If one is in a position to live one's life without learning what this is about, should one take advantage of that?
http://deadspin.com/richard-shermans-email-to-his-stanford-dorm-is-pricele-922762394
Everybody who went to work today is racist.
Oh yeah? I got a letter from the DMV that said you're all suckers.
So why didn't ogged write any posts about my letters calling him a racist? Racism.
2 is hilariously great. Just all of it, not just the RS parts.
Because you can't run a 4.5 40, cracker.
Ogged, what a role model for Taliban youth.
If there's one thing true about today's Taliban youth, it's that they excel at man coverage on deep routes.
Because you can't run a 4.5 40, cracker
Racist assumption. I never even once cracked corn.
I might be able to run a portion of a hundred which is a 4.5 40.
All the cigarettes I've been smoking have surely relaxed the lungs.
NFL defensive backs and wide receivers are supposed to be prima donna big talkers. Richard Sherman turned up the volume last night after the Seahawks won but seemed well within the tradition. I thought Erin Andrews did well to ask him anything as a followup after his rant.
Richard Sherman to Skip Bayless: "I am better at life than you"
The interview in 14 is one of the greatest things ever. I might buy a Sherman jersey.
I think 13 is exactly right. There's a great tradition of defensive back showboating and trash talk; Sherman seems like Neon Deion circa 2014. The dude who sent the Stanford letters to Deadspin says he likes Sherman, which is what everyone who knows Sanders also seems to say. And I guess it means that Crabtree is also right: Sherman is a TV guy.
This will seem less right when he murders someone, but until then, let's go with it.
16: I hadn't thought about it before, but of *course* you love Zlatan.
(Wait until you discover Cruyff. Transcendent physical skill + a deeper intellectual understanding of the game/intellectual arrogance than any other player.)
I think 13 is exactly right.
Yep. It's entertainment! Enjoy the show! One of my favorite NFL moments of the past decade was this interview after Randy Moss was fined $10K for pretending to moon the Packers after scored a touchdown.
Reporter: "Write the check yet, Randy?"
Moss: "When you're rich you don't write checks."
Reporter: "If you don't write checks, how do you pay these guys?"
Moss: "Straight cash, homey."
Reporter: "Randy, are you upset about the fine?"
Moss: "No, cause it ain't shit. Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me? Ain't shit. Next time I might shake my dick."
Richard Sherman's MMQB column today.
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At another work location today, and the special at the cafeteria was sloppy joes. So that's what I had. Back in my idionom.
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You know, even if what Sherman said had been out of line in some way, which it totally wasn't, who cares? You've got millionaire gladiators ruining their health to sell beer and sneakers and you're worried if they say something naughty? The fuck is wrong with this country and its so-called "fans"? Too many creeps.
Must read before talking about Sherman. He was salutatorian of his high school in Compton.
One article I readrelated the story that for one of his charity events he invited the replacement ref that blew that touchdown/interception call which had gone in favor of Seattle.
Heh, I lived in that dorm and sang that song (or maybe "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," which is functionally the same song) in, um, 1997. There were no listserv complaints that year, presumably because our bedsheet togas preempted any possible ill feeling. Our only star athlete was my roommate the tennis star, who probably wasn't there because most nights he preferred rooming with his twin brother to rooming with me.
Not to distract from the awesomeness of Richard Sherman, who is much better at life than me, but this article is a great testimony to MLK's achievements.
22 gets it right. He's clearly extremely smart, in addition to everything else. The thing he does in the Skip Bayless interview is pretty much exactly the full-force right-the-fuck-on attack on stupid media bullshit. that all right thinking people wanted to happen to, say, Cokie Roberts for years. Except he went after Skip Bayless who is an even worthier target.
The thing that pops into my head that's closest to the Skip Bayless thing is Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire. Both times the host of the program was incapable of the shame that the guest was attempting to get them to feel. If only the same outcome (cancelling the show) would result.
22 is fantastic. trash talker with the dreads but his secret weapon is his intellect.
But I don't think Sherman really laid a glove on Bayless -- Skip's whole job is generating talk, so he was loving that exchange. He has a symbiotic relationship with people who come on his show to chew him out for how ridiculous he is. That's why he's always being outrageous. Youtube is full of mult-million hit videos of people yelling at Skip Bayless -- think ESPN is upset about that? That was a great trash-talker showdown though. The irony, which I'm pretty sure Bayless appreciated, is that Bayless himself is the ultimate professional trash talker.
Yes, but I didn't think Stewart was able to land any of his punches with Carlson, either, for the same reason. Something about wrestling a pig springs to mind.
You don't get any singing, and it upsets the pig?
What is the perceived slight from Bayless that prompted this whole exchange? From my ignorant, context-less perspective, you have a sports pundit saying something like, "I don't think you're the best player in the league," and getting the reaction, "Fuck you, you suck," which seems a bit thin-skinned and not so much "speaking truth to power."
For comparison's sake, Stewart's point was "stop hurting America" (i.e., with your pointless nattering about substanceless partisan hits) whereas Sherman's point is something like "sports pundits shouldn't criticize me."
27. 29: the move that Stewart had available to him was 'Underneath it all, I am actually a concerned citizen -- politico is in fact extremely significant but you are turning it into a circus and a farce!" But you can't very well say 'the NFL is in fact extremely serious but you are turning it in a circus!'
According to this, "Bayless said Sherman was not in the same class as cornerback Darelle Revis." Which sounds exactly like something Bayless would say, and calculated to piss Sherman off.
Maybe Sherman thinks that sports pundits pose an actual threat to his business. And who knows, maybe they did and still do. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the stink.
And then of course as soon as Sherman takes issue with it Bayless is all, "what, are you saying you're better than Revis?" Fucking prick.
Kudos to whoever updated the mouseover.
Yes Bayless is being a prick, but then I guess I'd be upset as well if someone came into my studio pretending to want to be interviewed when he really just wanted a microphone for insults.
You can just tell that Bayless wants to stick needles in Sherman, but he doesn't have much to come back with.
"Stop bitching and fuckin adapt" is a great slogan.
I was kind of bewildered when my Facebook feed exploded with people defending Sherman against all the haters. I guess most people's Facebook feeds filled up with anti-Sherman screeds first?
42: Yes. Best I can tell, "thug" is the new n-word.
I like Sherman. Bayless and that other guy are grating, and cornerbacks are supposed to talk shit. It should strike no one as surprising.
Also, Stewart destroyed Carlson. Pretending otherwise just makes you look unserious.
"thug" is the new n-word
Precisely right. And this has been true for at least five years. I remember talking to my wife about it when fifty-something guy at the pool busted out with the thug language when talking about the NBA or something.
Speaking of football in general, I have seen neither the movie nor the TV show, but just finished the Friday Night Lights book. Curious how much of the stark racial aspects were reflected on the TV show and how they handled language in general and n*****, specifically? I suspect with network TV rules it would lead to a very different "feel." (The edition I read had a 10-year later section and unsurprisingly the book had been quite controversial in Odessa.)
My time in Texas was a few years prior to the season in the book and I was somewhat aware of the Permian/Midland Lee phenomenon and some of the educational reform fights that had been centered around football.
41: What did the chicken say to the dinosaur?
I don't recall race ever being dealt with explicitly on FNL. There's two major black characters and it's clear they're coming from a different place SES-wise. There's an arc about the tensions between the big-mouthed black running back and the more taciturn white players, but I don't think it's ever explicitly racial.
Actually, I'm wrong. There were a handful of episodes that dealt with racism (e.g., "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Humble Pie" in season two), but it was very fenced-off from the main action.
In the book the race element is absolutely one of major defining characteristics of the story along with the oil boom/bust and football itself. And even more front and center in a substory about one of their opponents, Dallas Carter. My wife, who also read the book, was quite familiar with the TV show and movie and said that the difference that stood out to her was that the book had much, much less about girlfriends and the whole kids' social scene.
50.last: As would be expected I guess, the book was not a novelization and I assume the more sociological aspects were rightly judged to not be the stuff of a hit TV show.
Towards the end of season one there's an arc where an old assistant coach makes racially insensitive comments leading to calls for his ouster, but then steps up when the thoroughly racist players one town over stir shit up. There's a good deal of "sociological aspects" actually -- one of the things that sets FNL apart from other non-procedural TV dramas is that the drama tends to come from characters having opposing interests, not just misunderstandings, and milking the characters' SESes accounts for a lot of that. Certainly the importance of football to their college prospects is front and center. In the last two seasons, the school district cleaves into a rich district and a poor district and even more is made of the split between the two Dillons.
45 - "Knucklehead" if you want to avoid "thug" because it's a guy on a team you root for.
In the last two seasons, the school district cleaves into a rich district and a poor district and even more is made of the split between the two Dillons.
My wife pointed that out to me; it appears that they reused and adapted some prior actual history in Odessa to build that story. Through the 1959 there were two segregated schools, Odessa High and a much smaller black/hispanic one--Ector; the former had a football tradition and the latter had no football originally, and then a small program playing other black schools. Permian was then created and for the most part split the old Odessa district and became the white UMC school while Odessa became working class white and increasingly Hispanic. The football tradition moved to Permian (at the time of writing Permian had beaten Odessa something like 24 years in a row), with accusations of recruitment of good players (almost exclusively white for the first 20 years--there was one black star who went on to the pros whose family was reputedly the first black family to live "north of the tracks). In the early '80s a judge ordered desegregation and the black school was shutdown with a good portion of it's district going to Permian (which was ~5% black at the time of writing--about proportional to the overall population). There seemed to be widespread consensus that the boundaries of the splits and mergers were overwhelmingly drawn with football in mind.
It's quite a good read; and I'd recommend to anyone familiar with the later adaptations.
How man times does the book feature a shirtless Taylor Kitsch?
54: I read the book a long time ago, at some point in high school. What struck me at the time as most compelling was the Boobie Miles story arc, maybe because my Dad also taught me to spin at a young age (as a pass rushing technique) and I was also told not to use it in high school. I was also surprised that the kids were using coke. On the whole it's a very sad book. After spending so much time and effort at becoming a good high school football team, very few of the players are recruited by any notable programs. I think the linebacker who throws up before every game gets to go to TCU (not sure what kind of program they had in the late 1980s).
55: It's left as an exercise for the reader.
The answer to 55 is relevant to my interests.
56: very few of the players are recruited by any notable programs.
Yes, the author's clear take is that the future careers of the players are a very secondary consideration. It's all about the cult of the football program and its immediate results. Everything else is subordinate to that.
As a "student-athlete" and a parent I've been a part of two different aspirational HS sports programs (albeit in "minor" sports with relatively limited support in the broader community). In retrospect, both were stupidly intense; I can hardly imagine what the reality of something like Permian Mojo at its peak was like.
Richard Sherman is just like MLK day. No Class.
14-44 was a lot more confusing before I realized that Skip Bayless is the brother of, rather than the same person as, Rick Bayless. Why would a football player be chewing out a professional chef?
What did the chicken say to the dinosaur?
I don't know. I don't speak bird.
Skip Bayless is the brother of...Rick Bayless
!!!!
This is almost as mind-blowing as Tom and Jeff Skilling being brothers. What is it with Chicago media personalities and their evil brothers?
Wood Harris and Steve Harris are brothers. Or so I recently learned from that show with the guy from Deadwood. Are the Harris brothers from Chicago? I'm betting they are. And...Wikipedia says yes!
Tom and Jeff Skilling being brothers
!
62: And at these prices you won't speak many more.
David Spade and Kate Spade are in-laws, I think.
67: They're both bloody shovels.
Gross! What'd they do with the body?
Nat is too PC to call a spade a spade.
I can hardly imagine what the reality of something like Permian Mojo at its peak was like.
If the ex-players are taken care of in Odessa, if they raise families there and are happy, maybe there's something to be said in favor of that way of life -- a community that wants to be a team. But it's a losing game. The community is subject to greater forces, which have no interest in preserving its ways. In Odessa, the oil money dried up -- at least it was drying up when the book was written, I don't know how many booms and busts it has been subject to since then -- and I remember coming away with the sense that its community was on its last legs. And Boobie gets the shaft when he gets hurt. It doesn't help that he's a black kid. It's a really sad book.
Boobie is the inspiration for Smash Williams on the TV show, who also comes into his share of misfortune. As far as sociological drama goes, FNL may be the best thing ever on network TV. As far as shirtless Taylor Kitsch goes it is unparalleled.
Woefully inadequate for shirtless Zach Gilford scenes, though. I feel like my rankings may be unusual. My ultimate slash pairing was Landry/Saracen.
@richarddeitsch: NFL Films had mic on Richard Sherman for NFC Championship. audio will air on Showtime's Inside The NFL on Wed at 9.
Damn, I don't have Showtime.
Richard Sherman, defying genre.
And, yes, that's me, nerd trash talking just a bit. If you try formal analysis up against all those sorry think pieces, that's just the result you're going to get. Don't you open your mouth about the best.
43: Best I can tell, "thug" is the new n-word.
74: Someone's going to watch and report back. right? Starts in 3 minutes (looks like a lot of segments end up on the website, though).