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The Area Code Comes Home

When Scott Frost took over at Nebraska in 2018, he brought with him from UCF a small equipment decision that ran directly against what the phone system had been doing for fifteen years. Frost let Husker players wear their three-digit home area code on the helmet bumper above the face mask. A Peyton Newell on the defensive line, a Mike Williams at wide receiver, an Andre Hunt lining up outside, each wore the digits of where they came from in black on red. The helmet bumper is a small piece of real estate, two inches by four, just large enough to carry three numbers. Frost had started the practice at UCF in late 2016 before the USF rivalry game, and he said at Nebraska that the guys took a lot of pride in it. Where you come from, he said, still counts.

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Eusébio Morreu: R.I.P. Eusébio da Silva Ferreira

Portugal, and the world of football (soccer), is  in mourning today after the death of one of its favorite sons — “The King” of Portuguese football Eusébio — has died from a heart attack aged 71.

The funeral is tomorrow.

Three days of National mourning have been declared by the president.

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The Sorry Legend of the Great Bootsock

The Legend of the Great Bootsock is a sorry homily for the rest of us who have talent, but zero gumption to keep fighting the hard fight against time and condition and geography.

The Great Bootsock got his name as the star of his small-town high school football team.  As the true freshman quarterback of his team, he won the first game he ever played by diving over a goal line scrum — even though one of the opposing players had grabbed his sock and was pulling him back from the score.

When the sock pulled away from the aggressor’s grasp, it wrapped around the heel of the great Bootsock’s cleats, sticking there like a flag of immediate infamy and respect, and the Legend of the Great Bootsock was born.

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Cancer Kid Jack Hoffman Scores the Winning Nebraska Touchdown!

Today, the University of Nebraska held its annual Spring football game. There’s a mix-and-match of talent on both sides of the football.  Red Team vs. White Team.  The Spring Game is a Lincoln ritual, and everyone loves it because Nebraska, playing Nebraska, means Nebraska always wins!

GO BIG RED!

There were over 60,000 people today at the Spring game in Lincoln, and the highlight of the day was when seven-year-old brain cancer patient Jack Hoffman came off the bench and into the game to score, what turned out to be the winning 69-yard touchdown, for the Red team!

GO BIG JACK!

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Honoring the Game: Pay as You Go or Pay as They Want?

It’s no secret that many major league baseball teams — even the Yankees! — are having a hard time selling season ticket packages this year, and one must begin to wonder if the economics of baseball, and major league sport in general, are forever changing for the betterment of the impulse buyer and to the detriment of the dedicated fan that these teams covet, and often, overcharge.

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Lucky O’Connell Roots for the 49ers in the Super Bowl!

Lucky O’Connell, SuperDog and mighty San Francisco 49ers fan — sits and waits to root on his team for the big Super Bowl win on Sunday!

GO NINERS!

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Manti Te’o Has a Man Problem

Manti Te’o has a man problem, and I’m not sure he will ever be able to fully resolve that problem and have a great NFL career, or even recover enough from this public “hoax” to live up to the promise of his Mormon upbringing.

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Erasing Paterno Begins: The NCAA Whacks Penn State

The NCAA stepped up today and did the right, moral, courageous thing and whacked Penn State where it hurt:  Their football team, their pocketbook, their history and their future.

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Oh, Noes! It’s Tim Tebow!

Oh, noes!  Tim Tebow is now a New York Jet and he is one of the worst examples of a self-righteous Christian I have ever seen playing a major sport and he’s taking center stage in my beloved Big Apple:

University of Florida football quarterback, and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow is the worst kind of Christian:  Self-promoting, crass, entitled, fragile, haughty, and invoking the sacred right of Crybabyism when God doesn’t answer his prayers.  During every football game, Tebow advertises his public love of God in quaint Bible verses printed on homemade eyeblack patches.  Each week his his mommy sends him a list of quotes to use.

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Rex Ryan is Finished as Coach of the New York Jets

Rex Ryan is the boisterous, flabby, manchild coach of the New York Jets football team, and he’s in trouble.  He isn’t in trouble for being loud-mouthed or a terrible coach — he’s clearly both of those things — rather, Rex is in trouble for prevaricating in public about the very public foot fetish he and his wife have shared on the internet.  You can have a buffoon for a head coach, but you can’t have a foot fetishist calling the plays from the sideline because everyone in the stadium will wonder if Rex Ryan smelled his wife’s feet before the game or not — and that kind of laughing condescension is bad for morale on a delicate, high-strung, team.

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