FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[tmerton]

     ALERT!             ALERT!

   ...in progress, a spelling bee on ESPN!

I thought that didn't come on until tomorrow.  They were discussing it on MSNBC's Squawk Box this morning and declaring that spelling was definitively determined to be a sport - because it was on ESPN.  I guess the same goes for the Westminster Dog Show. 8)

[finsleft]

Panther Ice is Mongo's favorite adult beverage

Well, well, well. Look who shows up today.  Not since April 12th have we heard from frankrickard.

[Kilted Rat]

     ALERT!             ALERT!

   ...in progress, a spelling bee on ESPN!

I thought that didn't come on until tomorrow.  They were discussing it on MSNBC's Squawk Box this morning and declaring that spelling was definitively determined to be a sport - because it was on ESPN.  I guess the same goes for the Westminster Dog Show. 8)

I consider the Spelling Bee to be the official start of summer.

Welcome to summer +k to all!

[bennie]

I had to dig around in my e-mail to find this old article. It doesn't debate so much what is a sport, but rather who is an athlete. I think it is hilarious!

Are they athletes or not?

Dayn Perry / Special to FOXSports.com

You've no doubt overheard or even been sucked into a barroom Lincoln-Douglas in which various pontificators attempted to answer the following question: Are they athletes or aren't they?

The question can be applied to a panoply of sporting personalities tennis mavens, weekend warriors, street ballers, beer-league softball enthusiasts, Oliver Miller. The list goes on and on, seemingly without an authoritative voice to be heard.

But no more. As of this moment, the debate has been settled. Forthwith, I'll provide an exhaustive list of pseudo-athletes who often claim to be genuine athletes, but, of course, they're really not. Let's examine the usual suspects ...

The golfer
Apparently years of idly sucking pesticides off their golf tees have left golfers riddled with delusions of grandeur. Know this: You're hobbyists, not athletes.

Only in golf would there be a deafening hue and cry over the arduous endeavor of ... walking? Yes, walking. Remember the Casey Martin entanglement? It was over whether a guy with a congenital foot malady would be adequately beleaguered if allowed to use a cart.

Walking ... it's what scores of golden oldies do on a daily basis in the malls of South Florida, with hip-pocket odometers counting down the steps. But it's also something that sends professional golfers into a bang-spoon-on-high-chair act when someone deigns to play a few rounds on the PGA Tour while using a cart.

Bulletin: This is not a taxing endeavor. When one of the game's finest Colin Montgomerie resembles some unholy coupling of Willie Ames and the Michelin Man, you're not dealing with a sport long on exacting athletic requirements. Have you seen the Stadler family of late? It looks like they eat other planets for lunch (in particular, Kevin, son of Craig, seems to have wolfed down many a celestial body).

And let's not even get started on the pristine sense of entitlement that golfers are so gratingly possessed of. Don't you snap that picture! Don't you so much as whisper during my back swing! Don't you ask me for an autograph during my grueling stroll to the next tee! There are occasions when the word "gentlemanly" fades into synonymy with the phrase "sissy-poo." That's a PGA Tour event when highly paying spectators are shamed into being church-mouse quiet when it suits the highly paid competitors. If I want to be shushed for money, I'll go loudly chuckle my way through a showing of The English Patient. And if the fans won't clam up? They're escorted off the premises or feloniously assaulted by Tiger Woods' toad of a caddy.

You call it golf; I call it performance art on grass.


The cyclist
Not an athlete ... It's a "sport" peopled by guys with shaved legs and various sartorial abominations in the key of spandex. Is, say, winning the Tour de France an unspeakably impressive feat of endurance? To be sure, but then again, so is having sex with Sting.

Cycling requires no hand-eye coordination, and the athletic ability entailed involves not falling off the freaking bike something most riders fail at with alarming frequency. It also shares a schadenfreude-fueled weakness with NASCAR (see below): the only thing remotely interesting is when someone wrecks.

And it doesn't speak highly of the "sport" that its unassailable pinnacle consists of hanging out with French people while wearing a canary-yellow shirt. And I mentioned the whole guys-shaving-legs thing, right? Among avid cyclists a deeply annoying cult if ever there were one there's actually a term of ridicule aimed at guys who don't shave their legs. They're called "Freds." Long live the Freds, say I.

Are cyclists in good shape? Yep, and were there no such thing as cars, it might be a useful form of fitness. Look, I know Lance Armstrong has a deeply inspiring back-story, and he's certainly entitled to our admiration on the Sheryl Crow front. But what he succeeds at is really nothing more than being the teacher's pet of an all-too-exalted spin class.

The bowler
Need I really ruminate on how these guys aren't true, board-certified athletes? I suppose so. For the busy executive, I'll outline my arguments with bullet points:

Requires no running, very little walking and use of only one arm. In other words, it demands all the athletic chops karaoke-ing side two of Engelbert Humperdinck's "The Dance Album".
Can be performed at a high level while drunk and incontinent with nachos.
Most glorious moment for the "sport" entails using a ball bag to bury Ralphie Cifaretto's decapitated melon.
Utmost luminary in the annals of the game is named "Earl".
It was broadcast in the dread "early days" of ESPN2.
Was often announced on TV by decline-phase Chris Schenkel.
The PBA's idea of edgy programming: Pete Weber in shades and miked for sound.
Gravely troubling moustache-to-participant ratio.
Too many similarities with an afternoon of beery skeeball at Dave & Buster's.

I won't belabor the point, but I will add the following observations:

Penny loafers or nurse's shoes can double as suitable athletic footwear.
When stared at holes-up, the ball looks harrowingly like Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live.
At its most entertaining when serving as the focal point of a Three Stooges sight gag.

And now I'm done ... Except to add:

Bowling shirts can only be worn ironically or not at all.
Most pros of the "sport" look like Dennis Franz after a gravy bender.

Now I'm really done.


The jockey
Imagine if you will, a man so svelte and dainty that Tobey Maguire, scrawny goob nonpareil, must go on the South Beach Diet for six weeks to play him. That's your garden-variety jockey. Job requirements: have an eating disorder and be able to beat a horse in the ass with a riding crop. Athlete or Calista Flockhart with a bestial fetish? You decide. On second thought, I'll decide: If Gary Stevens and his ilk are athletes, then Kevin Stadler ate my cheese-covered behind (on second thought, I probably shouldn't tempt him).

Can you name another "athlete" who's positively giddy to receive an ornate floral arrangement while decked out in leather boots and tight-fitting jodhpurs? Besides Jesse Palmer, I mean.

If a jockey wants respect as a sportsman, he should tackle something more challenging, like the mechanical bull on "drunk girl in mobility-restricting Wranglers" setting at his local honky-tonk or head over to Wal-Mart and try his hand at the coin-op pony ride.

It's about the horses, you breeches-wearing elves. Are they athletes? Neigh.


The racecar driver
You can get lost on any major urban expressway in the country and employ all the skills needed to succeed in auto racing: turning left, depressing the gas pedal, being forced into a retaining wall by an insane man. Good ol' boy Jimmy Spencer gets ink as an up-and-coming athlete. In reality, dressed to the nines in his Target-sponsored logo suit, he looks more like a comically resolute fire hydrant than anything resembling an elite competitor.

As for drivers in general, their victory celebrations are unspeakably lame. They do donuts in the infield, pop out the driver's side window ala Bo Duke, stand on the hood, quaff deeply from whatever beverage they endorse and get trash thrown at them by soused rednecks. Then they smoke a Winston, shop at Home Depot, slam a Bud, make out with a Golden Corral race queen, order a Papa John's pizza with their Nextel mobile phone, brush their teeth with Valvoline, use Craftsman tools to eat Swanson Hungry Man Dinners, paint their dogs with the help of Sherwin Williams, make their kids eat Levitra and Folgers' Crystals, set up a meth lab behind their local Food City and otherwise behave as the inveterate whores of brand loyalty that they are.

The only thing drivers have in common with real athletes is their propensity for non-pre-nupped marriages to Hooters' waitresses and Budweiser promotional models. An expensive habit, that.

Oh, and your left-turn signal's still on.

The hunter
Without a doubt, the most rankling of pseudo-athletes. They disingenuously ensconce themselves in the blanket of conservation, while remaining what they are flatulent mouth-breathers who drink cut-rate bourbon from thermoses, dress in orange camouflage, sprinkle deer pee around the woods and resort to spot-lighting only after shooting each other with high-powered, scoped rifles and falling drunk out of tree stands.

Wanna get back to nature? Put down the Sony Watchman telecast of the Lions game, exit the Hummer, adjust your man-boobs and take on a Kodiak using only a Sumerian scraping tool. Otherwise, stop calling yourself an athlete.

And there you have it. I mean no offense to any cyclists, bowlers, golfers, jockeys, drivers and hunters out there. Unless, of course, you think you're an athlete, in which case, yeah, I mean much offense. So consider this most hoary and time-honored of debates settled for good.

Dayn Perry is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.

[BDB]

Way to eat up the bandwidth bennie! 

[bennie]

Way to eat up the bandwidth bennie! 

I try!

If I could have found it on a website, I would have just posted the addy. I looked on Foxsports.com, but the only thing I found was that Kobe is whinning...again!

[frankrickard]

Panther Ice is Mongo's favorite adult beverage

Well, well, well. Look who shows up today.  Not since April 12th have we heard from frankrickard.

I guess I need some 1:30am wake up calls to get me back on to post sometimes.

[finsleft]

Panther Ice is Mongo's favorite adult beverage

Well, well, well. Look who shows up today.  Not since April 12th have we heard from frankrickard.

I guess I need some 1:30am wake up calls to get me back on to post sometimes.

I'll keep 'em coming.

[tmerton]

Way to eat up the bandwidth bennie! 

I try!

If I could have found it on a website, I would have just posted the addy. I looked on Foxsports.com, but the only thing I found was that Kobe is whinning...again!

I thought it was a great use of the bandwidth - just don't let Fins see the part about hunters.

[finsleft]

ANTI-US TERRORIST CAPTURED TODAY

[finsleft]

Way to eat up the bandwidth bennie! 

I try!

If I could have found it on a website, I would have just posted the addy. I looked on Foxsports.com, but the only thing I found was that Kobe is whinning...again!

I thought it was a great use of the bandwidth - just don't let Fins see the part about hunters.

I didn't see anything at all offensive about that.

flatulent mouth-breathers who drink cut-rate bourbon from thermoses, dress in orange camouflage, sprinkle deer pee around the woods and resort to spot-lighting only after shooting each other with high-powered, scoped rifles and falling drunk out of tree stands.
What of that is a bad thing?

[finsleft]

Bases loaded, score tied 6-6, bottom of the ninth and MVP is up...

and he fouls out to AJ Pissinski.

[frankrickard]

Nothing more exciting than the walk-off walk

[finsleft]

Nothing more exciting than the walk-off walk

Sweet game winning RBI for Torii!

[Pat Coleman]

It's all about the W's.