Tuesday, April 10, 2012

What People In Sports Shouldn't Say

Ozzie Guillen, meet Al Campanis, Jimmy the Greek and Keith Olbermann, the kings of "Open Mouth/Insert Foot."


You just got your seat at their table, the place of lost careers in a nanosecond for the sake of one stupid utterance." OK, it took Olbermann three tries.


The only question about Ozzie's comment is, who's next?


***

I love the fact that former Illinois basketball coaches Bill Self (Kansas) and now Bruce Weber (Kansas State) are now coaching in the same conference. Self got there by winning. Weber got there by losing.


Weber's only wins came with Self's players. They're not available to him anymore. Let's see how this ... ahem ... plays out.


In addition, I want to congratulate the University of Illinois on its recent athletic coaching hires and its subsequent pending application for admission to the MAC.

***

Read a local column here in Chicago calling the Old Town School of Folk Music, a wonderful institution, "...an engine that keeps [a] neighborhood humming."

No doubt.

Except that no credit was given to the original Old Town School of Folk Music location that is the engine that keeps the engine humming "...that keeps [a] neighborhood humming."

Just saying.

***

Read a great column calling for the simplification of remotes. Couldn't agree more.

Except that people who design remotes - just like people who design computers, smart phones, tablets, radio engineers' boards, automobile dashboards and anything hailed as the next great app - design to impress other designers. They don't design for the end-user.

God forbid.

***

Phil Hersh of the Chicago Tribune did a great profile of local kid Toni Kokenis (Stanford) as part of their women's Final Four coverage. Nice job.

But he forgot to mention that Notre Dame's football team has a shot at a BCS berth. Shocking, Phil, from you, shocking.

***

Reading somewhere that team executives in pro sports are concentrating on "the fan experience."

Couldn't agree more on the need for this - there's nothing like spending $600 on a family outing at a pro football game to sit next to a foul-mouthed drunk while grossly overpaying for parking and concessions on top of the tickets. Plus, you get to watch gladiators try to kill each other (unfortunately, that's literal these days).

Much better seat in my living room where I can multi-task and get food, drink and lavatory usage without waiting in line.

***

Now that the Chicago Bears have acquired a new back-up quarterback, a new running back, two new receivers and even two new cornerbacks, before the draft, how about moving "No. 1" wide receiver Devin Hester back to defense? And how come no one in the media has suggested this yet?

***

Chicago Magazine is saying that coach Tom Thibodeau is the man who will take the Bulls to an NBA championship, not superstar MVP Derrick Rose.

Which gets me to thinking, how many titles did Phil Jackson win coaching the Bulls without Michael Jordan?

Howard Schlossberg is editor of the Journal of Sports Media, with his first edition due out this year. He's an associate professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago, where creativity and learning are embraced hand-in-hand. And he still writes sports for the Daily Herald in Chicago's northwest suburbs. http://journalsportsmedia.blogspot.com; www.colum.eduhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/CCC-Journalism-Columbia-College-Chicago/115604591875424  

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