Rex Ryan and Tim Tebow: The Introduction

Be warned the following post is Rated “R” largely because it includes an uncensored Rex Ryan…

The other day, the New York Jets introduced their new media sensation to the New York press. While that press conference was widely covered, the introduction between Tim Tebow and Jets coach Rex Ryan was kept largely under wraps.  Until now.

Lets’ be honest…nobody really knows how this relationship is going to play out in the future, but we do know that you really couldn’t find two more divergent personalities. However, thanks to our vast network of spies, we here at Dubsism did manage to obtain a transcript of the first meeting of the two men who promise to dominate the New York football headlines for the immediate future.

TT: (knocks on office door) Coach Ryan, are you in here?

RR: What the fuck is up, kid? Come on in. (throws Tebow a beer) Have a brewski, kid!

TT: Uh, thanks Coach, but I don’t…

RR: (interrupts) Don’t you shit me now, boy! I ain’t never met a catholic yet who didn’t like to get good an’ fucked up. Now sit your ass down and have a beer with your new coach.

TT: (stares uncomfortably at the beer) But I’m not catholic, Sir. I’m a Christian.

RR: What the fuck ever. So, what can I do for you?

TT: Well, Sir…

RR: (interrupts) First of all, you’re gonna have to knock off that “Sir” bullshit. Call me either “Rex” or “Coach.”

TT: OK…well, Sir…er, I mean Coach Rex, I just thought I would come by, introduce myself, and maybe get a playbook.

RR: Well, don’t worry about the playbook quite yet. We really don’t quite know what the hell we are going to do yet.

TT: Whatever you say, Coach.  I will do whatever the team needs.

RR: (cracks another beer) No, you’ll do whatever the fuck I tell you. You gonna drink that beer or are you waiting until you change your tampon?

TT: But, Coach, I tried to tell you that I don’t drink.

RR: (Leans forward in his chair) I told you to drink that fuckin’ beer.  Now drink it.

TT: (cracks beer, pretends to take a sip) Uhhh, this stuff smells like Kyle Orton.

RR: That’s better. Now let me tell you what I’m thinking here. People like you, kid, and that’s gonna be a big help when they figure out the team isn’t any good.  I can’t figure out why they re-signed that pile of monkey nuts Sanchez. God, he sucks (facepalm).  Anyway, eventually I want you to do here what you did in Denver. I don’t have the first fuckin’ clue how you did that, but I will tell you this. Your relationship with the media and your off-field activities will be as important as what you do on the fuckin’ field.

TT: I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Coach…

RR: Listen here, Opie.  You could get away with selling that “Charlie Church” routine out there in Denver, Punksylvania, but here in New York, the media is always going to be looking for cracks in your story, and somebody is eventually going to get some fuckin’ dirt on you. Nothing will kill you faster than getting caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. You don’t like feet by any chance, do you?

TT: Excuse me, Coach?

RR: Never mind. The point is that eventually your little altar boy routine is going to get blown up.

TT: But it’s not a “routine,” Coach.

RR: Yeah. Of course it isn’t, kid. And I can see my own dick without putting a mirror on the floor (chuckles).

TT: Honest, Coach. I’m not pretending for anything. I really believe in…

RR: (interrupts) Yeah, yeah, yeah…what the fuck ever. Look kid, just understand that here there will be tons of skanks who would love to be on the front page for suckin’ your guts out through the end of your dick. All it takes is one to fuck this whole thing up.

TT: That won’t be a problem, Coach.

RR: It better not be, or else this will happen to you  (leans toward the door in his chair). HEY SANCHEZ!!! GET YOUR COCK-LOVING ASS IN HERE!!!  NOW!!! (Sanchez enters the room in a Pulp Fiction-type “Gimp” outfit, complete with shock-collar)

RR: This here’s the deal, boy (pulls a remote control out of his desk). It’s one thing to be a shitty quarterback, hell, this league is full of them. But it’s another to be a shitty quarterback who is a liability off the field.  See what he’s wearing? The outfit is all because this jerk-off got caught porking a 17-year old last year. So now, he gets to wear the “Suit of Shame” (presses button, at which time Sanchez becomes a screaming electro-convulsive pile of uncontrolled bodily functions).  Some people just have to learn the hard way (looks down at Sanchez). Don’t they, Dipshit?

Sanchez: (screams muffled by leather zipper mask)

TT: (horrified, drops beer) Oh, my…I mean, I understand, Coach.

RR: You goddamn well better, kid. You’re here because Electro-Nuts down there doesn’t seem to get the message . I’d really hate to have to pump 50,000 volts through your Holy Trinity (hits button again).

Sanchez: (screams muffled by leather zipper mask)

The Twelve Most Useless Statistics in Sports

12) Minutes Played 

Let’s be honest. In basketball, it isn’t about how often you get on the floor, it’s what you do when you get there. That’s probably why all the leaders all-time in minutes played are (or will be) in the Hall-of Fame.  This statistic gets even more worthless when you add the divisor “per 48 minutes.”  To quote the great Charles Barkley, the only reason you need to calculate what a player would do in 48 minutes is because he’s not good enough to play all 48 minutes.

11) Penalty Minutes 

In general, the more penalty minutes you have in hockey, the more of a goon you were.  It would make more sense to me to simply count fights won vs. fights lost like we do with boxers. If you have a lot of penalty minutes and weren’t a goon, you were just a cheater. Either way, a minute count just tells me how often you weren’t available because you broke the rules.

10) Time of Possession 

Fans of football have been duped into believing this statistic is an excellent predictor of wins.  The logic is that the more you can control the ball, the more you can control the outcome of the game.  This thinking ignores some crucial issues, such as quick scores – as in long passes, kick returns, and turnovers in general.  Plus, hanging on to the ball for eight minutes then settling for a field goal after stalling inside the 20 doesn’t really help a team.

9) Shots On Goal 

This one really perplexes me. If you think about it, this stat really counts the number of time a hockey player fails to score, and uses that as an indicator of success, as if the team who takes the most shots scores the most goals.  Actually, the team that makes the most shots scores the most goals, which should seem pretty obvious.

8 ) Wins 

This statistic applies to baseball pitchers, hockey goalies, and Tim Tebow. Remember last fall when we were in the throes of Tebow-Mania? Remember how his defenders obfuscated the discussion about his lousy number by claiming “he just wins?” See, the problem is that in team sports, individuals don’t win; teams do. The Tebow-philes never seemed to remember that in almost all of the Broncos wins with Tebow at quarterback, it was the defense who kept the team in position to have a shot at winning the game.

Many baseball purists may revile at this thought, but that a pitcher has the sole determination in whether his team wins or loses completely defies logic, because the is no hard correlation between the pitcher’s performance and that pitcher earning a win.  How many times have I watched Tim Lincecum pitch eight scoreless innings, then give up a solo home run and lose because the Giants can’t score? Conversely, how many times have I watched (insert Yankee pitcher here) serve up half a dozen earned runs and still get a win because the Bronx Bombers plated 10 runs?

Don’t even get me started how a “win” recorded by a relief pitcher is usually just a blown save…

The same applies to netminders, with the distinction being goalies are far more dependent on their team’s defense, specifically it’s ability to kill penalties. A goalie who has a bad won-loss record very easily can be a guy who has to play short-handed too often. Imagine what would happen to a pitcher if he had to play an inning without a shortstop?

7) Holds 

While holds are not an official major league baseball statistic, they do show up in some box scores, and they are exceptionally worthless. While intended to measure the effectiveness of middle relievers, it lacks a uniform means of calculation.  In some means, particularly that used by the now-defunct SportsTicker, it doesn’t even matter if pitchers can get batters out.  A pitcher can get shelled, not even record a single out, but still be credited with a hold if the next pitcher out of the bullpen cleans up his mess without giving up the lead.

6) Saves 

Saves are really just “wins” for the guy designated to pitch the ninth inning.  But, just like wins for a starting pitcher, this is a flawed measure of a reliever’s performance. First of all, the criteria are completely arbitrary; it really can be just a circumstance such as being the last guy to pitch for the winning team.  If a pitcher enters the game with a lead and pitches the final three innings and the team wins – even if he comes into a 10-0 game and gives up 9 runs – that pitcher gets a save. Pitchers also can earn a save for pitching with a three-run lead in the 9th inning.

5) Plus/Minus Rating 

This may be the ultimate in useless statistics, because a player can rack up numbers here simply by being on the ice. While being specifically defined as a measure of a player’s “goal differential,” it really is just “minutes played” combined with “minutes where good stuff happened.” In other words, anytime a goal is scored (not including penalty shots or power-play goals) the Plus/Minus rating is increased by one (“plus”) for those players on the ice for the scoring team; likewise for those players on the ice for the team giving up the goal, their rating decreased by one. While this is purported to be a measure of defensemen and forwards who largely play a defensive role, two of the top three single-season ratings belongs to two of the great scorers of all-time (Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr).

4) Championships (as an individual statistic)

The two groups of people most responsible for using championships as an individual statistics are basketball fans and people judging the greatness of NFL quarterbacks. You’ve heard the argument; a player can’t be truly great without having won a championship. It’s a complete load of crap because championships are team accomplishment. Charles Barkley never won a ring, yet he is one of only 4 players with 4,000 assists, 10,ooo rebounds, and 20,000 points. Stacy King has three rings and only led the league in weight gained on the bench. Which would you rather have?

3) Batting Average 

Baseball fans love this stat; and as much as I love baseball, I find it to be largely irrelevant on its own.  To me the prime example is in a comparison between the average season’s of a high-batting average player like Tony Gwynn (.338/9 HR/76 RBI/92 runs scored) and a run producer like Jay Buhner (.254/34 HR/106 RBI/88 runs scored). Gwynn collected more unproductive hits, whereas Buhner produced more scoring. Scoring wins ball games, not singles.

2) Player Efficiency Rating (PER) 

Here’s the first example of a statistic that was created by ESPN. PER attempts to account for just about anything a basketball player does by mashing positives like points, rebounds, shooting percentages, blocks, et cetera into a gargatuan complex formula with negatives like turnovers and fouls. The trouble is that it is nearly impossible to understand, and it does almost nothing to quantify defensive contributions other than rebounds.

1) Any System for Rating Quarterbacks 

Whether it is the Passer Rating or that goofy Total Quarterback Rating that ESPN dreamed up, they are both so convoluted they manage to do exactly the opposite of what they were intended to do. The entire concept of either of these formulas was to give a clear and quantifiable value accounting for all the things quarterbacks do. Of course, you could just watch the damn game and figure that out.  Besides, when’s the last time you heard somebody say “Wow, did you see that game last night? That quarterback must have had a rating of at least 95!”

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The Dubsism Quarterback Douchebag Scale

Throughout life, we deal with units of measure.  To me, the most interesting are scales; where a level of intensity is assigned to an event or quality based on a quantifiable measure. The world of weather brings us the Saffir-Simpson scalefor hurricane intensity or the Fujita scale for tornadoes. Seismologists categorizes earthquakes according to the Richter scale.

However, as a sports fan I’ve noticed there is a discernable level of jerk-like behavior present in NFL quarterbacks. Moreover, once I noticed the stratification of this behavior, I discovered that it too needed a rating scale so we may better understand the levels of douchebag present in any quarterback.  It is crucial to note this rating scale is completely independent of on-the-field performance.

Click here to see the full list.

- Dubsism is a proud member of the Sports Blog Movement

Tebow-Mania Continued: Deadspin Poses Some Awesome Hypothetical Questions

Drew Magary is one of my favorite writers in all of the blogosphere. He is in more desperate need of a mental health professional than anybody out there, but that’s part of his charm. Anyway, he posted some interesting questions of a “what if” nature about the current mass psychosis surrounding the Bronco celebrity quarterback.  I would like to pose those same questions now, but with the inclusion of some decidedly Dubsist answers.

1) What if Tebow really were Jesus?

The Margary Answer:

This is unlikely, because Tebow is the youngest of five children and his mother has never insisted upon her own virginity. However, if Tebow came out and declared Himself to be God the Son, and then turned water into wine on national television, SHIT WOULD GET HEATED. You’d have people taking Him at his Word and becoming his disciples. Then you’d have cynical bastards like me saying He’s full of shit and that His water-conversion motion has poor mechanics and that everyone who buys His story is a wingnut freakshow. Then you’d have the wingnuts taking up arms and firebombing Bill Maher’s house. Then the violence would spread to the Middle East and beyond, with angry mobs burning Tebow in effigy and Tebow converts responding by throwing rocks and sticks and very small babies. Then World War III would break out and last for nine years until Tebow, at age 33, finally ascended to a mount and beseeched the world to end the bloodshed, begging all men to love each other and work together in peace and harmony.

And then He would be crucified. Then we’d have to wait another 2,000 years until another quarterback arrived with His skill set. God is cruel.

The Dubsist Position:

Margary is largely correct, but he leaves out one significant event which may hasten the destruction of the world. See, If Tebow really were Jesus, then it is conceivable that stadiums across the league would become de facto houses of the Lord.  You can’t charge admission to the house of the Lord; remember how pissed off Jesus got over that whole incident with the moneychangers in the temple. Once the NFL goes broke because it’s revenue source became a collection plate, it will dissappear. Then the only thing separating all those good Christians from having nothing better to do on Sundays besides fire-bombing mosques will be televised bowling.  It doesn’t take a biblical historian to tell you that the world will be in flames about a week after that.

2) What if Tebow were to win the Super Bowl?

The Margary Answer:

That can’t happen. I mean honestly, it can’t. We’d all die from ESPN-induced rage cancer. There are three Hall of Fame QBs playing in these playoffs. There’s no possible way that little Timmy Tebow’s team can knock off two of th… You know what? No. I’m not getting into that trap. This young man THRIVES on haterade. He laps it up like it’s Christ’s own blood. Anyone predicting his doom is just gonna end up looking like an asshole. Better to clam up, pretend to root for him, and then act all condescending when things go wrong. That’s what good Christians do to their neighbors.

Anyway, if Tebow wins the Super Bowl, we’ll all fucking die.

The Dubsist Position:

First of all, Tebow can’t win the Super Bowl on his own. He will need the 52 apostles known as the Broncos. Don’t forget that a major part of Tebow-mania has been a defense that keeps the Broncos close enough for the last-minute miracle.

More importantly, let’s not just dismiss the possibility. After all, if you had told me a year ago that Tim Tebow would lead the Broncos into the playoffs and Joe Paterno would lose his job over a sex abuse scandal, I would have rushed you to the nearest hospital as you must have had a stroke. Get the point?

Anyway, if Tebow were to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next month, it will take no time at all for three things to happen. First, most of the Tebow-haters will do an about face; but the ones who don’t defect will become even more fervent and maniacal. The second thing that will happen is a three-month long Tebow-gasm even worse than what we are living through today.  Forget about Wheaties boxes, Tebow’s face will be on everything from sneakers to shotguns. Third, and most hilarious especially for those afore-mentioned Tebow haters, will be an explosion of imitators. Get ready for a wave of Option/Single-Wing/Leather Helmet offenses across the NFL.

Worse yet, he will marry Kim Kardashian in a Pay-Per-View event guaranteed to give you retinal herpes.

3) What if Tebow were gay?

The Margary Answer:

It’s a hard truth that the most religious guy on your block is the one most likely to be sneaking out to truck stops at 3 a.m. so he can greedily lap up every last ounce of redneck jizz caked on the bathroom stall partition. Anyway, if Tebow were gay, a couple of things would happen. First off, Mike Silver would die from excitement. Secondly, Tebow would have an incredible opportunity to bridge the persistent divide in this nation between evangelical Christians and the gay community. I mean, honestly: It’s time for this matter to be settled. Tebow could get his followers to be more accepting of gays, and he could get filthy liberals to be more accepting of evangelicals. I think he and Von Miller would make the cutest gay couple ever.

The Dubsist Position:

The magical union Margary speaks between Christians and liberals has as much likelihood of happening as I do for becoming the world first Eskimo fighter pilot. The one thing they have in common also dooms such a healing; they are the two groups of people who turn on their own kind the fastest, and they have an inherent distrust of converts.  A gay Tim Tebow would be a “man without a country” faster than you can say “John Elway has horse teeth.”

4) What if Tebow were assassinated while out on the field?

The Margary Answer:

Then I think you would see the Jesus scenario from Question 1 unfold. I also think his sperm would be harvested and given to willing congregants for mass breeding.

The Dubsist Position:

Pardon the pun, but God help us if this happens, and not just to Tebow. Collectively, we didn’t learn from the Monica Seles incident of twenty years ago. Mark my words, this is going to happen someday, and it won’t be funny when it does.

5) What if Tebow were secretly a serial killer?

The Margary Answer:

Then I think it would seriously compete with the O.J. scandal and the Penn State scandal for the title of Worst All Time. Tebow would be arrested, tried, and perhaps acquitted due to a sympathetic jury, with a sizable fraction of the populace convinced that he couldn’t possibly be guilty of such heinous crimes. Meanwhile, he’d be banned from football forever, which would mean we’d never have to hear about whether or not he has what it takes to be a winning pro QB ever again. It’s a win-win situation. Except for the murder victims. They’d get the short end of the stick.

The Dubsist Position:

It’s funny Margary mentions the Penn State scandal. Now that Mrs. Dubsism thinks she has some sports credibility, she mentioned this same thing about Drew Brees. Her theory was that since Brees has such an clean image and seems like such an all-around good guy, someday we will find out he eats babies.  The proof of such a theory: again, if you told me a year ago that Joe Paterno would lose his job over a sex abuse scandal, I would have had you committed. Now, I’m willing to believe anything, including when they find Tebow’s freezer full of girl scouts.

6) What if Deadspin were to find a Tebow dong shot?

The Margary Answer:

We can and WE WILL! I don’t think it would change anything about where people stand on Tebow, only now we’d have a penis to stare at. I think that would really add to the conversation.

The Dubsist Position:

Odds are Visanthe Shiancoe won’t be envious.

7) What if Deadspin were to find a picture of Tebow taking a bong rip?

The Margary Answer:

I’d totally start rooting for him.

The Dubsist Answer:

We could make a Mt. Rushmore of sports stoners: Michael Phelps, Ricky Williams, Tim Lincecum, and Tebow. How awesome would that be? I’d settle for a picture of Tebow and Kyle Orton baked at White Castle.

What if Tebow were a very nice man and an occasionally effective quarterback?

The Margary Answer:

Pfft. That’s stupid. TOTALLY UNREALISTIC.

The Dubsist Position:

Know what Tim Tebow would be if he were a womanizing drunk who was an occasionally effective quarterback? Joe Namath.

Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: Horrible 80′s Music Goes “Tebow”

There’s really nothing quite like the special level of hell reserved for when a current phenomenon inspires the return of one with a “retro” feel. Take the current Tim Tebow-mania which as we speak has a death-grip on the throat of the sports world. How would you feel about marrying that to the soundtrack from one of those god-awful 1980′s “Brat Pack” movies?

Well wonder no more…to the horror of eardrums around the world, it’s happened.

Remember “St. Elmo’s Fire?”  Apparently John Parr, the author of that bit of ear-rape, happens to be a serious fan of the Denver Broncos, and therefore a dedicated Tebow-phile. To honor his quarterback phenomenon, he’s rewritten the song to honor him.

Just because you don’t want to experience the feeling of a rabid weasel clawing your eardrums is no reason to miss out on this gold-medal level lyrical nut-kicking.

Growin’ up
Gotta keep your eye on the ball
Make it fly,
Give it everything, give your all
But maybe sometimes if you feel the pain
You’ll find you’re all alone
Everything has changed

Play the game
You know you can’t quit until it’s won
Soldier on
Only you can do what must be done

You know I’m out there
Down on one knee
A prisoner
And I’m tryin’ to break free

CHORUS:

I can see a new horizon
Underneath the blazin’ sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s
Flyin’ higher and higher

Gonna be a man in motion
All I needs my Broncos team
Take me where my future’s lyin’
Tim Tebows Fire

Oooh…

Burnin’ up
Don’t know just how far that I can go
(Just how far I go)
Soon be home
Only just 4 downs to go
I can make it
I know I can
You broke the boy in me
But you won’t break the man

(CHORUS)

I can see a new horizon
blazin on the Mile High
I’ll be where the eagle’s
Flyin’ higher and higher

Gonna be your man in motion

All I needs my Broncos team
Take me where my future’s lyin’
Tim Tebows Fire

I can climb the highest mountain
These Broncos cant be beat
I can feel St Elmo’s Fire burnin’ in me
Burnin’ in me

Just once in his life
A man has his time
And my time is now
And I’m comin’ alive

I can hear the music playin’
I can see the banners fly
Feel like a man again

I’ll hold my head high
Gonna be a man in motion
These broncos can’t be beat
Take me where my future’s lyin’
Tim Tebow’s fire

(CHORUS)

I can climb the highest mountain
Cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo’s Fire burnin’ in me

Burnin’
Burnin’ in me
I can feel it burnin’
Oooh, burnin’ inside of me

I don’t know about you, but I will be spending the rest of the afternoon stuffing a bottle brush in my ears.

Tim Tebow and the Idiotic “Race” Argument

I’ll be honest. I started writing this piece on Sunday with an entirely different beginning. After the Willis McGahee fumble, I really thought this was going to be a post-mortem piece for the Tebow phenomenon. But we all saw what happened in the waning moments in that game in Denver yesterday. Instead of a look back at why this guy is such a story, now I get another chapter.

Frankly, I’ve grown a bit weary of the the “he sucks/he doesn’t suck” debate.  But what I do find curious are the lengths people will go to detract from what this guy has accomplished.  There’s a lot of theories as to why so many people have such a hatred of Tebow, but there’s two which really stand out in my mind.

The first is to me the most credible.  Tim Tebow offends the “fantasy football” crowd’s mentality; the one that says a quarterback has to be a guy who throws for three hundred yards and 3 touchdowns every game.  There’s really no question that Tebow doesn’t look like a “conventional” NFL quarterback, and he sure as hell doesn’t play like one.  But there’s also no questioning he puts up a stat which fantasy geeks don’t count: wins.

I don’t understand this mind-set, but at least it doesn’t offend me like the second one does. If it wasn’t bad enough that the race-baiting clowns at ESPN have to ascribe the Tebow phenomenon to racism,  they are giving creedence to other black misanthropes who make me ashamed I share the same race with them.

The worst I’ve seen so far is by a guy who calls himself  Chauncey DeVega. Honestly, I can’t tell if this guy is just a bad satiricist, or a genuine race-baiter like Stephen A. Smith; you know the type, the guy who thinks every bad thing that’s ever happened to a black person anywhere at anytime is always an example of racism.

Chauncey, or whoever you are, if you are aiming for satire, you missed.  You simply aren’t funny; in fact it is your incessant playing to stereotypes (including your profile pic of Fred G. Sanford holding a can of malt liquor) that reeks of an unimaginative mind. Even your own self-description smack of part irrelevant college student meets the Black Panthers.

Chauncey DeVega is a race man in progress and occasional polemicist. He is also a resplendent purveyor of negro wisdom and collector of Black wit. Holder of the sacred chalice of the Ghetto Nerds. A believer in Black Pragmatism and the glories of the Black Freedom Struggle.

I had never read such utter rubbish; that is until I read the meat of his article on Tebow.

I am a Patriots fan. I loved watching Tebow get owned by Tom Brady. I also believe that Tebow is grossly overrated, and his popularity is a function of Christian Dominionist born again shtick and the “novelty” of a white quarterback with a “black” style of play. In many ways, Tebow is the Eminem of the NFL, with the latter being imminently more talented. Alternatively, we can suggest that Tebow is to black quarterbacks who play at HBCU’s as white girls who are “thick” are to black women with the same physiques. One is “exotic”; the other is “ordinary” and “typical.”

This is really why I lean toward Chauncey being a race-baiter. In one paragraph, he’s managed to both piss on the graves of those who died in the name of the Civil Rights movement while turning a discussion about a football player into on of divisive racial stereotypes.  Chauncey, I’m not sure which professor at whichever community college you attend filled your head with crap like “Christian Dominionist,” but suffice it to say that tack misses a couple of major points which you ignore at your own peril.

By offering the supposition that somehow Christians are anti-black not only ignores the reality that many of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement were (and in many cases still are) in fact Christian clergy. But worse than that, it does so with the same sort of generalist thinking that leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King were rallying against in the first place. King’s vision of a world in which people are judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin would also be a world in which you would not be able to take the intellectually lazy way out of this discussion by simply playing to stereotypes and blaming everything on race.

Not to mention, if you haven’t noticed, Christianity fell out of social acceptance in this country about 20 years ago. The broom of “political correctness” swept all things Christian from the public eye; turning America into country where people lose their jobs for saying horribly offensive things like “Merry Christmas.”

So, not only is the stereotyping of Christians wrong, it doesn’t make any sense.  If you doubt that’s what you are doing, Chauncey, consider this.  Nothing makes the stereotyping of a group of people more effective than salting that accusation with some loaded “code” words.

In all, the ESPN round table hits on a number of issues, and while they over read “racism” and “racial resentment” into the Tebow debate, the panelists are spot on in that a black quarterback who played like him would not get any of his shine.

I’ll give you credit here; you don’t just hide behind some vagueries, you come right out with it.  Your assertion is that Tebow is only getting “shine” because he is white; but take the inverse argument: Would a black quarterback get as much criticism?  The answer is no, and there’s a specific reason. Nobody else wants to get “Limbaughed.”

Remember the short-lived tenure of Rush Limbaugh as an ESPN football analyst? Regardless of your opinion of Limbaugh, anyone who has ever listened to him would agree that he is controversial. This, of course, is exactly why ESPN hired him. Of course, the minute he says something controversial, ESPN sprints into hand-wringing mode and essentially forces him to resign for doing exactly that for which he was hired. Not to mention that the comments he made about Donovan McNabb and the NFL are as true today as they were when Limbaugh said them in 2003.

“I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,” Limbaugh said. “There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

There is only one racial code word in that quote. What is there is honest criticism of a black football player.  I’m a black man, and a life-long Eagles fan, and every word Limbaugh said was true. McNabb did get a lot of credit for the performance of the Eagles that he didn’t deserve.  Despite that, Limbaugh got fired for being a “racist.”

But wait…there’s more from Chauncey; it’s the final nail in the coffin that says he is every bit the racist blowhard he accuses others of being.

Is Tebow the great white hope? And what does this tell us about race and sports–what should be the greatest of all meritocracies where none of these questions of identity ought to matter–but where the real world offers no such comforts?

Did you catch the code word in there? It a subtle one, yet it is powerful and  Chauncey used it in a way designed to conjure images of real racism from the past.  It was part of Obama’s campaign sloganeering as he ran one of the most racially-charged campaigns in presidential history.  It’s the one code word Limbaugh used it to describe the attitude of a media who wanted a black quarterback to do well. And Chauncey used it in the most vile and self-serving way to hark back to a day when black athletes were geniunely mistreated.

That word is “hope.”

It reminds me of the time LeBron James tried to blame racism as the reason for the  backlash against him following the infamous “decision.”  James hoped the world would throw a ticker-tape parade for him taking his talents to South Beach.  Instead, when he got criticized, he pouted and cried racism.

“I think so at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor,” said James, according to a CNN transcript. James personal adviser Maverick Carter said he thought race “definitely played a role in some of the stuff coming out of the media, things that were written for sure.”

Why does this matter? Because for one, Chauncey and LeBron have something in common. They either don’t know or don’t care that being a middle-class adult black male in America today still isn’t an easy thing.  Its bad enough that I have to deal with a country full of liberal white do-gooders who by definition devalue everything I do through their inverted racism known as “Affirmative Action.” Its bad enough that I have to watch black people who should know better continue to deflect responsibility for their own actions on a daily basis. But the worst part is when I watch guys like Chauncey and LeBron stoke both those fires by selfishly and needlessly injecting race into a situation where it was not part of the original problem.

The fundamental problem here is that even as misguided as most of the things white liberals “have done for blacks” are, it still makes them believe that they have carried a lot of water to douse the flames of past injustices.  So, when guys like LeBron and Chauncey or that charlatan Jesse Jackson start painting everything with the racist brush just because they didn’t get your way over something, it lessens the meaning of the word “racism.” If guys like this continue to do this, soon the word will be meaningless; white people are already starting to tune out to it. In other words, white people are getting tired of reaching out to the “black community” and getting called names for the effort.

LeBron, America hates you because you acted like a douchebag, not because you are black. Chauncey, Tim Tebow gets as much flack as he does “shine;” the “shine” comes from the fact that he a “circus freak,” there’s never been a guy this fundamentally bad who wins, not because he is white. But the bottom line is this. Save the racism charges for when they are relevant, and when you make them, make sure they make sense.  Otherwise, you’re doing more harm than good.

The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Stories of 2011

Being that we are at the end of what has proven to be a tumultuous twelve months, why not take a look back at the biggest sports stories of such a year? After all, I’m pretty sure nobody else does these sort of retrospectives…

15) The Establishment of Two All-Time Winningest College Coaches: Paterno and Krzyzewski

Will there again ever be a year in which we see the crowning of two all-time winningest coaches? We may not see either of those records (Paterno, 409 wins; Krzyzewski, 903 and counting) fall in the next half-century, let alone having them both occur in the same year.

14) Kevin Love’s Double-Double Streak

For nearly 30 years, Moses Malone’s record stood at 51 consecutive games, until Kevin Love scored 16 points and grabbed 21 rebounds against the Indiana Pacers for his 52nd straight double-double. Love’s streak ended at 53 three days later at the hands of the Golden State Warriors.

13) Two More Yankees Make The Record Books

Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter…Get ready for two more monuments behind the center field fence in Yankee Stadium.  Rivera notched his  record-setting 602nd career save, eclipsing Trevor Hoffman’s previous mark. And in the same season,  Yank captain Derek Jeter smoked a long ball to reach the 3,000-hit milestone, becoming only the the 28th member of the exclusive club and the first 3K Yankee.

12) The End of The Peyton Manning Era

The Colts spent two decades as an NFL afterthought before the arrival of the wunderkind Manning in 1998, and now neck surgery may spell the end of the Manning era in Indianapolis. Manning’s surgically rebuilt neck, his back-loaded contract, and the Colts prime real-estate in the upcoming NFL Draft form a perfect storm scenario in which if Manning does ever take an NFL snap again, it may be in a uniform not of Colt blue.

11) The Improbable Run to the Championship

When is the next time you will see such a harmonic convergence of “underdog” champions?

• NFL: The Green Bay Packers make the playoffs as the bottom 6th Seed.
• MLB: The St. Louis Cardinals literally make the playoffs as a wild-card on the last night of the season, then they win what may be the greatest baseball game in a generation, Game 6 of the World Series.
• NHL: Granted, The Boston Bruins were a #3 seed in the East, which isn’t a prohibitive underdog, but nobody gave them a chance in the Stanley Cup Finals against the President’s Trophy winning Vancouver Canucks
• NBA: Like the Bruins, the Dallas Mavericks entered the playoff tournament as #3 seed, but it was their complete domination of the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers which set the tone for the next two series, both of which saw Dallas facing teams which seemingly should easily over-match them in terms of talent on the floor. That was until Dirk Nowitzki decided to become unstoppable.
• NCAA Men’s Basketball: Again, the #3 seed proved magical, as the Connecticut Huskies rode that to the top of the field of 64. The fact they played their way to that seed was only slightly short of a miracle, considering they entered their conference tournament as a #9 and had to play AND win four games in four days to ensure getting into the NCAA tournament. Honestly, the ten-game streak in the Big East and NCAA tournaments pulled off by the Huskies may be one of the great playoff runs of all time.
• NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey: Another #3 seed…are you sensing a theme here? The University of Minnesota-Duluth (which is really the UCLA of hockey) had an improbable run to the championship of the Frozen Four.
• NCAA Women’s Basketball: I know that it is hard to call a #2 seed an underdog, but let’s not forget the womens’ basketball world was dominated by a single goliath at Baylor which Texas A&M  had to slay, but there was the ever-present team dragons in Tennessee, Stanford, and Connecticut.

10) The NBA Lockout

In what may prove to be a Quixotic exercise in abject futility, the NBA owners locked out the  players on July 1st  for reasons I still really can’t understand given what has happened since the lockout ended.  Star players getting big money has been the rule in professional sports for decades; Babe Ruth was the first jock to pocket more than the President of the United States. But when the Samuel Dalemberts of the world world are getting $13 million a year in a league that can’t pull in big-time national TV money, the problem is much larger than a simple collective bargaining agreement.

9) The Death of the Man Who Made the NFL What It Is Today

There’s a certain amount of irony in the fact the world lost Al Davis and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il in the same year.  Much like the regime of Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il, the end of the Al Davis Era marks both the end of an era that once made the Raiders a serious factor in the world of the NFL, but now leaves them as an isolated dictatorship viewed as a pariah in contemporary circles.

Kim Il-Sung shaped at least a half-century of world history when he ordered the North Korean army into South Korea in 1950, starting a war that is still technically unresolved to this day. Al Davis forever changed the face of the NFL when he sued the league for the right to move his franchise as he pleased.

Much like Kim Il-Sung left his eternal mark on North Korea beyond the war, the legendary Raiders owner had six decades’ worth of unique impact on pro football. I would be lying if I said that I never criticized Davis.  Just a few months ago, I included him on my list of the 15 Worst Owners in Sports.  However, as I said in that piece, that criticism was reserved for the Al Davis of the past 20 years or so.

For those of you under 30, you may not believe there was a time when Al Davis wasn’t a batshit crazy Cryptkeeper look-alike and the Raiders were not the laughing stock of the NFL. In an 18-year span during the 70′s and 80′s, the Raiders won 13 division championships, made 15 playoff appearances, and took home three Lombardi trophies. This is the era when the Raiders were the winningest team in all of professional sports, and love him or hate him, Davis was a respected and visionary leader who helped build the AFL into a league so successful the NFL couldn’t beat it so they joined with it.

That paragraph only scratches the surface as to what Al Davis meant to the world of professional football.  Davis literally climbed the football ladder, going from college assistant coach to an NFL assistant coach, to head coach,  to owner to AFL commissioner, to Super Bowl champion,  and ultimately to the Hall of Fame.

Perhaps his single greatest honor is having made a record nine presentations of inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Al Davis made presentation speeches for  Lance Alworth, Jim Otto, George Blanda, Willie Brown, Gene Upshaw, Fred Biletnikoff, Art Shell, Ted Hendricks, and John Madden. Davis himself was enshrined in Canton in 1992.

Davis changed the game of football through sheer personality; a personality which was a collection of contradictions. At once, he was was loyal and rebellious;  cantankerous and vindictive,  yet sentimental.  Yet through all that, Davis’ name must be included amongst the founding fathers of the NFL; a name that must be mentioned with same reverence in NFL circles as that of George Halas.

His contributions to the league as a whole notwithstanding, there the matter of his success with the Raiders. His trademark slogans weren’t just some words on a banner, it was a philosophy that propelled the three-time World Champion Raiders to the very top of the professional sports world. In the 48 year marriage between Davis and the Raiders, they had 28 winning seasons, including 16 in a row from 1965 through the 1980 World Championship season.

Davis died earlier this year died at age 82 and it’s hard to dispute the Hall of Famer’s place among the most influential of the sport’s history-makers. Davis was controversial. He was a contrarian. But he was also a gift to the game.

8 ) The Ever-Deepening Cesspool That Is The NCAA

This is only layer one of what is wrong with the NCAA. The truly disgusting stuff comes later down this list. This entry is all about the corruption and the hypocrisy of the organization which is supposed to keep these factors out of college sports.

It all starts back in January when the NCAA first found violations at Ohio State, but let the players who committed the violations play in their bowl game.  The theme here is the NCAA clearly values money over integrity. Keep this in mind as you read.

In August, the Miami situation broke,  when it was reported that Nevin Shapiro was pumping thousands of dollars in illegal benefits to past and present Hurricanes players over the past decade.  The tale told by Shapiro from his prison cell (he’s currently parking his ass in a federal cell for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme) includes prostitutes, cars, cash,  and paid vacations, much of which he alleges were known of by Miami staff and coaches.  Shaprio dimed out the names of  73 current and former players.

University of Miami president Donna Shalala being presented a check by Nevin Shapiro.

Go back to the Ohio State situation. At first, this was just about tattoos. Then it mushroomed into costing head football coach Jim Tressel and starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor their jobs. In this case, it wasn’t so much the crime, but it was the cover-up which killed everybody. But the fact the NCAA dicked around for months only underscores the fact they are not really than interested in enforcement.

Then there’s the completely laughable finding that Auburn “committed no infractions” in the Cam Newton affair when there were admissions about cash payments totaling $180,000.

The best part is this isn’t just teams who are mired in unethical activity. The Fiesta Bowl committee was exposed in a 276-page report which detailed allegations of Fiesta Bowl employees being reimbursed for donations to state and local politicians (which happens to be a felony), $1,241 spent at a Phoenix strip club was illegally charged to an expense account, and the misappropriation of $33,188 bill for Fiesta Bowl’s president and CEO Junker’s 50th birthday party.  Junker has since been fired, but more stories like this will emerge until the swamp that is the NCAA is drained.

7) The Conviction of Barry Bonds

Another story indicative of what a depressing year in sports this really has been. Again, instead of talking about accomplishments on the field, we are dealing with matters decided in a courtroom.

In April, Bonds became the first player from a “major” sport to be convicted for an issue stemming from the latest round of scandal about performance-enhancing drugs. While he was acquitted of the more serious charges, just this past Friday U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a 20-page order refusing to overturn the obstruction of justice conviction handed down by the the jury in her courtroom  nearly eight months ago.

6) The Continuing Tectonic Shift in College football

Texas A&M is headed to the SEC. So is Missouri.  Syracuse and Pittsburgh are bolting from the Big East to join the ACC. West Virginia is trying to ditch the Big East for the supposedly greener pastures of the Big 12; the same greener pastures TCU left the Big East at the altar for.  In return, the Big East extended invitations to at least six teams, and the madness isn’t over yet.

5) The Phenomenon Known as Tim Tebow

I’ve been watching football for nearly 40 years, and I’ve never…repeat NEVER…seen anything like the Tim Tebow story. He’s either loved or hated; he’s either the future of the Denver Broncos or an impostor. Everybody has a strong opinion, and everybody is convinced they are right.

Frankly, I have no idea what to make of the guy, so I’m going to stick with the facts.

• Whether or not the Broncos complete this miraculous run to the playoffs, there is no denying this team was on life-support when they handed Tebow the keys, and that team responded to him.
• The Tebow story is one of the few uplifting stories in a year in sports filled with so many negatives.
• Like it or not, Tebow is the biggest star in the NFL right now. Doubt that? Tell me another NFL player that had an hour-long special dedicated to him exclusively.

4) The Night of the Dueling Collapses

In the last story, I said I have been watching football for nearly 40 years. I can say the same for baseball, and again, I can say I never saw anything like the last night of the regular season.  In what was inarguably the wildest night in baseball I’ve ever seen, the Red Sox and the Rays,  and the Braves and the Cardinals entered the last game competing for the American League and National League wild-card berths respectively.

This set the stage for six hours of baseball that will be talked about for at least as many decades.

In the National League, the Braves blew a ninth inning lead, eventually losing in the 13th inning 4-3 to the Phillies.  This loss opened the door for the Cardinals to capture the wild card by cruising past the Astros 8-0 to complete their amazing late season run; one that found them trailing Atlanta by 10.5 games on August 25th but prevaiiling in the end by winning 23 of their final 31 games.

Believe it or not, the collapse in the American League was even more epic.  The Boston Red Sox  led Tampa Bay Rays by nine games on September 4th, which seemed to be an insurmountable lead. It wasn’t, as the Sox found themselves in need of a win on the last night of the season to keep their playoff hopes alive. The stars seems to be aligning Boston’s way; they seemed on the verge of staving off a historic choke-job, taking an early 3-2 lead over the Orioles while the Rays fell behind the Yankees 7-0.  But then somebody messed with the lenses of the Sox telescope; Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon surrendered consecutive hits to Chris Davis, Nolan Reimold, and Robert Andino to earn a season-ending 4-3 loss.  Meanwhile, the Rays regrouped and mounted a comeback on the shoulders of a pair of dramatic homers from Evan Longoria, including a 12th-inning walkoff game winner.

3) The Fiasco of the Los Angeles Dodgers

We may never know how sordid the details of Frank McCourt’s mismanagement of the Los Angeles Dodgers really are; what we do know is that after the Dodgers began showing signs of financial trouble in 2010, Commissioner Bud Selig made the decision to give the league control over the club’s day-to-day operations starting in April 2011.

Since then, we’ve been treated to McCourt attempting to overturn Selig’s take-over via the courts, then threatening to engage in more legal maneuvering over a proposed television deal with Fox Sports was rejected by Selig. Then since the Dodgers struggled to meet payroll deadlines, the club filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, all during which McCourt was embroiled in what may have been the nastiest divorce in the history of the state of California.

Thankfully, Major League Baseball and McCourt reached an agreement in October under which he will sell the team and the media rights by April 30, 2012.

2) The NFL Lockout

Really, all this lockout proved is that the NFL owners and players really don’t understand the problems they have. They think this new collective bargaining agreement solves all the acrimony we all lived through, but that’s an illusion made of money. Realistically, the NFL and the NBA share some common problems, namely that they have franchises in places they shouldn’t, and those franchises are draining the league’s resources. The difference is the NFL is the country’s most popular sports league, it is literally floating on money, so it can pave over it’s issues with revenue-sharing. When the NFL finally hits the point where it has priced itself out of the market (wait until you see what the new TV deal is going to do to your cable bill), all of a sudden the illusion made of money will disappear. Mark my words, the next NFL lockout (and there will be one) will look and sound just like the NBA lockout we just lived through.

1) The Penn State and Syracuse Sex Abuse Scandals

This is the one story here that transcends sports. We have all heard the allegations, we have all read ad nauseum about all the sickening details; there’s really no need to rehash them here. What matters most is that these stories should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. We all must take a stand in stopping this sort of abuse of our children, and we must do it now. There is no excuse for any other course of action.

To that end, this should serve as the moment of truth for the NCAA. It’s time to find out how many more Jerry Sanduskys and Bernie Fines there are out there, and it’s time to ensure they are stopped. If the NCAA can’t do that, then the NCAA needs to be dismantled.

Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: Spurrier Urban Wiley

Certain people should never be allowed to have children. While there are many types, today we need to discuss those who name their kids after football coaches. If for no other reason, those kids have no future.  The following story more than illustrates that.

When Urban Meyer decided to take the Ohio State job less than a year after retiring from Florida, many Gator fans were upset with their former coach. But few more so than Jen Wiley, who named her son after Urban because of her and her husband’s allegiance to Florida.

Wiley’s son, now 4 years old, is actually named Spurrier Urban Wiley, after Florida’s two national championship winning coaches — Steve Spurrier and Meyer — but after Meyer’s move to the Big Ten, Wiley wants to change her son’s middle name.

“My husband and I got married in 1996, when Spurrier won the championships,” she said, “and then we conceived in 2006 when Urban Meyer won the championship.”

It was a seemingly perfect fit for these Florida fanatics, until now. So mom’s ready for a change.

OK, so mom decides because Urban Meyer moved on, it is time to double-down on the mistake she made naming the kid in the first place.  Let’s take a look at what that means…

1) Mom has a weak sense of commitment

First of all, there’s almost no chance this kids’ parents remain married until he reaches adulthood. Mom is out the door the first time Dad farts during dinner. Not to mention, what’s Mom going to do the first time the kid pisses her off? Shoot him?

2) Mom has a warped sense of gratitude

Urban Meyer did all he was going to do at Florida. Instead of being grateful for what he did, this particular Gator fan is bitter that it was time for him to move on. What did she want Meyer to do? Have some early success , then spend two decades as mushroom on the sideline a la Bobby Bowden?

3) Mom missed a major point

There’s a reason why one should wait until a person is dead before you start naming things after them. The story nailed the reason specific to this case.

Raise your hand if you thought Meyer was going to stay retired. Anyone? Anyone? Coaches lie, they change their minds, they switch jobs. The best thing fans can do is not get too emotional and name their kids after them.

So, what is Mom’s solution?

“I want to change his middle name,” she said…If he does, she’s thinking Tim after Tim Tebow, the great Gator quarterback who is becoming a star in the NFL.

Perfect…nothing like illustrating your weak sense of commitment by replacing the name of a coach with that of a current fad.

My sympathies are with you, Spurrier Urban Wiley, or whatever your name will end up being.  Not only did your mother give you a name which guarantees at least half the state of Florida will want to beat your ass on daily basis, she’s going to use you as her own personal platform.

Nothing like being only 4 years old when you realize you are screwed.

What We Learned From This Weekend In Football 12/10/2011

1) This Tebow Thing Is Now Officially Out of Control

I watched the last three minutes of that Bears-Broncos game last night, and I still don’t believe what I saw. Sure, there’s all the stuff that surrounds Timmy Rah-Rah. You can see that on every other outlet out there. But the hype hides the unbelievable chain of events that led to the Broncos sixth straight victory.

To me, this all starts on the Broncos failed filed goal attempt in the 4th quarter when they are already down 10-0. That looked like the moment this run was going to end; after all, Denver was trailing 10-0 with 4:34 left. They had eeked out a mere 96 yards against one of the best defenses in the NFL and had no timeouts left. Worse yet, after the bears made it a two-possession game on Robbie Gould’s field goal, the next three Broncos’ offensive series yielded a mere two first downs and what seemed to be the dealing-sealing fumble.

Granted, Denver did score a touchdown after that, but the Bears have the ball with two minutes to go, and Denver has no timeouts. If Chicago can rack up a a first down, this ball game would have been over.

Then Marion Barber inexplicably runs out of bounds, stopping the clock and forcing the Bears to punt.

“Here it comes,” I thought to myself. “Here’s where it happens again…unbelievable.”

Sure enough, the Broncos got the ball back on their own 20-yard line with 53 seconds left, and after three of those wet Nerf-ball Tebow completions, Denver found itself on the Bears 41-yard line where Matt Prater nailed his first of two pressure-packed 50-plus-yard field goal attempts, the second being the game winner in overtime.

But even if you didn’t believe you were watching the Bronco magic happening again, you still had the failed on-side kick and the fact the Bears won the toss in overtime.

Then Marion Barber fumbled.

Everybody in the stadium knew what was going to happen next. Everybody watching on TV knew what was going to happen next. Dedicated Tebow haters like Stephen A. Smith and Colin Cowherd starting beating their wives in anticipation of what was going to happen. Even the Bears knew it was simply a matter of time at that point.

I can’t explain it, and I still don’t believe it…but you can’t argue with winning.

2) The Suckitude of Instant Replay Has Torn the Time-Space Continuum

Rod Taylor: Ahead of his time in time-stopping NFL officiating.

There’s how the 49ers got somewhat jobbed against the Cardinals this week. There’s how the Giants got robbed last week. But nothing was worse than how the officials in yesterday’s Packers-Raiders game ground the world to a complete halt.  Seriously, it was as if Rod Taylor from “The Time Machine” popped in to be an NFL referee, because for ten full minutes, the time-space continuum stopped; the cosmos literally being flung into suspended animation while some joker in a striped shirt couldn’t decide a call which anybody watching saw on take number one.

Seriously, these guys pissed around for ten earth-no-longer-orbiting-the-sun minutes all over that “Tuck Rule” which is apparently only invoked when a star quarterback is involved and it dicks the Raiders.

If that weren’t enough, on the very next play, the Raiders successfully challenged a Mike Mitchell interception in the back of the end zone that had incorrectly been ruled incomplete. That challenge lasted four minutes, which means in fifteen full minutes, we saw two snaps.

3) Will Army Ever Beat Navy again?

Easy math here..Navy has won 10 in row and 13 of the last 15. Maybe next year, we should Army have rifles so they have a shot…

4) Tony Romo…The Anti-Tebow

Think about it. As much as Tim Tebow seems to have some sort of Midas-like magic around him which rubs off on his team in crunch time, look at how Tony Romo always seems to be on the team which chokes on its own feces when it matters.

If you saw the look on Jerry Jones face at the end of last night’s game, I get the feeling the end of the Romo era in Dallas may be very near.

5) Attention Recievers: You Can Stop Making Circus Catches Now – It’s Been Done To Perfection

If Montana State wide receiver Elvis Akpla were a musician, he just combined the real Elvis with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and (insert five of your favorite awesome bands here) with this unbelievable catch.

6) Updated Coaches Death Watch

Newly deceased in bold…

• Houston Nutt, Mississippi
• Rick Neuheisel, UCLA
• Paul Wulff, Washington State
• Dennis Erickson, Arizona State
• Turner Gill, Kansas
• Tony Sparano, Miami Dolphins (Miami Herald reports he’s gone at the end of the year, but he doesn’t get crossed off as long as he still has a key to his office)
• Neil Callaway, Alabama-Birmingham
• Mike Riley, Oregon State
• Jack Del Rio, Jacksonville Jaguars
• Steve Fairchild, Colorado State
• Steve Spagnuolo, St. Louis Rams
• Frank Spaziani, Boston College
• Mike Sherman, Texas A&M
• Todd Haley, Kansas City Chiefs
• Luke Fickell, Ohio State (replaced, but retained on new head coach Urban Meyer’s staff)
• Andy Reid, Philadelphia Eagles
• Lezlie Frazier, Minnesota Vikings
• Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts
• Norv Turner, San Diego Chargers

Tebonics – The Language of Tim Tebow

Say whatever you will about Tim Tebow, but for some reason he’s like Nickleback; people either love him or hate him. Frankly, I think part of the trouble Tebow has is that he speaks in a language all his own.

It’s easy to miss this language barrier; the tricky part is that Tebonics sounds just like English. But the similarities end with the sound; it just doesn’t have the same meanings. To illustrate this, we here at Dubsism invested in two cases of bourbon an advanced linguistics class, then took some famous Tebow quotes and studied them. To that end, we have discovered there are actually two parts to each translation; there’s what you think it means, then there’s what it really means.

The Tebonic Quote: “Chris Leak’s a great quarterback. I’m not going to worry about (trying to get playing time). I’m just going to train as hard as I can, and that’s all I can do.”

• What You Thought It Meant: Tebow said this upon his entry to the University of Florida as possibly the most heavily-recruited player in the history of the SEC. It’s really easy to take this as the boiler-plate humility the new kid on campus is supposed to show.
• What Timmy Really Meant:  ”A few years from now, nobody outside of Gainesville is going to remember who Chris Leak is, and while those people may recall him, they will be doing so in the shadow of a statue of me.  Don’t wait until the last minute to start worshiping me; that band-wagon is going to get full quick.”

The Tebonic Quote: “To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida has never done here. I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.”

• What You Thought It Meant: Originally, this played as a tearful, emotional moment with Tebow apologizing to Gator Nation after yet another loss to Mississippi State.
• What Timmy Really Meant: “Have you ever spilled a soda on your kitchen floor, and no matter how thoroughly you mop it up, there always those sticky spots you find later; the ones that attract the roaches? That’s what cleaning up after Ron Zook is like.”

The Tebonic Quote: “You just try to be nice to everybody and treat them all the same. Treat them how you would want to be treated.”

• What You Thought It Meant: By now, you have figured out Timmy’s “go to” move is the humility; which really shouldn’t shock anybody who has studied the public presentation of being dedicated to a industrial strength Christianity-based belief system.
• What Timmy Really Meant: “One should always at least be respectful of people, but let’s be honest…I’m going to be arguably the most-mentioned name in football for at the very least a few years yet, so as long as I don’t let that go to my head, people will still cheer for me.  I was the most-popular jersey sold in the NFL before I ever set foot on a professional field. Tom Brady can’t say that. Peyton Manning can’t say that. Donkeykong Suh can’t even say that. Know who can? The guy I see in the mirror every morning!”

The Tebonic Quote: “When guys say ‘I’m not a role model’.  Well, yes you are.  You’re just a bad one.”

• What You Thought It Meant:  Tebow believes that athletes are role models whether they want to be or not.
• What Timmy Really Meant: There’s a rule about openly being a bible-thumper…for every three humble things you say, you have to say one which is pretentious and slightly accusatory.

The Tebonic Quote: “Coach Meyer was like a father figure to me…I went their because of relationships, especially Coach Meyer.”

• What You Thought It Meant: “Pope Urban I was a good guy, especially when he let me declare a Crusade on the rest of the SEC.”
• What Timmy Really Meant: “Like there was a chance I was going to Alabama…Dave Shula was such a dipshit.”

The Tebonic Quote: “I’m going to listen to John Elway. He knows what he’s talking about.”

• What You Thought It Meant: “I’m going to listen to John Elway. He knows what he’s talking about.”
• What Timmy Really Meant: “You thought I couldn’t win in the NFL. Appreciate that. Fuck John Elway.”

The Tebonic Quote: “As a competitor and an athlete, you have to believe in yourself.  And you have to believe in the people who believe in you.”

• What You Thought It Meant: “Hate me all you want. I’m still getting paid, and I’m winning.”
• What Timmy Really Meant: “Colin Cowherd can lick the inside of my jock.”

The Tebonic Quote: “I am not better than anyone else just because I play football.”

• What You Thought It Meant: Another statement intended for playing the “humble” card.
• What Timmy Really Meant: “I may not be a better person, but I’ve got a pretty sweet life. Think about that when you are talking smack about me from your overnight security guard job.”

The Tebonic Quote: “She’s a lovely girl, and a valued friend.”

• What You Thought It Meant: Christian or not, look at that rack.
• What Timmy Really Meant: “If I gave her a ‘pearl necklace,’ am I still a virgin?”

Hopefully now, whenever you hear Tebow speak, you will be better prepared to crack the code that is Tebonics.

You’re welcome.