Stay in school kids! Or you’ll end up being an umpire

It’s my least favorite week during the football season, the week between the championship game and the Super Bowl when we allow star quarterbacks to walk around in protective boots and go out clubbing so they can mentally and physically prepare for the upcoming game that doesn’t take place for many days. In the meantime, I've put together some random stories/events that caught my eye this week…

Head coaches from the Giants are popular!
Not only is Tom Coughlin going to the Super Bowl for the first time this week, but former Giants coach Jim Fassel is suddenly making a serious run at becoming the new coach of the Washington Redskins! Of course, former Giants coach Bill Parcells is now the GM of the Dolphins. I also took a look, and former Giants Coach Dan Reeves supposedly does radio games for the NFL as a color analyst. I couldn’t think of any other Giants coaches at that point, until I went to Wikipedia and found the perennial loser, Ray Handley! He’s fallen off the face of the earth. Not even Google knows what he’s doing now. However, I did find out that Ray Handley has an IQ of 140. Supposedly.

Big Man on Campus
I’ve caught multiple stories recently, particularly on SI.com about Kenny George a basketball player on UNC-Asheville who is 7 ft, 7 inches tall, and has an absurd size-28 shoe. The human body really isn’t meant to be that big, so he’s had a lot of knee problems and he's not too agile. He’s also been gawked at so much, though, that he hardly talks to anyone and gets stared at when he goes out in public. Yahoo even reported that ESPN made fun of him repeatedly on air. Let’s just hope he can help his team get to the tourney and he can take his aggression out on some major conference team. He has managed to average 13.1 ppg, 8.8 rebounds, and 4.9 blocks per game in only 22 minutes per game. I hope he does well and that his body can hold up this season.

Andy Roddick’s Relatively Unreported Tirade
I watched part of Andy Roddick’s loss in the Australian Open last week and was thoroughly entertained. The funniest thing about the match was the fact that not only did Roddick argue with the head umpire in regards to the usage of instant replay, Roddick said some things that were absolutely outrageous. The main contention throughout this argument was that the linesman yelled that a ball was out, so Roddick did not swing at the ball. Roddick’s opponent, Philipp Kohlschreiber, then challenged the call, despite the fact that Roddick had “relied” on the umpire’s call that it was out.

I thought that I could certainly find a multitude of articles, but apparently, Roddick’s PR people must control the AP and the other major American news services, because it really was not widely reported. Finally, I did find this a couple of videos with the main argument…For example, at one point Roddick told the umpire – “You’re an idiot. You don’t believe it, you’re lying to yourself!... Seriously, do you have to be a second grade dropout to be an umpire? Did you go to school until you were 8 years old? I think you quit school before you were 10.”
(If you prefer European commentators, they compare the play to something in cricket, which I don’t understand. The European version includes some of the footage before the argument).

Roddick also said, “I will speak very slowly, so maybe you can understand me…” Roddick also apparently said, “You need to do your job! Do you have ears connected to your head? You can't hear him yelling?"

The funniest thing is that Roddick finished his argument and walked away from the umpire and said directly to the fans: “Stay in school kids! Or you’ll end up being an umpire!” You can also see this in either of the video links I have listed above.