Welcome To 1972 or Let’s All Worry About the Russians

I was watching the Olympics the other day and all of a sudden I thought I was having a flashback to 1972. There was a male American swimmer winning lots of gold medals. The USA was not running away with the overall medal count, and in fact, needed to worry about possibly losing to some God-less communist country with a red flag having some symbolic yellow stuff up in the corner. There was even an obnoxious know-it-all guy wearing a toupee in the studio. This proves I probably need to start wearing my glasses when I watch television, but that’s not the point.

I might have been the only one, but I was more worried after the break up of the Soviet Union. Oh sure, it was great being on the winning side of a war, but I knew the good feeling would quickly disappear. When there is no enemy who stands a real chance of ruining your day (remember that whole mutually assured destruction theory) then you will be viewed as a bully by everyone else — not that very many people in the State of Texas would view that as a bad thing. If that wasn’t enough you will also inherit a lot of your enemy’s problems. Just ask the Germans how much fun it was to fund reunification, or ask the majority of the general populace of Houston if they want to keep their displaced Katrina victims permanently.

To illustrate my point back in 2004, and I know I wasn’t the only one, I found myself actually rooting against our men’s basketball team. Many of the members of that team were viewed as narcissistic thugs who thought they deserved to win just because they had shown up for the game and don’t get me started about expecting them to practice. Not only that, but even before the Athens Olympics began everybody already knew the USA would win both the gold medal and overall medal counts. Where’s the excitement in watching that?

But there is a God and all is right with the world again! We have a cold war and a communist enemy who is actually very good at a lot of Olympic sports. Oh sure, the cold war happens to be with the Russians while the athletic enemy happens to be the Chinese, but I say poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe. The Olympics are fun to watch again and my kids can worry about being invaded by another country — just like I did. Ah, the nostalgia of the good ole days. I think I’m going to go out and get a feathered butt-cut tomorrow!

College Football Preview, Part I

Here are several things to help get you ready for the upcoming college football season.

1. Memorize the following list.  It comes in handy at tailgate parties and will make you appear to have an IQ at least 10 points higher than it is. This is the list of teams playing D-I (I refuse to use the new term) football whose mascots do not end with the letter “s”:

Alabama Crimson Tide, Illinois Fighting Illini, Marshall Thundering Herd, Navy Midshipmen, North Carolina State Wolfpack, Nevada Wolf Pack, North Texas Mean Green, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Stanford Cardinal, Syracuse Orange, Tulane Green Wave, and Tulsa Golden Hurricane (if you have a “golden hurricane” then surely you will have “golden winds” along with… sorry, can’t go there).  Some people will want to add the Georgia Tech Rambling Wreck, but officially they’re the Yellow Jackets.

2. Here are some football cheers:

Amusing cheers: Stick It In (Va Tech), Go To Hell Ole Miss Go To Hell (LSU), and Punt Bama Punt (Auburn).

Inane cheers: The Ohio St. cheer where half the stadium says “O-H” and the other half replies “I-O”. Congratulations on learning to spell a four letter word that some of you don’t use in every other sentence.

The Penn St. cheer where they say “We are (clap, clap) Penn St.”  Somebody must have stayed up really late thinking up that one.  Probably the same person who came up with those great uniforms.

“Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk” for the University of Kansas.  I guess you figured since you had a fake mascot you could just free associate words and it would count as a cheer as long as it rhymed?

3. Be familiar with a couple of the great football traditions.

At Florida St. their mascot, Chief Osceola, rides a horse out to the middle of the field and throws a flaming spear into the ground. I guess he is somehow declaring war on the other team. What is funny to me is that the Seminole nation gave them permission to keep using Seminoles as their mascot. Therefore they have tacitly approved this caricature. Sometimes when I see this event it makes me want to drink the white man’s firewater and trade Manhattan for some worthless trinkets. Go FSU.

Va Tech plays Enter Sandman by Metallica. Although I personally do not care for Lars Ulrich or James Hetfield due to their stance on Napster, their song makes for a pretty kewl entrance.

Clemson – All players touch Howard’s Rock for good luck and then run downhill into the stadium.

At Notre Dame all players tap the Play Like A Champion Today sign as they walk down the staircase into the tunnel leading into Notre Dame stadium. I’m guessing last year they should have changed the sign to read Be A Champion Today.  Nice job of waking up the echoes against Navy, gold domers.

4. Know some really kewl mascots unless you’re around a PETA member: Bevo the Longhorn (Texas), Ralphie the Buffalo (Colorado), the War Eagle (Auburn), and Mike the Tiger (LSU).  If a PETA member is around invite them to free Mike the Tiger before the game ala Roy Horn of Sigfried & Roy fame.

Don’t worry there’s still a lot more to come between now and kickoff.  As a Vandy fan this is the only part of the football season I enjoy.

Late.