Believe me: I wasn’t born cynical, let alone skeptical. I’d believe everything. As a kid, I was told that George Washington’s crypt at Mount Vernon had two holes cut out so his eyes, left open, “could watch over our country.” I looked for them.
Now? Assigned to cover TV, I don’t believe much.
Try this: Use your cellphone to take pictures of fast foods as they appear in TV ads. Then go to a corresponding eatery, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, et al. Show the counter person the photo in the TV ad then say, “I’ll have one of these.”
Last Friday, ABC/ESPN televised South Florida at Central Florida. Near the top, it presented a photo of USF quarterback Quinton Flowers immodestly posed flexing a bicep. Standard ESPN.
Then, as footage of Flowers appeared, play-by-play man Adam Amin said: “This was last week on Senior Night. Flowers had no family to come out of the tunnel with.”
Flowers next was seen embracing coach Charlie Strong. Amin: “Very emotional moment; one of the great stories in college football this season.”
No family? Why not explain?
But Amin left it at that; no word that Flowers’ mother had died of cancer; his father had been shot dead, an unintended target in a drive-by. Geez. Here was a young man worth rooting for.
Perhaps.
In the third quarter, Flowers, who had a sensational game, scrambled for a 30-yard touchdown — explained as the result of “putting his left foot in the ground (he cut right).”
As Flowers pulled up in the end zone, he placed a hand at his crotch and made a crude masturbating gesture toward the UCF fans. Although it was clearly seen on TV, the officials missed it. A replay ended just before Flowers’ “celebration” began. Nothing was said about what was difficult to miss.
The school later released a statement dubiously attributed, between quotation marks, to Flowers:
“It was in no way my intention to do anything offensive in Friday’s tremendous game between two great universities. I apologize if anything I did was interpreted the wrong way.”
In other words, there’s some question as to whether he did something offensive; there’s an “if I did” contingency clause. Thus an indisputably offensive act is not a matter of wrong or right, but one open to interpretation, as if what Flowers did could be misconstrued.
Such a pathetic, insulting, college-issued response speaks far worse of USF than of Flowers. And it further emphasizes the bogus, TV-enabled and delivered “NCAA builds character/student-athletics” pretenses that breed how-could-we-think-otherwise cynicism.
The sports-applied word “veteran” also spawns cynicism. I once associated “veteran” with acquired wisdom. In baseball, Jim Kaat and Luis Aparacio met that presumption. Red Auerbach’s Celtics annually had envied, irrepressible veterans: John Havlicek, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones, Bailey Howell.
But veterans aren’t what they used to be.
Monday night on ESPN, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, a 15-year NFL veteran, sacked Texans QB Tom Savage, causing a fumble. But as the ball was out for grabs, Suggs got busy performing his how-great-I-art sack dance.
Broncos defensive back Aqib Talib, an 11-year NFL vet, is suspended from this Sunday’s game for last Sunday’s revulsive on-field street fight with Oakland receiver Michael Crabtree whose chain necklace Talib snatched during a game, last season.
That Talib has been employed by an NFL team long enough to become a veteran — he’s now working off a six-year, $57 million contract — is staggering. Not that an NFL TV partner would tell you, but Talib has assaulted a teammate, been arrested for beating a cab driver, suspended for drugs, made a false report to police after he was shot in the leg, and drew two misconduct penalties in one game — the Super Bowl.
Then there’s 14-year NBA vet Dwight Howard, now with Charlotte. Last week, he was fined $35,000 for an in-game, unprintably vulgar gesture apparently aimed at Cavaliers fans. Howard should’ve been suspended for 10 games, Adam Silver daring the NBAPA to defend the indefensible.
Fans have changed, too. Sunday, skills-shorted but tough, give-it-all-up 49ers QB C.J. Beathard went down, injured and in agony. Niners fans, eager to see new QB Jimmy Garoppolo, cheered.
South Carolina fans, starting in warm-ups before Saturday’s game against Clemson, threw garbage on the field and at the Clemson bench. A police officer was struck in the head by a can. Public address appeals to desist were ignored.
All of the above once was rare, but, as our “sports culture” evolves, it no longer is.
Cynical? What comes after cynical?
ESPN does it, so it must make for good TV
Fascinating, how FOX Sports is eager to duplicate every ridiculous idea produced by ESPN.
Although this year it laid off 20 staffers, FOX last week shipped five pregame panelists to Ann Arbor, Mich., where they sat in the cold on a field-side set — erected, wired and equipped at further great expense — from where each of them could speak a couple of barely decipherable sentences about the upcoming game.
Apparently FOX felt those who’d watch an Ohio State-Michigan pregame show had no intention of watching the game, thus this would attract more viewers.
It’s time the Heisman Trophy committee struck the “character” requirement for candidates. No one, given recent winners Johnny Manziel and Jameis Winston, takes it seriously. It’s like “student-athletes.”
And 2010 Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton confuses me. After he scores, he does his tired, I’m-the-greatest Superman routine — as if no one blocked for him — then gifts the ball to a kid.
Why not gift the ball to a kid without first encouraging kids to act like self-absorbed fools?
Keeping the best on the worst games
Figures that FOX’s best sideline reporter, Peter Schrager, is assigned to the lesser games.
As heard, and only occasionally seen, during the Panthers-Jets game this past Sunday, Schrager, as always, quickly gathered, then cleanly spoke useful information, no speeches. Radical.
Why do the Rangers need an ugly new jersey to play outdoors? As Steve Martin said in “The Jerk”: “Oh, it’s a profit thing!”
FOX’s lead college football play-by-play man, Gus Johnson, continues to drop “tells” that he doesn’t know what he’s hollering about.
Saturday, just before Ohio State took the snap, there was a whistle. Johnson suggested Michigan had jumped offsides. But if so, there wouldn’t have been a whistle. Ohio State was called for motion.
Reader David Giantomasi asks: “When did NBC change the Cris Collinsworth Show to ‘Sunday Night Football’?”
Yeah, Collinsworth’s another who thinks we tuned in for a 3 ½-hour lecture. Who’ll stop the rain?
ESPN Stupid Graphic of the Week goes to … (open envelope) … ESPN! Saturday: “Pelicans 5, Warriors 0, Curry 0 points.”