Professional football is a violent game. No matter what rules the league puts in place, that basic fact will remain. The NFL can, should, and will continue to legislate the game to attempt to reduce injury, particularly the long-term variety, but in the end, a game that involves huge men tackling each other is going to be dangerous. When a team actually rewards its players for injuring opposing players, then, you can be sure that things will get ugly quickly. This week, the NFL revealed details of a “bounty” program that was in effect for the New Orleans Saints during their Super Bowl season of 2009, as well as the rest of the tenure of former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Players were given off-the-books bonuses for hits that knocked opposing players out of the game. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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People often complain about the excesses in sports. The players make too much money, the games cost too much to attend, and the players behave too badly. Despite those antics, we hold these players up as role models to our children, protesting all the while that we are not doing so. Rather than finding ways to tone down the adulation, the fans and the media seem to be inventing new and worse ways to contribute to the phenomenon. Every February, a bunch of high school kids sign letters of intent to play football at colleges around the country. This has been going on for years, but now, in many cases, it has become a quite a spectacle. This needs to stop. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I think I give people too much credit. I don’t necessarily expect to never encounter racism and bigotry in the normal course of life, but I somehow still manage to be surprised when it rears its head, especially when it happens in some kind of mainstream fashion.  Last week in one of my Good Sports stories, I mentioned the emergence of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who came out of nowhere to dominate the sports news over the last couple of weeks. Lin, a Chinese-American man who played college basketball at Harvard, quickly became the target of ignorant headline writers and news people. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The Super Bowl is the biggest game in the country every year. I was going to say the world, but I don’t know if that is actually true. Soccer is awfully big everywhere else in the world, and it seems like the World Cup final, which doesn’t happen every year, of course, might be a bigger deal worldwide. Anyway, here in the U.S., it’s all about football. There is more press at that game than at any other, and after a close game like the one we saw on February 5th, there must have been a million story lines for writers to pursue. The thrilling last few minutes, the great throw and catch from Eli Manning to Mario Manningham that was the game’s key play, or even the myriad expensive commercials that were broadcast throughout the game would have made for interesting reading. Instead, though, the one story that seemed to be absolutely everywhere early this week was about Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady’s supermodel wife, and the comments she made after her husband’s team lost the game. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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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. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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