Whose afraid of whom - anyway?

How Pat Summitt Ruined The Best Thing About Women's Basketball

For girls of the late 1990s and early 2000s, UConn-Tennessee was very often the only game that mattered — the ponytail Super Bowl. Then Pat Summitt screwed it all up. Emma Carmichael explains.

In a kinder world, Geno 'n' Pat would be a sitcom about a bumbling male-female cop duo. Geno would cause trouble, and Pat would be very serious and by-the-book, and she'd occasionally trip on things. Alas, women's basketball is not that world.

It has been nearly four years since the two most successful programs in women's basketball, UConn and Tennessee, last played each other. For that, we can thank two most successful coaches in women's basketball, Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt. They've kept up a selfish and self-defeating feud that's deprived their sport of a rivalry with enough cultural cachet to warrant its very own Wikipedia entry. Imagine if Federer refused to play Nadal, and you'll have some idea of the hole that's been left in the sport — one that is perpetually struggling for relevance. On its surface, the coaches' bickering is about Auriemma's allegedly relaxed approach to NCAA rules. That's just pretext, though. What really happened is that women's basketball adjusted with time and television contracts, and Pat Summitt never did.

Crazy as Batshit - nothing more need be said!

Wrestling Confronts The "Finger Up The Ass" Menace

 A perfectly legal move has landed a high school wrestler in court, charged with a sex crime. What exactly constitutes the feared but misunderstood "butt drag?"

In theory, it involves grabbing an opponent's behind to gain leverage when in a ground position. In practice, it often involves a finger or two slipping into the anus.

It's in the news because a California wrestler has been charged with sexual battery after using the move on a teammate during practice. (Three years ago, another wrestler was charged with rape after doing it to six opponents. He was convicted and sentenced to probation.)

The controversy has led to a number of matter-of-fact quotes that are giggle-inducing, like one coach who says the "checking the oil" part of the move isn't encouraged.

To think I'd ever instruct my guys to get on the mat and practice sticking their fingers in their teammates' rear end, it's stupid and ridiculous," longtime Fresno State wrestling coach Dennis DeLiddo said. "A butt drag isn't sticking your finger up a guy's [rectum]. That'd be illegal. That'd be counterproductive."

Then there's the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, who clarifies "it is never acceptable to insert fingers into the opponent's anus (regardless of duration)."

It's quite the dark, brown cloud hanging over wrestling. They've really got to knuckle down and come up with a solution before the competitors take matters into their own hands. Fisting joke.

Fresno court case alarms wrestling community [Fresno Bee]
[h/t Art]

Send an email to Barry Petchesky, the author of this post, atbarryp@deadspin.com.

Related articles

• High School Wrestler Preston Hill Put His Fingers Up The Butt Of A Teammate. Legitimate Move Or Assault? (queerty.com)
• 'Butt drag' wrestler faces sex assault charge (abclocal.go.com)
• For Souderton's Stolfi, only state title will do (philly.com)
• High School Wrestler Charged With Sex Crime After Using The Butt Drag On Teen (dreamindemon.com)

Shut up and play the game - the N-word and trash talk

Pardon the Eruption – Gav Sports Column

By Terrance Gavan

Trash talk.

Greg Walsh kudos! 

   I don’t think it was around when I was growing up.

   Trash talk is imbued with a certain efficacy today.

   It’s subtle as a jackhammer.

   It’s unpleasant.

   It’s the antithesis of sportsmanship.

   It’s schadenfreude taken beyond reasonable bounds.

   I’m not a big fan … even though my number one hero, Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird was apparently one of its most vile and loathsome practitioners.

   Peterborough hockey coach Greg Walsh is paying the price right now for his bold and singular stand against trash talk emanating from a game on Nov. 15.

   Walsh is sitting out an as yet undetermined suspension for pulling his team off the ice during a hockey game a few weeks back.

   Walsh is sitting because he wouldn’t sit still.

   He’s sitting because the trash talk aimed at one of his teenage players clearly overstepped the bounds of good taste.

   He’s sitting because of a racist taunt aimed at one of his players.

   A player from an opposing team called Walsh’s player, 16-year-old Andrew McCullum: “Nigger.” (Writer’s note: If we continue to use the N-word – as most publications do - as a replacement for what was really said it does a disservice to the process and the reader. It’s an ugly word. When it’s uttered in anger it should be exposed for what it is: Gutless, spineless, mealy-mouthed racism.)

   The word was directed at McCullum while both players were sitting in the penalty box during a Peterborough Minor Hockey Association league encounter.

   McCullum told the Toronto Star that both players “were chirping at each other,” when the opposing player upped the ante.

Birds of a feather - Cherry and Rob Ford

Image by Shaun Merritt via Flickr

By Seamus O'Bradaigh - Contributing Editor
I'm back in Cottage Country just in time to watch Toronto sell its soul to mass, crass, and wise ass commercialism - Christmas or new mayor Rob Ford; pick 'em - to a public much too concerned with the bottom line to notice that  Mayor Rob Ford is a few screws loose of a shelf.
Now we hear from Joe Fiorito over atTor Star that Ford - a football coach who apparently never ran a manmaker in his life (see rotund) - has asked our national joke Don Cherry to hang the chain of the city around one of his many necks in the official swearing in ceremony.

"So the mayor wants Don Cherry to hang the chain of office around his neck; what of it? Here’s what of it: The Clamshell is not Coach’s Corner.

Rob Ford is the chief magistrate of the corporation of the city of Toronto. He demeans his office — our office — if he turns the investiture into a sideshow.

The symbolism of these things is such that, if anyone is going to hang anything around the mayor’s neck, it ought to be someone who represents the people of the city. Cherry may be a fine fellow, but he doesn’t live in Toronto, shovels no snow in this city, pays no taxes here. His only currency is his chippy celebrity. 

Joey Fiorito a Toronto Star columnist with the pop and the cohones to call a freak show just what it is: a wild ride down the rabbit hole. 
When you get right to the nitty gritty these guys match up fundamentally.
They're both self-seeking, self-aggrandizing semi-literate goofballs.
Rob Ford is shady and Cherry is a failed coach turned ebullient jackass.
Ford campaigned on a dubious platform.
Cherry remains a dubious spouter of nebbish rhetoric, xenophobic balderdash and some very unsavory views on women.
Ford is a bully.

Hey Santa - what the hell is wrong with you

Memories of Christmas - Dad's favorite time of year
BY Terrance Gavan
Me old Da loved Christmas.
Trouble is.
Christmas was not overmuch fond of me old Da.
Chip and sway your way through the following video.
It's a short epic detailing the travails of a drunken Santa who's been celebrating the end of a long shift in an English shopping mall.

Image via Wikipedia

Yes look at the nose and tell me please ... does this Santa like
a wee dram every now and then? Of course ...
but catch the video at the end of the blog for funny drunk Kris.

It's caught on CCTV and is apparently a short dally-dilly day in the life of a store Santa after a long long long day.
It reminded me of my dad.
Old Da worked in the civil service in Ottawa.
But he was jovial enough to play Santa.
And he did possess enough of an advanced beer belly to jiggle in all the right places.
He loved kids almost as much as he loved beer, Drambuie and several brands of vodka.
I took a look at this video and was immediately struck with a notion that if Da had been a Santa at Billings Bridge shopping centre ... who knows.
Dad died on Christmas Day in 1973.
People often ask how that Christmas Day was for me.
And I'm almost embarassed to tell them.
For 18 years I never knew where my dad was or if he would get home in time for supper.
"Where's Phil?" The question would elicit a veritable shower of response.
"He was at the Bytown Tavern this morning," "I heard he was in Queon visiting Lennox at the Gavan's Hotel." "Gordie phoned and they had a few at Angie's"
He usually made it home on time. But the excitement was always palpable.
So I tell people that the thing I remember most about that Christmas when Dad died on a bed in intensive care from liver failure.
That I knew exactly where he was.
He was resting comfortably in a coffin down at McEvoy and Shields.
he wasn't late for dinner.
But he was missed.
For you Da.
And in the spirit of altruism, love and bonhomie.
We present:
Party on Santa ... Safe home tonight!