Did anyone else catch the post-game interview with Colts coach Tony Dungy last night?  I was barely paying attention to the interview, frankly because Dungy is no Mike Leach, but I caught Dungy saying something which throws a dagger into the heart of the pre-Super Bowl media hype of having two black coaches in the Super Bowl for the first time in the game’s history.

Jim Nantz of CBS Sports: This is one of those moments, Tony, where there is also social significance in this victory, and to have your hands on the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Tell me what this means to you right now.

Tony Dungy: I’ll tell you what. I’m proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American to win this. It means an awful lot to our country. But again, more than anything, I’ve said it before, Lovie Smith and I, not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way. And we’re more proud of that.  (source)

Frequent readers know I am not a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but I found it funny how Dungy put off the racial storyline and brought up another line.

Prior to the Super Bowl, I was rooting against New Orleans not because I have anything against the Saints (I like Sean Payton after all), but because I didn’t want to listen to two weeks of ‘New Orleans really deserves this’ talk.  Instead we were treated to hyping up the race of both coaches.

Seriously, who cares what race, religion, age, etc. either coach is?  I don’t.  Both Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are good coaches and class acts, regardless of the color of their skin.  I continue to contend the only way racism will survive is if people keep harping on it, bringing up one’s race any time it can be.

Here’s just a wild stab, but I’m seeing the Colts pulling it out by a touchdown.  The weakness of the solid Bears defense plays to the Colts strength.  The strength of the Chicago running game will pound Indy’s defense, but they’ll have to rely on Rex Grossman.

Hmmmm.  Rex Grossman or Peyton Manning?  That’s a tough decision.

Prediction: Colts 23 – Bears 16

bRight & Early linked with Blogispheric Super Bowl XLI Predictions...

Texas really is the home of the best football in the United States, though it didn’t take an ESPN write-up to confirm that.

“Think about it. How many times in your life are you going to see it rain mud?” – Texas Tech University football coach Mike Leach

This video is great for all Tech fans, anyone who knows who Mike Leach is or anyone who has ever been to West Texas.

WPvideo 1.10

Mike Leach Does the Weather

“For those of you who don’t have your calendars at home, Sunday will be the first day of May, so you might circle that.”

“Now on Monday, it says bad stuff; a serious storm.  Well, you’re going to be dead in 100 years anyways.  Live dangerously.”

I’m going to the Texas Tech versus TCU game tomorrow afternoon, but there’s a tailgate party and any college football fan doesn’t like passing up drinking a brewski in the hot Texas heat before a big game so I won’t be around at all tomorrow.

It should be a good game, but it’s also a game of two teams who have yet to live up to expectations.  For whatever reason TCU was picked before the season in one publication (don’t ask) to reach a BCS bowl, but TCU struggled against Baylor, a much improved Baylor I should add.  On the other hand Tech was written off behind UT and OU in the Big XII South and I thought they could compete and would need to be lucky to beat both UT and OU.  After barely getting by UTEP I’m not so sure.

Both teams will improve, but how much more can they improve to come close to expectations?  I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be rooting for my Red Raiders.

There are some other games this weekend, including USC versus Nebraska, but those are just other games.  Nebraska will get steamrolled too.

If you are a hockey fan and would be interested in joining a brand new group blog and cover your favorite team filled with opinions from fans only, Jim and I want to hear from you. All the cool kids are doing it and right now we’ve got three full months to fill out a team full of opinion makers in the world of NHL hockey. We don’t want opinion followers; we want people that have at times controversial opinions on why or why not your favorite NHL team will hoist the Cup up high or what your team can do to improve.

The concept, in a brief summary, is that we want one fan from all 30 NHL teams to contribute opinions to a site for fans that are tired of local columnists sharing their so-called wisdom on what your favorite team should do, how your team is playing, what players on your team should be shown the door and what the coach of your team is thinking by not putting a face-off specialist in the game with 20 seconds left and a one-goal lead.

As with all sports, hockey is a fan-centered sport and it is us, the fans, that are seldome heard from between the blathering by washed up hockey players still sporting mullets to a beat writer who indrustrializes columns that you question if he or she has ever seen your team actually play hockey.

If you’re interested, contact me through the ‘Contact’ button at the top of this page.

Iran’s soccer (that’s football to you blasted Brits, Aussies and whomever else) coach says that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will travel to Germany to watch the World Cup if the Iranian team advances past the first round.

“If we go to the second stage for sure he (Ahmadinejad) will come to see the team,” Iran coach Branko Ivankovic told Reuters before Monday’s friendly against a Lake Constance regional squad.

“That will show to my players and to the world that football is very important in Iran.”

I’m not so sure that a visit by Ahmadinejad will be due to his support for the Iranian soccer team. He knows full well that it is against the law in Germany to deny the Holocaust, yet he has done so repeatedly. I seriously doubt German authorities would arrest Ahmadinejad, but he would go to watch a game and also to stick a finger into the face of the German persona.

There’s always something special about the spring time, sans 2005 of course. Many people always cite chirping birds, rain showers, flowers blooming, lawns growing, warmer weather, etc., but they are all wrong. Wrong I tell you!  Just wrong.  The Spring is only good for one reason and that’s the Stanley Cup Playoffs are in full effect.

We hockey fans are an unusual breed of people. We’re the type that get hit with pucks and walk back to the rink to because there’s a hockey game playing. I’ll rehash an old story of mine from when I worked for a minor league hockey team to illustrate this to the nonbelievers, hockey infidels if you will.

I distinctly remember one fan getting hit with a puck. It was during the playoffs when a puck hit off of an opposing players stick and went into the stands and hit this lady right in the face. As I was standing maybe 60 yards away from her at the time, I heard a loud smack and immediately saw her clutching her face in pain. The puck didn’t hit in a cheek, chin or forehead, but rather it hit on the bridge of her nose causing racoon eyes to form almost immediately. Everyone could see the birds flying around her head and they weren’t just cartoons either.  Pucks are frozen so they move on the ice therefore they aren’t just pieces of rubber that some people believe.  Oh ye hockey infidels I curse you!
She refused to be taken by an ambulance and she was in no condition to drive.  In fact we had to almost force her to go to the hospital.  She didn’t want to miss a puck drop.  A representative of the team dropped her off at the hospital, and after being told she would be there for at least a couple of hours, he came back to the game because he had work to do.

About two hours after the incident happened, this same fan walked through a side entrance, down the ramp where the Zamboni entered and exited the ice and said hello to me. She looked like she had been through hell and back and her racoon eyes had grown darker to the point where she could have robbed a bank and the teller would have said she had a zorro mask on. When I asked her why she walked from the hospital to the game (this was only about one mile mind you) and was not still at the hospital she replied “and miss the game?”

Only hockey fans would have done something like this. We are a rare breed. While there’s mutual respect between Colorado and Dallas fans, I think that respect is hinged on the fact we both hate everything the Red Wings stand for.  Forget the Steve Yzerman playing his last season media hype.  It’s not as if he hasn’t already won the Cup.  The Wings deserve to lose.

The 2006 Stanley Cup finals started last night and the Dallas Stars start today in a day game. I’ll be happy as long as the Detroit Red Wings lose quickly, first round is preferable, and Dallas makes it to the Conference Finals. My prediction is Calgary versus New Jersey for the Cup with Calgary winning in game 6, but we’ll see.

The attorney for Barry Bonds has tried to stop any profits gained from the book ‘Game of Shadows’ to go towards the book’s authors. His lawyer did not deny the allegations in the book or even work towards proving they were wrong, but rather because the authors were publishing “illegally obtained grand jury transcripts.” The judge denied the lawyer’s argument on free speech grounds.

One of my favorite baseball players of all time, Mark Grace, appeared on the Sporting News Radio and said he believes former Chicago Cubs teamate Sammy Sosa was on the juice. When asked if he ever took steroids, Grace’s response was “I’m body by booze.”

“It’s not just Barry [Bonds]. There were a lot of guys doing it. I saw it with my own eyes. It was pitchers, it was catchers, it was outfielders, it was infielders. There was a lot of it going around. Shoot, looking back on it, I had it offered to me many times.”

On speculation that players such as Mark McGwire and Sosa used steroids: ”Those are the red-flag guys, the guys that just made the sudden big, big jumps. Guys that showed up at the beginning of their career at 170 pounds and left at the end of their career at 235 pounds. A body can’t get that way naturally; it has to be enhanced with something. Sammy’s just one of the guys of many that are red-flag guys. Do we have proof? Nope. But you certainly have suspicions.”

On Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro suddenly being out of the game: ”There’s a lot of guys that are not playing anymore, that are not even good players anymore, ever since they started testing for steroids. There’s a lot of guys, just all of a sudden their recovery time is a little more than it used to be. And all of a sudden they’re hitting those same balls they used to hit — and it’s not just Sammy; there’s a lot of guys — those balls that used to go in the second deck are being caught at the track.”

The dropoff in production after testing coupled with injuries of some of the more prolific stars of baseball that were thought to have been steroids users is evidence enough they were in fact users of these supplements. It’s striking how the game changed in just one year after drug testing was mandated, and I am pretty sure there we will continue to see these changes this season. That is if anyone is watching.

When Grace was asked why he didn’t say anything about steroid abuse even though he claims he saw it while he was playing, Grace responded the he believes in the concept of ‘to each his own.’ When asked if Sosa should be in the Hall of Fame, Grace said ”In a word, ‘no.”’  I concur, and this is coming from someone who once blindly looked at Sosa and just thought he was a great hitter and actually used to root for the guy.