I went into Sunday evening with the thought that, despite my apprehension about the Madonna halftime show at the Super Bowl, I would not be writing about said show as my column for this week. After all, I wrote about the same subject a mere two years back, when they dug up The Who to underwhelm us. I hate to repeat myself, but it is occasionally unavoidable. This is one of those times. What a total crapfest.

I am really curious to know who makes the decision as to who will perform each year. I am also curious as to how that person keeps his or her job. I know that the Super Bowl is an event that transcends football, and that the audience is far more varied than it would be for any other game. Even so, did someone really think Madonna would hit the sweet spot here? Apparently, women over 35 and gay men comprise far more of the viewership than I would have expected. It seems unlikely to me that anyone else would have enjoyed that embarrassing display of awkwardness. I will grant you that I have never been a fan of Madonna, even when she was the biggest act on earth. She had a song or two that I liked, but for the most part, I was always pretty allergic to anything she did. This time, on the biggest stage of her career, she lip-synced her way through a bunch of songs, surrounded by gladiators, cheerleaders, and a neck-less Cee-Lo Green. Madonna attempted to dance in high-heeled boots and did not do it well. She stumbled more than once, and at one point, I thought she might fall off the back of the stage. The entire thing seemed awkward and poorly done. I am a fan of live music, and really dislike lip-syncing. In this case, it did not even sound like she had made new recordings of the vocals or anything. Instead, it sounded like original recordings, some from more than two decades ago. So she didn’t sing, and she danced poorly. What a treat.

I don’t know who would be a good choice for the halftime show, but I know that most of the recent ones have been awful. I understand why most of the recent choices have been closer to retirement than to the beginning of their careers, as I would expect that the lion’s share of people watching are adults, and acts like The Who, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and Prince are comfort food to many people my age. Age-wise, Madonna fits into that group. Fanbase-wise, though, she sticks out like a sore thumb. Combine that with a hideous performance like that one, and it really is a stunning miscalculation. Even my wife, who was always a huge Madonna fan, was unimpressed. They tried to appeal to a younger audience by including some current acts like Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., LMFAO (I wonder if the NFL bigwigs know what that stands for), and Cee-Lo Green, but that simply added to the mess that was the halftime festivities. My Twitter and Facebook feeds supported my opinion, as there were far more negative comments than there were positive, and most of the positive ones were to the effect of “it wasn’t that bad.”

So thanks, NFL, for giving me column fodder, if nothing else. They also helped all of the channels putting on counter-programming during halftime, as I imagine many channels were changed around that time. Next year, maybe they can get that Man Vs. Food guy to sit on stage and eat a 10-pound hamburger or something. I would find that far more entertaining.

Bad sports, continued:

2) I thought this was worth its own entry. During the god-awful cheerleader portion of the Madonna fiasco, British singer and rapper M.I.A., who was flanking Madonna along with Nicki Minaj, took a brief turn at the lead vocals. When she reached a part of the song “Give Me All Your Luvin’” where she would normally say a scatological profanity, she skipped the word but instead decided to flip the bird to the 105 million people said to be watching. I am sure that was not quite what the NFL and NBC had in mind when they booked this act in this post-wardrobe-malfunction world.

3) In one of the worst examples of violence I have ever seen connected to sports, 79 people were killed and hundreds were wounded when violence flared at the end of a soccer match between two Egyptian clubs in Port Said, Egypt. The violence appears to have been politically motivated.

4) Legendary boxing trainer Angelo Dundee, best known for training Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, died on Wednesday at the age of 90.

5) Roger Lewis, a high school football star in Ohio who was expected to sign with Ohio State on Wednesday, was arrested and charged with rape this week.

6) A bizarre battle is raging between the Utah Jazz and the greatest player in the team’s history, Karl Malone, who retired back in 2004. Malone has been outspoken about the team’s treatment of former star DeRon Williams, who was traded to the New Jersey Nets last year. Malone and team owner Greg Miller have been taking shots at each other on Twitter.

7) One day before his team was going to play in the Super Bowl, Tiquan Underwood, a reserve wide receiver, was cut by the New England Patriots. The team decided it needed a better special teams player for the game, so they cut Underwood in favor of Alex Silvestro, who was on the team’s practice squad. I think they should have cut him for that hairdo.

8) Cassanova McKinzy, a high school football player who was deciding between Clemson and Auburn this week, chose Auburn because he was concerned about the lack of a Chik-Fil-A on campus at Clemson. Yes, he actually said that. Awesome. Even better, Clemson actually does have the restaurant on campus. I guess McKinzy failed to do his research. He seemed like such a smart kid, too.

Good sports:

1) After the embarrassment that was the NFL Pro Bowl last week, league commissioner Roger Goodell said this week that he would actually consider eliminating the Pro Bowl entirely if they can’t come up with a way to make it better. Considering how bad the game has gotten, nixing it sounds like a great idea. Newly minted league MVP Aaron Rodgers, earlier in the week, was complaining about the play of his fellow players during the exhibition, which managed to make preseason games look competitive.

2) Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, considered by many to be the greatest cyclist of all time, was cleared of all doping charges by federal prosecutors this week. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has yet to make its ruling, but I would expect the same conclusion.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

A very challenging situation is developing in Indianapolis. Peyton Manning, arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, may be seeing his time in that Midwestern city coming to an end. It could, in fact, be his NFL career that is ending. The only part that is certain is that Colts fans are experiencing plenty of agita right now, and it is likely to last a little while.

Peyton Manning missed all of last season after having surgery on his neck in early September. He had actually had surgery several months earlier to repair a bulging disc, but his recovery did not go well and he ended up needing the second operation, in which he had two vertebrae fused together. The real complicating factor came two months after the first surgery, when he signed a 5-year, $90 million contract extension. He was paid $26 million for the 2011 season, during which he did not take a snap. The contract was structured in such a way that the team could walk away from it by cutting Manning before the end of the league year, which is in early March. With Manning not yet fully recovered (or even close, by most reports), it would appear to be an easy choice for the team, who will owe him a $28 million dollar payment on March 8th. Of course, it is not nearly as simple as it sounds. Manning has played his entire storied career in Indianapolis, during which he has made 11 Pro Bowls, won four MVP awards, and led the Colts to a Super Bowl title in 2007. He is one of the most popular players in the league, and severing ties with him could be disastrous for the Colts. Aside from the loss of a great quarterback, the P.R. hit alone could be catastrophic. With Manning missing last season, the team had the worst record in the league, finishing 2-14 after an 0-13 start. They have the first pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, and are likely to pick Andrew Luck, the quarterback from Stanford who is at the top of every draft board.

Perhaps the Colts are ready to wipe the slate clean and start over. After all, they recently fired Bill Polian, the architect of the team over the last 15 years, along with his son Chris, who held the title of general manager for the last three seasons. Head Coach Jim Caldwell was let go, along with the rest of his coaching staff. Chuck Pagano, the former defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens, was hired as the new head coach. If Peyton Manning weren’t Peyton Manning, this would be a pretty easy decision. Let the new coach draft his own guy and build his own team. In a lot of ways, Manning has been like a coach on the field, calling his own plays and making decisions on the fly. That could be a challenge for a new staff looking to make its own mark on the team. When you add in the huge amount of money at stake, Manning’s age (he’s 35), and the nature of his injury, it seems to me that the Colts have to cut ties with him, regardless of the public relations hit. That said, if Manning were to go on to play for another team, what would that be like for Colts fans? What if he were to lead another team to a title? The backlash would be something to see. Colts owner Jim Irsay, who will make this decision, has to be hating life right about now. There was a bit of back and forth through the media this week between Irsay and Manning, which was very unlike these guys, who have always seemed to have such a great relationship. They issued a statement of solidarity late in the week, trying to dispel the idea that they were at odds, but the situation at hand is not one that can be easily smoothed over.

It will be fascinating to see how this situation is resolved.

Bad sports, continued:

2) 19-year-old Australian tennis player Bernard Tomic was ticketed for driving violations twice on Thursday, after which he holed up in his house in an attempt to hide from police.

3) Philadelphia Eagles tight end Brent Celek was involved in a car accident early Thursday morning when a car in which he was a passenger crashed into a concrete barrier. The driver, who is not a football player, was arrested for DUI.

4) Speaking of DUIs, Aldon Smith, who had a spectacular rookie season for the San Francisco 49ers this year, got one of his own on Friday night. He was arrested in Miami.

5) Last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced that offensive coordinator Bruce Arians had retired and would not return to the team. This week, he was hired as offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts. Based on the fact that his contract with Pittsburgh was up and the team reportedly wants to return to more of a running, ball-control style of offense, it seems that his retirement was something less than voluntary.

6) Back in November, I mentioned a story about Yale quarterback Patrick Witt, who had apparently turned down the chance to do a final interview to be a Rhodes Scholar because he was unwilling to miss Yale’s rivalry game against Harvard. It appears that this was not actually true. His candidacy for the scholarship had been suspended due to a sexual assault accusation made against Witt by a fellow Yale student.

Good sports:

1) Victoria Azarenka, a 22-year-old tennis player from Belarus, had quite a week. She won her first career major, defeating Maria Sharapova for the Australian Open title on Saturday. In doing so, she took over the number one spot in the world rankings for women’s tennis.

2) Novak Djokovic picked the new year up right where he left off in the old one, winning the Australian Open in dramatic fashion. He won a marathon five set match against Rafael Nadal after nearly six hours. This was the longest final match in a Grand Slam tournament ever.

3) Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel came to the assistance of a neighbor whose house was on fire Thursday night. Cassel and his wife saw flames coming from the home’s chimney, and the quarterback ran over to the house and pounded on the door until the owner, who was unaware of the fire, came out.

4) I am not sure what would possess someone to ski across Antarctica, especially alone, but that is exactly what Felicty Aston did over the last two months. She completed her journey on Monday. I am not sure this is exactly sports, but I think it’s pretty impressive, if a bit nuts.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

I am going to preface this column by saying that I understand that there are people out there for whom the recently revealed events at Penn State involving Jerry Sandusky, children from The Second Mile, and the leadership of the university and the football program completely invalidate the incredible career and contribution to the school of Joe Paterno. I am not one of those people. I am not here to debate this point or to belittle the opinion of others. Rather, I would like to simply express my feelings about the passing of Joseph Vincent Paterno on Sunday.

I have admired Joe for as long as I can remember. As a college freshman at Penn State’s University Park campus, I remember being in awe of him and everything else that went along with that football program: the players, Beaver Stadium, and the sea of people and RVs that surrounded the stadium on gameday. The man himself, though, was the main attraction for me. The rolled up pants, the black shoes, the coke bottle glasses, and the squeaky voice all combined to make a man that was simply larger than life. The town of State College was filled with pictures of Joe, from posters to cardboard stand-ups, to t-shirts. He was everywhere. Several times, I saw him walking around campus, chatting with anyone who made a point to talk to him. When the choir I was in was preparing to perform on the Beaver Stadium field before a football game, Joe addressed us and told us how much he appreciated our contribution to the festivities. Although I had always liked Penn State football, I was not a huge fan of the team until I got there. I was such a huge sports fan, though, that I was ripe for a complete conversion to wild Nittany Lion fandom when I arrived on campus. The fact that the team went undefeated and won the national championship that season simply cemented it all as a core part of my being. 25 years later, I am an even bigger fan than I was then, if that is possible. Joe had so much to do with that.

I can’t tell you the number of people to whom I have talked about Paterno over the years. The way he ran that program, graduating more of his players than anyone else while still putting great teams on the field on a regular basis, was astonishing. Joe would quote Shakespeare during press conferences, lead pep rallies with the enthusiasm of a student, and pace the sidelines like a caged (Nittany) lion. He arrived at Penn State as a young man who just graduated from Brown in 1950, planning to be an assistant coach for a year before going to law school. He never left. His longevity will never be matched, especially when you consider that he spent all 60+ years of his coaching career at the same school. He won more games as a head coach than anyone in major college football history, and he did it without ever compromising his belief that the players were students first and athletes second.

My Twitter and Facebook feeds were absolutely dominated by talk of Joe on Sunday. The outpouring of grief and admiration from current and former players, other coaches, and various other sports dignitaries, was amazing to see. I read statements by Mack Brown (Texas football), Mike Krzyzewski (Duke basketball), Urban Meyer (Ohio State football), and even Dick Vitale (college basketball commentator). There were so many others too, each one talking about the amazing impact Joe had on the world of sports and on the lives of countless people. One theme that I saw over and over again, especially from his former players but also from many fans, was the feeling that people had lost a member of their family. I share that feeling as well. I did not know Joe Paterno, but I feel like I did.

Again, I know there are people who can only see the mistakes Joe made. He was far from perfect, just like the rest of us. I do know that there will never be another one like him, and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience his incredible career as a student and as a fan.

Good sports, continued:

2) Before Friday, Amy Rodriguez was a solid, if unspectacular, member of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team. That all changed in less than a half against the Dominican Republic, when she scored an amazing five goals to help the Americans to a 14-0 victory. She became only the fifth American woman to score five goals in a match.

3) Continuing the theme of great soccer performances by Americans, Clint Dempsey, who plays for Fulham of the English Premier League, scored a hat trick to help his team to a victory over Newcastle on Saturday.

Bad sports:

1) Roy Williams embarrassed himself, his team, and his team’s fans last weekend at the end of the Tar Heels massive loss to Florida State. North Carolina, who entered the game ranked third in the country, was crushed by the unranked Seminoles, 90-57. Not content to simply get blown out, Williams pulled his team off the bench and into the locker room to try to avoid the inevitable students-rushing-the-court scene that was about to happen, since the game was at Florida State. The problem was that there were still 14 seconds left in the game, and five reserve Tar Heel players were still on the court. I guess Williams made it clear how much those guys meant to the team.

2) Orlando Magic forward Glen Davis, known as “Big Baby,” responded to a foul call in very odd fashion on Wednesday during a game against the San Antonio Spurs. During an argument with an official, Davis decided it was time to drop his pants. A technical foul immediately followed, as you might have guessed.

3) As I have said before, social media can be a dangerous thing, especially for people with little common sense. Charles Mainor, a politician in North Jersey, was trying to show his support for the New York Giants by posting this on his Facebook page:

“We are not going to just lay down, we come to play. Who the hell do you think we are the DALLAS COWGIRLS OR THOSE GAYBIRDS FROM PHILLY . . . NO WE ARE THE NEW YORK GIANTS.”

Oops. That wasn’t so smart. He then apologized and busted out the “I have friends that are gay” line that always works so well.

4) The Texas Rangers just spent over 100 million dollars to sign a pitcher who has never thrown a pitch in a Major League game. Yu Darvish, a star in Japan, will be joining the Rangers and making a whole lot of money.

5) Sarah Burke, a freestyle skier who made her name in the X Games, died this week after a recent crash while training. She was 29.

6) If you didn’t see that pathetic rendition of the National Anthem forced upon us by Steven Tyler before the Patriots-Ravens game on Sunday, consider yourself lucky. If you are a masochist, watch it here.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

When you watch, read about, and write about sports, you come across an awful lot of cliches. Many of them originated in the world of sports, but lots of them come from elsewhere too. With as much talking as sports commentators have to do during a broadcast, I guess it makes sense that they lean on the same old expressions over and over again. Cliches become cliches for a reason, though. One big one in football is “defense wins championships.” No title was won this weekend, but this old expression certainly showed that it has some truth behind it as the New York Giants beat the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints.

The NFL regular season was an odd one this year, as several teams with awful defenses had fantastic regular seasons due to their prolific offenses. Two notable ones were the defending Super Bowl champion Packers, along with the Drew Brees-led Saints. Both of these teams masked their sieve-like defenses with firepower that few teams could stop. Quarterbacks Brees and Aaron Rodgers led the league in touchdown passes (Brees with 46 and Rodgers with 45), and threw for tons of yards. It didn’t seem to matter that they let other teams move up and down the field at will, as they could either outscore them or force turnovers to make sure they came out on top. To be fair, two of the teams that won this weekend, the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, also struggled to stop people all year, but those teams had been expected to be strong on the defensive side and had underachieved. When it came time to play a postseason game, though, those teams remembered what mattered. The Patriots stifled the Denver Broncos, who did them the huge favor of starting Tim Tebow at quarterback, allowing them to focus their efforts on stopping the run, as the pass was not much of a threat. The Giants stopped the Packers continually, beating them in convincing fashion, 37-20. The Saints went up against the 49ers, who had one of the best defenses in the league this season. The New Orleans offense is so good that even the 49ers defense was hard put to stop them, but in the end, the Niners came out on top, 36-32. It was a spectacular game, by the way, especially the last several minutes. With less than a minute to go, when the Saints needed their defense more than ever, they had no answer for Alex Smith and Vernon Davis. They will now go home, while the Niners move on to play the Giants.

My rooting interests were difficult to pin down this weekend. I did not want to root for the Patriots, as offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien is Penn State’s new head coach, and I would love for him to be able to focus on the last month of the recruiting period, but anyone who reads this column knows that I was not rooting for Tebow and the Broncos. I am ambivalent about the Packers, but I won’t root for the Giants under any circumstances. The Saints-49ers and the Ravens-Texans matchups did not move me emotionally either way, really. I am happy, though, that defense made a difference in these games. I am always bothered when people complain that defensive battles are “boring,” while high-scoring affairs are “exciting.” This may be true, to some extent, if you don’t study the game. If you do, though, you know that when it really matters, you’d better be able to stop someone. Because they couldn’t, the Packers and the Saints saw their seasons end.

Good sports, continued:

2) I mentioned it briefly above,  but if you did not see the end of the 49ers-Saints game, check out the highlights. The last four minutes were pretty unbelievable, with the lead changing hands four times over that period. I have never given San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith any credit at all, but he went up several notches in my eyes after that performance.

3) Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, only 24 years old, won his third player of the year award from FIFA this week, a remarkable achievement for someone so young. Messi also plays for Argentina’s national team.

4) It’s not enough, but it’s a start: the NCAA and the BCS seem to be zeroing in on a plan to have a four-team playoff in college football‘s highest division starting in 2014. Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, is in favor of it, as are the leaders of several of the major conferences, including some who had previously opposed it, like the Big Ten’s Jim Delany.

5) I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I need to say it: can we please stop talking about Tebow now? The Patriots hopefully put the conversation to rest for a while. I listen to sports radio, but I had to avoid it for most of last week, as it was all-Tebow, all the time.

Bad sports:

1) It’s bad enough that the BCS “championship game” was a rematch of a game that happened earlier this season between LSU and Alabama. No one outside of the fans of the SEC wanted this anyway. The fact that the game was a snoozer was the real problem. I am not contradicting my earlier statement here about enjoying defense. I like the fact that the Alabama defense was so good. This game was completely lopsided, though, and that makes for some boring viewing. LSU could not even manage 100 yards of total offense, which is embarrassing.

2) Tragedy struck the family of Joe Philbin, the offensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers, this week. His son Michael, originally reported missing last Sunday, was found dead on Monday when police pulled his body from a river in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. His death appears to have been an accident. After several days away from the team, Philbin was with the team for its game on Sunday against the Giants.

3) Francisco Rodriguez Jr., a high school soccer goalie in Los Angeles, was shot and killed at his front door on Wednesday, shortly after playing a game against a local high school.

4) Well this is embarrassing. I think I saw someone do this when I was a kid playing soccer at camp.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

I suppose it might be because my team is not participating, but I found the NFL playoffs particularly painful this weekend. It is probably because of gambling and fantasy football, but I have found that most football fans watch the playoffs, even when their team did not make it, which is different than what I have seen with most other sports. I normally enjoy these Eagles-free games just because they are football, but I found these games pretty awful. As always, I make no pretense of being objective. My own dislikes had a lot to do with my disgust, although bad officiating and bad play certainly entered into it.

The first negative for me occurred on Saturday during the game between the New Orleans Saints and the Detroit Lions. In the second quarter, with the Lions up 14-7, Drew Brees fumbled when hit by Willie Young, a defensive end for the Lions. After a bit of bouncing around, the ball was picked up by linebacker Justin Durant, who had a wide-open path to the end zone and a two-touchdown lead. For no apparent reason, though, a referee blew his whistle. That signaled the play was dead, and that was that. Sure, the Lions still had the ball, but this was a huge moment in the game. Instead of having a quick 21-7 lead and all the momentum, the Lions went three and out and punted. The Saints went on a drive that ate up the remaining time in the first half, which ended with a field goal that cut the Lions’ lead to 14-10. The Saints went crazy in the second half, scoring touchdowns on all five of their possessions, winning 45-28. Would the game have turned out different if that ref had not screwed up that play by blowing the whistle? There is no way to know. With the way that football is affected by momentum, it is certainly a possibility. Sure, officials make mistakes, but this was a pretty bad one.

Sunday was worse. First, the Atlanta Falcons laid an absolute egg against the New York Giants, losing 24-2. Yes, they scored two points in a playoff game. Two points, against a Giants defense that was ranked 27th in the league in yards allowed and 25th in points allowed during the regular season. The Giants allowed 28 or more points in ten of their sixteen games this year, and the Falcons managed two. Oh, and by the way, the two points came on a safety, of course, when Eli Manning was called for intentional grounding in his own end zone. So the Falcons offense actually scored zero points. Awful. Please note by the way, that as an Eagles fan, I despise the Giants. Later in the day, things got worse. I am, in no way, a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have noted here previously the disgust I have for their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. I would normally enjoy a Steelers loss, but even that enjoyment was taken away from me, as the loss was to Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. Tebow is possibly the worst quarterback I have ever seen, yet he manages to find ways to win. The Steelers defense, unlike that of the Giants, was ranked first this season in both yards allowed and points allowed. Despite that, they looked awful on Sunday against Denver. Tebow threw only 21 passes, and completed less than half of them as usual, but those ten completions went for 316 yards, including 80 on the first play of overtime on a touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas. Revolting. I had to close Twitter, as my feed exploded with Tebow-mania. I am pretty sure that is something for which I will never be in the mood.

Count week one of the NFL playoffs as something less than stellar for me, I guess. I hope the weeks to come bring less unpleasantness.

Bad sports, continued:

2) University of Tennessee swimming coach John Trembley, in his 23rd year coaching the Vols, was fired this week and is being investigated by Knoxville police for an unspecified reason. The firing was for “gross misconduct,” so I am guessing the alleged crime is a pretty bad one.

3) I guess it had been a while since the national media had a reason to bash Philadelphia sports fans, so some idiotic Flyers fans decided to provide them with some real ammunition. After the Winter Classic on Monday, a group of fans were caught on video beating up a two men wearing New York Rangers jerseys outside a nearby restaurant. Perfect.

4) Pittsburgh Steelers running backs coach Kirby Wilson was seriously injured in a fire at his home on Friday morning. He is expected to recover.

5) Chicago Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro has been accused of sexual assault by a woman in Chicago. Castro denies any wrongdoing.

6) If I am somehow ever coaching in the Rose Bowl, I hope that I will make sure I am not on camera before I pick my nose and eat it. Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Rudolph can not say the same.

7) This is actually a professional bowler. Hahahaha.

Good sports:

1) Tim Howard, the soccer goalkeeper best known for his solid performance in goal for the U.S. National team during the 2010 World Cup, actually scored a goal of his own during an English Premier League game on Wednesday. Howard, who plays for Everton, scored a goal on a clearance that was affected by wind and got by Adam Bogdan, the keeper for Bolton (or was it Notlob)?

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Bravado. For whatever reason, it would appear to be rampant in sports. I guess it makes some sense…athletes, especially those playing at the highest levels, are extremely competitive people by necessity. Sure, some of them motivate themselves quietly, finding everything they need to excel without having to make spectacles of themselves. Others need to play mind games, strut around like idiots, or taunt their opponents at every opportunity as ways to stoke their inner fires. On Sunday, the final day of the NFL’s regular season, there were several examples of bravado that were not only obnoxious, but also wildly misplaced, which is often another characteristic of this behavior.

Kyle Shanahan is the offensive coordinator for the woeful Washington Redskins. The guy has presided over an offense that is ranked 26th out of 32 teams in scoring offense in 2011, which is down a spot from their 25th ranked position in the 2010 season, Shanahan’s first with the Redskins. Beyond that, the team’s head coach happens to be his dad, Mike Shanahan. Yes, he had been the offensive coordinator for the Houston Texans for two seasons before coming to work for Dad, but he had been hired in Houston by Gary Kubiak, who had been an offensive coordinator for the elder Shanahan when he coached in Denver, so there is certainly a lot of nepotism involved here. Despite all of that, this gem decided that he would mouth off before his team’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. He was apparently offended by Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo’s statements about how they would have made the playoffs if the New York Jets had managed to beat the New York Giants last week, neglecting to factor in that the Eagles would have still had to beat the Redskins this week.

“F–k him, f–k these guys.  In 2012 the Redskins are gonna be the NFC East champions, and that starts right f–king today.”

Classy. Misguided, too. If you are going to throw out statements like that, it would be a good idea to do something to back it up. Instead, the ‘Skins managed just 10 points against an Eagles defense that underperformed all year and that was giving significant playing time to a bunch of guys who played very little this season, and with good reason.

As I have discussed previously, Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is definitely the type who needs to pump himself up by acting like a fool. This week’s example did not involve him stomping on anyone or taking cheap shots at his opponents, though. This time, it involved a mocking sack celebration that Suh performed late in the third quarter of his team’s game against the Green Bay Packers. After making the sack, Suh imitated Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ usual touchdown celebration, where he pantomimes slapping on a championship belt as if he were a boxer. Clever, right? Not so much. First, Rodgers was not even playing, having been given the day off in order to avoid injury and get ready for the playoffs. Instead, the sack victim was backup Matt Flynn. Second, the Lions defense was in the process of being absolutely embarrassed by the Packers, who put up 550 yards of total offense, including 480 yards passing and six touchdown passes by Flynn. Maybe this was not the best time to be celebrating a sack.

Finally, the Jets’ resident moron, Santonio Holmes, was at it again. Late in the fourth quarter, Holmes was seen screaming at his teammates in the huddle. Shortly after, he was pulled from the game and put on the bench, where he remained through the final gun. I am not sure what he was yelling about, but judging by the fact that he had exactly zero catches in the game, a 19-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins that ensured that the Jets would miss the playoffs, I hope he was complaining about his own play. The fact that Holmes was a captain for the Jets this season is one of the most astonishing things I heard during a bizarre football season.

Bravado, when you win, is acceptable, I suppose. When you lose, and do so in humiliating fashion, you should probably leave the attitude at home.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Rick Tocchet, who went from NHL tough guy to scorer to head coach, is in trouble again. Four years after pleading guilty to running a gambling ring, Tocchet was arrested at an airport in the Bahamas for failing to declare his winning from a local casino.

3) Chris Draft, a linebacker who played twelve seasons in the NFL and retired after the 2009 season, lost his wife of only one month this week. Lakeasha Draft died of cancer after a long battle.

4) It wouldn’t seem right if we didn’t have at least one player using racial epithets against another during a game each week. This time, Krys Barch of the Florida Panthers did the honors. On Saturday night against the Montreal Canadiens, Barch directed the comment at P.K. Subban, a player of Jamaican descent. Barch was ejected from the game.

5) Jorge Martinez crashed and died while riding a motorcycle in the Dakar Rally on Sunday in Argentina. Unfortunately, deaths at this race are not uncommon.

6) Maybe it was just me, but doesn’t it seem wrong that, in a year where college football is having 35 different bowl games (you read that right), a grand total of zero of them were on New Year’s Day? Due to the holiday being on a Sunday this year, and with the NFL’s regular season still happening, the usual January 1st games were moved to the 2nd. That just seems wrong to me.

Good sports:

1) New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees set the NFL’s single season record for passing yards on Monday night, breaking Dan Marino’s 27-year-old record on his final pass of the night. To put an exclamation point on it, Brees threw for 389 more on Sunday to close out the regular season.

2) Indiana University’s basketball team, so great back in the seventies and eighties but not so great since, is legitimately back this year. Three weeks after beating then number one Kentucky, the Hoosiers beat second-ranked Ohio State. They are currently 13-1.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Bill Conlin, a legendary sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News, was accused of sexual abuse this week by a number of people, all claiming to have been abused back in the seventies. Four people, including one of Conlin’s nieces, accused the writer early in the week, and several others have come forward since, all claiming that he touched them when they were children. Unlike many other situations like this, these kids or witnesses to the events actually told their parents what happened. Across the board, those parents chose to try to handle the situation themselves rather than go to the police.

After the recent revelations at Penn State and Syracuse, it’s easy to think that there must be something in the water, but it is clear that the incredible publicity surrounding the Jerry Sandusky case has emboldened others to come forward and reveal long-held secrets about things that dramatically affected their lives. I know that we are supposed to presume innocence until guilt is proven, but when a number of people separately claim something like this about the same individual, and the stories all sound very credible, it is easy to assume that the accounts are true. Beyond that, it is tough to imagine people wanting to put themselves through the public scrutiny that comes with claims like these if they has not really happened.

Of course, it is difficult to imagine what is going through the thoughts of anyone who commits a heinous crime, but in the case of pedophiles, it is even harder. What could possibly possess someone to not only be sexually attracted to a child, which is completely twisted, but to also be willing, with a conscious mind, to take the innocence of that child and to likely mess up that child’s life forever. To have those urges is sick. To act on those urges is criminal and entirely repugnant. It is becoming clear that this happens far more often than I had thought possible, and that really makes me ill. I have never been a big fan of Conlin, but I will admit that he is a very talented writer and I have read his stuff on many occasions. If these charges are true, I hope he rots in jail for the rest of his life.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Last week’s Monday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers was delayed twice by power outages at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. It made for less than stimulating television.

3) Luis Suarez, a striker for Liverpool, was suspended for eight games after using a racial slur directed at ManU’s Patrice Evra during a match back in October.

4) For the second time this season, Yale University’s football program and the Rhodes Scholarship are being mentioned together. Last time, the school’s starting quarterback, Patrick Witt, was turning down a final interview for the scholarship in order to play against Harvard. This time, head coach Tom Williams has resigned his position after it was revealed that he lied about having been a candidate to be a Rhodes Scholar on his resume.

5) Texas A&M offensive lineman Joseph Villavisencio was killed in an automobile crash on Thursday. Villavisencio, 21, was trying to avoid hitting a bird when he ran into a semi headed in the other direction near Normangee, Texas.

6) A soccer playoff game in the Netherlands ended early on Wednesday after a melee involving a fan and one of the teams’ goalkeepers. Esteban Alvarado, keeper for Alkmaar, was kicked by a fan who had run onto the pitch during the match. When he retaliated, seemingly in self-defense, he was given a red card and ejected by an official. Alkmaar coach Gert Jan Verbeek then withdrew his team, saying that the call was unfair and his team did not feel safe.

7) Yorvit Torrealba, the talented but hot-headed catcher for the Texas Rangers, went way over the line during a game he was playing in the Venezuelan League on Friday. After striking out, Torrealba got into an argument with the umpire. The argument ended quickly, when the catcher actually struck the umpire in the mask with his hand. Brutal.

8) The showboating done by NFL wide receivers continues to amaze me. With eight seconds left in a thorough dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys by the Philadelphia Eagles, Miles Austin caught a touchdown pass that did nothing more than take the score from 20-0 to 20-7. Regardless, Austin spiked the ball emphatically in front of the defender. Hey Miles, take a look at the scoreboard, idiot.

Good sports:

1) In one of the more spectacular plays I have ever seen, Cincinnati Bengals receiver Jerome Simpson did a full front flip into the end zone over Arizona Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington. You have to watch the video to believe it.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Free agency gives players an opportunity to go out on the open market and get as much money as they can get. It also allows them to choose the city in which they will live and play half of their games each season. Considering how short the average professional sports career is (roughly 3.5 years for NFL players, for example, according to ABC News), I am in full support of players getting everything they can get. Unfortunately, new contracts also give players an opportunity to talk about why they chose to move on from their last team, and more often than not, it seems to me, the explanations simply cause problems. The most recent massive contract went to Albert Pujols, the new first baseman for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (how’s that for a name?), who signed a 10-year, $254 million contract. He left the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom he had played for the first eleven years of his spectacular career. In this case, the silly interview that occurred afterward was actually with Pujols’ wife Deidre, for some reason.

Deidre Pujols, in a conversation on a St. Louis radio station, stated that she and Albert had no desire to leave St. Louis and fully planned to remain there throughout his career, but that plan was derailed by the team’s initial offer of a 5-year, $130 million deal. They were apparently so insulted at this offer of $26 million a year that the entire eleven years they had spent in St. Louis suddenly meant nothing, I guess. Any subsequent offers must have been colored by this initial perceived slap-in-the-face, and her husband is now an Angel.

Again, take the money. You’d be stupid not to. The Angels offer was better than the final Cardinals offer by a good bit, was fully guaranteed, and also included some kind of personal services contract after Pujols’ playing career is over. Sounds fantastic, and very worthy of a surefire hall-of-famer who has put up staggering numbers to this point in his career. I would be writing this column about how much of an idiot he was if he turned down this deal. Don’t tell me, though, that you wanted no part of leaving St. Louis but had no choice after you were treated so badly. Negotiations have to start somewhere. Teams have a budget, and need to also pay a lot of other players. They would be irresponsible to not start the talks by offering less than they know they will have to eventually pay. Just say you took the most money and be done with it. That’s what you did, and there’s nothing wrong with it, so own it.

My favorite part of the moronic interview with Deidre was where she said she was mad at God, since she felt like they had everything so perfect there in St. Louis, as they had built their lives there. Now they were forced to leave because of the disrespect shown to them by the team’s initial proposal. I guess God was supposed to make sure that didn’t happen. Someone has an awfully high opinion of herself, I think. Can someone explain to me why Deidre Pujols was being interviewed in the first place? I missed the part where it was explained why anyone would care what she had to say.

I admit that I tend to root against superstars from other cities. I can’t really explain it. I have never been anti-Pujols, though, and I don’t really expect to be now, but this whole thing makes him look bad. I guess it’s a good thing it was his wife, rather than him, who made this idiotic statements, as if he had made them himself, he surely would have made my Naughty List, and that of many others as well. On second thought, maybe that’s why it was Deidre doing the talking.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Barry Bonds was finally sentenced for the obstruction of justice conviction he received back in April, related to the BALCO steroids case from 2003. The sentence does not include any jail time, and is basically a joke. He is, of course, appealing.

3) Boston Celtics forward Jeff Green will miss the entire 2011-2012 NBA season after an aortic aneurysm was found during a physical that followed his recent contract signing. It’s bad news for the Celtics, but very fortunate news for Green, who was unaware of the problem, which could have cost Green his life if not caught.

4) David Villa, a star forward for Barcelona’s soccer team, broke his leg during his team’s 4-0 victory over Qatar on Thursday. He seems likely to miss his country’s attempted defense of its European Championship this summer.

5) Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was arrested on Wednesday on federal drug charges. It is reported that he was a major drug dealer in Chicago, and there is reportedly a list of NFL players to whom he has sold drugs over the years. This could get really bad.

6) Former Boston Bruins head coach Mike Milbury was charged with assaulting a 12-year-old child who was playing hockey against Milbury’s son’s peewee league team this week. Awesome.

7) It was a bad day for the NFL record books Sunday, as the league’s only undefeated and winless teams both managed to lose those titles. The Green Bay Packers lost for the first time this season, falling to the Kansas City Chiefs, 19-14, while the woeful Indianapolis Colts, who had been 0-13, finally won a game, beating the Tennessee Titans, 27-13.

Good sports:

1) Lexi Thompson, who became the youngest-ever winner on the LPGA tour a few months back, became the youngest to win on the Ladies European Tour on Saturday, winning the Dubai Ladies Masters at age 16.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

The NBA is back. What’s that, you say? You hadn’t noticed it was gone? I can’t say I blame you there. The product has gotten so bad over the last few years that I was thinking that a missed season might not be such a bad thing. A new agreement was reached recently, though, and things are moving along toward an abbreviated season which is set to start on Christmas Day. However, what should have been the beginning of an exciting condensed period of player movement, like we had with the NFL this season, immediately went wrong this week. A blockbuster trade that had been made between the New Orleans Hornets, the Houston Rockets, and the Los Angeles Lakers involving superstar point guard Chris Paul was squashed by the league a few hours after it had been completed. The same league, by the way, that currently owns those same New Orleans Hornets.

The trade saw the Hornets sending Paul to the Lakers, who would send Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, and Luis Scola to New Orleans and Pau Gasol to the Rockets, who would then send Goran Dragic and a first round draft pick to the Hornets. As great a player as Paul is, he is going into the last year of his deal and appears to be extremely unlikely to resign with New Orleans. Trading him now means the Hornets get something for him, rather than losing him after the season and having nothing to show for it. The trade saw them getting a bunch of very solid NBA players, as well as a top pick. Despite that, the league, after receiving a bunch of complaints from other NBA owners, due to the powerful Lakers ending up with Paul, decided to kill the deal. They offered virtually nothing in explanation, of course.

I believe there were several factors in play here. First, one of the main things the owners were trying to accomplish with the lockout was to achieve a greater level of competitive balance in a league that has tilted strongly toward several marquee franchises in the last few years, to the detriment of most of the small-market teams (like New Orleans). Also, the league is currently the owner of the Hornets, after the previous ownership had money troubles. Facilitating yet another star player’s escape to one of the big-time teams would appear to undermine whatever gains were made during the lockout. I get that, but this was such a huge abuse of power, and it absolutely damages the credibility of the NBA. First, the league has no business killing a deal that has been agreed upon by three teams, outside of a situation where there was something obviously shady about the trade. In this case, the Hornets did about as well as anyone could have expected them to do, getting very solid value in return for their star player. Other teams may have been unhappy with the thought that Paul was now a Laker,  but that’s just too bad. Trades are not submitted for approval by all of the other owners. If they were, no one would ever get traded. Worse yet, there is now a very real chance that New Orleans will end up getting absolutely nothing. If the league thinks it can force Chris Paul to re-sign with the Hornets, it is sadly mistaken. That’s a good thing, by the way. Paul should not be forced to sign with anyone other than the team that he decides is the best place for him. That’s what free agency is all about. By caving in to this pressure, the league all but assured the Hornets that they will come out worse in the end. They also set a precedent that trades can be overruled for no apparent reason if the league decides to do so. That’s a bad way to run a legitimate professional sports league.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Milwaukee Brewers outfielder and current National League MVP Ryan Braun reportedly failed a test for performance-enhancing drugs. He is proclaiming his innocence, and as a fan of his, I hope he is telling the truth.

3) A mere week after being suspended by the league for dirty play, Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh was in a car accident. As the week went on, the story got stranger and stranger, with the other people involved in the accident claiming that Suh tried to cover up what happened and asked them to hide their injuries. The full story has not yet come out, and the police have failed to find those other people credible.

4) Continuing the recent spate of sports-related revelations of pedophilia, Bobby Dodd, the president of the Amateur Athletic Union, an organization that runs community sports leagues all over the country, has been accused of sexual abuse by two men who played AAU basketball back when they were children in the eighties. Dodd has since resigned his post with the AAU.

5) Fred Thompson, a freshman football player for Oregon State, died of an apparent heart attack while playing basketball on campus on Wednesday. Thompson was only 19 years old.

6) With less than ten seconds to go in a game that Xavier led by 23 points over rival Cincinnati, a massive brawl broke out between the two teams. Several players were ejected, and the game was eventually called due to the violence.

7) Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison, a very talented but oft-penalized and fined player, may well be headed toward a suspension after a brutal, clearly illegal hit against the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night. He lowered his head and hit Browns quarterback Colt McCoy directly in the facemask with the top of his helmet just after McCoy had released a pass. This is exactly the kind of thing that the league is trying to eliminate, and Harrison, despite his constant complaining, is one of the worst offenders. He deserves a suspension.

Good sports:

1) Virender Sehwag, a cricketer for India, broke the one-day scoring record, previously held by Sachin Tendulkar, by making 219 off of 149 balls. He and Tendulkar are the only two players who can claim the famed “double century” in international play.

2) Quarterback Robert Griffin III became the the first-ever Heisman Trophy winner from Baylor University, a perennial also-ran in the Big 12 conference, on Saturday. Griffin had a spectacular year, and is expected to be playing in the NFL next year.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

For many of us, our college years are a time to do things we have never done before, and may never do again. New experiences are necessary in order to learn what we want out of life, and being open to those experiences is a key to maximizing the value we get out of a college career. Unfortunately, many of the things we do at that age are things that we will look back on with a cringe when we have reached a more mature stage of life. The event from this week that has made me think about this happened in Stillwater, Oklahoma, after the Oklahoma State Cowboys defeated their nemesis, the Oklahoma Sooners, for the first time in nine tries. They won in style, spanking the Sooners by a score of 44-10. At the end of the game, thousands of fans rushed the field, intending to bring down the goalposts. In the long melee that followed, thirteen people were injured, one of whom had to be airlifted to a local hospital.

My freshman year at Penn State was 1986-1987. For those who follow college football, you may recall that the Nittany Lions won the national championship that year, finishing an undefeated season by beating the Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl on January 2, 1987, a game that still holds the record for the most watched college football game of all time. A little over a month earlier, Penn State closed the regular season against the Pitt Panthers, the team that was Penn State’s closest rival at the time. At the end of a huge 34-14 victory for the good guys, the scene was very much like what I imagine things looked like in Stillwater on Saturday, and I was right in the middle of it. My friends and I, along with tons of other crazy students, jumped down to the field with the intention of yanking down those goalposts. Campus police were trying to keep order, but were not having much luck at it. The south end zone, where I was, saw its goalposts quickly knocked off-kilter, although they did not actually come all the way down. The police managed to get everyone pushed back several feet. After having had my hands on one of the crossbars, I was shoved away with everyone else. I was about two rows deep when I suddenly felt a terrible burning in my eyes. That’s right, the police had sprayed mace or pepper spray or something like that into the crowd. I completely lost interest in the goalposts at that point, as I stumbled away with my hands trying to rub my eyes out of my head. I hadn’t even gotten a direct shot of the stuff, so I couldn’t imagine how bad that must have been for those who did. The pain faded after ten or fifteen minutes, and my group made its way back to our dorm, shaken but still ecstatic over the victory.

Twenty-five years later, I am sitting here wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I know it had not occurred to me that there would be police on the field at all, let alone police that would hit people with billy clubs and spray mace at the crowd. Once I was on the field and saw them, though, why on earth did I not get out of there immediately? Sure, I guess I was caught up in the moment, sharing in the jubilation with thousands of my fellow students. Yes, there had likely been a bit of imbibing before the game that hadn’t quite worn off by game’s end. Still, what an idiot. When I see what happened at Oklahoma State, I see how much worse it could have been for me all those years ago. My daughters are seniors in high school, and will be headed off to college in less than a year. They are smart, level-headed kids, but then my parents would likely have said the same thing about me back then.

The students at Oklahoma State had a lot to celebrate. This was a huge win for their program, and it comes on the heels of the recent tragedy that took the lives of two of the basketball coaches from the school’s women’s team two weeks ago, so I imagine there was a lot of pent-up emotion looking to get out. Unfortunately, the celebration got out of hand and people got hurt. Hopefully those kids will know better next time.

Bad sports, continued:

2) The BCS has made a mess of things yet again. Rather than match up LSU, the consensus number one team, with Oklahoma State, Stanford, or one of the other one loss teams that don’t play in LSU’s conference, the BCS has set up a rematch between the Tigers and Alabama. These two teams played back in early November, with LSU winning a defensive battle by a score of 9-6. Actually, I think Alabama is likely the second best team, and probably deserves to be in the game, and I also have an appreciation for great defenses. I don’t automatically dread low scoring games like the one between these two teams last month the way most people do. I do hate the BCS, though, and I love the fact that most of the country feels that a championship game between two SEC teams, and a rematch at that, is the worst thing that could have happened. Whatever contributes to the eventual demise of the BCS is good in my book. The truth is that it shouldn’t matter whom I, or anyone else, think is the second best team. There should be a playoff so that no one needs to guess.

3) Jack Del Rio became the first NFL coach fired this season on Tuesday when he was relieved of his duties as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after nearly nine seasons.

4) Oakland Raiders linebacker Rolando McClain was arrested on Thursday in Alabama, where he was attending his grandfather’s funeral. He was charged with assault, among other things, after reportedly holding a gun to the head of a man during an altercation and firing the gun skyward in close proximity to the person’s ear. To make things worse, the Raiders let McClain play on Sunday.

5) Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall was detained by police on Monday in Florida after allegedly trying to skip out on a $142 cab fare. I guess a $9 million average salary does not go as far as it used to.

6) There is a thing in football known as “icing the kicker.” This is when the opposing coach calls a timeout before a kicker gets a chance to make a critical kick, usually just as the kick is about to happen. The kicker then has a chance to over-think things and get nervous, or at least that’s the intention. On Sunday in Arizona, the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Jason Garrett, actually iced his own kicker. As Dan Carpenter was about to attempt a 49-yard field goal to win the game with seven seconds left in regulation, Garrett called a timeout. He was apparently concerned that the play clock was going to run out. Carpenter made that kick, although it did not count due to the timeout. When he attempted the kick again after the timeout, he missed it. The Cowboys went on to lose in overtime.

Good sports:

1) I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the way Denver’s Tim Tebow continues to lead his team to victories this season. Based on pure quarterbacking skill, he is one of the worst I have ever seen, but the guy finds ways to get it done. I believe the league will catch up to the gimmicky offense that Denver is running, and that will end this experiment, but it would be dishonest for me to not give a little credit where it is due.

2) It took two years, but Tiger Woods finally got back into the win column this weekend, winning the Chevron World Challenge in California by one stroke over Zach Johnson. After his recent third-place showing in Australia, things are finally looking up for Woods.

3) Carolina Panthers rookie quarterback Cam Newton may not be leading his team to a winning record, but he is certainly putting up some numbers. He scored his thirteenth rushing touchdown on Sunday, setting a record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback, and he did it with four games still to be played.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday