Saturday, November 10, 2007

Glory Days

Not only are Boston sports teams on a four-week streak of making the cover of Sports Illustrated, since October 1 Boston teams have graced the cover six times if you include the World Series commemorative dition (which, incidentally, I do).


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Slightly off-topic, but I assumed you would have a big post on yesterday's ESPN College GameDay coverage of the Ephs versus the jeffs in Williamstown. Nice to see espn recognizing football in a much more pure form. These players are not their to get NFL contracts, but are playing simply for the joy of the game.

BTW, the game was huge fun and the tailgating even better!

- Donnie Baseball

dcat said...

Donnie B --
I intended to, but time got away and I found that I wasn't sure what I had to say. The first impression was that I really regretted not going up there. let's face it -- Williams gets a lot of attention for a school of its size, but Gameday ain't coming by any time soon.
My second impression was how little those guys get DIII, whatever paens they give to its purity. they depicted Williams and Amherst as schools for rich kids, apparently unaware of the vast resources that also allow them to provide financial aid for anyone they admit.
Third, there was a somewhat patronizing element to their presentation. I thought that they were really proud of themselves for giving the cute little DIII schools some attention. I realize DIII isn't LSU, but DIII is lots of great things, and in fact the level of competition is pretty damned good -- these guys are elite athletes compared to the average person, even to the average athlete.
In keeping with that, they kept emphasizing how "none of these guys are going to the NFL," which in the most literal sense is true, but it might have been worth pointing out that periodically DIII guys do defy the odds and make the NFL, and in fact that Williams has sent four guys to the NFL just since I (we) got there, including two who made the practice squad (Sean Keenan and ted Rogers) and two who made actual rosters -- my friend Ethan Brooks and Scott Farley. Ethan even started a number of games in the NFL, and spent a season as a starting tackle for the Ravens. That might have made for a decent story, rather than the narrative they preferred to emphasize, which seemed awfully "aren't they cute" for my admittedly somewhat defensive tastes.

I may actually post this comment in some form at Ephblog.

Glad you enjoyed the weekend. Wish I could have been there.

dcat

GoodLiberal said...

When will Steve Nichol and his New England Revolution going to get the recognition they deserve?!!

dcat said...

GoodLib --
I actually agree to an extent. I'm not convinced that hockey is still out fourth big time sport in the US. I think we have a big three, and I think MLS may have equaled or surpassed the NHL by some measures. Naturally in Boston the Revs will take a backseat to the others, and I think they need to win the big one one of these day, but the revs are part of the dominant sports scene in New England and deserve to be recognized as such.

dcat

GoodLiberal said...

I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I do agree with you. That Taylor Twellman might be able to get a regular gig in the Premiership one of these days. My money is on Fulham as they seem intent on buying as many American players as possible.

Pity BC dropped out of the title game picture too.

Anonymous said...

Look for the book "The blueprint" on the New England Patriots by Christopher Price . Glory Day for the readers everywhere !!!