The King of Sports – Football’s Impact on America – Gregg Easterbrook (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press)

The concept of this book is a critical examination of the societal impact of professional and college football on the United States, conceived and penned by a global warming alarmist, scholar who toils as a fellow for the Fulbright Foundation and Brooking Institution think tanks and lays claim to watching “too much football.” What could possibly go wrong?

Easterbrook who has been dubbed “the thinking man’s John Madden” authored the “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column for the uber-liberal, Slate.com and ESPN.com; that was noted for its snarky takedowns of football honchos and every level. Easterbrook’s more recent endeavors could lead you to wonder if Easterbrook would prefer the NFL become the professional flag football league.

 

 The King of Sports – Football’s Impact on America, starts out with a shocking love note to all things Virginia Tech football and coach Frank Beamer. Easterbrook opines on all that is holy about the Hokies program. If that was a way to set the tone for the rest of the book, it derails quickly.

Overall there is a disjointed, unconnected feel to the way this book is put together. Instead of coming off as a coherent, well balanced examination of the sport, ends up reading like a mixed bag of random columns that just don’t quite hang together. Can’t say I had high expectations going into this based on accolades from the likes of MS-LSD’s Chuck Todd.

Jason Who? NBA Player No One Has Heard of Announces He’s Gay

Okay, so there’s a big Sports Illustrated story and the media is blowing up with news that some guy that nobody has ever heard of has come out of the closet and announced he’s gay. To call Jason Collins marginal may give him too much credit.

In 12 seasons he’s played for half a dozen teams and averaged 3.6 points per game. We are talking about a 7 footer who averages less than 4 rebounds per game! Let’s face it, the NBA is SO desperate for big men that you can have absolutely NO GAME and still remain in the league.

So this makes me wonder why anyone should care? This is the equivalent of Bob the stock boy down at the local grocery store coming out! Other than the professional ax grinders and special interest groups does anyone who has get up and go to work every day really give two shits? Frankly it’s laughable to see tweets of support coming from Bill “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Clinton and Kobe Bryant who let fly with a gay slur on court early this year.

Collins has managed to hang around with pitiful skills and stats to match for 12 years! Now he’s a free agents with slim prospects at best of landing on another team which makes this “big” announcement more than a little suspect. When Collins can’t find a new sucker willing to pay him big bucks to ride the bench then he will be able to claim that it was homophobia and not his crappy stats that caused him to not be able to latch on with a new team.