Sports – Page 4 – Collin Kottke: All-Around Swell Guy

Minnesota Vikings Shanked The Kluwe Report Non-Release

The Minnesota Vikings are never exactly shining examples of good PR. We could down the list and there would be a lot of things that the Vikings didn’t really have a lot of control over. For instance, Love Boat was a bad incident, buy boys will be boys and there was nothing the higher ups at Winter Park really could do. That’s not the case in the latest controversy that is brewing in Eden Prairie.

In January, ex-Vikings punter Chris Kluwe released a diary-like post to Deadspin describing what was seen as a very unfriendly environment to the LGBT community and their allies. Kluwe’s post was really damning towards special teams coach Mike Priefer. The franchise said they would investigate.

Earlier this week, the Vikings apparently told Kluwe and his legal team that the team would not be publicly releasing any of their report. On Friday, Kluwe answered back via Twitter and this saga will only keep on going straight into Training Camp and probably into the 2014 season. It is really the Vikings fault this time.

Throw out any way you feel about the LGBT community, so you can think about this issue clearly. Let’s strip it down to bare bones:

Player posts article saying the Vikings did something bad, Vikings say they’ll investigate that something, Vikings investigate, investigation takes a long time, investigation is finished and Vikings say they’ll not release anything.

Doesn’t that seem sketchy?

It sure seems sketchy to me.

By not releasing anything, the Vikings make it seem like they have something to hide. I don’t know if they do and the only people who know that answer right now are probably in Winter Park trying to put a fire extinguisher to this PR fire.

Let’s put this into an everyday situation. Ever ask someone to look up the price of something for you and then they say something to the tune of ‘oh, you don’t want to know’? You know why they didn’t tell you? They didn’t want to disappoint you. The Vikings are making this look like you, me and the rest of the public do not want to know what’s going on in Winter Park.

The Vikings don’t have that luxury. No one in any of the major sports has that luxury, no less an NFL team, nonetheless the NFL team in a town that loves said NFL team way more than any of the other pro teams and college squads.

It’s such a horrible PR move by not releasing anything. Maybe the Vikings found out something that they are not proud of, but it needs to be heard. This report might force the Vikings into doing things that they don’t want to do, but doing things that are not wanted is a much better alternative to having a franchise that will no longer be trusted.

You Can’t Fix Stupid: Man Attempts $10 Million Lawsuit For Falling Asleep At Yankees Game

Ron White said it best when he said that you can’t fix stupid. Stupidity runs rampant when you look at all the different warning labels that now need to be placed on every single item that is ever produced. If you look hard enough I’m sure there’s a TV somewhere that says you can’t eat it and it had to be put there because someone somewhere had to try to take a bite out of their Vizio. That’s the society we live in.

Our society is also lawsuit happy. If you look at someone the wrong way today, you might get served papers. Or if you talk about a fan that was sleeping at a Yankees game, you might get sued for $10 million.

Yep. This fan, Andrew Robert Rector, was sleeping at the April 13th Boston Red Sox – New York Yankees game, ESPN cameras caught him, the announcers did a little verbal jousting, MLB put it up on YouTube and now Rector is suing every damn party involved for $10 million dollars due to an ‘unending verbal crusade’.

I don’t know where to begin. This whole endeavor baffles me to no end. Let’s start here:

Some bozo went to law school and accepted this case. Someone with a degree came to the conclusion that they could beat the powers of ESPN and MLB in court on a case where a guy fell asleep at a baseball game. Good luck, buddy.

Let’s go to the guy that fell asleep. You paid good money, they tell me it’s a lot of money to get into Yankees Stadium, and you fell asleep. That’s on you. You don’t think anyone is going to see that you are asleep? It’s a Yankees game, in the biggest city in the nation, on one of the most watched TV networks, on the biggest night for TV viewing. I’d be more impressed if no one caught you.

Here’s the big problem I have: $10 million.

I get it. People are stupid and will slap you with a lawsuit for stupid things like this, but nobody’s, NOBODY’S, reputation is worth $10 million dollars. I could say the most horrible things about anyone from Miley Cyrus to the President of the United States and neither of them would win a $10 million settlement. No judge would ever allow that.

Andrew Robert Rector, ESPN pointing out your falling asleep did nothing to you. Sure, your friends and your cousins called you and called you a dummy for falling asleep at the Yankees game. Maybe the cute girl in your building saw it and kind of giggled the next time she saw you, maybe, but that’s it.

This chapter in your life did not keep you from getting a job. It did not hinder you from walking down the streets of New York. It did not hinder you from living your life. Frankly, this lawsuit is making your life worse. If you ever apply for a new job, your new potential employer will google your name and it will pop up that you tried to get $10 million from falling asleep at a baseball game.

I’m sorry if this just adds to the ‘unending verbal crusade’, but I think if Ron White was here he’d say something to the effect of… ‘Sue me.’

California Chrome’s Owner Needs To Learn A Lesson In Timing

Picture via: http://www.concordmonitor.com/csp/mediapool/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=GJuYtxe3hQFcB6hepyKbas$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYsGBkapaUK5t0dgaPPXHugaWCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg

Timing is everything. Everything from picking the right moment to ask a girl out to hitting traffic during your commute to filing your taxes, timing simply matters. Timing is a lesson that Steve Coburn has apparently never learned.

Coburn is a co-owner of California Chrome, the racehorse that finished fourth in an attempt to complete horse racing’s Triple Crown at the Belmont on Saturday, and took the wrong time to air out his gripes with how horse racing is run or more specifically what horses run when.

Right after California Chrome failed to complete the great feat, Coburn said that it wasn’t fair that his horse had to run against horses that didn’t have the same strenuous schedule.

I thought he (California Chrome) was gaining ground, but he didn’t have anything apparently. He’s been in three big races. These other horses set one out (or both) and it’s not fair for the horses who are in it from Day 1.

It’s all or nothing. It’s not fair to these horses that are running their guts out. This is a cowards’ way out. If you’ve got a horse that earns points that run in the Kentucky Derby, those horses should be the only ones who should run in all three races.

Saturday’s winner, Tonalist, did not run in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness.

I think Coburn is right, to an extent, but he went about this all wrong. We don’t look too kindly upon poor losers and playing the ‘not fair’ card just moments after losing alienates a lot of people.

Horse racing would benefit greatly if the same horses ran all three of the Triple Crown races. The familiarity draws people in and by the time the Belmont comes around the ordinary Joe would have his own favorite horse running in the race.

I won’t pretend like I know what’s good for horses, I barely know what’s good for humans, but if a horse is physically able to run in all three of the races, they should run all three races. NASCAR wouldn’t have the same pizazz if Jimmie Johnson raced all year to get to the championship and then right when the last race came around somehow Travis Kvapil took it away from him. That isn’t quite fair.

Professional athletes, yes, these horses and jockeys are professional athletes, should never play the ‘fair’ card. For the most part, pros get paid way too much and get things handed to them on a silver platter for anything in their life to not be ‘fair’, especially the owner of a race horse. I think what Coburn was trying to say is that it isn’t right.

Just like it wasn’t right to give these comments right after losing. These comments are valid to a degree, but at a later date. This makes a great 60 Minutes or Outside the Lines report in a couple months from now, not a couple minutes after the race.

The time may have run out too on Coburn’s credibility. Coburn was still hot on the topic on Sunday morning and compared the fresh horses going against California Chrome to him playing basketball against a kid in a wheel chair. There’s never a good time for that analogy.

Six minutes later, you look like a jackass who is a sore loser. Sixty days later, you might come off a little bitter, but at least people might take you seriously. You simply have to pick your spots, because timing is everything.

MSHSL Screws Over BLHS Two Point Ohhhh

For once in my life I felt like Craig Ferguson this morning. I woke up to a tweet and emails telling me that Buffalo Lake – Hector – Stewart was moving to 9-Man in a couple years. This move does explain why the Mustangs were placed in the district that they were. It even crossed my mind that Renville County West was 9-Man but I assumed their rise and not the fall of my beloved high school. Despite me getting it wrong, in my previous posting, the Minnesota State High School League still got their districting wrong.

In 9-Man football in the state of Minnesota there are the guys way up north and there are the guys that are so close to Iowa that sometimes you have to pray for them not to be swallowed up by the children of the lot of corn. It doesn’t take a geography major, or maybe it does, to tell you that BLHS and RCW are a lot closer to Iowa than to Canada.

The Mustangs shouldn’t be taking on Hancock or Underwood for the homecoming game, but Fulda or Nicollet or Madelia. Welcome to the South District.

The West District currently has 21 teams with all but four of them being south of Mankato and Rochester. West Lutheran High School is in the north suburbs (they get screwed over wherever they get placed), Randolph High School is just south of the Minnesota concrete jungle and there is Cleveland and Nicollet which are virtually just north of Mankato.

The two teams based around the Twin Cities screw up the natural split of the district. There is an obvious east and west division coming with one going from Albert Lea/Austin to La Crosse and the other from Mankato to Sioux Falls. BLHS, RCW and possibly MACCRAY should all be in the Mankato to Sioux Falls subdistrict.

In the last post I pointed out that Rothsay is the furthest away in the obvious subdistrict being 164 miles from Hector. The longest travel in the subdivision the Mustangs would be in the South is 150 miles to Hills-Beaver Creek. Hills – Beaver Creek is by far the team that is the furthest away and is still closer than Rothsay.

Like I mentioned earlier, the two schools that are in the Cities makes the split a lot tougher to find for a subdistrict, but a common BLHS football schedule would be: Cleveland, Nicollet, Madelia, Granada – Hutley – East Chain/Truman, Mountain Lake Area and then a combination of the Cities schools and Westbrook – Walnut Grove and Fulda, the hometown of Patrick Reusse.

It’s becoming clear that BLHS was placed in their new district based on enrollment more than anything. BLHS has the fourth highest enrollment in their West District, but would be number one in the South according to the State High School League’s numbers.

Not by much though, Mountain Lake Area claims 140 for their enrollment while BLHS sports 147. A handful of other teams are in the high 130’s and 120’s.

It is 147 miles from Hector to Austin. It is 139 miles from Hector to Brainerd. The problem in those eight miles is that BLHS fans should never have to travel to Austin with the subdistircts, but BLHS will be traveling consistently to the Brainerd area

The South District simply makes a lot more sense for BLHS and RCW. We’d much rather play the Iowa Hawkeyes than the Winnipeg Blue Bombers… Mainly because the Hawkeyes are a college team and the Blue Bombers are a Canadian pro team, but that’s beside the point. They are weird up there. Haven’t you seen Fargo?

Here’s the map of the Mustangs’ new West District.

Here’s the map of where they should be playing in the South District.

MSHSL’s New Districts For Football Does No Favors For BLHS

UPDATE: Sources tell me that BLHS will be switching to nine-man football in two years, so in reflection of that this plan does some sense sense. It still does a screw job on BLHS and RCW, though.We’ll explore that in a new post coming quite soon.

Hey, Buffalo Lake – Hector –Stewart football fans, are you ready for 2015 Homecoming against Hancock High School? How about 2016 against Underwood High School? How do you feel about traveling just went of Brainerd to see your son play under those Friday night lights? Well, you better like it because that is what a 10 person committee under the direction of the Minnesota State High School League has just assigned the BLHS football team to do.

On Monday, it was announced by the High School League that they have adopted ‘District Football’ scheduling for 2015 and beyond. The claim is that this is to help some smaller schools in the state that were having trouble filling out an eight game football schedule every year. The High School League puts it on the small town schools, but what they did to BLHS makes it seem like it was so that Eden Prairie doesn’t have to fly to Winnipeg, Canada to play another team.

The High School League divided the state up into 18 districts taking into account the size of the school and apparently location. The Mustangs were put in the West District with 26 other teams in the state. The kicker of it is that along with the Mustangs, Renville County West and MACCRAY are the only teams in the district that are south of St. Cloud.

The districts are tasked with breaking into subdivisions, assuming that the district will break into south and north divisions, BLHS will have the following teams to play during the regular season: Renville County West, MACCRAY, Hancock, Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley, Wheaton Hermann Norcross, Brandon-Evansville, Ashby, Bertha-Hewitt, Verndale, Underwood, Hillcrest Lutheran Academy and Rothsay.

If BLHS and Rothsay were to play, one team would have to travel 164 miles one way. By the time the bus departs after a football game the visiting team would probably not arrive home until around 2 AM.

On the Minnesota State High School League’s website it says the following on its post about the districting process, “More than 90 percent of the schools’ requests were met, and a significant majority of schools were placed in a district with most, if not all, of the schools that they now play.”

BLHS didn’t play a single team in their new district in 2013.

The High School League did this in an attempt to even out the playing field, but it really does screw over a little team like BLHS. Gone are the rivalries with Cedar Mountain/Comfrey, New Ulm Cathedral, Sleepy Eye Public and Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s and instead the biggest in-season rival now for the Mustangs will be RCW.

All those now soon-to-be former rivals of BLHS are in the same Southwest district, a district that barely reaches south of Mankato instead of reaching all the way up to Thief River Falls, a district that would be perfect and really the same as what BLHS currently has.

The bright side for BLHS is that in the district placement, they are one of the big dogs enrollment wise. BLHS will be the fourth biggest school enrollment wise in the West district, where they’d be 12th out of 19 if magically placed in the Southwest.

When undergoing a big task like this someone is always going to get hurt. It just happens to be that a couple farm schools down on 212 didn’t quite grab the attention of the districting squad. It just seems wrong that the country boys have a better chance of playing a team on the Iron Range than taking on the kids on the other side of the corn field.

For more on the Minnesota State High School League’s new district program for football click here.(you may need to click on District Football at the top to stop it from scrolling)

To see a map of where all schools in the new district for BLHS are click here.