August 2013 Archive

This week I got my laughs from two commercials.

The first one is the EA sports commercial for Madden 25 that features Texans RB Arian Foster (newly released from PUP! yay!) and Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch. Foster and Lynch get all made up to play their “fathers” Darian Foster and Marshawn Lynch Sr friends who trained their sons to later compete against each other at the highest level. The entire commercial I kept thinking about Martin and Eddie Murphy in the movie Life.

The other commercial for Footlocker you’ve probably seen already. The OKC Thunder’s James Harden recording a song in the studio as a way of keeping his career fresh but being surprised by his own voice when Golden State’s Steph Curry has producers play the track back.

If your ears can take it, you can listen to the complete Harden “song” here. Not sure why you’d want to do that though. Not sure why I did it.

Clippers guard Chris Paul has a tall task ahead of him in fixing the union. I’m rooting for him.

I was very caught off guard by Clippers guard Chris Paul becoming NBAPA President. We went from talking about Lebron James possibly becoming the guy to no word at all to…Chris Paul? Los Angeles Clippers Chris Paul? Can’t be traded to the Lakers for Basketball Reasons Chris Paul? I certainly didn’t expect this.

Over a week ago I wrote for Ebony.com about why I understood Lebron James passing up a run and how important it is that he continue to be a champion for his peers whether he runs or not. I argued that I hope he offers himself up as a support system for whoever takes the position. But more importantly, in that article, I talked about the time commitment the next NBAPA President will have to make to really engender change. 

I wrote:

Although it would be intriguing to have the league’s face represent the players, there’s a reason that recent union presidents have been guys were lesser known and didn’t hold the office during the prime of their careers. Three-point sharpshooter, journeyman and league gadfly Derrick Fisher last served in the role. Before Fisher, Michael Curry and Antonio Davis took their turns. It’s been a while since heralded players Patrick Ewing and Isiah Thomas juggled the position while remaining stars on the court. That’s understandable given how things have changed over the past couple decades. 

…

The last Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was signed after a short lockout and a flurry of controversy about how much revenue the players gave back to the league. Fisher publicly clashed with the union’s executive director Billy Hunter which resulted in Hunter suing Fisher accusing him of “secret negotiations” with league owners. Hunter himself was investigated and subsequently fired for improper deals and hiring. The union badly needs a seasoned veteran who can dedicate some real time to cleaning things up.

I really can’t speculate about what kind of President Chris Paul will be. I’ve always found Paul to be an intriguing figure. Paul is at times profoundly serious yet oddly immature. He also seems like a dedicated husband and father and rather thoughtful when it comes to issues concerning his career despite being relatively young. But what 28 year old really wants to spend time poring through the CBA and repairing union relations? There’s even strife among the players as some committee members were nonplussed with folks like James who publicly said the NBAPA disarray. Some bridges will need to be built there as well. 

On the flip side, there is an opportunity for a somewhat fresh start since Commissioner Dr. Evil  David Stern is now outgoing. His replacement Adam Silver has obviously been a mainstay in the league for a long time but whether he takes the same heavy handed approach Stern has in the past remains to be seen.

Whatever the case, I like a man that doesn’t shy away from a challenge. And this is an enormous one. Congratulations to Chris.

Should we star this post with the positive or the negative?

Let’s start with the negative.

GQ cannot be serious with these photos they used for RG3′s cover story. There’s more wrong here than in an episode of Honey Boo Boo.  Sheree from Real Housewives of  Atlanta had more fashions in her fashion show in which no one modeled anything than these photos have. Further, why are RG3s infamous plaits blowing like that? Did they borrow Beyonce’s wind machine? Man, I’m really disappointed.

I mean we can’t all be as perfect as my son-in-my-head Cam Newton (pictured above from his September shoot last year) but surely GQ could have done RG3 better than this!

Moving along to the positive, new Falcons RB Steven Jackson is Essence’s man of the month and I love it. If you hop over to Essence’s site there’s a video of Steven talking about maturing in all areas of his life including relationships. He says he’s 30 years old and it’s time to settle down. 

You guys already know that I have a weekly column on Ebony.com. Ebony has given me a great opportunity to sort of rif on topics of the day. At first, I was doing a weekly sports round up but that quickly changed to an opinion column. Of course, I’ve ALWAYS wanted my own sports column so this is a huge deal to me and I continue to be excited about it.

A few weeks ago, Brittney Fennell contacted me about an interview for an article she was working on for Ebony about black female sports bloggers. For her article, she interviewed myself, Jill Munroe from Jocks and Stiletto Jill, Syreeta Hubbard from The NFL Chick, Rob Y from Ballertainment, and Shaina Auxilly. I think the article turned out really well and it’s nice to see black women sports bloggers get some attention. Definitely visit all the blogs because there’s variety here and everyone brings something different to the table which is really cool. Jill and Syreeta have been in this game way longer than me and know much more about it. They were actually the very first female sports bloggers of any race I ever interacted with online in addition to PigskinLovingLady who Syreeta mentions in the article and Lizzslockeroom.

You can read the article here.

Only one minor quibble with the article: It states that I became interested in sports in college. Not true…I think the writer may have gotten that impression when I said I wanted to major in sports broadcasting in college. I’ve always been interested in sports, basketball and tennis in particular, and was sure, as a little girl, that I’d grow up to be Marvetta Albert. Once I got to college and HATED my comm classes I gave up on that dream which in retrospect was stupid. But I can’t complain because I love what I do now both in the political arena and the sports field. What DID happen in college though is I developed a love for football and suddenly adopted it as my primary sport

But back to the article at hand…black women are a very overlooked group in sports. I try to keep up with the black female sports writers that I know of whether it’s Rana Cash at Sporting News or Shalise  Young at the Boston Globe. The editor of the Baltimore Sun’s sports page is a black woman and Graham Watson who covers college football for Yahoo is as well. We’re not easy to find but we are out here making our mark slowly but surely.

I hope to see more good stuff from all of my fellow brown girls in the sports sphere.

Thanks for the article Brittney!

The NY Times once again let me express one of my strong opinions for their “Room for Debate” blog. This week the topic was the MLBs attempt to suspend A-Rod for life. I was asked if I think A-Rod is a scapegoat. The answer is yes.

Since this piece had to be short I didn’t get to spend an awful lot of time explaining how much I think it negatively impacts a sport for it’s greatest stars to be reviled. If that happened in the NFL I would be DEVASTATED. I also ended the piece by mentioning that PEDs should be integrated into the sport in a science-based fashion. 

I think that weeding out all cheaters is not only a huge time and resource drain it also seems like an attempt to turn back the hands of time and try to get people satisfied with production that isn’t affected by drugs. Now maybe this won’t have a substantial impact on, say, whether there’s another home run race or attempt at breaking the record, but what if it does? Then what? 

Just something to think about. Check out the piece, and let me know what you think. Feel free to disagree, scream, or of course tell me how I great I am! 

[Alex Rodriguez is an easy target. NY Times: Room for Debate]