The Winter Olympics in the Frying Pan

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In general, I am not an Olympic guy. I usually don’t watch the Winter Olympics because I get cold looking at all that snow even on TV. The only thing that is white and should be on the ground is nice warm sand.

Given the severity of the winter in Ohio this year, I WANT MY GLOBAL WARMING AND I WANT IT NOW!

I am also a believer that the Olympics should be all amateurs and not professionals across the board. In the 1980 games, the gaggle of US college hockey players beat the best professional team in the world–the USSR Army team. The fact that the USSR team was allowed in the games was a joke. Would the Olympic committee have allowed World Heavy Weight Champion Mike Tyson to enter the boxing tournament? I don’t think so. Then why did they allow the USSR to bring in a professional team?

Now we have the NHL and NBA players involved along with the professionals in some sports but not others. I would prefer all amateurs. The problem is that in basketball and some other team sports, most nations do not have amateur organizations.

Hockey

The hockey has been outstanding. US … Read more at FryingPanSports

What did we learn in the College football last weekend?

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Both Weis and Bowden are fired.

Weis used the players recruited by Tyrone Willingham for his early success. The experience at ND proved that as head coach, Weis was one step beyond his level of competence. ND will likely never again be a regular contender for a national title. It may wander close from time to time but no matter who is the next coach, the team will not regain the status that both the administration and the fan base assume is their natural right.

Bowden is an entirely different story. Florida State was a joke prior to him becoming head coach. The “what have you done for me lately” group of FSU fans don’t seem to remember that. He had 14 straight top 5 finishes, 2 national championships, 12 conference championships, a bowl record of 21-10-1 and the second most wins in division 1 college football history. He is still loved by both his current and former players and the parents of those players. Now he has decided to retire the way that former USSR heads of state did—by threat of force. That is not the way that a great coach should end his career. FSU will have some … Read more at FryingPanSports

Sports and Politics are a bad combination.

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I offer my readers my apology for missing some days in the last week. My mother in law passed away last week. Because my wife and I have known each other since 1963, I have had a long term relationship with her mom. She was as fine a lady and as good a person as has ever lived and she will be missed by all of us that loved her.

I mention this because she grew up in pre-war Germany. She was an athlete in Nazi Germany and was part of Hitler’s youth sports program. She told me about the combination of sports and political indoctrination that were equal parts of the program.

The 1932 Olympics were one of the most political games in that event’s history. She was a swimmer but was too young to be part of the Olympic team but saw her older friends pushed to the physical and mental brink and beyond to prove a political point. We all know how that story ended, but the point here is that the athletes paid the price to attempt to prove the validity of a mad man’s theory.

She also talked about the inept management of the program … Read more at FryingPanSports