Popped Collars and the High School Athlete

Recently, Takkle.com launched their rankings for boys lacrosse. Or maybe it’s a popped-collar pageant. Seriously – what is the deal with flipping your collar up? It wasn’t that cool in 1982 when people were doing it then, so why has it made a comeback? It was sort of invented by Rene Lacoste in the 1920s, to allow players to protect their neck. Wu-Tang would have been proud. However, in the last 30 years or so, it’s just a statement that says “I’m a tough guy, but no hitting in the face”.

The epidemic is so severe that the #1 ranked Tyler Florito (mashup of floor + dorito), seems to represent this point, literally picture-perfectly.

Terrelle Pryor’s Action Figure

As we’ve noted here previously the #16 ranked (Takkle.com) Terrelle Pryor is over-rated and ego-fueled. (Note: he’s ranked #1 at Rivals and Scout, but that is so ridiculous it doesn’t even deserve a link)

Now, it seems he has taken his pseudo-stardom to a whole new level. Today we happened across a blog showing Mr. Pryor with his own action figure. The kid has yet to throw a pass in college. All he has done so far is to play QB at a relatively unknown school in Pennsylvania. He has yet to leap a tall building in a single bound. No super-powers. No special R&D laboratory in the T-Cave. Most notably: no love from us. You heard it here first: he’s soft, overblown, over-rated and he’ll be a marginal athlete in college.

So, what gives? What did this kid do to get himself an action figure? And how ridiculous does he look now that he has an action figure and no place to yet go to college?

Confirmed Fetus Commits to USC ?

I was reading Takkle.com’s blog written by the talented Brandon Lilly. It mentions that a 10th-grader has committed to Texas. This might be shrewd on the part of Texas, and the kid, Tristan Thompson, may really be that good — but what are his parents thinking? What is happening where 16 year old kids with two more years of high school are signing contracts to play basketball for college? I’m all for kids having the decision making capabilities with regards to their direction in life — but this seems like a full-court press by Texas to pin the kid down before he has a chance to look around.

You can see some of the Thompson’s videos here at Takkle’s basketball rankings. While it is clear the kid is a good basketball player, you have to ask yourself — if the kid is that good, wouldn’t he wait a year to maybe get a better feel for what he wants to do?

The bottom line is, whe is “too young” to be making these kind of sign-your-life away commitments. before long we’ll have fifth graders committing to the local U, and kindergarten classes holding an NFL combine. It’s crazy.

Our Favorite Sports Blogs

Here’s a brief list of our favorite sports blogs. Just for the hell of it.
(We don’t make money from this site, so don’t feel like you have to get all your sports sarcasm here):

http://sports.wizbangblog.com/

http://chazsports.blogspot.com/

http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/sportsblog/

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/ (major media outlet, but hey, up yours)

And, we think these people are probably lesbians: http://www.sportssuck.org/

And, not only that, but we hate on people hating on sports. Girl that looks like Velma from Scooby-Doo and obviously got picked on in high school – we hate you too. And your friends who obviously got wedgies from grades 6-12.

High School Basketball and the Big Man

It seems like big men are a hot commodity in this year’s recruiting class. You have Greg Monroe, ranked #1 on Rivals.com’s top 150. Takkle.com has Samardo Samuels ranked #3. While this isn’t openly bashing these guys, because they do look like damn good basketball players, isn’t there a demonstrable trend that shows big men get hurt easily? Besides the obvious example in Greg Oden, there have been plenty of big men that are highly touted that wind up getting hurt. In fact, Sam Bowie, Shawn Bradley, Manute Bol are all example of players that were surrounded by frenzy down the whole trail leading to the pros, only to get hurt.

Even Shaq has been roughed up a lot of his career.  These kids(Monroe and Samuels) seem pretty mobile / agile and tough, but it’s pretty risky listing a big man as the top prospect in the class. We’d probably suggest someone like Lance Stevenson . Stevenson will obviously be a big time college player. He may not be a guaranteed pro, but he’ll do well at the next level.

Don’t take our word for it, though … you can check out  the basketball rankings at Takkle or the Rivals Top 150 for yourself. There’s a lot of sure-fire college prospects in this year’s class.

Terrelle Pryor: Future Third Person Interviewee

Terrelle Pryor was discussed on ESPN today, regarding his decision to sign or not. As we’ve talked about earlier, we think he’s overrated. Takkle.com has him on their rankings at #16 (too high) and Rivals.com has him on their list at #1 (irresponsibly too high).

Sure, he’s a big kid. He can toss the ball, but he’s never seen any real coverage in his life, and he certainly wouldn’t be in the top 20 college quarterbacks his first year out, so we fail to see how he is the top rated high school football player. What is of interest today is that he has yet to sign. The people advising this kid need to give him a lesson in striking when the iron is hot. He isn’t going to leap straight to the pros (NFL rules wouldn’t allow it and he’s also not good enough to play professional football), so he would be wise to move into a situation which allows him to grow and figure things out. The longer he declines to commit, the more chance some kid comes in as a walk-on or partial recruit and scoops up his spot. It may not seem likely, but it has happened quite a few times. If Pryor wants to make the jump, he’d better start making the right moves now.He has to play in college before he tries for the pros.

Whomever is advising him should see the delta between Rivals and Takkle (who is still about 20 places off in the assessment of Pryor), and realize that sooner or later more people will start to raise questions. He’s not a unanimous #1 athlete by any stretch of the imagination, and he’s virtually proving he won’t be ready next year by not getting his head on straight. There is little doubt at this point that someone other than Terrelle Pryor will have a bigger impact as a starter in next year’s freshman class.

His ego could be getting the better of him. If it does, he will be deprived of his right to refer to himself in the third person on national television.  That, my friends, will be a tragedy.

Long Basketball Players?

Basketball players have long arms, but what the heck is a long basketball player? Sports writers are the worst with this junk. The new thing to describe a tall, athletic player is “long”. Unfortunately for the writers, the game of basketball is played standing up, thus making the players “tall”. Players can have long arms, or long legs, but describing them as long is just another example of trendy writing.

The rankings at Rivals.com and Takkle.com both describe players in their top list as “long”. Hopefully someone puts a stop to this, before it is too late. Once the people at ESPN pick up the jargon, every newscaster and color-commentary guy will start refferring to players in the wrong dimension, and the world will be chaotic.

Please, Rivals, Takkle, ESPN : do not switch length and height. That is just annoying.

Hating on Fictional Sports Figures

What the hell was Rocky thinking in Rocky IV? If you had to train for a fight against a guy that just killed your friend and training partner, would you travel to the USSR to train in a cabin with your wife, corner man and Paulie for months on end? NO! At least I’d hope not. I almost wound up rooting for Dolph Lundgren, because at least he wasn’t stupid. Rocky was just plain stupid, and to bring his wife along was just as dumb. So Rocky — we hate you, too.

Speaking in the Third Person

A big source of our ire is the way athletes sound. From speaking about themselves in the third person to calling themselves “a brand”, it’s getting out of hand. Finally someone has written a book for this kind of thing. It seems like our kind of book.

Top 10 Reason Why Steroids Have Improved Baseball (and sports in general)

1. I love home runs. Especially in Little League
2. Better bean-balls
3. 1998 homerun chase saved MLB after whiny, strike-shortened, 1994 season
4. Can now stand on street and catch home run ball – saving the price of a ticket
5. More bench clearing brawls (fueled by roid rage)
6. Weight benches in the bull pen
7. Vitamin B-12 now apparently delivered via needle
8. Offical XXXL jerseys no longer just for fat fans like yourself
9. Can now watch WWF and baseball at the same time
10. Evens the playing field: with enough HGH, even you can beat the Yankees