This week's salute to the bold, brash and outlandish moments in sports
Props to all college football teams that made this season one of the most outrageous and unpredictable ever.
Props to Quentin Richardson, the Knicks forward who after saying he's not afraid to play the Celtics, maintained his position after Kevin Garnett called him out for those comments after a 45-point loss to those same Celtics.
"I still believe the same thing that I said I believed before the game," Richardson said. " . . . Because they have Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, are we supposed to crawl into a corner and say we're afraid to play them? Go ask the other 29 teams and you show me a player that says he's afraid to go play them. I've never heard of that."
Granted, the Knicks got smoked (and keep getting smoked), but we're proud to see him not be a typical athlete and recant the original comment. Nice work, Q-Rich.
Props to the NFL for hooking up America with a live Internet broadcast of the Packers-Cowboys game last Thursday. Smart PR move. Of course, if these teams weren't both 10-1, we wouldn't care. But at least the NFL was smart enough to realize that if the NFL Network is going to televise games and very few cable subscribers are going to clamor for the games to be carried by their cable operators, there needs to be another outlet to air the games. I enjoyed the chance to watch the game, even with a few glitches (my wireless' fault, not theirs, although it seemed to cut out whenever Bryant Gumbel spoke, which is impressive). I enjoyed enough to intentionally click on the Sprint ad to signify my customer satisfaction.
Props to TNT analyst Kenny Smith, who during the fourth quarter of the Knicks' 104-59 loss to Boston last Thursday said, "I don't think, even in darts, I"ve seen guys get beat this bad." Ouch for the Knicks. Joy for everyone else.
Props to Eli Manning, who after being villified all week by New York and national media for his woeful performance against the Vikings, led the Giants on two scoring drives late in the fourth quarter to beat the Bears, 21-16.
Props to Lee Corso and Lou Holtz (I know, I know), who on ESPN's BCS Selection Show offered passionate reasons why recently named Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini should not be the defensive coordinator for LSU in the title game while Kirk Herbstreit could not stop laughing at them. Watching those two was like watching your two grandfathers go at it about a Lincoln vs. a Cadillac on Thanksgiving while your cousin just sits there laughing and eating grapes.