We Don't Do That Here

This is why I don't like Bill Simmons:

"Yesterday's blog elicited a few e-mails along the lines of this one from Mark Jacobs in New York: "I was very offended by your comments about last year's season being such a disaster that 'two white guys' were indisputably the best players in college basketball. Basketball doesn't require a non-white gene to be played well. You ought to look up Larry Bird or Pete Maravich. Did you write that the last football season was a disaster because two African-American coaches were in the Super Bowl? Didn't think so. Keep your comments to sports and athletics and stay out of the social arena."

Um, I was trying to be funny … I just forgot that we live in a world where you can't joke about anything. This nation is tighter than Meg Ryan's face right now. Loosen up. It's not a crime to joke about the fact that last year's college hoops season sucked so much that the best two players were white."



The first thing I thought of when I read this was the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns tried to be more popular and so he goes on the faux Howard Stern show with Homer. To help Mr. Burns, Homer writes him several jokes which he brags about: "You see white guys have names like Lenny, and black guys have names like Carl." Basically that's what's Simmons "joke" broke down to: "You see white guys aren't good at basketball." When I first read his blog that talked about how college basketball was bad because last year the two best player's were white, I wasn't offended or even thought Simmons was offering earthshaking societal commentary. No, moreso I saw it as another poor attempt at humor from a sports journalist who seemed genuinely shocked that Bill Self struggles coaching in the NCAA tournament.

Bill Simmons' jokes: both offensive and lame, which means they are doubly offensive.
This is why I dislike it when people send in letters to Bill Simmons:

"From T. Koutlas in Iraq: "Currently I am a surgeon at the 399th Combat Support Hospital in Tikrit, Iraq. I read your recent links to some O.J. Mayo stories and had to comment. See, I meet American kids O.J. Mayo's age every day here. I take care of them at the hospital here after they have been injured. I see them in the dining facility before they go out on a mission. I pass them at the gym. They are, without fail, polite and respectful. They go out every day and get shot at or have their vehicles blown up by IEDs. They don't get paid millions -- they volunteered to be here, like we all did. They make me feel very good about the future of our country. Then I read the story of O.J. Mayo's 'recruitment' by USC and am utterly disgusted. Trust me, I love sports, so do all the soldiers over here. But it gets to a point you have to ask yourself, what are these athletes doing to really earn all the money and respect they crave? When throwing a basketball off the backboard and dunking against a bunch of high school kids is the highlight of your life, you don't deserve honor and respect. You deserve pity."



First, I'd say that what T. Koutlas is doing in Iraq is truly admirable, an act of incredible self sacrifice. But, and you always hate to see that but, that will not be the highlight of OJ Mayo's life. I can close to guarantee you of that. I'm sure the highlight will be some sort of championship or scoring title, maybe even the honor of being the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. But, that's arguing minutia, my real problem is that I don't know anyone over the age of 18 that really "honors" athletes. I think when you graduate high school, and especially as you progress through college, the rose colored glasses about college sports, and professional sports to some degree, tends to lose its gleam. Once you realize you are cheering for people that are younger than you, once you comprehend the business aspect of major sports and major conferences, the sport loses its luster, or at least it should. This gets back to what I was trying to get at above, it's a tired joke: Atheltes are paid too much. Teachers are paid too little. Yep. That's sort of how the free market/capitalism works. Is it fair? Is it just? No, but that's the way it is. We shouldn't revere atheltes, we shouldn't honor or admire them. We should clap and congratulate them on achieving something we wish we could. We shouldn't look to them for anything more than an exhibition of skill or talent.

***EDIT*** As was also brought up, T. Koutlas admonishes OJ Mayo for dunking against high school kids, even though he, OJ Mayo, is himself a high school kid. I guess since you are playing against high school kids, you should not be allowed to dunk if you are in high school. Although such logic did not stop David Lee from dunking on my friend in 8th grade.