Sporting Madness

Continuing our quest to be your number-one source of sports song parodies , here's the most appropriate (far more than some , at least) way to summarize the saga of Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend . Is that...Journey ? Why, yes, yes it is: Just an internet girl, livin' in a made-up world She took the midnight calls from anywhere Just a ND boy, living in South Bend, not Detroit He made the midnight calls goin' anywhere A hoaxster in a online room  A smell of pizza and pot fumes On the phone, they can share the night  It goes on and on and on and on Media, waiting, up and down the boulevard Writing profiles in the night Te'o, deceived? Or lying just to find emotion? Hiding, somewhere in the night. Working hard to get his fill, Looking for that online thrill  Payin' anything to talk to her,  Just one more time Some will win, some will lose Some were born to sing "I'm used!" Oh, this story never ends It goes on and o...

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the first pictures that pops up for "Clay Travis". The Deadspin story about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's oft-referenced girlfriend being illusory has spurred plenty of interesting reactions  on what this means for the media , story verification procedures , his draft stock and much more. Unfortunately, it's also stirred up some of the worst detritus of the Internet. A case in point comes from C'lay Travis , who's covered college football for Deadspin, AOL FanHouse (RIP), and his current Outkick The Coverage site, plus hosts a Nashville radio show. What's Travis' take on this complicated, layered story that's still coming together? The only plausible rationale here is that Te'o is gay : This is actually the only story that makes any sense at all. And even if it's true, Te'o will probably deny it because, unfortunately, football players aren't exactly the most welcoming of homosexual...

Tonight's BCS National Championship Game between Notre Dame and Alabama has college football fans everywhere picking sides, and for good reason. These programs both have incredible histories, and millions of fans have deep connections to them. For me, though, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "Notre Dame football" isn't Rudy, or Joe Theismann, or Lou Holtz. It's what's probably my favourite piece of sportswriting ever, Grantland Rice's " The Four Horsemen ". A selection of what makes this stand out for me: Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered...