Posts Tagged ‘Albert Haynesworth’

If stomping on opposing players’ arms or faces is part of professional ball I’ll stick to college games, thank you.

November 27, 2011

 

I went to the USC-UCLA football game last night, and saw lots of excitement and color—the tailgate feasts, the reunions—planned and unplanned—of old college pals and acquaintances, the bands playing, cheerleaders cheering, and the USC crowd exhorting star quarterback Matt Barkley to return, chanting “One more year.”

Then there was the game: exciting for a while if you were, like me, a Trojan fan, but without suspense as the Trojans won, 50-0.

It was easy to cheer for USC, harder if you were a UCLA fan, but the Bruins have had their day, and will in the future. No mixed feelings as you cheered your team on.

How different if you were a fan of the long-doormat Detroit Lions of the NFL professional football league. The Lions are 7-4, well placed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1999. Their offense is led by quarterback Matt Stafford, their defense by the ferocious Ndamukong Suh.

But it’s no fun cheering for Suh, who along with his formidable talent is one of the dirtiest players in all of football—or any other sport. Thursday in a rage, he stomped on the unprotected arm (more…)

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Rory McIlroy runs away with U.S. Open, gives ethics fans a new hero to pull for

June 19, 2011

Sports fans who try to live an ethical life are often pulled in two directions by their favorites. What Dodger fan could, with a clear conscience, pull for drug-cheat Manny Ramirez to hit one out of the park? And what Redskins fan could root for Albert Haynesworth to sack the opposing quarterback, after the 300-pound tackle stomped on an opposing player’s face with his football cleats.? And what fans of the Vancouver Canucks or L.A. Lakers could go on feeling good rooting for their teams after ugly displays of pure brutality?

Well, all of us do, even though we know we’re rooting for deeply flawed individuals.

But then a new hero comes along with a dazzling smile, so apparently pure and strong of character that we fall in love again. So it is with Rory McIlroy, winner today of golf’s U.S. Open by an unheard of eight strokes with a record low Open score of 268. At 22, McIlroy is the youngest Open winner since the legendary Bobby Jones won in 1923 at age 21.

After earning praise here for an extraordinary display of grace and sportsmanship after his game collapsed in the last round of the Masters—as it had in last year’s British Open—McIlroy exorcised his inner demons and (more…)