Yea, our side! Boo, their side!
Today we're going to dive into the wide world of sports. A couple of weeks ago the college football season ended with two Division I-A "national champions". I have no problem with the split "national champion" thing and I'll tell you why. It's because the NCAA does not have a national champion in I-A football. Never has. It does in 1-AA, Division II, Division III and in every other sport at every other level. But not Division I-A football. You see, in every other level of NCAA football and every other sport there is a tournament that determines the national champion. This has to take place because it is impossible for every team to play every other team in one large national table. We have smaller conferences and conference champions are crowned based upon a season of head-to-head results. In a lot of sports conferences have post-season tournaments. (There really is no reason for these other than excitement and money. The team that won the conference regular season is the champion as far as I'm concerned.) But for some reason Division I-A never developed a playoff. There are two polls, the AP (voted by writers) and ESPN/USA Today (voted by coaches) that determine their own "national champions" based on opinion. That's why I denote "national champions" in quotations, to specify that it is a mythical national championship. FSU never won a national championship in 1993 and 1999. Notre Dame never racked up all those national championships. Nor has Miami or USC or Oklahoma. They finished the season atop a media poll. There are many other polls, such as New York Times and Sporting News. But the AP and UPI (which became the ESPN/USA Today) polls are the older, more established polls and therefore the ones anointed to determine the "national champions". Then the powers-that-be decided to try to come up with a way to determine a champion on the field. Thus was born the Bowl Championship Series. A cockamamie system combining human polls and computer analysis was devised to match the top two teams in the country. The problem with that is that everyone is still in the human poll mode. In fact the human polls still determine the "national championship". That's why we have two "champions" for 2003. Because unless there are two teams at the end of the year who are the only undefeated teams or the only teams with one loss there will always be a hue and cry about how the top two are determined to play one another. And a further complication is if there is a strong team from a conference of lesser strength. The hurdle for them to be included in the mix is too high. Of course a tournament of eight or sixteen teams would solve these problems, but the universities and the bowls have staunchly opposed the idea. There's too much money and influence from the bowls. They think that the bowls would be eliminated or lessened in importance. Well I'm here to tell you Mr. Independence Bowl and Mr. Insight.com Bowl, your bowls are already pretty meaningless with the BCS system. I like the bowls. When I was in school I got to travel to a bowl game every season. Most were not the big New Year's Day games. But it was a reward for a good season. If it were up to me (and it really isn't), it would be a playoff or go back to the old way. No BCS b.s. And no conference tie-in's either. Locking in the #4 Big Ten team versus the #5 SEC team in the National Widget Hoop-De-Doo Bowl Classic has the effect of locking out some deserving teams from other conferences. Let's see, who didn't go bowling last year. Northern Illinois finished 10-2 and Connecticut went 9-3 and was overlooked while 6-6 Georgia Tech and UCLA were rewarded with bowl trips. Now maybe they would have been invited if without the automatic conference bids, but I'd say that NIU and UConn were deserving of something. It was always kind of exciting when bowl bids were announced in December. Now it's pretty much a given and there is no suspense. In any case, death to the BCS!
And another thing...
Have you ever been on fans' bulletin boards? There are those message boards usually hosted on a team or media outlet website where fans post messages to one another about their team's performance and upcoming games and such. They are like playgrounds full of five-year olds. Barely an intelligent thought or well-reasoned argument in the bunch. Let me give you an example. Let's say that Team A is playing Team B this weekend. There will be a thread that looks like this:
AFan1: Team B sucks! Team A will kick their
asses!
AFan2: Right on! Team B are a bunch of girls!
BFan1: Oh, yeah! You guys suck ass! Team B is the best!
AFan1: Fuck you, BFan1! You are an idiot!
and so on and so forth. Then after the game one of the following threads will take place depending on who won and who starts the thread:
AFan1: Our team won! Team B went home with their
tails between their legs like the whipped dogs they are!
AFan2: Woo hoo!
BFan1: The refs had it in for Team B. It's so obvious. (Various conspiracy
theories to follow.)
AFan1: What crybabies fans of Team B are! They can't take it!
AFan1: Our team won! Team B went home with their
tails between their legs like the whipped dogs they are!
AFan2: Woo hoo! I wonder where all the big talking Team B fans are now. Guess
they won't show their faces.
BFan1: Here I am. Team A deserved the win. Congratulations.
AFan1: Shut up BFan1! You guys suck! Go back to your boards and cry.
BFan1: Our team won! Team A went home with their
tails between their legs like the whipped dogs they are!
AFan1: Get the hell off our boards! Team B fans are so obnoxious! Besides, the
refs had it in for Team B. It's so obvious. (Etc.)
AFan2: Team B sucks! BFan1 sucks!
BFan1: Team A played a good game but our guys
just had enough to win.
AFan1: Get the hell off our boards! Team B fans are so obnoxious!
BFan1: Hey, don't get all upset. I think your team played well. Our team was
just better.
AFan2: Team B sucks! BFan1 sucks!
I think most of the people on those boards are children. They have to be. I don't want to consider that there are that many immature adults in the world. I just picture these people as living in their parents' basement, no friends and no social life. (I know what you are thinking and the difference is that at least I don't live in my parents' basement.) The funny part of it all is that most will blather on before a game about how their team is the best and will never lose a game, then after a loss will rip them from stem to stern about how bad they are and they will never win another game. I have written the odd message before, but I always make the mistake of being level-headed and reasonable.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to the sports boards but the threads deteriorate in different ways. On political boards things usually degrade into ridiculous conspiracy charges or your "side is evil, my side is right" screaming matches. Reasoned discourse never gets off the ground on some topics because the basic foundation of the argument is not defined. When simple definitions of words such as "lie" and "marriage" cannot be agreed upon, the rest of the argument is moot. There will never be a meeting of the minds because each side thinks the other is out of theirs. And unfortunately intelligent discussions often get stuck on matters of spelling and grammar on the part of a poster. I can usually look at a thread on any kind of message board that has a large number of responses and tell that the subject strayed within the first dozen messages. Go on, take a look at the fan boards for your favorite team or a discussion forum on the website of your local newspaper or television station. It's fascinating. The anonymity of the internet allows people to say things that would not dare be said in the outside world. Just think, these people are your neighbors, coworkers and family members. Kinda scary.