Sporting Madness

Continuing the quest to make this the top corner of the Internet for Tim Tebow song parodies , here's the latest one that popped into my mind: a rewrite of the first part of West Side Story's "Jet Song", set last week before Rex Ryan reportedly asked Tebow to play Wildcat QB and Tebow reportedly turned him down ... REX RYAN: Against the Chargers, we need every man we got. GREG MCELROY: Tim don't belong any more. REX: Cut it, Alabama boy! Even if I won't let Tim start for the Jets. MCELROY: Well, he acts like he don't wanna belong. JEREMY KERLEY: Who wouldn't wanna belong to the Jets?! MCELROY: Tim ain't been with us for over a season. DUSTIN KELLER: What about the day we clobbered the Colts? JOE MCKNIGHT: Which we couldn't have done without Tim. KERLEY: He saved my ever-lovin' quarterback rating! RYAN: Right! He's always come through for us and he will now.

In an effort to corner the market on Tim Tebow-themed musical compositions , here's another one! This isn't even written by me, but was brilliantly put together in a Christmas Eve series of tweets by Global's Justin McElroy (a former CIS Blog colleague). Here they are, preserved in a Storify for posterity and ease of reading:

I normally don't advocate reading comments, but the brilliance of a few of the best ones on my 55-Yard Line piece about Tim Tebow should be preserved for posterity: What the hell do you know about football to say that about T-Bow. He took Denver to the playoffs you idiot!! His record isnt' any good because he is NOT used!!! Remember .... Gators ..... DUH!!! Get a job Bucholtz.. you obviously know nothing about foot ball!!! tebow was what?7&1 with a playoff win last year?bucholtz your daddies little reporter not a sports analyst.Now 7&1 doesn t mean he is the greatest but the nfl is tough ask sanchez,or does he suck too?football is a team game not some #$%$ with a tache writing alone in his wackoff lair.would he be good in cfl??i think Jacksonville would give him a shot before that happened. I love when these little twerp sports reporters, who never played a single down of football, make fun of Tebow as if he is some sort of clown. The truth is, the typist who wr...

One of the stupidest things I've ever seen on television.

Here's the third and final companion interview to this piece , with John Chidley-Hill of The Canadian Press, who helped put the Fast Break conference together. This is the one that particularly motivated me to run these separately, as John had a lot of great things to say about the conference that I wasn't able to squeeze into the story. To me, it's very important to see these kinds of conferences, and they're a terrific idea, so I wanted to make sure John's comments on them in somewhere. I got on-the-record responses from John to four questions: What was your role in putting this together?  How do you think it went?  Are these sorts of events useful for young journalists?How'd Jones' comments sound in person? Here's what he had to say. What was your role in putting this together? Nadine [Liverpool] and I are both graduates of Centennial's sports journalism program and we sit on the Program Advisory Council as alum. She brought up the idea of do...

Continuing the companion interviews to this piece , here's what Steph Rogers , author of the J-Source recap that got me interested in this story, had to say. I quoted the part of her recap that stood out to me, then quoted Jones' response, then asked for her side of the story. Here's what she had to say: (I'm a little surprised that there was any issue that arose out of Chris' advice, but I nevertheless, I'll hope that the purpose of your piece isn't to crucify me.) As a journalism student, a lot of the advice that I often hear given by people in the industry is very helpful, but also a lot of the same. I thought Fast Break provided an extremely honest perspective from all four of the panelists as moderated by Nadine, and particularly Augustine and Jones on likability. I'm amazed at the things I see said on Twitter, Facebook, and in the comment section of articles. Rude and malicious remarks are common practice because people feel the internet ...

I wrote a pretty in-depth look at context and criticism over at Awful Announcing that was published today. Doing interviews is rewarding, but you often wind up with more material than you can use, and it would seem a particular shame to take anyone out of context in a piece about context. It's also a good chance to show those interested just how the sausage gets made. (Hilariously, the origin of that quote itself is in dispute .) Thus, continuing the On The Ground interview series , I'm using this space to post my questions and the full on-the-record responses I received. First up, my interview with Chris Jones of ESPN The Magazine/Esquire, whose comments as relayed in this piece started this whole thing. I first just asked him if there's additional context I should consider. Here's what he had to say. Glad you're writing a piece about that night. It was fun. I'd say, first off, make sure you read the rest of the quotes from me in that story. I think I...

There's nothing like a good round of recasting TV or movies for sports , and one particular adaptation that's been in my head for a while (thanks to Twitter discussions with Jenn Annis and Matthew Scianitti ) is a CFL version of The Lord of the Rings . Given that I spend far too much time thinking about the CFL and am a complete Lord of the Rings nerd, this was an obvious choice. Here's what I came up with. (Keep in mind this is all in fun, and not meant to suggest that certain teams or personalities are good or evil!) Jim Popp/Montreal as Sauron/Mordor : If anyone deserves the title of Lord of the Rings in the CFL at the moment, Popp's a good candidate. (You can make a case for Wally Buono as well, as he actually has five Grey Cup rings to Popp's four, but Montreal's eastern geography, long string of divisional championships,  recent back-to-back Grey Cups and overarching dominance speak in favour of Popp, plus there's a better fit for Buono later on.)...

Community  and SEC football are both great things, and as we all know, great things are great together. Also, my mind works in mysterious ways; ESPN declaring Steve Spurrier as the most-hated coach of all time surprised me, as South Carolina-era Spurrier seems to give off a Pierce Hawthorne vibe; sure, he's often annoying, grumpy and pushing others' buttons, and he's an odd fit amongst today's group of SEC coaches, but there's value to having him around and everyone just sort of ignores his terrible moments. That led to a discussion with Lisa  and Eddie about recasting Community  SEC-style, and it turned out to fit surprisingly well. Here's what we came up with (casting's a group effort, comments are mostly mine): Steve Spurrier as Pierce Hawthorne:  Spurrier's famed trash-talking of other schools ("You can't spell Citrus without UT," "Free Shoes University," Auburn library fires , etc) is straight out of Pierce's play...

When I wrote a total conversion of Andrew Lloyd Webber's famed Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera about Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow, most of it fit surprisingly well. The issue, of course, was betrayal, though; while Tebow may be overhyped and overrated, it was difficult to imagine his own team turning against him, so I had to concoct a Spygatesque plot to get it to work. Truth remains stranger than fiction ( a surprisingly excellent movie , by the way), however, and the Broncos have just executed a stunning betrayal of Tebow (who did manage to lead them to a playoff win over Pittsburgh before getting crushed by New England), signing Peyton Manning to take over at quarterback . To that end, I've quickly rewritten the last three songs to reflect this new reality. Here they are, with Broncos' executive vice-president John Elway (the man who got the Manning deal done ) as Judas, Manning and ESPN analyst Mel Kiper (one of the most prominent Tebow critics) as Annas...

In advance of this weekend's Red Bull Crashed Ice finale in Quebec City (televised live at 8:30 p.m. Saturday on Sportsnet), I recently got the chance to talk to firefighter/ice cross star Adam Horst for a post at Yahoo!'s Eh Game blog. Along the lines of my On The Ground series, here's my full interview with Horst: On how he got into Crashed Ice: "The first time I got into it, we watched on TV and a couple of buddies signed me up." On what his thoughts were the first time he tried it: "I was petrified. It's hard to describe what it is the first time you go down the hill." On his February win in Sweden: "That was unreal. You're always hoping for that but when it actually happens, it's hard to believe." Some highlights of that win: On how the sport has grown: "It's become bigger. It used to be just one race a year. The tracks they're making are longer and steeper, and there's a lot of competition....

Top CFL free agent Andy Fantuz is apparently off in Africa somewhere,and hasn't signed anywhere yet. Glen Maskerine had the brilliant idea to reference Toto's famous song, and that inspired me to rewrite the lyrics for him. Here you are: They hear the tweets echoing tonight But I hear only whispers of some CFL conversation GMs are coming in, 12:30 flight The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards free agency I stopped an old man along the way Hoping to find some long-forgotten wisdom or means of celebrity He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, money's waiting there for you" It's gonna take a lot to get me to sign with you There's nothing a hundred thousand bucks could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to sign the deal I've never had The wild Riders' fans cry out in the night As they grow restless, longing for some WR company I know that I must do what's right As sure as sales ...

Few things enrage me more than the Lingerie Football League, an objectifying , safety-disregarding , deeply-troubling vindictive concern under the questionable leadership of Mitch Mortaza, who's been blasted by many former players . The league has more in common with a strip club than an athletic endeavour, as both involve scantily-clad women cavorting around for the entertainment of men: the chief differences are that strippers don't usually get concussed on stage, and at least they're paid for their trouble. Thus, as you can imagine, I was thrilled to hear that the LFL's heading to my backyard in Abbotsford. I already wrote a serious, analytical take on why this is a horrible idea , but I figured it deserved an over-the-top apocalyptic one too, especially considering Abbotsford's Bible Belt reputation. In that vein, here's Revelation 6 rewritten to be about the LFL's cross-Canada expansion.

The following is the culmination of a project I’ve been working on for a few weeks. It started as just a Twitter joke about the applicability of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar musical to Tim Tebow’s rise and fall, but got stuck in my head and turned into something more. Sure, Tebow isn’t playing in today’s Super Bowl, but he’s still very much present in the coverage; he notably drew more attention than Joe Montana at one point and was featured in an ESPN pre-game special. Given that his mortal adversaries, the Patriots, are featured in today’s Super Bowl, I figured it was as good a time as any to post this (that, and I finally finished it). Following in the success of The Marchand Of Venice , the Bucholtz Repertory Company presents the total conversion of Jesus Christ Superstar into Tebow Christ Superstar. Dramatis Personae Jesus – Tim Tebow, a TE or a QB? Judas –John Fox, the Broncos’ coach Caiaphas – Bill Belichick, the Patriots’ coach Annas – Tom Brady, the Patrio...

It's no secret that sports media as a whole are collectively losing their minds over Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow, who embraces all the clichés about "will to win" and somehow triumphs despite not usually being, you know, a good quarterback. It's even less surprising that the Worldwide Leader In Vaguely Sports-Related News is leading the charge. Still, as Adam Kramer remarked earlier, ESPN's piece asking LeBron James what he thinks of Tim Tebow is the most ESPN story of all time. Surely that means the ESPNocalypse is near, especially as certain newspapers have already ventured into hellfire and damnation (as you can see from the Boston Metro cover at right). In the spirit of that, we present two pieces. First, a dramatic reworking of the first three paragraphs of Grantland Rice's " Four Horsemen ", timely considering how ESPN has appropriated the man's name : Outlined against a blue screen in Bristol, Connecticut, the Four Horse...

It's remarkable how insane the Vancouver Canucks - Boston Bruins rivalry has become lately following Saturday's Stanley Cup rematch . It's led to everything from fanbase and organizational fights to media going after bloggers who cover the other team to reporters verbally duking it out with opposing players to allegations of media defacing the NHL's media guides merely because a player they didn't like adorned them. There are some serious questions about the media's role in all this, and I talked about some of them this morning in an excellent discussion with Jessica Quiroli and others. Serious discussions aren't a lot of fun, though, so instead, I present one of the wackier ideas that came to mind; rewriting Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (original quotations available here ) to cover the Vancouver-Boston rivalry, and particularly Boston's Brad Marchand's polarizing hit on Sami Salo and subsequent suspension . Thanks to ...