Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Super Bowl XL

It's Wednesday and apparently something called the Super Bowl is being held in Detroit. Yeah, Ive never heard of it before either, but apparently the two best teams in the NFL play in this event every year and its been going on for forty years now. I mean if the two best teams played every year for the past forty years it seems like the Lions would have been in one of them, right? Anyways with all these crazy events happening this week and seeing as how I live about two miles from Ford Field I thought I would devote a little time posting about it

Today I went with my sister to the RenCen, where all the media is headquartered this week, to check out a live taping of Sportscenter. Some observations. First Dan Patrick has a GI-normous bald spot, and looks to be anywhere between 75-130 years old in person. On tv he looks fine, but when you see him up close it looks like he's wearing a mask of his own face. Now that I'm starting to really think about it, I bet Dan Patrick died two years ago and
Mike Hall, remember the guy who won the first Dream Job on ESPN, (it's ok I didnt remember him either I had to look it up), took over his place without anybody noticing, or caring. Also I was amazed at how little the guys in studio actually do. The whole time I was there Patrick was probably on camera for a total of five minutes and would just sit there and talk to people while the segments were playing, which leads to the famous question, who got paid more for doing less last year, Bobby Higginson or Dan Patrick.

The other two guys in studio were Tom Jackson and Mark Schlereth. I've got no problem with Jackson, and when the crowd started chanting "Fire Millen" during a break he turned around and was laughing, acknowledging the crowd, it was a nice gesture. Meanwhile an assistant took off Mark Schlereth's face and was frantically trying to re-program him before the break ended.


Seriously I don't think it's possible to have less charisma/personality than Mark. He seems like the typical ex-jock, who provides no insight and believes games come down to intangibles like toughness, as if the Super Bowl should be decided on which teams O-line could eat more buckets of barbwire. Also the in-studio football field which looks so neat and green on tv is just a bunch of strips of turf shoddily held together by green electrical tape, with seams big enough to blow out Wendell Davis's knees, (check out injury no. 11). So in it's totality it was pretty cool getting to see Sportscenter live, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as catching College GameDay at the Big House as Chris Fowler calmly polished off two slices of pizza as the production lady was counting down the seconds to airtime.

Finally, like I said in the beginning the RenCen is hosting all of the media day activities and while walking around I got to see and smell many of the national radio guys and sportswriters. That's when I realized that I am wasting my time in law school. For instance today I had to shower and dress something like this.

However if I were a sportswriter all of these things wouldn't be necessary. Shower? Maybe tomorrow. Deodorant? Optional. Shave? Yeah right. Sweat pants with holes in the crotch? Formal wear. So people I'm begging you, please send me money to help me pay off all the cash I've wasted on college, and give me a chance to pursue my dream, so that one day I can become this guy.

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