts of murder performed by Western jihadists have only strengthened the resolve of Western nations to the threat posed by radical Islamic groups, who seek to create a world that bears no resemblance to the ideals of liberty and freedom. When journalists are under attack, transparency and truth are under attack.
Charlie Hebdo has as much right to print its satirical cartoons, as David Duke does to hold a white supremacist rally in the state of Louisiana. Free speech must be protected whether we like the message or the means in which it is conveyed. Without freedom of speech, we are turning our backs on a democratic ideal that was essential to the birth of the republic in both France and the United States.
An attack on Charlie Hebdo or the Boston Marathon is not simply a terrorist attack, but it causes people to pause and consider – a truly existential moment. It makes a person consider what is important in his or her life. The French woke up this morning and went to work. A day after the Boston Marathon Bombing, Bostonians woke up and went to work. Neither people will succumb to fear and become victims of terrorist acts that are intended to violently alter and obliterate Western values and norms. Once again, the terrorists have lost.
The figures are in and Michigan Man, Jim Harbaugh, has signed a seven-year, $35 million dollar contract with a $2 million dollar signing bonus. The deal also includes a provision where Harbaugh will be eligible for a 10 percent raise after the third and fifth year of his contract.
Harbaugh will not be the highest paid coach in college football, and that is better optically for the university and its coach, but Harbaugh won’t be shopping the clearance rack at Walmart for his khakis.
Watching the press conference today, there was a rising tide of good feeling and bonhomie associated with the selection of Harbaugh, but the cold, hard reality of Michigan football will eventually rear its ugly head.
This is not a school that hired Jim Harbaugh to win the Big Ten’s East Division, but a big time football program desperately in need of validation through a Big Ten championship and a national title. (This isn’t We Are Marshall.) Somehow, I don’t get the feeling the folks in the SEC are too worried about the resurrection of Michigan when Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide reloads year after year.
With Harbaugh at the helm, Michigan’s alums and fans expect to win a national championship, but are these people in touch with reality and the present landscape of college football? Harbaugh will need to challenge the power of the SEC, compete for elite recruits and make Michigan a destination for future pros. What high school quarterback, with NFL aspirations, wouldn’t want to be mentored by Harbaugh? Will that be enough for Harbaugh’s program to beat the SEC and Ohio St. for recruits that can make Michigan a perennial powerhouse? Michigan football is an unwieldy beast that has a voracious appetite for success, and this beast will not hesitate to devour a struggling Michigan man.
Want To Be an NFL Owner?
At the New York Jets press conference announcing the firings of General Manager John Idzik and Head Coach Rex Ryan, owner Woody Johnson started speaking extemporaneously about former Jet, current Patriot, and All World cornerback, Darelle Revis, who will be a free agent.
Johnson committed a blatant act of tampering, but what surprises me is the sheer stupidity of most NFL owners. Woody Johnson has proven to be at the top of that class. Purchasing the Jets for $635 million in January of 2000, Woody Johnson has proven himself to be a poor communicator and an inept manager of a professional sports franchise, but his net worth makes him a Teflon Don that has a boot on the neck of Jets fans for years to come.
A person who lacks charisma and leadership skills will be tasked with hiring the next coach of the New York Jets. Johnson has hired Charlie Casserly and Ron Wolf as old school NFL consiglieres to assist him, but Woody Johnson will have the ultimate say as to whom replaces Rex Ryan.
If Woody Johnson wasn’t an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, would he ever amass wealth in today’s world?
In the United States, there are perhaps a few hundred people who can purchase an NFL team. I am not one of those people, but I am supremely confident that I could run the New York Jets more efficiently than Woody Johnson and the Atlanta Falcons better than Arthur T. Blank. After dismissing Mike Smith as head coach, the Falcons have decided to go in a different direction and bring in edgier players. How soon we forget Mike Vick’s dogfighting scandal, Bobby Petrino walking out on the team, and the culture of chronic dysfunction that plagued Arthur T. Blank’s Dirty Birds before Mike Smith took over the sideline.
The most successful NFL franchises are owned by men who can identify the right front office talent, hold employees accountable, and get the fuck out of the way when they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
The Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and the Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam are perfect examples of egocentric jag-offs who refuse to get the hell out of the way.
With his ubiquitous Jets hat, Woody Johnson has the air of a prep school dilettante who has found a club sport to occupy his time. The Jets give Woody street cred at the country club, but he lacks the ability to make difficult decisions. Woody rakes in the bucks for the RNC, but the Jets chose to stay under the salary cap for the 2014 season.
Rex Ryan should have been fired when John Idzik was named general manager two years ago. Idzik did not want Rexy as his coach, Rexy did not want Geno Smith as his quarterback, and Woody didn’t know what the hell he was doing. The Jets have a weak owner, and weak owners are routinely punished in the NFL, which should be in line with Woody’s political views.
Mike Grimm
Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm (R) is looking for a job, and he’d bring some Staten Island win or I’ll toss you off the third deck leadership to Met Life Stadium.
Rex
I would hire Rex Ryan to lead my team when he learns clock management, his sideline doesn’t constantly appear like a NASCAR pit crew on Adderall, and he takes an interest in grooming a quarterback.
I would hire Rex to make a socially acceptable sex tape, but he might refrain from making a sexually explicit fetish video as it could be potentially career damaging.
NFL Blues
The NFL bores me. The NFL is a chameleon that will alter its product for the greatest Return On Investment. Fantasy leagues explode and the NFL quickly shifts to a league that loves the pass and hates the run. Tackling is treated as a necessary evil, but we sure don’t want to alienate our viewers with images of players leaving the field unable to remember their own names, the name of their wife sitting in the Family Section, or the name of their girlfriend in Section 202.
How much does the University of Michigan value a Michigan man to lead a football program that has fallen to the depths of being a bottom feeder in the Big Ten?
Reportedly Jim Harbaugh will receive a six-year, $48 million dollar contract from his alma mater, which would make him the highest paid coach in college football. According to USA Today, Alabama’s Nick Saban is the nation’s highest paid college football coach at $7,160,187. In the NFL, Forbes has New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton atop the money list with an average salary of approximately $8 million dollars per year.
Harbaugh’s deal appears to equal the best paid coach in the NFL, and will surmount any current deal in college football until Alabama quickly gives Nick Saban another raise. If Harbaugh was such a Michigan man, did the school need to provide him with the highest salary in all of college football to prevent him from pursuing another NFL opportunity?
The argument will be made that for Harbaugh to forego his dream of winning a Super Bowl – and achieving football Valhalla – Michigan not only needed but had to go to any heights to hire a coach that could potentially resurrect a Big Ten program that now has more in common with Rutgers than with in-state rival, Michigan State. Eight million dollars will make any decision easier, but has anyone considered that Harbaugh is a Michigan man and shouldn’t need dirty, filthy lucre to return to idyllic Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor is clearly not an idyllic destination for any football coach. Michigan never embraced Rich Rodriguez as a Michigan man, and just fired a Michigan man, Brady Hoke. This is an athletic department struggling to find an identity, and has struggled to solve the two issues that undermine all athletic departments: the search for an effective athletic director and a winning football coach.
Harbaugh’s yearly salary is pocket change to the Michigan Athletic Department. Harbaugh will become one of – if not the – most powerful figure on the Michigan campus. He is a Michigan man, which is such a crock of self-pretentious bullshit perpetrated by Michigan alums and fans, that it makes me want to watch Michigan State and Ohio State kick the crap out of the Wolverines for decades to come.
It doesn’t matter that Jim Harbaugh is a Michigan man. It’s far more important that Harbaugh is a good football coach, which he has demonstrated at the University of San Diego, Stanford and with the San Francisco 49ers. In essence, $8 million dollars bought Michigan a Michigan man. Money talks and any Michigan man will listen to the sweet siren call of money.
Disclaimer: I strongly dislike Michigan alums and fans with their self-aggrandizing visions of their university and its athletic teams. To tweak these people, I’d like to utter four letters to these Bo Schembechler boobs: NJIT
Quick Hits
Dunkin’ Donuts is the official coffee of Liverpool FC in the Premier League. It’s nice to know that John Henry’s ownership group has allowed Masshole Nation to invade the shores of Great Britain.
It now appears to be socially acceptable to appear in a sex tape but not a porn movie.
I saw Santa Claus kissing Mommy under the Christmas tree. After wrapping all of the gifts and presents, placing them under the tree, and making sure Santa and his reindeer have fresh cookies and milk, no one is kissing anyone.
How many people cook a goose for Christmas? I’ve cooked a goose and it’s not easy to get it right.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie rooting for the New York Rangers.
The New Jersey Devils have three head coaches (Lou Lamoriello, Scott Stevens and Adam Oates). The New York Rangers are the hottest team in the NHL and own an eight-game winning streak heading into tonight’s tilt versus the Dallas Stars. The Rangers only have one head coach.
In the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, Boston College loses to Penn St. because the Eagles have had a peculiar inability to successfully complete extra-point attempts. In OT, the Eagles missed a PAT wide right. High school teams can do this shit right. I thought wide right only applied to Bobby Bowden’s Florida State and former Buffalo Bills kicker, Scott Norwood.
In a silent protest, NYC cops continue to turn their back to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. I guess silent protests are alright unless you’re a St. Louis Ram holding his hands above his head to protest the grand jury’s decision regarding Michael Brown.
Have taken a shine to Southern Tier’s 2XMas beer.
I am a devout believer in the Great Pumpkin, but I fear pumpkin beer. It’s like drinking your grandmother’s spice rack.
Sage or thyme on a roasted turkey? Or perhaps both?
I tried to watch a PBS documentary on Richard Pryor and it had a narcoleptic quality to it. How can anything about Richard Pryor put a person to sleep with the exception of Brewster’s Millions?
Johnny & Chevy
Watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation the other night, and I disliked this in 1989 and still hate it in 2014. Christmas Vacation is a poor Randy Quaid second cousin to Vacation and European Vacation. In 1989, I never thought that the actor who portrayed Rusty would become one of 2014’s highest paid sitcom stars, which is The Big Bang Theory‘s Johnny Galecki.
Yesterday at Larz Anderson’s Outdoor Skating Rink in Brookline, Massachusetts, the skaters were moving in a counter-clockwise fashion to Led Zeppelin. Back in the day, I used to rock out to organ music at Mennen Arena’s public skate.
Pulled pork does not belong on pizza.
If I referred to a Trader’s Joe employee as Magnum P.I., would anyone get the reference?
For a little over a week, I have been suffering through a head cold that has made me question my hold on reality. It’s a cold/virus that refuses to relinquish its hold – my head feels like rubber cement has been injected between my ears – and it’s as if I am constantly wearing a damp shroud that is impersonating my melanin-challenged skin.
Throughout this week, I have been cheery and ridiculously delightful. If you believe that, you probably also believe Ebola is a great Scrabble word and not the current pandemic that threatens amateur bowlers in New York City.
The week wasn’t great, but then the New York Football Giants decide to ruin my Sunday night with a 38-17 loss to the defending Super Bowl champion, the Pete Carroll-coached, cheatin’ Seattle Seahawks. The Giants competed for three quarters, but were blown out in a fourth quarter that made me question dedicating any time to a football franchise that has as much talent as an episode of America’s Got Talent.
New York’s defense failed to grasp, understand, marginally understand, adapt to or have a fuckin’ clue with Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson and his mastery of the read option versus a defense that requires a bulk purchase of Cialis. Statistically, the Giants have never trotted out on the field a defense worse than what has been cobbled together for the last four games. This linebacking corps should be sent to Jon Bon Jovi’s Sayreville War Memorial High School; where next year, they could attempt to jump-start a high school football program that is in a Wallenda free fall from hazing incidents that would be more suitable to residents of Rahway State Prison.
This season is over. Expect big changes with the G Men. Coach Tom Coughlin will most probably be nudged into retirement. Giants general manager Jerry Reese, who I believe is far more culpable than the demoralized Tom Coughlin, needs to execute a great draft or unearth free agents that can play professional football at a high level to retain his job but it can be easily argued that we are far beyond that point. Reese has failed to build roster depth, which every successful NFL team needs to achieve, and that depth has to be created by finding sleepers in the draft or some goddamn fuckin’ free agent linebackers who can tackle! It’s not easy to find these draft sleepers, but the Giants are facing a formidable talent gap that leaves them closer competitively to the Oakland Raiders than the Seattle Seahawks.
Yes, the G Men are facing injuries at key positions, but that’s the nature of the NFL. Losing All Pro wide receiver Victor Cruz to a season-ending injury would negatively affect any team’s offense, but when the Giants offer the underperforming and maddeningly erratic Rueben Randle as a substitute for Cruz – someone needs to watch more tape on Randle because he makes me want to throw large objects through my television screen. Not crushed beer cans or pretzels, but this clown makes me want to throw Wile E. Coyote Acme anvils, computer monitors and smart cars through a flat screen.
Every time I watch a Giants game, Rueben Randle causes my blood pressure to spike. I contemplate slipping some nitroglycerin under my tongue to quell the symptoms of agita, because this motherfucker has been shortening my life. Randle would be an inadequate fourth or fifth wide receiver for most teams, but with the Giants, he was viewed as a passable second wide out heading into the season. The guy runs tortuous Lewis & Clark receiver routes, his reads suggest that he needs to be introduced to quarterback Eli Manning and his hands are better suited for pizza making than football catching. This is the twenty-three-year-old’s third season with the Giants, and Randle’s performance indicates that staying at LSU for his senior year would not have hurt this kid.
It’s not only Rueben Randle that causes an involuntary gag reflex from this diehard Giants fan. The offensive line is more porous than the Syrian border. Granted the offensive line is a work in progress, with rookie Weston Richburg starting at left guard and second-year right tackle Justin Pugh, and that doesn’t bode well for Eli Manning enjoying a comfortable post-game sleep nor should it prevent rookie running back, Andre Williams, from doing a comprehensive search for a New Jersey chiropractor. Pugh started the year strong but his play has deteriorated as of late, and Richburg’s claim to fame could be a Matt O’Dwyer nasty streak to make up for what he lacks in technique.
Looks like the Alewife stop on the MBTA.
Special teams have been mired in mediocrity. Could the Giants find a punt returner or kick returner that has the ability to make tacklers miss?
After nine games, the Giants are averaging 22.1 yards per kickoff return, which ranks 23rd in a 32-team league, and their longest kickoff return is 40 yards placing that as the 21st longest return for an individual team. Isn’t that below mediocrity? To put an end to that question, the Giants rank 29th in punt return average with an illustrious 5.8 yards per return. The longest return is 18 yards, which vaults the New York punt return team to 28th in the NFL. This is an impotent group that should be seeking Cialis handouts from the defense.
Please play the David Wilson card with me. The retired running back/kick returner was never a guarantee for this season, and I’ve always believed that Jerry Reese makes little effort to find explosive return men. Again, Jerry Reese needs to locate some talent.
After all of this palaver, the Giants sit at 3-6. There are seven weeks of Big Blue agony remaining in 2014, but where is the return on my investment? Should I commit approximately 23 additional hours (7 games) to watch an untalented football team, led by a lame duck coach, who has been provided a bevy of players that would have fought to make Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals of the defunct USFL?
New Jersey Generals Doug Flutie & Donald Trump
My head may be filled with a substance that has muddled my ability for critical thought, but the better question to ask is: What is messing with Jerry Reese’s mind?
Losing to the Seahawks sucks, but my night only got worse. Having prepared a pregame meal of nachos loaded with jalapenos, thai chili peppers, poblano peppers, onions, parsley and extra sharp cheddar cheese, my delicate innards were a maelstrom ignited by Giants’ dyspepsia and a poorly conceived menu choice for someone suffering from cold/virus related diarrhea. After the game ended, I then constructed a three-egg omelette, with a chopped-up Dogfish Head brat sautéed with poblano peppers and then splashed with a few spoonfuls of black bean corn salsa. Topped with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, this was a truly tasty after game meal, but a couple of days of diarrhea had ravaged and exposed my sphincter muscles leaving them defenseless to the ferociousness of peppers who were organic agents of mass destruction.
My head hurt, my heart hurt, and my ass would have been a suitable landing site for smokejumpers. I was a complete mess, and thinking about the Giants was no solace. I would have viewed Mick Jagger’s solo material as a bitter salve to my current state, or being mandated to listen to the audio book of John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van, performed by Miley Cyrus, as a soothing balm to my torn up ass, heart and head.
Vintage Smokejumpers
Maybe that’s what I’ll do with my Sundays, come up with the most inane performers of audio books. The Bling Ring recited by Henry Hill? Robert DeNiro delivers White Oleander? This is clearly a niche market that has been ignored for too long, and my rejection of Jerry Reese’s woefully constructed Giants may give me the opportunity to flesh out this growth industry.
Alright, so maybe we’re not quite a youth soccer juggernaut, but sitting in first place with one game remaining on the schedule, and in possession of a 6-2 record accords this team of eight- and nine-year-old boys a measure of success that merits a little bit of respect.
I’ve spent the last two months practicing twice a week with this group of boys, and then testing our practice skills in a weekly game, where each game is punctuated by feats of soccer skill that leave you shaking your head at the sheer genius of young boys or laughing at the absolute folly of their latest perplexing tactical decision. It’s been a season that has made me question anyone’s voluntary decision to coach youth sports, but the boys are what make it fun and at times maddeningly exasperating.
Starting out the year, 5-0, the coach was placed in a position of divine reverence that forced all people seeking an audience with him to shield their eyes from the luminosity reflecting off his grand visage. But, as in any great tale there are trials to overcome, and a two-game losing streak unearthed detractors that were not repelled by the golden light refracting off a now bowed but not broken youth soccer coach.
Our two-game losing streak allowed our most temperamental and immature player to start an open rebellion versus the coach at practice. Being our top goal scorer and skillful with the ball, this player had received not preferential treatment but a certain indulgence in his trying ways. As his mother informed me early in the season, “This happens at school. It happens at church. And it happened at baseball.”
Supremely confident in my ability to connect with a behaviorally-challenged eight-year-old boy, I never envisioned a day where the kid would have the temerity to leave practice with, “You’re mean and you’re fat.” The strange thing about the fat comment is that I’ve lost weight running around two days a week with these kids, but in this kid’s world, I am a fat fuck who looks like Santa Claus.
The “mean and fat” salvo was launched after his team lost a scrimmage, 30-14, and he chose to deal with his frustration by waging an ad hominem attack on his once all-knowing and all-powerful coach. In the scrimmage, I explained that goals could be scored in the traditional manner and that three consecutive passes between teammates would also be awarded a goal. This kid loves to score goals, but loathes passing the ball and this reluctance to play a team game had crushed us in a 6-1 loss. As his team was losing badly, in the aforementioned scrimmage, our prideful striker refused to pass the ball and launched one long-range blast after another at the goal – resulting in his three teammates angrily beseeching him to pass the ball. I even called a time out, so this unraveling team could find a solution to their passing quandary but that was unsuccessful.
What I came to realize about our temperamental striker is that he is stubborn, lazy and immune to peer pressure. He is probably the only boy on the team that has not made a real connection with one of his teammates. This boy is not interested in being a good teammate, but he is focused on what is good for him – individually – and that is scoring goals.
In a world replete with clichés, this boy’s father is a pastor. The father attended one practice, and spent the majority of it watching two other teams scrimmage. At a game, he spends as much time watching YouTube videos as he does watching his son play soccer. There is something with this boy’s relationship to his father that causes him to act in an Oppositionally Defiant manner, but I am an amateur youth soccer coach and not a child psychologist.
As the son informed me earlier at the “mean and fat” practice, “My dad doesn’t like you.” I guess there will be no novenas said for me at this man’s Sunday congregation.
And I don’t believe the pastor is alone with his antipathy. At our last game, I had a North African Tiger Mom inform me that she wanted her son to play up and not back. As she explained, “He likes playing defense, but I don’t like him playing there. I want him to play up.”
This coaching suggestion was conveyed to me as she stood right next to me in the coaching box while the game was being played in front of us. I explained that her son played defense because he was one of our best defenders, and that it was not in any way punitive. Punitive was the wrong word to use, and she bristled at that, but I was trying to coach.
Her son was going to play forward in the second half, which he did, but then he suffered from second half stomach pains that prevented him from running and he found a seat next to me on the sideline.
With one game left on our schedule, I have mixed feelings about coaching youth sports. I thoroughly enjoy coaching most of the boys, but we’re talking about young boys who are more interested in seeing how far they can boot the ball than properly trapping the ball. It can be trying, but when a boy runs up to you with a huge smile on his face and exclaims, “Hey Coach!”, that sincerity and happiness is palpable.
What some of these parents don’t understand: I am a volunteer.
I religiously show up at practice two days a week. I coach the games. At the conclusion of each home game, I put away the goals and equipment, which involves moving these brutally awkward and heavy sandbags across the field. I deal with their sometimes insulting and difficult sons. I pick up clothing, soccer balls and gear left behind by the boys. I allow brothers or sisters to participate in practice, so please don’t give me any coaching suggestions or tell your son you dislike me. It’s alright that you dislike me, but tell your kid after the season ends.
I know I have a lot more to learn. And at tomorrow’s final practice, I need to find a way to instruct the boys how to beat a team that previously torched us in the second half for five goals and left us with our biggest defeat of the season.
The best part of this experience has been watching the team take something that was taught at practice and incorporating it into live game action. It’s been a blast to see these kids get excited about soccer, learn what a good teammate is and understand that losing is alright when the effort is there.
I may be Old School and a relic from a bygone day, where competition was embraced and winning wasn’t a bad word, but when did losing become a badge of honor? When did losing become acceptable? There is nothing wrong with losing a game, as I told my group of boys after each of our losses because Messi and Ronaldo have lost a bunch of games, but shouldn’t losing be used as a prod to get somewhere better? Losing should inspire one to work a little harder, and not some New Age parenting bullshit about negativity affecting a child’s self-esteem. When a team loses 9-0, the kids see the other team celebrating nine times. Should the winning team’s parents stop cheering after every goal? Oh, I’ve heard that.
Losing is inherently negative. One can’t change that with pithy slogans, hugs or choosing to ignore the result of the competition. Sports expose a child to negative results. That’s why winning is striven for and celebrated, because it’s so damn hard to win.
I know ISIS has beheaded two American journalists, and that these fundamentalist fucktards are now a serious threat to America and Europe. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is suffering from a mid-life crisis, which most guys deal with by purchasing a sports car or becoming familiar with a pretty, young Kremlin intern, but Putin scratches his fear of mortality by invading nations.
Obama has a lot to worry about, but I have my own shit to contend with today. I need to develop a practice plan for a Boys U-10 soccer team. U-10 translates into a bunch of easily bored eight- and nine-year-olds, who like to play tag and dodge ball more than they like to play soccer.
When I volunteered to “help out”, I never envisioned that I would have to do research on how to run a practice but soccer has become a tad more complicated than when I played at the same age. I was more concerned about getting the right number of oranges for a team snack than I was about developing a practice plan.
Being conscientious, I started watching videos demonstrating practice drills that had been rehearsed multiple times for our viewing pleasure by suburban white boys with tidy haircuts. And then I strayed into strategy and tactics, where I read posts describing the perfect formation for 6 v. 6 and this got the competitive juices flowing. I had decided on a 3-2 formation, because my team would be able to take advantage of 1 v. 1 match-ups offensively, My central defender would anchor the defense and the two fullbacks would move forward individually, when it was available, to provide support for crosses into the box. The sweet taste of victory hung in the air waiting for Luis Suarez to take a bite out of it.
Luis Suarez
At our first practice, Coach Dave quickly realized that any talk of strategy would have to be tabled. The drills I had researched were going to improve their skills, but none of the boys appeared to be all that jacked to practice two-touch passing or then move on to one-touch passing. Any drill with tag or freeze in its name was preferred to anything resembling a well-researched soccer drill.
Fortunately, I had done further research on “fun games” for the kids, which involved me running around after balls and narrowly avoiding the colossal pile of fresh dog excrement near one of our game targets. If I saw the motherfucker who didn’t pick up his dog’s hazmat pile of shit, I would have thrown it at him and his dog. I’ve always thought that if a person experienced an irate, crazy mofo, who picked up dog shit with his bare hands and threw a Russell Wilson shit spiral into their face, the asshole would never forget his or her doggie doo-doo bag again.
I’m hopping over dog shit. I’m sweating. I’m trying to keep an accurate record of the score. The kids are moving closer and closer to the targets to gain a competitive advantage over their opponents. I’m stressed out, because I have never coached soccer and I suck at the game. I have been a dismal failure at this game for my entire life, which includes being unceremoniously cut from my high school’s freshman soccer team, and now I am the Drew Carey of youth soccer. Come on down!
Ronda Rousey and an admiring Joe Rogan
The kids then want to scrimmage, so I play for one of the sides who is short a player. A few minutes into the scrimmage, I clock a kid in the right eye with my left hand, as I make a strong Giorgio Chinaglia striker move in the box. The kid goes down like a Ronda Rousey UFC opponent, but I resist the opportunity to trash-talk his weak ass. (Actually, the kid went down briefly and then jumped up and got back into the fray.) As one of the kids said, “The coach hit him.”
Yep, the coach hit him. Maybe I should concentrate on passing the ball to my teammates and staying out of the penalty area with my Giorgio Chinaglia arsenal of offensive moves. My team lost, but I made the winning team run sprints to know the pain required of victory. Nah, I didn’t do that, but it’s not a bad thought for today’s practice.
Giorgio Chinaglia of the New York Cosmos
Today’s practice is going to feel like playing soccer in a Hawaiian lava field with piles of dog shit scattered all about. I will run off a few pounds. Coach kids on a game that I lack any talent for, but when has talent ever stopped a committed American? I’ll make these boys into a winning juggernaut – not kidding about that – and life will get a little less stressful after tomorrow’s away match.
That’s if we win. If we lose, I’ll be at the computer seeking to find how I create a soccer juggernaut from the fragile minds and bodies of young boys. Uh … no coach was able to do anything with me on a soccer field, but I have a good feeling these boys are a lot more talented than a young, sunburnt Sheridan.
Saturday morning arrives a little later after visits to local breweries and experiencing some Friday night frivolity. The night started out with a quick visit to Night Shift’s new tap room in Everett, Massachusetts, and ended at the Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville, Massachusetts. Living in the golden age of beer, I can only marvel at how Michelob was once considered the Cadillac of American beers.
But this post isn’t about the vibrant beer scene located in Chelsea, Everett and Somerville, Massachusetts. I’m going to address that a little farther down the road.
What I want to write about is the unbridled joy I experienced watching Chelsea defeat Everton, 6-3, in Saturday’s marquee match-up of the English Premiere League. No doubt this match will be named the Barclay’s EPL match of the week and it will be re-broadcast on NBC Sports in between hunting and fishing shows. I’ve never thought of American or British hooligans as outdoorsy types, but perhaps that scene was edited from Green Street Hooligans.
Adrian!
I had been surfing through the channels in a little bit of a fog, and then I realized that Chelsea at Everton had already kicked off across the Atlantic. Six minutes into the match Chelsea had established a two-goal lead, and then I’m thinking that Penn St. versus Central Florida in Dublin, Ireland, wouldn’t be a bad take. But Everton roared backed with a goal.
Hmmm… my curiosity was piqued.
From that point onward, this match was competitive, entertaining, bruising and a tale of David vs. Goliath, Everton has American superhero goalkeeper. Tim Howard, and he would have needed Superman/Shazam abilities to stop Chelsea’s relentless offensive attack. Everton had Seamus Coleman getting in the head of Chelsea’s superstar Brazilian striker turned Spanish national team member, Diego Costa, which finally resulted in a second half confrontation between Howard and Costa. After nearly head-butting the Brazilian douchebag, Howard was rewarded with a yellow card and became an even bigger American superhero. Of course, Costa is no stranger to head butts as he delivered one to Netherlands’ Bruno Martins Indi during Spain’s 5-1 monumental World Cup loss to the Dutch.
Didn’t Costa understand that on Friday the Brazilian economy was declared to be in a recession, and that it would be foolhardy and catastrophic to alienate Tim Howard and the global economic powerhouse he hails from? Playing for a Russian oligarch at Chelsea, one can only wonder how Costa does not understand the global economy we live in and how not to alienate economic allies. Ukraine may just be a little blip in the aforementioned economic theory.
Steven Naismith
Chelsea is deep, talented and financially backed by the Russian rubles of owner Roman Abramovich. Everton is talented but it is the likes of Steven Naismith, a Scottish firebrand midfielder, who represents the essence of Everton. Everton FC has nowhere near the financial resources of a Chelsea, but the likes of Naismith, a Seamus Coleman from Ireland and England’s own Leighton Baines give Everton FC this fan’s approval.
Losing 6-3, Everton manager Roberto Martinez may want to look at his back line, but this is undoubtedly one of the more entertaining clubs in the EPL. Saying that, I am formally announcing that I will be an Everton supporter for the 2014-15 Barclay’s English Premiere League season. I refuse to commit any farther out than the 2014-15 slate of matches, because I have no desire to replicate the sense of loss I constantly endure being a fan of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets. Life is too short to hoist another emotional boulder up a formidable psychological hill with no help on the horizon.
It’s hard to be a commitmentphobe with kits like that.
My EPL fandom is on a season-by-season approach, as I bear no physical ties or emotional baggage to Everton FC. If I want to walk away, there will be no question about my moral fiber as a sports fan because I am acknowledging that I am a hired gun. I am a Hessian which all Brits should understand.This is a one-season stand with the potential for a longer commitment if both parties are satisfied. In effect, I am announcing a prenuptial with Everton FC. I just hope not to be Catfished.
Sheeeeee – it. I would imagine that The Wire’s Clay Davis and I have no geographical understanding of where Everton is located in Great Britain. Saturday’s broadcast stated that Everton is located in the North West of England. I imagine bicycling and craft beers must be popular in the North West of England. So, sign me up!
In fact, after fifteen seconds of meticulous research, Everton is a district of Liverpool in Merseyside.
I’m sold.
Yesterday’s match between The Blues (My fandom denotes an element of familiarity with the club, as I am now a supporter for a little less than 24 hours.) and Chelsea was a rollercoaster ride of emotions that featured more plot twists and turns than a season of Clay Davis’s political stratagems and backroom bilking. The second half was a delightful romp until the big money boys from London started to home school my Blues.
Only twelve days until The Blues next match versus West Bromwich. This supporter needs to see a result where three points are earned.
There is nothing more irritating than hearing from the Boston media and Masshole Nation that the New England Patriots are going to win Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona. Let’s not let history prevent the ‘In Bill We Trust’ sycophants to believe in anything else, Belichick’s Patriots are nearly a virtual lock to be victorious in the final game of another arduous NFL season.
Though this would contradict history, there are very few folks in New England, who can envision a scenario, where the dynamic duo of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady do not capture their fourth Super Bowl. No coach in NFL history has ever gone ten years between Super Bowl wins, and that is the feat Belichick will attempt to achieve.
The longest span between Super Bowl wins was achieved by Joe Gibbs, in his first stint in Washington, where saying Redskins was politically correct within the Beltway and where his squads held aloft the Vince Lombardi Trophy in 1983, 1988 and 1992. Gibbs’ nine-year span is the mark that Belichick will try to overcome.
The history of football does not lie. It is a game that devours its young. It is a game that routinely destroys coaches by the enormous time commitment required; head coaches who burn out, breakdown and watch the game inexorably pass them by. The game holds no promises and a Super Bowl victory is far from guaranteed.
The oldest coach to win a Super Bowl was achieved by the then 65-year-old Tom Coughlin with his New York Giants in 2012. Ironically, the Giants victory came against Belichick’s Pats.
Bill Belichick will be 62 when Super Bowl XLIX is played on February, 1, 2015. In the history of the Super Bowl, only four head coaches have led their teams to a championship and been over the age of 60.
At the age of 61, Weeb Ewbank won Super Bowl III with his underdog New York Jets in 1969. Super Bowl XXXIV was garnered by the 63-year-old Dick Vermeil, who conquered burn out from his Philly years and led the St. Louis Rams to a title. 61-year-old Tom Coughlin’s New York Giants beat the greatest team ever assembled by Bill Belichick, according to Patriots Nation, ending the Pats’ 18-0 run into the postseason and securing the Giants a third Vince Lombardi Trophy in 2008. And cheatin’ Pete Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks shellacked Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVII, 43-8, when Petey was 62,
Yes, a coach can win a Super Bowl in his sixties, and perhaps Belichick is the best candidate to do that but the history that suggests otherwise is immense. In 48 Super Bowls, only four winning head coaches have been in their sixties. An actuary would not place money on Belichick and his New England Patriots.
If the age of Belichick doesn’t dissuade a deep belief in the invincibility of Belichick’s 2014 Patriots, how about the age of starting quarterback Tom Brady? Brady is 37. At the age of 37 and 38, Denver’s John Elway won back-to-back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998. At the age of 37, Jim Plunkett quarterbacked Al Davis’s silver and black Oakland Raiders to a 38-9 drubbing of a Joe Gibbs’ Washington group with a 35-year-old Joe Theismann under center. Elway and Plunkett are the two oldest quarterbacks to win Super Bowls.
The data would show that nearing the age of 40 does not equal Super Bowl wins for quarterbacks. As much as pundits like to laud the role of experience, the game of football is usually played best by young men, who can withstand the physical pounding of a sixteen-game regular season and then entry into a postseason playoff tournament. New England zealots will highlight the advances in conditioning and sports medicine that allow today’s athletes to defy the creeping effects of age, but that belief is not demonstrated in the history of the game.
Possibly a 38-year-old Peyton Manning or a 37-year-old Tom Brady can buck the odds, but their lack of youth is a problem that cannot be ignored. Manning and Brady are riding Canton-bound careers to football Valhalla, but age will win out. For those citizens in Patriot Nation, who fervently believe that Brady will play effectively into his forties, this would be a rationale only a senile Al Davis would offer. Clearly Manning’s Broncos and Brady’s Patriots appear to be the elite of the AFC, but this is a cruel game that is adverse to romance and fairy tales. Brady and Manning are staring at long odds as their bodies creep nearer to 40 than they do to 30.
The Belichick and Brady collaboration is nearing its end, and there may be one last title to grab, but ten years without a Super Bowl ring would suggest New England’s halcyon days ended some time ago.
Last night I drank the last remaining Narragansett Del’s Shandy. The fridge is now bereft of that summer concoction and reality is starkly reminding me that summer is nearly extinguished.
I refuse to relent. And I will deny the advent of fall until I see some jackass New Englander wearing fleece and a wool hat on a 65 degree day, and then I will still object to the impending appearance of autumn.
To slow the advance of autumn, there are Russian troops crossing over the border into the Ukraine. Are these the Boys of Summer or the Dogs of War?
College football is waiting to explode over Labor Day weekend, and that might result in a few high ankle sprains amongst tailgaters leaping off sports utility vehicles to save that last Narragansett Del’s Shandy from the hands of a beer neophyte.
This is a world in flux, but rest assured there will be a Labor Day weekend traffic stop to catch that inebriated college football fan driving back from his alma mater’s opening game. We will be warned, but how can one final Narragansett Del’s Shandy put us over the edge? It’s lemonade for cryin’ out loud! Alright, with a little beer.
The SEC has kicked off tonight with Texas A&M traveling to Charleston to take on ol’ ball coach Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks. In the NFL, the New England Patriots are traveling to Met Life Stadium, to take their rightful place in the Jimmy Garoppolo Debutante Ball, where the New York Giants will try to knock off Jimmy’s Vera Wang gown in both teams’ final exhibition game. The Giants are 4-0 in the preseason, and that is a bigger crock of crap than Russia denying any knowledge of Russian troops invading Ukraine. Putin is a bad man, in both the literal and Urban Dictionary sense, and the Giants are a bad football team.
Bad attributed to the New York Football Giants does not have any connection to bad ass or bad motherfuckers. Those could be used as descriptors of the crazy motherfuckers, who shot Suge Knight, at Chris Brown’s post MTV VMAs party. Suge Knight did play college ball at UNLV and two NFL replacement games with the Rams, and maybe his hit men were good union men who finally wreaked vengeance for Suge crossing an NFLPA picket line.
Suge Knight Back in the Day at Lynnwood High
In New England labor news, Arthur T. is more popular than Bill Belichick. And if you’re not familiar with Arthur T, then you’re not from New England. After the Logan Mankins trade, even Arthur S. is more popular than New England’s penny-pinching coach.
Arthur T.
Detroit Tigers ace, David Price, surrendered nine consecutive third inning hits to the Bronx Bombers in Wednesday night’s 8-4 loss. The Tigers prevailed 3-2 in Thursday’s matinee, but the Yankees look ready to scrap their way to an October wild-card run in The Captain’s final season. Would Putin root for the Yankees or support the Boston Red Sox? Leaning to the Commie Bastard being a Red Sox fan, so he could wear the socks to May Day.
And here is the question that I wrestle with at night: If Suge Knight and Vladimir Putin were to endure facial transplant surgeries and swap visages, would the world be a better or worse place?
toughdsheridan 