SPORTS
“Drop kick me Jesus through the goal post of life.” Sorry, that was the first thought that popped into my head when I sat down with a blank page to write a chapter about sports. I hope you don’t get the impression that I’m simply writing this book off the top of my head. I am, but I still hope that you don’t get that impression.I was two years old on January 15, 1967. That was the day that Louis Leakey, Richard’s dad, announced his discovery of the earliest known ape to leave the treetops, Kenyapithecus Africanus. That same day the United Kingdom entered the first round of talks with the newly formed European Community. Oh, yeah, and the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Super Bowl I. Of these three things that happened on the same day in 1967, which do you recall?
Why would you think that ending war in Europe or discovering the origin of our species is more important than winning a football game?
I wish to begin this discussion about sports the same way I began the discussion about sex. I want to say that sports are good…no…really, really good. Why is it that when something is really good everyone has to pretend that it’s really bad?
Is Sports Good or Bad?
Why does the history teacher make 60K per year and the football coach make 600K per year?
Why do I know that John David Crow, from Texas A&M, won the Heisman in 1957 but it required an internet search to discover that some guy named Herschbach won the Nobel Prize in chemistry at Texas A&M the same year I graduated?
Why do I know that in 1970 the University of Texas was the national champion in football but it required another internet search to discover that a guy named Borlaug, from Texas A&M, won the Nobel Peace Prize that same year?
Why do I have no idea what these two Nobel guys did?
Why did I subsequently not even bother to look it up?
Q. Is there any redeeming quality about sports?
A. Yes, sports are an investment in the human spirit.
Humans aren’t machines. Our brains are not computers. In order to get the most out of a human you must nurture the spirit as well as the mind.
January 1, 1986, was a gorgeous sunny day in Dallas, Texas, and I proudly stood in the end zone of the Cotton Bowl wearing my senior boots and watching my beloved Aggie Wrecking Crew stop Bo Jackson four times in a row as he attempted to score on consecutive downs from the two-yard line. Exactly 9 months later, I sat in Levin Hall at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, listening to my first lecture on the first day of Medical school. Are these two events related? Was the motivation that I needed to study hard and get into medical school at all enriched by my love for watching Aggie sports?
My life has been greatly enriched by watching sports. I played them in high school and have watched them all of my adult life. For example, I won’t care about anything on the evening news tonight but I will turn on the NFL channel to see if they think that the division leading Cowboys will beat the Saints this Sunday. I enjoy it and it motivates me. I am inspired. Oh, and I graduated medical school and became an Alzheimer disease researcher.
In medical school there was this guy named Alex. He told me that he was from Carnegie Mellon University. I don’t think that Sports exist at his school. I hope that I didn’t just insult the entire women’s field hockey team. If I did, then come on over girls and I’ll make it up to you. My point is that he says, “I am from Carnegie Mellon,” whereas I say, “I am an Aggie.” Understand the difference?
But why does it have to be sports? Aren’t there a lot of other things out there that can inspire you?
My fiancé wants to go to the Pepsi Center and hear Andrea Bocelli? (In response to the guy on the back row who just said, “Who is she?” I think that Andrea is some Italian fag who sings classical crap. What? In Texas, a boy named Andrea is worse than a boy named Sue. I hope that I haven’t over-extended this parenthesis.) In any case, “Yes, my dear, I would love to go hear the fag…I mean Bo Jack…wait, what was his name?”
I was told to only bother learning two words in Russian, "да, моя дорогая," (pronounced, “Da Dare ă goi ă.”) It means, “Yes, my dear.” I complained that it was three words but she pretended not to understand due to the convenience barrier. I mean the language barrier. I mean the language when it’s convenient barrier.
You would be surprised how well this little phrase works. Pretty much anything that anyone says to me in Russian I respond with, "да, моя дорогая," and it seems that I have said the right thing.
The Opera, the ballet, musicals, plays, concerts, movies, and even stand-up comedy are all things that might inspire you. My point is that sports belong on the list. Why should we argue about what is legitimate to get inspired by and what is not? I don’t care if you are inspired by The Blue Man Group, the important thing is that you find something that inspires you.
What about the Arts? Why is so much money spent in order to have “The Arts?” If you are going to argue that it is insane to spend millions on a football coach then I will counter with how silly it is to spend millions on a theatre made out of marble just so men can dance around in their pajamas. Football players might pat each other’s butts but ballet dudes stuff their packages in tights.
These things inspire us. Therefore, they are more than worth it. (And I’m not just referring to the packages.)
Actually, I do like the arts and I go to the theatre not infrequently. Nevertheless, let’s pretend that I’m a man’s man and think all you opera fags are cute. So, let me explain why football is better than the opera.
The top 10 reasons why FOOTBALL is better than the OPERA:
- Nobody pretends to get killed, or if they do we call them a pussy.
- There are absolutely no fat women who are allowed to participate in any way.
- There is only one song at the beginning, but a fat lady does not sing it. (Unless it’s Ella...and...well...OK, fat ladies really aren’t that bad I guess.)
- Italian means pizza.
- Soprano means someone who forgot to wear his cup.
- You get a hot dog and beer when the flutes are playing.
- You get to taunt the loser.
- The tight end catches balls…no, I guess this applies to both.
- Everyone gets to yell really loud.
- The drama is real.
•
Now, I want to argue about what is and what is not a sport. To me, it’s the head to-head aspect that’s important and I’m not talking about gay sex. I have no problem with watching people dance and trying to judge who’s the best, but it ain’t a sport! Unless I can directly kick your butt, it ain’t a sport. It might be a wonderfully inspiring art form, but it ain’t a sport.
Gymnastics, synchronized swimming, the Ice Capades, dance fever, even that dance thing Emmitt Smith did…not a sport.
Wow, it’s pretty easy to win an argument when you are the one writing the book. I should do this more often.
Are athletes role models? Of course, athletes are role models. So are politicians, actors, singers, comedians, and really, really rich people but the real question is what actual impact do they have on a child.
Kobe Bryant “got him some” in a hotel ballroom in Colorado and my seven year old son thought to himself, “Cool, I can grow up to be a date rapist.” As if Kobe was even on a date.
Ron Artest punches Doug Overturf, the fan he mistakenly thought threw a cup at him, and this time my son thinks, “Cool, nobody better be standing next to some other guy who throws a cup around me!”
Ricky Williams spends his signing bonus on dope, or something like that, and my son thinks, “Gosh, it must be better to score weed than to score touchdowns.”
“The Bullet” Bob Hayes, the fastest man alive, is convicted in 1979 of selling narcotics and spends 10 months in a federal prison. I’m 15 and I think to myself, “Wow, I wish that I had his speed.”
Terrell Owens does sit-ups while holding out for more money. My son thinks, “How cool would it be to be a complete idiot. Hey, just like my dad, Stupid Levystien!”
In fact, and obviously, the only people who can truly be positive or negative role models for you are your parents, or whoever is a parental figure in your life. Not some athlete on T.V.
Alternatively, if your dad is drunk and out of work and is sitting on the sofa shouting profanities at T.O. then, yeah, this could affect you.
When I have father-son talks with my boys, it goes something like this:
Emmitt…good----------------Leon….bad. The Dodger…good----------The Bullet…bad. Ty Cobb…good--------------Pete Rose…bad. (Cobb never bet on baseball.) Lance Allworth…good------Lance Rentzel…bad. (Remember that little showing your pee pee to a 10 year old girl thing back in 1970?) Marcus Allen…good---------O.J….bad.
Then, I show them my favorite mug shots.
The Rogues gallery of Bad Athletes
It seems to me that most people equate the term “role model” with the term “positive role model.” There is such a thing as a bad role model, as you can see. Why is it so important for every athlete to be a positive role model? My boy’s will learn just as much from Dennis Rodman as they will from Michael Jordan. Again, it’s the good---bad thing.
I was a back-up wide receiver on my high school football team but I never had a mug shot taken and I am the role model for my kids, dammit. I mean, darn it. Damn, Stupid Levystien even screwed up the role model thing.
•
(If the following few paragraphs are included in your copy of this book then you don’t have the edited version that I made for my Orthodox fiancé.)
Speaking of being a back-up wide receiver in high school, one day after football practice the coach had everyone take a knee. He said, “Aw-ight…tomorrow is Yam Kipper, now raise yo hand if you is Jewish and won’t be hair.”
Of course, I raised my hand even though I was an Episcopalian. The coach counted out, “Wallerstein…Bloomstien…and Levy…wait a minute, are you sure you is Jewish, Levy? You don’t have no ‘stien’ in yo name.”
Then, one hand went up and then two and then four or five and guys were saying things like, “Coach, I’m Smithstien…I’m Allenstien…I’m Jonestien.”
After that everyone called me Levystien.
•
As long as I’m throwing out random sports related comments, I would like to pause for a minute and pay homage to the 14th greatest prizefighter of all time:
Abdul Aziz
It seems that when Iron Mike was in prison for three years he got the brainstorm to become Islamic and change his name to Abdul. He tried to change his name to Muhammad but that name was already taken. While in prison, he found some guy named Butch and taunted him in his shrill, lispy voice saying, “What’s my name? What’s my name?”
•
I spent about 30 minutes reviewing, rewriting and editing this section about bad athletes that I wrote a week ago before the Cowboys had their butts handed to them on a platter by the New Orleans Saints. It was now time to sneak downstairs on a Saturday night, trying desperately to avoid fiancé detection, so I could watch the Cowboys and the Falcons.
Why in the hell did the NFL decide to start having Saturday night games right before Christmas? Don’t they understand that if our girl friends won’t allow it then we can’t watch the games? The ancient Greeks banned woman from being anywhere near a sporting event, I wonder why?
Against the Falcons, Dallas’ young upstart quarterback bounced back from the previous weeks poor performance and T.O. was catching touchdowns. All was apparently well but poor T.O. was “frustrated.” It seems that DeAngelo Hall was talking some smack. Just then, T.O. hauls off and spits in his face. T.O. later says, “Yeah, I spit in his face but I certainly didn’t ‘haul off’ and spit in his face.”
In any case, the Cowboys beat the Falcons so I changed the channel to see what the Nuggets were doing. The Nuggets are Denver’s basketball team. They have this guy named Carmelo Anthony who is, I mean was, a squeaky clean good guy. No way does he have a mug shot. He even has a Warner Brothers tattoo above his left breast, not that I understand what that means but…
In any case, the Nuggets are beating a pathetic New York Nicks team by 19 points at the Garden in the waning minutes. All the Nuggets starters are still on the court and they are fast breaking and slam-dunking, which I suppose the Nicks take offense to, especially since the New York fans are cheering for Carmelo. Then, Mardy Collins wraps his arm around the neck of J.R. Smith, Carmelo’s bestest buddy, and hard fouls him to the ground. There is some wrestling and then it appears to be breaking up when Carmelo decides to do his best Abdul Aziz impersonation. Carmelo sucker punches ‘Ol Mardy in the left cheek and runs away.
T.O. got a $35,000 fine and Carmelo got a 15-game suspension.
Let’s talk ‘roids, man.
I couldn’t believe that you can just go on-line without a prescription and get pretty much any steroid you want. It’s a huge industry.
Performance enhancing pharmaceuticals...what a world we live in. Where did all this start?
What…776BC?
Yes, in that year a contestant in the original Olympics ate sheep testicles and claimed it helped him win an event. This is a testosterone uptake method that has since been abandoned.
In the 1904 Olympics Thomas Hicks (USA) won the marathon at St. Louis and collapsed. It took hours to revive him; he had taken brandy mixed with strychnine to help him win his gold medal. This is a cocktail that has seldom been repeated.
The real start of steroids in sports began in 1954 at the world wrestling championships. The Russians won everything and we later learned that they had a little help. That’s OK, though, we figured out what they were up to and returned the favor by winning everything at the 1962 world championships. It’s nice to know that our doped athletes can beat their doped athletes.
Of course, the biggest doping event was when a buffed up Ben Johnson beat that skinny little homo Carl Lewis in the 100M at the 1988 Olympics. This feat was especially impressive since Lewis, who finished second, actually competed with a lack of any testosterone in his body at all.
Lyle Alzado is the NFL poster child for doping since he died of a lymphoma in his brain. The only problem is that steroids don’t cause lymphomas. But he was a big enough asshole that we should just go on running his name in the mud anyways.
Bill Romanowski, Lyles twin brother, is his asshole equal and well known for throwing steroid induced temper tantrums and, by the way, for spitting in the face of an opponent.
Baseball is the worst offender. No, not Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi or Ken Camenetti or Mark McGuire but Major League Baseball itself. Everyone is blaming these players but these players did not break any rules. The problem was that baseball failed for a long time to pass any anti-doping rules for their game. Now they won’t let McGuire in the Hall of Fame even though he hit 70 homers in 1998. Apparently, someone once saw a bottle of steroid precursor in his locker.
How fair is that? He could have been a daily user of steroids and according to Major League Baseball, at the time, he was doing nothing wrong. I would argue that if he used, then he used his entire career. I remember when he was rookie of the year in 1987 with 49 home runs. He didn’t just get big and start hitting homers late in his career.
(Addendum, as of Jan. 11, 2010, Mark McGuire said today that he took steroids his entire career. He was, in fact, one of the main guys who influenced everyone else to take them and the feds have known all along. Now that he has admitted it, after not fessing up for so long, he will never be in the Hall of Fame and a lot of fans will never forgive him.)
Bonds, on the other hand, got big and started hitting homers late in his career. He spent six seasons in Pittsburg where he averaged 528.5 at bats/year and 26.67 home runs with a range of 19-33. After arriving in the Bay Area, where he spent 12 seasons, his at bats/year decreased to 459.5 and yet his home runs increased to 43.91 with a range of 33-73. In other words, he reduced his average number of bats per year by 69 and increased his average number of home runs per year by 17.24. Just thought I would share those stats with you in case anyone on the Hall of Fame voting committee is reading this book that is great and is written by Stupid Levystien who is an idiot.
Special Olympics Investigated For Use Of Performance-Enhancing Hugs
Onion Sports
It’s just not fair! As soon as you criticize something you suddenly have to eat crow. I say that Carnegie Melon University doesn’t have sports. Then, la di da, I’m glancing at an issue of the Onion and they report this article from the Clinical Journal Of Sport Medicine. Apparently, some wisenhiemer from the Carnegie Mellon University Medical School published an article on the use of performance enhancing hugs in sports.
According to this study, researchers found double-digit spikes in self-valuation, warm fuzziness, and smiles following even a single hug. The Onion then reports that this practice is wide spread in the Special Olympics. They go on to say that Special Olympics officials are unavailable for comment.
Correction
When I said that I did not know what those two Nobel prize guys actually did, I was not exactly telling the truth. I knew that Norman Borlaug’s Nobel was for recognizing that the limiting factor in the growth of sustainable agriculture was the biological susceptibility of plants that had no genetic diversity. By introducing genetically manipulated plants that had plenty of allelic variability, and therefore pissing off all the “let’s eat organic” idiots, he and his colleagues created a world where almost 90% of everyone isn’t hungry every day. He and Bill are still working on Africa but, hey, look at China and South America!
Actually, Norman was knee deep in a wheat field in Toluca, Mexico, in 1970 when he was awarded the Nobel prize for peace and he didn’t join the Texas A&M faculty until 1983.
KIDS
