Sporting Life

When SLV and Watsonville ended the fourth quarter of their football game Saturday tied 14-14, I was interested to see how high school overtime works. Is it like college, where the teams take turns trying to score from the opponents’ 25-yardline. Or do they have the NFL’s ridiculous “sudden death” rules, where the ref flips a coin to determine which team gets a chance to win without the other ever getting the ball? It turns out, high school football is like soccer; they just end in a stalemate.

This was the second consecutive season the Cougars and Wildcatz tied. I’m still trying to find out if they end after four quarters because it’s a non-league matchup. It seems to me they should find a way to settle the score anyway. In the playoffs, high schools play the college rules, which work for me, although I can think of some tie-breakers that would be way more entertaining:

Field goal contest: High school kickers are underused, so let’s give them a chance to shine. Each team would start at the 5-yard line and move back 10-yards after each turn until one of them misses. Actually, it’d be better if they played it like a game of PIG, with the kickers going back-and-forth doing trick shots. Make one of your opponents challenges and you get a point. Miss it, and they get a point. First to three points wins. Imagine a game-winning, cartwheel-360-barefooted 30-yarder from the left hash mark. Epic.

7-man passing game: I don’t want to see a tightly contested battle end with a 2-yard dive play. Let’s watch these kids air it out. Give each team a turn from the 30-yard line with only seven players per side and only forward passes allowed. Hook and laterals are highly encouraged.

Lineman Red Rover: The big guys never get any headlines, right? Here’s a way to give them the credit they deserve. The teams have their 11 best linemen line up 20 yards apart for an old school game of Red Rover. You’d have the biggest guys running towards each other in a dead sprint. I’m not sure how you would determine the winner, but it’d be fun to watch.

Obafemi and Brendon Ayanbadejo premiered their internet reality show Bears Brothers at bearsbrothers.com.

So what do brothers playing for the same NFL team do away from the field? They check out their photos in the newspaper and give each other crap about using ChapStick, of course. The show is no Hard Knocks, but it’s only 5-minutes long and definitely worth checking out. Here’s the first episode:

The next episode will be posted on their website Sept. 23 and every Bears game day thereafter.

UPDATE:  I spoke briefly with Obafemi this evening about his suspension. He talked about the civil suit he’s going to file against ALRI, the company that manufactures the supplement Max LMG, which he claims is mislabeled and is responsible for his failed drug test. Obafemi said everything is in place with his lawyers, though he’ll probably wait until after the season to file the suit. He needs to wait until his suspension is over and he accrues all damages he says ALRI is responsible for. Also, he doesn’t want it to distract from football.

As the Sentinel reported last month, Bears fullback (and Santa Cruz High alum) Obafemi Ayanbadejo was suspended four games for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy.

Ayanbadejo, whose brother Brendon also plays for the Bears, said he’s never taken steroids and he failed the test because of an over-the-counter muscle recovery supplement containing an anti-estrogen component he took when he ran out of the one he usually uses.

Last week, Ayanbadejo went on ESPN’s Jim Rome is Burning and made a case for a new league policy that would allow for lesser penalties for players who can prove they failed a test because they made a mistake, and not because they were trying to game a competitive advantage. Here’s the video from Ayanbadejo’s interview with Jim Rome and his main arguments:

•    Based on his span of clean tests, the NFL knows he was taking the banned substance for 3-4 weeks. His penalty shouldn’t be the same as a player’s who takes something for an entire season.
•    There is a difference between injecting anabolic steroids to gain an edge, and accidentally taking an illegal supplement. The NFL take intent and a player’s background into consideration when deciding cases involving off-the-field incidents. Why isn’t intent taken into consideration when deciding a penalty in substance abuse cases?

Ayanbedejo has a point. Why are the penalties for steroid violations black and white when there are obviously so many shades of gray in this issue?

Sentinel Sports Reporter Julie Jag wrote about talking to Ayanbedejo right after this story came out in her blog.

Obafemi and Brendon have an online reality show about playing in Chicago together premiering today at bearsbrothers.com. Heres the preview:

I’m kicking myself for not staying up to watch the U.S. tie North Korea 2-2 last night in the Women’s World Cup opener. It was a great game. There’s a replay on today at 4 p.m. on ESPN2. The next game is on Tuesday and it will probably be shown live at 5 a.m. Looks like I won’t be getting much sleep that night.

I’ve read a lot of complaints about ESPN recently. Most focus on what The Worldwide Leader should stop doing. Stop with the stupid “Who’s Now” fake bracket crap. Nobody cares if Adam Sandler thinks Tom Brady’s three Super Bowl rings are more impressive than Kobe Bryant’s three NBA titles. Stop pushing fringe leagues such as the AFL and MLS down our throats just because you show the games on your channel. Stop letting Joe Morgan talk.

Many of these points are valid. I happen to like the soccer coverage, but Joe Morgan really is terrible at his job. The network isn’t what it used to be. They seem to care more about promoting the ESPYs than providing comprehensive sports coverage.

Still, 70% of the TV I watch is ESPN. It hasn’t gotten bad enough to make me turn it off, but there are things a channel devoted to sports should be showing instead of the stuff they are now. Many of their so-called experts are obnoxious and their is no excuse for advertising an April Yankees-Red Sox games like it’s the second coming of Christ, but the real shame in how ESPN is conducting it’s operation are the things it’s leaving out. Here are five things ESPN should have more of in it’s its line up that would keep me hooked as a viewer:

1) Behind the scenes coverage
Watching baseball games as a kid, I’m not sure I ever understood the whole production was real. Games kind of happened magically. I never believed it was actually possible to bump into Ricky Henderson in the real world. That was until I saw the Reading Rainbow episode, “Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures With the Family Lazardo” when I was four years old. LaVar Burton hosted the show from the A’s spring training facility, and talked to Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire while they joked around during batting practice and took fungos. That was the first time I saw what happens behind the scenes in the pros, but unlike a magic trick, learning how it worked didn’t make it less amazing. It opened up a whole new way to be entertained by it.

Since then, I’ve been hooked on behind the scenes specials. I got HBO last month for the first time in my life, mostly so I could watch Hard Knocks, a reality show that followed the Kansas City Chiefs through training camp. I know the words ‘reality show’ can scare people off, so let me clarify. Hard Knocks isn’t so much a reality show as a weekly documentary about how a NFL team works. It has serious sports journalism, beautiful cinematography, and is quite informative and entertaining. Why isn’t ESPN producing more shows like this?

ESPN has the resources to make a Hard Knocks for every sports. The Chiefs are probably the pro franchise I have the most lukewarm feelings about - I don’t really like or hate them at all - but I’ve been clicking on every Chiefs related link I’ve seen since watching the show because I know a little bit about the players. ESPN could take a team struggling to build fan interest - like the Royals - and base a weekly program like this around them. Nobody would be able accuse the network of only caring about the Yankees and Red Sox, and it would probably be very entertaining. Make a Hard Ball for the MLB, Hardwood for the NBA, and a Hard Ice (I guess) for the NHL. Or just stick to football. I was disappointed to hear last week’s episode is the last one since the Chiefs close camp. I beg you ESPN, please steal this idea and continue it through the regular season.

2) Insane feats of athleticism.
I’m not talking about your generic slam dunk or home run highlights. Albert Pujols hitting a 450 ft. bomb is impressive, but I’ve seen that before. Why isn’t there a show that shows what Albert can really do? Let’s say the network replaced it’s ESPY promos with a mini-show called “Let’s See What Happens”. It would be a series of roughly 3-minute segments that would put athlete’s talents to good use, like finding out what would happen if Pujols swung at a baseball with an axe or a katana. Who can do more damage to an Astrovan in a minute: Joel Zumaya throwing fast balls, or Chris Pronger firing off slap shots? Can Michael Vick score a TD against 11 trained attack dogs? Viewers could e-mail suggestions of athletic tests they want to see. Who wouldn’t want to watch this?

3) Hockey
I keep hearing reports saying how dead hockey is because the Stanley Cup Finals got worse ratings than the Westminster Dog show or something. Of course nobody watches the NHL anymore. Where are you supposed to watch it? Before the lockout, you could see games on ESPN and highlights and analysis on the network’s NHL 2Night. Now you’re lucky to see a 15 second clip on Sportcenter of your teams’ game. This article analyzes the catch-22 of ESPN not covering hockey because people don’t like hockey because ESPN doesn’t cover hockey.

4) Premier League
It’s great they’re showing MLS games these days, but why settle for the junior varsity game? Start us off with English soccer game highlights on Sportcenter, so the soccer haters can get used to it. Is anybody going to complain about replacing the Budweiser Hot Seat with diving header and bicycle kick footage? Once Americans get used to the weird team names and company logos on the jersey, we’ll be ready for a game once week. Just a game-a-week, that’s all I ask.

5) Erin Andrews
She’s gorgeous, which is reason enough to give her air time, but that’s not why ESPN needs more of her. Anybody can put a pretty lady on TV, however Andrews is one of the few legitimately informative sideline reporters out there. She actually managed to make an interview with a Little Leaguer more awkward than usual. During one of the semifinals games at the LLWS, she interviews the 2006 championship team, which was in the crowd cheering on another team from Georgia. All the boys were giving one word answers and had the usual OMG-I’m-talking-to-the-hottest-woman-I’ve-ever-seen-and-I’m -on-national-TV look on their face when Andrews broke the tension by asking one of them, “Remember when you cried with me last year? That was such a great moment!” The kid nodded sheepishly as his teammates giggled in the background. Few people will go the extra mile to humiliate a 13-year-old like that. Erin Andrews is a rare talent.

After athletes win a championship they always say something like this: “I gotta thank God for giving me this opportunity. Besides the birth of my child this is the greatest moment in my life.” Now, I’ve never had a baby, so maybe it really is as magical as everyone makes it out to be, but there are a few sporting events I think I would be even more excited to see in person than Ryan Jr.’s crying face. The Sentinel Sports Staff had a long debate about the five contests we would like to attend the most.

Three rules:
- It has to be a one day event. You can’t say the March Madness tournament; you have to pick a specific round.
- You can’t have more than one event from a certain sport on the list. If you’re a big time golf fan, you don’t pick all the majors. Do you want to see Sunday at the British Open or Sunday at the Masters more?
- You can’t pick the teams involved. For instance, you can say the Super Bowl, but not the Raiders in the Super Bowl. You could say Raiders vs. Broncos, because that happens every year.

Here are the Sentinel’s picks:
Mine:
1. Liverpool match at Anfield: I know little about soccer, but check out this video of Liverpool fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Best crowd in sports, and I want to be a part of it someday. I’ve been singing along with this song on my iPod so I’m ready when the moment comes.
2. Stanley Cup Finals Game 7: Hockey is the best sport to watch in person, and the NHL has the best playoffs in sports.
3. World Series Game 7: Nothing about a big baseball game really excites me, because it could easily be a 8-2 snoozer. But when something great happens in the World Series, it always seems more memorable than in any other setting.
4. Wimbledon final: There’s always a chance it’s an epic five-setter. I hold my breath before a big point in tennis. Few moments make me do that.
5. NASCAR summer race at Bristol: It’s been described as watching jets race in a gymnasium. Short track. 33-degree banked turns. 165,000 screaming fans under the lights. Give me a 40 of of Bud and a sleeveless t-shirt, and I’m there.

I.A. Stewart (Sentinel Correspondent):
1. Soccer World Cup Final: There is no argument.
2. Stanley Cup Finals: If it’s in Canada, better. Imagine a Leafs-Canadiens Game 7 in Montreal. If you haven’t been to an NHL playoff game, you haven’t witnessed sports passion.
3. Ohio State at Michigan: At the Big House, the Big-10 championship is usually on the line. Big-time college football doesn’t get much bigger.
4. NCAA Final Four: For some reason, the Final Four seems like a bigger deal than the national championship.
5a. Rugby: New Zealand vs. England, Australia, Scotland, whoever: Rabid fans, brutal sport. Beer.
5b. Any Chuck Liddell UFC fight.
5c. X Games Moto X best trick: You might see something you can’t believe.

Ryan Phillips (Sentinel Sports Editor):
1. World Series Game 7: I’m sure the feeling in the stadium is “electric.”
2. The Super Bowl: So I don’t have to watch the commercials.
3. Pool play at World Cup: Multiple games. Multiple parties.
4. The Rose Bowl: See what I’ve been missing as a Cal fan all these years.
5. The Kentucky Derby: Mint juleps and fancy hats … what else do you need to know?

Julie Jag (Sentinel Assistant Sports Editor):
1. The Eddie (aka the Quicksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau): A once-every-blue-moon event with big name surfers and even bigger waves. Plus, it means a trip to Hawaii.
2. World Cup Finals: Anytime, anywhere, any team. Always a raucous spectacle.
3. NCAA Final Four: It’s madness baby! Final Four because you get more games and usually they make for a better matchup than the final.|
4. Running of the Bulls: On the day they release the most dangerous bulls. I’ll save my running for the day after.
5. Wimbledon Finals: The decorum, the history, plus the flair of the Williams’ sisters and the good looks of Roger Federer and James Blake. Hopefully the WIlliams sisters would make the final.
6. The Olympics: I didn’t officially include this one because I couldn’t decide on a specific event or day. Maybe the gymnastics final or ski jump?
(I also would have included these events if I hadn’t already done them (why double up?)):
-The Kentucky Derby: Amazing event. I sat and imbibed in the field, bit I’d love to go with a big hat and sit in the stands.
-The Western States 100 or Hardrock 100: Any serious running race where people push themselves way past their limits. Makes you realize how much you can do if you want.
- Maverick’s: An event everyone in the Monterey Bay should see at least once, especially from a boat.

Jim Seimas (Sentinel Sports Reporter):
1. First day of San Fermin Festival: To watch, and perhaps participate, in the Running of the Bulls. How do you top that history and craziness?
2. Stanley Cup Game 7 (preferably at the Shark Tank): There’s something about playoff hockey that’s amazing, not only the emotion and on-ice product, but the fan enthusiasm. It gets loud at indoor venues; I love that. Plus, you gotta love the history of the playoff beard.
3. World Series Game 7 (preferably at Fenway or Wrigley): Is there any better venue to see a game than those ballparks? Well, San Francisco’s park is nice, but it’s lacking in the history department.
4. Final Round of the Masters: Amazing, picturesque course, an always great player field, and the coveted green jacked. Count me in. It’s the only thing that will get me to Georgia.
5. The Super Bowl: I just want to be part of the greatest spectacle in sports. Personally, I like watching pro football on TV. It’s just a better seat with the replays, commercials and all. But being there is something I have yet experienced.Christina Gullickson (Sentinel Correspondent):
1. Running of the Bulls.
2. A real hockey game on outdoor, natural ice: Even a scrimmage would be cool.
3. The Flying ELVI.
4. Lumberjack Games in Scotland
5. India vs. anybody in cricket.

Honorable Mentions: Boston College vs. Boston Universtiy College Hockey, Yankees at Red Sox, Olympic Skiing Super G, Sunday at the British Open (at St. Andrews preferable), Iron Bowl (Auburn vs. Alabama), U.S. Open Tennis Final, Colorado Avalanche at Detroit Red Wings. Indy 500. Paris Roubaix aka The Hell of the North (260 kilometer race over cobblestone, through the cold and rain, with tons of wipe outs. Europe at its finest).

Post the events you want to see the most.

I reserve my cheering energy for teams from Northern California, but I can’t help but root for the Red Raiders of Texas Tech. Their offense is incredible and I love that they give the other Texas schools fits. They opened the season today with a 49-9 win over SMU. Check out this New York Times article by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, Blindside) about Tech head coach Mike Leach. If I coached a football team, I would do it like this guy.