I read an article today about the overuse of superlatives in sports. It claims that words are losing their meaning since we use them too much. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Disconnecting words from their meaning isn't important until it is -- as George Orwell was at great pains to remind us. In the doublespeak language of the military/industrial complex or corporate/entertainment complex lies the seed of a terrible future in which war is peace and freedom is slavery. And "Lost" gets six seasons without answering a single major plot point."

You can find the article here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?id=5037973


Also on The Onion I read a piece going in the opposite direction. It claims that "'wow's' and 'oh-my's' have recently hit all-time lows." Excerpt below:

"Over the past five years, sports announcers have displayed a marked increase in their ability to accept the evidence of their eyes and find the sporting efforts they witness "entirely credible," a study published Wednesday concluded."

You can find the article here:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-announcers-increasingly-able-to-believe-what,17056/

If you could experience only one of the following feats, what would it be?

Pitching a perfect game.
Hitting a walk off home run.
Hitting the winning three pointer.
Bowling a perfect game.
Kicking the winning field goal.
Scoring the winning touchdown in sudden death OT.

Would you rather be a number one draft pick bust with 50 million dollars in the bank or a super successful journeyman who never made the big bucks?

Would you rather win a gold medal or a professional championship?

Would you rather be a hall of famer who never won a championship, or a minor role player who did win a championship or two?

Tourny Time

Don't have much to say this week. I'm not filling out a bracket this year. I want to see if it makes the tournament more or less enjoyable not having to worry about cheering against the underdogs or for teams I actually really hate.

The Perils of a DVR

The whole being a student thing kinda gets in the way of being a sports fan sometimes. Like any true sports fan I have a bad habit of getting distracted by games when I should be doing homework or studying for exams. There always seems to be some sort of heart wrenching drama on ESPN and I don't want to be "the guy throwing pistachios at his buddy's mouth in the airport." If you watch enough ESPN, you know what I am talking about.

Last Sunday I decided that while I love the Olympics, and USA-Canada = one of the most compelling moments of the Games, I'm paying UT a ton of money to get an education. And with 3 tests and a paper coming up in the few days after the game, I should probably spend my time more wisely than watching a hockey game.

So I recorded it on my DVR determined to not watch the game until the end of the week, after I had fulfilled my duties as a student. My roommates told me I was crazy and that there was no way I could make it through a week without someone spoiling the score for me. I told them this was Texas (not exactly hockey country) and that I felt pretty confident I could make it a week without hearing a hockey score, even if it was a bigger game than usual. I had to switch my homepage from ESPN.com, couldn't watch any ESPN or TV that had any kind of news, and had to divert my eyes away from the front pages of newspaper stands. But the hardest part was not catching a glimpse of the score on someone's computer screen while sitting in class. Being a sport management major, everyone in my classes has ESPN.com as their homepage and many surf its pages while in class.

I managed to make it through the week without having the score spoiled. I finally found out it was a great game, but a lose for Team USA in the end.