On the night of President Obama's address to Congress, I felt it only fitting to tie this next blog in with an issue he has concerned himself with. While the Predsident's main focuses right now lie with fixing the economy, Barack Obama has many times expressed his desire for a college football playoff system. I could not agree with him more.



The current BCS system is severly flawed. There are 119 teams who are eligible to play in the national championship game. The BCS then chooses the two teams that it feels were the best and gives them the exclusive rights to fight for the national championship. The problem with this is that there are more than two teams that are qualified to play in the title game. This past year Florida and Oklahoma played for the national title. Each of these teams had one lose during the regular season. The thing is 4 other teams had one loss each and Utah had an undefeated record. How can you possibly not give an undefeated team the chance to play for a national title. It just makes no sense. You can't do any better than undefeated yet two teams with one loss were chosen to play over them.

Another issue I have is how the bowls are decided. The bowl games have become more about making money than watching the two best possible teams play. Teams who are not form the most well known conferences will never stand a chance of getting a bowl bid even if they have a better record than a team from the SECor ACC for instance.

The question now becomes what would be the best solution to this problem. A playoff system is the obvious answer to me. The type of playoff system I would like to see would involve 8 teams. These 8 teams would be determined by record, strength of schedule, and last by the style of their victories as well as their defeats. This playoff system would gurantee that everybody has a fair shot to call themselves national champions.

Welcome Back Tiger! Or Not?

This past week Tiger Woods announced his return to golf. After seven months of intense rehab, Tiger's surgically repaired knee is finally ready to be tested on the big stage. This is amazing for the PGA Tour whose TV ratings have fallen nearly 55% percent since Tiger's last appeaence, and attendance for this years Championship was less than half of what it was when Tiger was in the running.

While the Tour sponsors, officials, and fans are all extatic for his return, I greatly question if the other players on the tour are as excited. Over the past 7 months 17 players have won PGA events. Last year only 10 won. Of these 17 players, 4 have won two or more events. When Tiger was playing only one other player ( Paddrick Harrington) won more than one event. Tiger Woods not only wins more than a third of the events he enters but he also steals the spotlight from everyone else even when he is losing.

All this being said golf cannot continue to be a mainstream sport without Tiger. Tiger Woods is the real life Happy Gilmore of golf. He gets all the fans and media attention, but i the process is bringing attention to everyone else on the Tour. While the players might hate the fact that Tiger always wins, he does bring more sponsors and more fans to the sport. This makes prize money for all places bigger and in teh long run benefits all the players.

So while most of the players love to hate Tiger Woods, he is the one thing that is keeping the sport of golf in the eyes of the average sports viewer. When it comes down to it the PGA Tour is a business and having Tiger Woods on teh Tour benefits everyone financially.

You Too Alex? Just another addition to the Steroid Saga

While I in no way consider myself a baseball fan, I believe it necessary to comment on the latest chapter of the steriod saga. This past Tuesday, Sports Illustrated leaked out confidential information that Superstar Alex Rodriguez was one of 103 players who had tested positive for steriods during the 2003 season. This report was later confirmed by Rodriguez himself, who claimed that he was "Young and neive and that the pressure to succeed forced him to do something he would regret." This announcement sent shock waves throughout the sports world. This confirmation did alot more than just tarnish Alex Rodriguez's name, it took a home run sized swing at baesball's reputation. If not even their poster child Alex Rodriguez could be clean from steriods , who can they expect to be clean.

As for Rodriguez, he will most likely not make it into the Hall of Fame. Any records he breaks will be thrown out or have an asterisk placed next to them. More imporantly no matter how well he does people will always look at him as someone who was guilty of using steriods. Personally I believe this steriod issue is being made into way too big a deal. To begin with, at the time guys like Rodriquez, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmaro, and Barry Bonds (probably) took steriods it was not an illegal substance. If it was not illegal and it clearly gave players and advantage then I see no reason why players would not use steriods. Another issue I have is that these players were being given steriods by their club house trainers. This is like a teacher giving you a "cheat cheat" for a test. While its not fair to students in other classes who don't get one, its not illegal, and if their teachers wanted to they could give them one. Last , baseball claims that steriods made the game an unlevel playing field. This would be true if only a few players did steriods. The fact is every month more and more names are coming out. If so many players did them, then the playing field should in fact be even.

Everyone has different opinions about steriods in baseball. Let me know how you feel about them.

Big Z! Big Comeback!

On February 13, 2008 one of the scariest, most unthinkable things happened in the NHL. Florida Panther's forward Richard Zednik was skating to the puck when the skate of his teamate Olli Jokinen was uplifted slicing Zednik's carotid artery. Blood began to gush everywhere and the medical staff immediatly came to his aid. With in minutes he was rushed off the ice to Buffalo General Hospital, where emergency surgery was performed to possibly save his life. Meanwhile at the arena stunned players and fans stood in silence praying for the best yet fearing the worst. It wasn't until 20 minutes later that the Buffalo Saber's stadium announcer came on and let everyone know that Zednik was in stable condition. This announcement was followed up by both chears and sighs of relief from everyone in the stadium as well as everyone at home. All this being said Zednik's chances of ever playing hockey again looked very slim.

Fast forward exactly one year the February 13, 2009 and Zednik was back on the ice. Doubters said he probably wouldn't live and he proved them wrong. Doubters said he would never play hockey again, and he was once again back on the ice. And even after he proved all these people wrong many people doubted that he would ever be able to play on the level that he once did, and on this night, the one year anniversary of his accident, he proved all of them wrong. With exactly 5 minutes left in the game the Panthers were trailing theToronto Maple Leafs two goals and they looked all but out. Someone needed to step up and be the hero and that person was Richard Zednik. He scored the final 2 goals to send the game into overtime and then scored the game winning goal in the extra period to seal the victory as well as cement his name in history as one of the greatest comeback stories of all time.

Sports has seen many comeback stories. Write me and tell me which comebakc story you believe is the best.

High on Michael Phelps

The cliche "A picture is worth a thousand words" is what has been used to describe the past week for Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps. This past week a picture of Michael Phelps holding and smoking from a bong was sent to NBC. This picture shocked the world. People had view Michael Phelps as an icoon and a role model for their children. I guess now we just realize that he is human after all.

The consequences of the exposure of this photograph have been huge for Michael Phelps. He has been suspended from swimming competitions for three monthes and has been dropped by many of his endorsments. More importantly the public's perception has drastically changed about him. The question now becomes does he deserve such a strict punishment? Personally I don't think he does. First off, this picture was taken over three years ago. This means Phelps was still in high school when the incident happened. Everyone can attest to the fact that they did regrettable things in high school. Now at 21 we have to give Michael the benefit of the doubt that he has matured since the picture was taken. Additionally, sports superstars are found all the time to have done alot worse things than smoking pot. These athletes do not lose all their endorsements and get suspended. In all four major professional sports a first time drug offense results in either a warning or a minimul fine. This is for failing a random drug test from the day before not three years earlier.

Let me know what you think about the punishment. I'm interested to see if you believe its too harsh, not harsh enough, or that the punishment fits the crime.

Hey Coach! You're Out!

The most influential and important person on any sports team is the head coach. The coach is the one responsible for motivating the team and setting them on the track to success. Every coach in any sport has a system and it is their responsibility to make sure that the players buy into the system. If a team constantly is changing their head coach it leaves no time for the players to buy into the system. The result is chaos and chaos leads to losing.

There is a very disturbing trend that is sweeping across both professional and Collegiate sports alike. That trend is the firing of head coaches during the middle of the season. There are a few reasons that I have a problem with this. First off, at the beginning of the season ownership is making a commitment to its players that there will be order in the locker room. Players are completely habitual. They prefer to stay in the same hotels everywhere they travel, they room with the same person on every road trip, and most even eat the same pre-game meal before every game. By firing the coach you are disrupting the order in the locker room. Players expect to see the same coach at prectice everyday and getting rid of a coach half way through the season can be problamatic.

Next, by firing the head coach half way through the season you begin to place doubt in the player's minds. They begin to ask themselves well if he can go I might be next. Professional athletes are already under an enormous amount of stress to preform at a top level and putting doubt in their minds to whether or not they will be on the team the next day can hinder their performance.

Last, firing head coaches mid-season on he college level is completely unacceptable. In college the prioryity for a program is to develop their athletes into better men. Winning should come second. By firing a head coach you are bringing in a totally different philosophy, and this can hurt a player's development as a human being.

Federer vs. Nadal part 1

Greatly overlooked by the Superbowl, another sporting event of legendary proportions was taking place on Sunday. Sunday marked another chapter in what is becoming one of the greatest tennis rivalries in history. In the 80s it was Connors and Macanroe, in the 90s we had Sampras and Agassi, and now we have Federer and Nadal and they were back at it again for the finals of the Australian Open.

As of late this match-up has been dominated by Rafael Nadal. He has beaten Federer in 3 straight Grand Slam finals and was going for a 4th on the hard courts in Austalia, the only Grand Slam that had eluded him to this point. Once again it ended up being an amazing match, with players alternating sets. As the sun went down and as the duration of the match increased, the younger, faster, and better conditioned Nadal was able to gain the edge and win in the 5th set.

When i all comes down to it, an great match between too amazingly talented and classy athletes got overlooked. Because tennis is no longer a main stream sport it gets very little media attention. I have to believe that with more matches of the quality of this Australian Open, tennis will eventually gain the attention it deserves.

Clutch

Clutch!! Perhaps one of the greatest words that can be used to describe an athlete. Being clutch is being able to come up with the big play in the big moment. Clutch players are the ones who everyone can count on in the final moments of a game. Clutch plays not only determine the outcome of a game, but define a player's career. Every great sports legend has had a defined clutch moment. Michael Jordan with his famous fade away, Joe Montana with his memorable touchdown throw to Desmond Clarke, and Michael Phelps with his last second stretch to help seal the deal for his record breaking 8th gold medal all defined their greatness with a clutch performance. With the completion of Super Bowl 43 a new name will be added to this list of clutch performances.

Under the brightest lights, on the grandest stage Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers took the field. Down by three with only two minutes left it appeared like it would take a miracle to win. It was at this point when Ben Roethlisberger went from being just a good quarterback to a legendary quarterback. With composure and poise he drove his team down the field completing pass after pass. Finally with 30 seconds left he completed a 5 yard touchdown strike to receiver Santonio Holmes. It was one of the most amazing throws anyone had ever seen. The Steelers went on to win the game and are now Champions of the football world. That touchdown pass will forever be known as one of the clutchest plays of all time.