My Christmas present came early this year and from a very unexpected source: Dartmouth Athletic Director Josie Harper. I would personally like to extend my gratitude to Harper for providing me with enough material to write three columns a week, but sadly I have only the time and clearance to write once weekly, so I will have to do my best to stick to my New Year's resolution of including at least one Josie Harper joke in every column this term. If anyone is disturbed by this, please send all grievances to Robert.Esposito@dartmouth.edu with "Most Embarrassing Athletic Director in America" in the subject line, so I know which blitzes to delete immediately without opening.
Back in the world of real sports, fans nationwide were treated to some quality bowl games this season, highlighted by the thrilling conclusions to the Navy/BC Meineke Car Care Bowl and the Boise State/Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl.
USC once again shut the mouths of all the PAC-10 haters out there, manhandling third-ranked Michigan in the second half of the Rose Bowl.
After making more mistakes than a colorblind Guitar Hero player, the Louisville finally managed to get its act together in the fourth quarter and roll to a 24-13 Orange Bowl victory over Wake Forest.
And let's not forget how brilliant Charlie Weis coached Notre Dame in a Sugar Bowl fiasco that simply got out of control before the fourth quarter mercifully ended with the score 41-14 in favor of LSU. Remember when Weis said, "Everyone knows I'm staying here until they fire me or I die. I'm here for life," this past October? I'm sure that the powers that be at Notre Dame are wondering just how many more embarrassing bowl game defeats it will take for God and Charlie to stop working in such mysteriously losing ways.
I know you've been starved for awards over the winter break, so let's see what awards Santa brought:
Juicer of the Holidays: Baseballs, circa 1998
It's official. Well, not exactly official, but according to Universal Medical Systems, Inc., some baseballs used in 1998 had a larger rubberized core and a synthetic rubber ring, including the ball that Mark McGwire hit for his 70th home run. Bob Dupuy is saying that the core of every baseball has remained unchanged for decades, but recent computer imaging scans seem to suggest otherwise. So not only were players like McGwire, Sosa, and Barry BALCO juicing, but even the balls were juiced -- a true disappointment to millions of baseball fans and yet another slap in the public's face thanks to Major League Baseball. Apparently the "best interest of the game" allows for the bastardization of baseball. Go figure.
Seizure of the Holidays: Tank Johnson's House, DT Chicago Bears
Fresh out on the wire is the news that police recently seized more the 550 pounds of ammunition from Tank Johnson's home. Not only that, but they also found six guns, marijuana and Toronto Argonaut Ricky Williams smoking a blunt on the back porch. Perhaps Johnson's arsenal was somewhat warranted, considering that his bodyguard, Willie B. Posey, was shot and killed just two days prior to the raid, but the fact remains that the aptly named Tank Johnson was living with his young daughter and wife in a house with 550 pounds of live ammo lying around. The children love long, shiny toys, though. At least that's what Michael Jackson tells me.
Dregs of the Holidays: Josie Harper, Dartmouth Athletic Director
You didn't think I could go the rest of this week's WOE and not come back to our good friend Josie Harper, did you? Because if you did, you were wrong. About as wrong as it was to issue a public apology for the University of North Dakota's team name and try to pawn it off like no one in the Athletic Department had any idea that their team name was the Fighting Sioux. UND is a perennial national hockey powerhouse, as anyone who has even the most basic knowledge of college hockey will tell you. Since the 1999-2000 season, the Fighting Sioux have played in three NCAA national championship games, winning in 2000, losing to BC in 2001 and to Denver in 2005. This season the Fighting Sioux are ranked 10th in the country. Perhaps Josie Harper has not taken the time to stop and look at the plaque sitting atop the new steps of the gym that reads: "Alumni Gymnasium: Erected in 1911 through the gifts of Dartmouth men and dedicated to the building of manhood in the College." I'm fairly certain issuing apologies for opponents' mascots has nothing to do with manhood and everything to do with caving into the miasma of political correctness that eats away like a malignant cancer at our society.
