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You didn’t think there wasn’t going to be a price to pay for all of this, did you?
Our sports, with our kids targeted to ride shotgun, have been headed this way for years. The cumulative effect of relentlessly marketing bad as good and dismissing good as unmarketable — the pandering, the silence, the network promos that replaced football with chest-pounders and preeners, the media’s insistence that one play with “a swagger” — has inevitably brought us to a place that years ago should not have been fed nor watered.
This past Sunday in Denver, during a 45-10 loss to the suddenly smug Lions, Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow twice was openly mocked by two Detroit players acting like drive-time radio wise guys. Tebow’s sin? He’s deeply devoted to his Christian beliefs.
It’s an old story attached to a young man, but he did nothing to either Lions tight end Tony Scheffler or linebacker Stephen Tulloch — or the Lions — that would cause either to do what he did, to kneel in exaggerated prayer as a public put-down of Tebow.
And the fallout in response to this latest low in professional unsportsmanlike conduct has been mostly shrugs and silence, far short than what this sowing should have reaped.
But imagine if Tebow had been mocked on the field for being black, or for being a Muslim, or for being Asian, or even mocked for being an ex-con! The fines, suspensions, apologies — released in statements, of course — and sensitivity sermons would have lasted all week, and beyond!
That’s how painfully backwards things have become. If a player were suspended after an arrest for carrying a concealed weapon outside a nightclub at 3:30 a.m., players would show him their highest regard by inking his uniform number on their game shoes. You can even flash a gang sign for extra Nike cred. But Tebow, just trying to do his honest, faith-filled best, is lampooned as a jerk, a freak.
Interesting that a few weeks ago the nation’s sports media were appalled that 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh showed Lions coach Jim Schwartz his unsportsmanlike, rude side during the postgame handshake.
But who was going to go after Scheffler and Tulloch? TV executives have rewarded the NFL’s biggest showoffs, trash-talkers, personal foul artists and attention-starved by hiring them to provide their expert opinions.
Warren Sapp, Deion Sanders, Shannon Sharpe, Rodney Harrison — an assortment of noted muscle-flexers, me-dancers, touchdown-posers, late-hit champs, fine- and suspension-masters — are now employed to sit in network studios to give their takes on matters.
Tulloch played at N.C. State, Scheffler at Western Michigan. We’re often told that even if a scholarship athlete doesn’t leave with a legit college education, he — and we — at least benefit from the socialization process that one undergoes just being at a college. And, yet, with NFL players — all not long removed from college — now regularly arrested for criminal antisocial behavior, some still cling to such a blindly wishful bromide.
Now we’re in deeper than ever. The first wave of kids raised on bad-is-good, worse-is-better sports marketing are now adults, parents, coaches. Small wonder that so many Little League and Pee Wee games end with the police being summoned.
We’re in deeper than ever. It’s not easy to go back to a place you’ve never been.
Gruden can’t get call right on Monday nights
It Is downright uncanny. In Jon Gruden, ESPN has another Joe Morgan.
Three Monday nights ago, Gruden insisted “all judgment calls” should be subjected to replay rule challenges.
This past Monday, he condemned the replay rule for destroying “the flow of the game.”
Week after week, he has trouble with flags for dangerous high hits. Apparently, Gruden is pro-concussion.
In Gruden, ESPN’s “He Got Jacked Up!” days live on!
And Gruden and ESPN apparently don’t yet realize that just because we’re tuned to ESPN, we’re not necessarily stupid.
Monday night, with 1:10 left in Chargers-Chiefs, the score tied and the Chargers in field goal territory, Gruden said, “San Diego will try to center the ball, try to put the ball exactly where Nick Novak wants to kick the game-winner from.”
The Chargers then fumbled the snap, recovered by Kansas City.
Moments later, Gruden said, “I’m surprised they even tried to run a play in that situation.”
Really? What about the play to center the ball for the winning kick?
With :06 left, Chargers with the ball, having intercepted, Gruden threw some more baloney at us: “Now San Diego obviously will set up a Hail Mary to one of their big receivers.”
But as he saw San Diego line up with a full, prevent-disaster backfield, he said, “Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if San Diego just doesn’t play for overtime.”
Yeah, good guess, Jon.
That’s some strong analysis, right there. Any dope would agree.
‘Extra’ penalty would work
Saturday, USC wide receiver Marqise Lee, as seen on ABC, was penalized for taunting after scoring against Stanford.
“If they really want to stop that stuff, why not add the yards onto the extra point instead of the kickoff?” asks Joe Marshall of Greenport, N.Y.
Better yet, why not, in such cases, just eliminate any try at an extra point? That would end it.
WFAN Intramural Results: Seems that as long as Craig Carton and Weekday Boomer Esiason continue to produce big ratings while Mike Francesa’s have gone flat, Carton can keep calling Francesa out, digging at him.
The Mets, according to Jeff Wilpon, have acceded to fans’ wishes and will change the outfield wall from black to traditional Mets blue. But the Mets’ black hats and jerseys, well, that’s a different story.
South Florida-Rutgers tomorrow night, or, based on Rutgers’ recruiting, it’s South Florida vs. North Florida.
The Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center on the campus of Montclair State on Sunday holds a students’ seminar on sports media careers, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Jeremy Schaap amd Kim Jones are among those scheduled to speak. For details, call (973) 228-5500.
Kevin Harlan’s hysteria-filled national call of Monday night’s Chargers-Chiefs may have been the most frightening thing heard on radio since Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast. Although both were heard on Halloween, Welles’ frantic description of Martian landings sounded credible.