The Weekly Hangover is a gathering place for all the miscellaneous news, blog posts, and articles that were interesting and sports related, but yet not quite enough so for me to bother clambering down into my mother’s basement to write about. Served with a heaping helping of sarcasm, market price.
According to the most recent vote count, Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson were getting enough All-Star votes to be starters on February 14th. For those who aren’t aware, Iverson ditched out on his first team of the year (Memphis) before returning to his first team (Philly), where he’s averaging 14 points per game on 48% shooting; and McGrady was so bad that the Rockets didn’t want him playing more than 8 minutes per game and basically sent him home to find a team stupid enough to trade for him. I’m not sure whether this is a sign of the impending apocalypse or that most people in this country shouldn’t be allowed to vote for anything more important than American Idol.
In an effort to prove to that professional athletes are completely out of touch with the general populace, Washington Wizards guard DeShawn Stevenson came out for pregame warmups against the New Orleans Hornets with “Agent Zero” written in marker on tape around his ankles. First of all, if you look at the photo with the article, you’d barely be able to see the writing unless you were looking at it or this meathead pointed it out to you. No word on whether or not the writing stuck around for the game, but the fact he wanted to support an idiot like Gilbert Arenas yet lacked the testicular fortitude to do it in a highly visible manner makes him look like a complete pansy. If he’d written it on a headband and worn it through the game, at least I could appreciate his commitment – still completely misguided and foolish, but at least he was committed. Second of all, it’s not like Gilbert is Nelson Mandela here, he did something highly illegal and dangerous. You could probably best support him by signing him up for a gun safety class before he goes Plaxico sometime in downtown D.C.
The New York Times reported that Bud Selig believes that the Steroids Era is essentially over now. Oh boy, was that a good one or what? Here I thought ol’ Bud didn’t have a humorous bone in his body, and then he comes out with a doozy of a line like tha…. What’s that? Really? He was serious when he said that? Are we sure he wasn’t drunk or just waking up from a nap?
As if Vols fans and alumni couldn’t possibly loathe Lane Kiffin any more, it appears that his buddy Ed Orgeron (former recruiter for Tennessee who quit to join in the suckling of the USC teet with Kiffin & Co.) has been contacting midterm enrollees and telling them not to attend classes. The student athletes in question were high school recruits who graduated early and then enrolled in spring courses at Tennessee – NCAA rules stipulate that once a player has attended class at one school, they can’t go to another without losing some eligibility, jumping through a couple dozen hoops, get some courage for the cowardly lion, and detail Nick Saban’s car. Now, I’m not surprised by the idea of one school trying to poach another’s recruits because, as you’ll surely notice from what I’ve said this week, I’m pretty sure most college coaches are liars and scumbags. However, I completely agree with the writer of this post in that coaches are allowed to break their contracts at any given second, yet athletes are married to their school if they step foot in an academic building. You stay classy, NCAA…
