Futbol Fever!

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is upon us, and for most of us, it provides an opportunity to pretend we know something about the world's most popular sport.  We drop references to stars with one name, use words like "nil" and "pitch", and secretly google rule interpretations.  It's quite the exercise in National pride and phony-ism.

With all that being said, no one wants miss anything, lest he or she be thought of as less than a sports fan.  SportsSked has all the World Cup games, so you can find exactly where to watch on YOUR TV. Register at sportssked.com.

SportsSked v 2.0 is LIVE!

So with Lebron going for the three-peat, the Kings and Rangers battling for Lord Stanley's Cup, the World Cup just days away, and baseball in full swing, it's easy for sports fans to miss something important.  That's simply not acceptable since sports is the only DVR-proof television there is.  We can't have you getting your chops busted...well any more than you already do.
 

Welcome to the new and improved SportsSked.  Now you can get channel specific information based on YOUR cable provider for any game that's on TV, all delivered straight to your inbox.  Oh yeah, and it's FREE!  Now you won't spend ten minutes trying to flip through the guide on your TV, scanning, searching and cursing trying to find the games.  We just did it for you. 

Stay tuned here for more updates and info.  Tell your friends and thanks for the support.  

SportsSked is now in the final stages of being fully operational.
We are hoping to have a full launch of our product by the end of May.
Stay tuned!

NFL

The NFL season is scheduled to be under way.  Big questions surround the quarterbacks as usual. Will Tim Tebow see playing time? Will Vick continue to impress us with his air and ground assault? Will Payton Manning start in week one? And are we finally done seeing the ole gun-slinger Brett Favre? Personally, I hope all these questions are answered with a yes.

The Real Problem

Terelle Pryor's leaving Ohio State is the latest in a getting-worse-by-the-day situation for the Buckeyes. With almost certain harsh NCAA sanctions on the horizon, many people, inside and outside of Columbus, are looking for someone to blame. All of the finger wagging and tsk-tsking won't solve the problem of athletes taking improper benefits or coaching monitoring said athletes taking improper benefits. I'm not sure what will. What I do know, however, is that understanding why this all happens can only help begin the process of resolution.

There is a fairly cheesy and highly entertaining 80s movie called "Can't Buy Me Love". The basic story is that a geeky high school student, interestingly enough played by a VERY young Patrick "McDreamy" Dempsey, pays his way hang out with the most popular girl in school and all her cool friends, betting that his mere association with them will make him cool too. Of course, he gains acceptance, then is humiliated for his hubris, and then redeems himself at the end. You know, the basic 80s plotline. Anyway.... the underlying secret of this story is that, ultimately, he was RIGHT. His association DID make him popular and cool, if only temporarily.

I would argue that the same thing is at play with these so called "boosters" giving athletes benefits ranging from cash to cars. They don't do it because their altruistic hearts break for the struggling student-athlete with no money. Nor do they do it so that their businesses will benefit, although that is sometimes a bonus. They do it because most of them were never great athletes or the most popular kid in class, and now this gives them access to that crowd. Let's face it---athletes are cool, and in a town like Columbus, they are the biggest celebrities around. Merely associating with them ups a person's cool factor exponentially, and wanting to be accepted into that exclusive circle of which athletes are a part gives them something that they feel they missed out on. In spite of the obvious business, financial and personal success of these "boosters", they are still just longing for a seat at the lunch table on the other side of the cafeteria. They get to show cell phone pictures of themselves with Terelle Pryor. They get to tell people that they text back and forth with Reggie Bush and that they are really really good friends for real. In short, wanting to be popular for some people doesn't stop once they leave high school. It can be a driving force throughout their lives, and certainly, in these cases, a major factor in why they do what they do.

Sadly, I'm not sure there is a quick fix for this problem. This need for acceptance will never go away, and student-athletes will always take free money because they're 19 years old and human. That's not condoning their actions, it's just a fact. The only real hope is that the benefactors of these improper benefits realize that, as the movie teaches, shortcuts are always unfulfilling.

Di-Vesting an Asset

The nearly 6 month long soap opera that is Jim Tressel and the Ohio State University Football program continued today with it's biggest plot twist yet---The head coach himself announced his resignation on Monday, sending shock waves throughout the college football nation. Tressel's decision to step down amid an investigation into the program that seemed to worsen with each passing news cycle came on the heels of the dreaded "vote of confidence" from Athletic Director Gene Smith. In the end, the program and university proved to be bigger than the wildly popular coach, a thought that as recently as 6 months ago would have been borderline blasphemous in Columbus, Ohio.

Before the story broke during Sugar Bowl preparations last December, Jim Tressel was untouchable in every sense of the word. He won the overwhelming majority of his football games, including regularly beating Michigan, and had been to 8 BCS games in 9 years, with one of those being a National Championship in 2002. Perhaps more importantly, he was the model citizen, openly promoting a respectful and disciplined lifestyle based on his closely held Christian beliefs. He urged his players to do live accordingly, even writing a book detailing how to do that. He was big on charity and public service, and the people of Columbus loved him for it, as they should. He could have run for governor and won......in a landslide.

Now six months later, the parallels to politics are striking. There is the story, with deception and manipulation and questionable characters on the periphery. There is the initial denial and expression of disappointment, plausible deniability, if you will. There is the media investigation that uncovered further inconsistencies by those involved, including the head coach, and then there is the final, inevitable resignation amid rumours of harsh punishments and indictments by the governing body, the NCAA. Even the resignation smacked of politics, with it's Memorial Day timing, not unlike the "putting out the trash" Friday protocol popular in Washington. It was just one last effort to stay ahead of the story.

In the end, the same rules apply to Jim Tressel as they do to any other powerful figure caught in a scandal---The Truth Always Comes Out. You see, I believe that Jim Tressel is a good man. I believe that all of those respectful and charitable acts he has done throughout his career have been genuine and sincere. I believe he is a phenomenal teacher of men and that he will almost certainly use this to make a difference in the lives of young people, just as he always had. I believe he made a horrendous error in judgment, and that error precipitated a chain of events that led us to today. I also believe that you cannot lie and mislead people without consequence. The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

I've heard all the reasons and excuses---"They were the players' things to sell", "He was just protecting them", "Somebody else HAD to know...." I've heard them all. The bottom line is this: All that matters is Jim Tressel was complicit in a violation of NCAA rules on some level. The "Why" is irrelevant.

Jim Tressel Resigns

The New Sweater-Vest?

Winning isn't everything.  Ohio State football found itself at the top of the Big Ten during most of the Sweater-Vest era, as well as one of the best programs in the country.  So now at the top of his coaching career, Tressel has decided to step down. Why? Because athletes did things and he did not tell on them.  Think about it for a minute. What do you do for work? If investigators showed up with intense media scrutiny to look for every fib or covered up dirt that involved you, would they find less than they did with Tress?  I doubt it. I know the NCAA still isn't done, but it's obvious that we as fans demand more perfection of coaches than we do of ourselves.