The world has changed. The rise of social media has affected many aspects of our lives, giving us the opportunity to reconnect with many people we might have never otherwise encountered again. There are people who would argue that there is a reason you lost touch with certain people, and see no benefit in hearing about the daily minutiae of someone they haven’t seen since fourth grade. Although I am a fan of sites like Facebook, I do think that there are people who overshare. A number of professional athletes have been fined by their respective leagues after posting things on Twitter that violated rules or simply angered someone. This week, a man who had been hired to a football coordinator position at a major university ended up having the job offer rescinded after the hiring was revealed on his Facebook page. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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As I write this week’s installment of BSGS, I am watching yet another Eagles-free Super Bowl, this one being held in Dallas, the home of the Eagles’ biggest rival. Despite my favorite team’s continued non-presence, I have been able to enjoy a bit of schadenfreude this week, as I can’t imagine this was what Cowboys owner Jerry Jones envisioned when he won the right to hold the big game at his new pleasure palace. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Some athletes just don’t get it. I guess it’s because of how far removed their lives are from those of the average fans. When you make millions of dollars a year for playing a game, it must be easy to lose sight of what it’s like to have to save to take your family to a game. That’s the only way I can explain comments like those made by Kobe Bryant this week, discussing the fact that Carmelo Anthony is being booed by his home fans in Denver. Bryant called the fans of the Nuggets “stupid” for daring to boo Anthony, the team’s star player who is trying to force a trade to the New York Knicks. Apparently, those fans should stay quiet about the giant middle-finger that Anthony is sending their way. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. We expect confidence in our sports figures, don’t we? I think it is a necessary component to a successful athlete. Arrogance? Well, it is certainly not a rarity among the superstars, but I am not sure it is necessary. I could be wrong, though. Maybe a certain amount of arrogance is needed to differentiate the truly great from the simply good. The amount of control players have over that arrogance has a lot to do with how we as fans feel about them. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Football season is over. For me, anyway. Sure, I’ll continue to watch the playoffs and the Super Bowl. My heart won’t be in it, though. On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles lost to the Green Bay Packers, 21-16, and that ended it for me. In a way, that might be a blessing. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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It is very easy to complain about officiating. I have done so in this column several times. As a fan, it is much easier to blame a loss on a bad call than it is to accept that your team may just not be good enough. Occasionally, a call is so egregiously bad, though, that you can’t help but yell and scream and know your complaining is justified. One of these instances occurred in the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Considering the supposed offense, the point in the game at which it occurred, and the enormous significance to the game situation at the time, this was one of the worst calls I have ever seen. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Someday, I would like to do some real research into the NCAA. If you are not aware, it is the organization that essentially governs college athletics. I am sure that it serves some kind of positive purpose, but I can’t claim to be aware of what that purpose might be. More often, it seems that the decision makers of the NCAA arbitrarily hand out punishments to schools and players for a variety of infractions in the areas of recruiting and player eligibility with little regard for fairness or consistency. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I don’t spend a lot of time writing about women’s sports. That’s likely because I don’t spend a lot of time watching women’s sports. This week, though, I need to dedicate some column-space to a couple of remarkable accomplishments that are truly noteworthy, and both occurred in the world of women’s college athletics. One involves the Penn State women’s volleyball team and the other the women’s basketball team from the University of Connecticut. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The parents of an eleven-year-old boy who was hit in the head with a line-drive while pitching in a Little League game near Chicago have filed a lawsuit against the company that manufactures the bat that hit the ball. Apparently, the boy’s parents feel that Easton-Bell Sports makes their bats too hard, allowing injuries like this to occur. Jake Schutter now has brain damage from the incident. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I love baseball, but baseball has problems. As a Phillies fan, it has been easier, in recent years, to overlook the fact that the league has no salary cap, as the Phillies have one of the league’s highest payrolls. Still, I am able to look past that and see how difficult it must be to be a fan of one of the have-nots, going into each season knowing that only a tremendous amount of luck will get your favorite team to the playoffs. I have long thought that if those low-payroll teams were forced to spend a league-specified minimum amount on their players, it would be a step in the right direction. What I was forgetting, of course, was that those bottom-feeder teams might not spend their money in the wisest way if they were to actually spend it. The Washington Nationals demonstrated this very possibility on Sunday, signing outfielder Jayson Werth to a seven-year, $126 million contract. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I don’t know which is more shocking: a professional sports team being found to be cheating, or the fact that the cheating is discovered so rarely. Sports are big money, and jobs hinge on wins and losses. I imagine that there is a whole lot of cheating that occurs that is never revealed. Steve Scarnecchia, the video operations director for the Denver Broncos, seems worse than most at hiding his indiscretions. For the second time in recent years, Scarnecchia has been connected to the illegal videotaping of opponents. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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It is time to start talking about NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson being one of the greatest sports figures of all time. Whether you are a fan of NASCAR or not (I am), there is no denying the monumental feat Johnson and his team accomplished on Sunday, winning their fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship. This year’s edition was the closest one in recent history, with the top three drivers separated by less than 50 points going into the final race of the season. It appeared to me that most of the experts were picking Denny Hamlin, the points leader headed into the finale, to win the title. I would say that was wishful thinking, more than anything else. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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When kids are young and are playing sports, it is natural for adults to want to protect them from being embarrassed. If playing sports is not fun for a kid right from the beginning, there is little chance that he or she will grow up wanting to play. Organized sports for young children have developed ways to protect the participants from the harsh realities that will eventually hit them when they get older, as far as losing and not being good enough. Games are played without keeping score, rules are changed so that everyone gets equal playing time, and everyone gets a medal at the end. I am okay with these things as long as they are restricted to games involving only the youngest children. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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In the last several weeks, the NFL has made a lot of noise about penalties, fines, and suspensions for hits it considers to be violent or dangerous. Helmet-to-helmet hits, in particular, are being closely examined and are to be dealt with harshly. Many players have expressed concerns about what the new rules will do to their ability to play aggressively, and for many of them, non-aggressive play means non-successful play. A momentary hesitation when tackling can be enough to make the defensive player miss the tackle entirely. I appreciate the league’s position, as studies continue to show that the long-term effects of concussions are far worse than was previously believed. My assumption is that the players will adjust, finding ways to be aggressive and hit hard without leading with their helmets. Watching the Eagles-Colts game on Sunday afternoon, though, made me think that professional football may be genuinely damaged by this new focus. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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There is no more storied college football program in the country than Notre Dame. The name conjures up images of the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, Rudy, and the Gipper. Despite the fact that the football team itself hasn’t been particularly relevant since the early nineties, the college football world continues to pay an incredible amount of attention to the Fighting Irish. After five miserable years under egomaniac head coach Charlie Weis, new coach Brian Kelly was hired and the fan base was rejuvenated. This week, it became apparent that things have actually gotten worse than they ever were under Weis. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Is it just me, or is sports officiating just getting worse? I am pretty sure I have not watched a game this year, regardless of sport, that did not include at least one atrociously bad call. Sure, it’s easy for fans to complain about referees. I will admit that I have yelled and screamed about bad calls that probably weren’t actually bad calls. In the heat of the game, bias is hard to avoid. Sometimes, though, a call is so bad and so obvious that everyone seems to know it except the official making the call. On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers won a game against the Miami Dolphins on a call so bad that the officials themselves did not seem to understand what they were calling. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Intelligent professional athletes exist. They really do. Sometimes, though, it seems like the number of idiots in sports simply dwarfs the number of smart people. I guess that is because it is so much easier to write about the dopes. One such non-brain surgeon is Gilbert Arenas, a basketball player for the Washington Wizards of the NBA. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Every once in a while, watching sports brings us the opportunity to witness something truly special. This column has allowed me to share a lot of cool stories and great accomplishments, in addition to all of the negative stuff that often fills this space. Some of those positive events could be classified as special, but there are degrees of special. On Wednesday night, baseball fans got to see special in its truest form. Roy Halladay, a starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies in his first ever post-season appearance, threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Sunday, Donovan McNabb returned to Philadelphia. If you are a football fan, you are well aware of this, as it has been the main point of discussion on sports shows all week. The new quarterback of the Washington Redskins was making his first visit to the city where he had played for eleven seasons, and the sports world was fascinated. The big question was whether or not the Philadelphia fans, a popular target for derision by commentators everywhere, would boo McNabb. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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