Sports Can Be Boring. Here's A Way To Make Them Better.
By: Jamie Samuelsen
Two sports stories caught my eye in the last 24 hours.
One depressed me. One inspired me.
From the Summer Olympics in London, I learned that the U.S. boxing team won a grand total of zero medals. Not zero gold medals. Zero medals period. We couldn't produce a single boxer who was in the top three in any of the weight classes. The Olympics gave us Cassius Clay. They gave us Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya. And boxing is now in such a state in this country that we sent over no Olympians good enough to medal. Pathetic.
Meanwhile, back stateside, the remarkable season of Billy Hamilton continued. Haven't heard of Hamilton? You will. He's a minor league outfielder in the Reds organization who has torched the competition (and the base paths) for 131 steals so far this season. That's right, in a sport where 50 steals is now considered outstanding, Hamilton is evoking memories of Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman and Lou Brock. The Reds are leading the NL Central by 2 ½ games so maybe they don't need Hamilton right now. But he'll be up eventually (perhaps by September) and when he comes up, I hope he's running.
I miss the good old days when boxing mattered. And I miss the good old days when baseball players actually stole bases. So here's my version of a time capsule. If I could bring back certain sports or certain parts of American sports that don't exist anymore, the list would look like this.
1) Tennis – I'm admittedly in the minority here, but I miss the days where tennis mattered in America. I was raised in the era of McEnroe and Connors. And I came of age during the Agassi/Sampras rivalry. Now all we have is Andy Roddick, John Isner and James Blake. Not exactly the big three. And without a great player to inspire the youth, I fear that tennis will be dead for a long, long time. At least we have Serena Williams. But men's tennis tends to drive the sport.
2) Offense in the NBA – This is an open plea for Don Nelson or Paul Westhead to come back to the NBA. True, Nelson never made it to the NBA Finals and Westhead was run out of L.A. after one title with Magic Johnson. But I miss a good old-fashioned 143-132 final. Denver led the league last year averaging 104 points a game. That total would have ranked 17th out of 23 teams in 1985-86. Defense may win championships, but offense wins fans. We need a little more electricity.
3) 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament – Enough with the play-in games. Enough with the discrepancy over the first round and the second round. The tournament was perfect with 64 teams. It meant something to get in. It meant something to get left out. Don't try to improve upon a good thing. You don't need to.
4) Characters on the sidelines – Every NFL coach these days is a cookie-cutter. Some coaches are good. Some are lousy. But all take pride in telling the media and the fans nothing and showing as little character as possible. That's why the Jets Rex Ryan is such a darling of the media. He's the only one to step outside the box and say anything. We used to have Bum Phillips and Mike Ditka and Wayne Fontes and Jim Mora. Why can't our coaches also entertain us a little bit too?
None of these things will probably happen. But wouldn't it be great if just one or two of them did? As much fun as sports can be, they can also get a little bit dull. Do you have any ideas?
