Searching for answers to mysterious sports questions
Ted Fox
Fox Sports ... Almost
If you watch sports long enough, some things will start to jump out at you. They might seem weird or crazy or just not make a whole lot of sense. You can postulate your own theories but must usually accept that a definitive answer will be hard to come by.
In the spirit of this search for the proverbial holy grails of the sporting world, I thought I'd share a few of those questions that are picking at that mostly-empty space I like to call my sports brain. Feel free to provide your own answers.
Let's start off close to home under the Dome with Notre Dame football. At game one next year against Texas A&M, is the band going to play the "Bob chant"? If they do, how many people will actually make the little "b" and "d" with their fingers? Will it be all freshmen doing it? Of course, if no one else did do it, would the freshmen just pick it up on their own and burst out in joyous melody with the 1812 Overture?
Moving over to the Joyce Center, what does it mean when the basketball public address announcer calls a foul a "common foul"? Maybe I've just revealed a gross deficiency on my part in basketball lingo, but in eight years of playing organized basketball and a lifetime of watching it, I've never heard that designation anywhere else. Is saying it's "common" actually a fancy name for blocking or reaching in?
Next, basketball at any level: When someone shoots an airball, why does it seem like nine people stand back motionless and watch as one guy from the offensive team, and no more than one guy, makes a move for the ball? This will happen anywhere from Alumni Hall at Indiana University, where the Hoosiers beat Michigan State this weekend on what any shooter would deem a "pass," to your neighborhood court where just about everyone is a chucker.
Going with the theme of basketball but moving on to the professionals, how good is Vince Carter, and how good is going to get? We saw him win the slam dunk contest by elevating both himself and Isaiah Rider's "East Bay Funk Dunk" to a different universe. Then, on Sunday, he dropped 51 points on Phoenix on a variety of dunks, drives, free throws, and, most impressively, fade-away jumpers a la Michael Jordan.
Now, I'm the biggest Jordan fan in the world, and I don't think we'll see his likes again. That being said, MJ didn't add that shot to his bag of tricks until much later in his career. Carter has it in year two. Watch out.
Speaking of professional sports, professional football will apparently have a new face in the crowd when the World Wrestling Federation sponsors its own league. Here, the roles of question and answer are reversed. The WWF's "The Rock" is asking me, "Do you smell what The Rock and the WWF are cooking?" to which I can only reply, "No, seriously."
While the NFL gets out the sand bags and mason jars to try and wait out the storm of attention this new league will bring, I must ask: How have the last two Super Bowls included the Rams, the Falcons and the Oilers (a.k.a the Titans)? How did the Rams win a Super Bowl? Where did their quarterback, Kurt Warner, come from?
Well, we can answer that last one: arena football, which brings up another interesting point. The upcoming arena football season was recently canceled due to some sort of labor disagreement. The questions: How does arena football go on strike? Does anyone really watch it to begin with? Will you really miss it if it's not there? Maybe they just figured they'd get out of town before the WWF football train comes rolling through.
This is the sort of stuff that's been rambling on in my mind for the last few days. You might have some questions of your own now, like: Does he think this was at all funny or informative? Why did I flip the page to read the rest of this? What does "Fox Sports ... Almost" mean? Whose this guy's barber, anyway?
All good questions.
I'm just happy I can't hear all the answers.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Wednesday, March 1, 2000
