On Valentine's Day, 2011, I present my ten favorite sports, why I love them, and minor irritants associated therewith.
1. I love college football for its excitement, intensity, and mirror of capitalism where almost every coach and school is a mercenary always looking for the better deal. That being said, I wish the inequitable BCS system would just go away and Boise State could be treated with real justice.
2. I love Major League Baseball for its tradition, long season, player ethnic diversity, chess-like strategy, and slow pace in a game that doesn't rely on a clock. That being said, I wish the league would quit focusing on the steroids smokescreen when the real scandalous issues are a lack of true revenue sharing and payroll caps making many small-market teams nothing but farm teams for the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Angels of the world. The Giants victory was a beautiful thing, but when will the Yankees be raiding their pitching staff?
3. I love NCAA basketball for its fast pace, drama, athleticism, colorful coaches, and March Madness. That being said, I wish student-athletes had to stay until age 21 just like in football, so top programs would have more continuity than a-year-of-Kevin-Love UCLA or a-year-of-John-Wall Kentucky.
4. I love the NBA for its athleticism, endurance, 24-second clock, and great broadcasters from Chick Hearn to Bill King. That being said, I wish the league would enact contraction (fewer teams and fewer regular-season games) to make every game count, every team count, and every player's health count. I also wish the refs were straighter (see Kings-Lakers playoffs) and the league's edict that every player's ego counts would be dismissed so great coaches like Jerry Sloan wouldn't be sent out to pasture prematurely due to chronic run-ins with star players.
5. I love NCAA women's volleyball for its athleticism, action, emotion, grace, and long rallies/volleys. That being said, I wish middle-school recruiting and easy transferring rules were abolished in order to enforce integrity and program continuity while discouraging unscrupulous, over-aggressive coaches from raiding/luring recruits too young or too uncommitted to their less prestigious collegiate programs. I also wish the game would go back to 30-point sets and a full 30-point fifth set if necessary. You don't see other sports cutting down the competition time to save a little electricity while using "Olympic match compliance" as an excuse.
6. I love the NFL for its revenue sharing, skills, short season, DVR-compatible play spacing, all-weather-welcome conditions, and hits. That being said, I wish the owners and players would use foresight and a little humility to settle on a new CBA before a lockout becomes a 2011 non-season. Non-play didn't do Major League Baseball or the NHL any favors. Like wedging temporary bleachers into an already huge and sold-out stadium for a heavily watched Super Bowl, greed isn't always good. In that same Super Bowl, little-market but tradition-rich Green Bay walked off with the title, a claim no other city of comparable size could make in any other major team sport in America.
7. I love rugby (particularly Australian National Rugby League and European Super League) for its intensity, strategy, kicks, laterals, scrums, idiosyncratic scoring, lack-of-padding hits, and international competition. That being said, I wish it had a higher profile in the U.S.A., at least a profile high enough to spare a great program like Cal-Berkeley's from the budget-cutter's knife. Fortunately, fundraising has saved the team for now, but where is the NCAA when a criminally ignored sport is on the chopping block? Why doesn't it award the sport more status and recognition with regard to its championship tournament? At least the IOC has decided to recognize rugby (the 7-per-side version) for the first time since 1924 in 2016.
8. I love international soccer, including Champions League, Premier League, and World Cup events (proving a love of American football and a love of world football are compatible) for its non-stop action, fitness, scarcity of goals, huge pitch, and fan rabidity. The constantly tough defense makes a goal like Wayne Rooney's bicycle kick for Manchester United last weekend that much more dramatic. That being said, I wish the American version of pro soccer would just go away. Attending a Real Salt Lake game is like attending a single-A or double-A baseball game: it's fun but strictly minor league. Why watch that when the Soccer Channel is available bringing the American viewer the best from Europe and South America? I also wish World Cup referees would stop training by watching NBA games and instead opt for a more virtuous style of blowing or not blowing whistles.
9. I love professional golf (PGA, LPGA, Champions, and European tours) for its traditions, nerves, skills, finesse, beautiful courses, and personalities (although some would say non-personalities). That being said, I wish both the European and PGA tours would cut enough minor tournaments so the two tours could merge effectively, putting the best players in one league (as with the Champions and LPGA). I also wish tournament names would go back to their non-corporate roots. Even when only 8 of the top 40 world golfers showed up for the Bing Crosby, I mean A T&T, at Carmel-Pebble Beach, it was a great event because of the celebrities, the beautiful setting, and the magical shots of D.A. Points, a previous unknown. Additionally, I wish there was more Johnny Miller-style ascerbic NBC broadcasting and less Jim Nance-style gush-to-the-max CBS broadcasting.
10. I love grand slam tennis for its sudden-death tension, endurance, athleticism, magic shots, and diva-esque egos (male and female alike) of competitors, coaches, and parents. That being said, I wish the prevalence of limited-field events and ludicrous team tennis leagues would vanish from the Earth. I also wish tennis would add two more majors (one in Asia and one in Africa or South America, for example) so there would be fewer large gaps in the grand slam calendar.
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