Category: ESPN (Page 1 of 3)

Either Ralph Wilson Actually Has a Pulse, or Someone Has Finally Obtained Power of Attorney (3 Takes on T.O. to the Bills)

9 March, 2009 / Kat

Saturday night, my fiance fired up the computer to listen to the Northeastern – Boston College hockey game online on ESPN890. (ESPN890 doesn’t come in well on the North Shore. Scratch that – ESPN890 doesn’t come in well period.) The ESPN890 website has a convenient-in-theory-but-memory-hogging-in-reality sports-ticker on the bottom of its website at all times. As we were waiting for the audio to load, we were discussing how much we expected Northeastern to win that evening to cheat us BU fans out of a possible Hockey East regular season championship. While talking, I glanced over to the ticker on the webpage.

“T.O. signs with Buffalo,” it read.

“What?!” I yelled, interrupting my fiance’s rant on Northeastern coach Greg Cronin and his hobby of throwing sticks onto the ice when incensed. “T.O. is a Buffalo Bill?!”

My fiance laughed, not looking at the screen. “Stop changing the subject. That would never happen.”

“He signed with Buffalo. Look at the screen.”

In the nearly four years we’ve been dating, I have never seen the guy’s big brown eyes bug out of his head as much as they did when he looked at the screen. “What?!” He immediately opened another tab on the browser and typed in ESPN.com. There it was, the main story: Two days after being cut by the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell Owens had been signed by the most improbable team ever, the Buffalo “We Don’t Spend” Bills. The team who spends less money than me at the last week of every month as I try to make my ridiculous Boston rent.

“It’s not April Fools Day,” he said.

A day I never thought I'd see: T.O. with the Bills

I shook my head. “Did Ralph Wilson pass away? How did this happen?”

We set about reading the article. I quickly glanced through it, read enough to realize that yes, this was true, Owens had actually signed a legitimate contract with the Buffalo Bills, a sense of euphoria came upon me.

I looked at my Patriot fan fiance, who was still reading, who probably hadn’t digested the idea of Owens ever playing in his own conference, let alone for my favorite team no less.

“In your face!” I exclaimed. “You try to beat us with your bum-kneeed Brady now!”

As I did a happy circle dance in my place next to him, which involved me hopping around in a circle to a tune I was making up on the spot that had to do with Edwards passing to Owens, TD, AFC East Champions, Super Bowls, and whatever came to mind, I heard him say, “I have to put up with this all off-season now?”

Countdown to Senior Night: The Sportscenter Generation

6 March, 2009 / Kat

This year’s graduating class from the Boston University men’s hockey team is quite familiar with ESPN’s Sportscenter, because members of the class have been featured on it four times so far in their four years. College hockey does not get a lot of Sportscenter love (even when John Buccigross is involved), so for members of a single graduating class to appear on the iconic show multiple times is quite a feat.

As I mentioned last month, Sportscenter doesn’t have a great online video archive, so I am without video for all of one of these appearances. I have found alternative video where available.

Dear ESPN: Could Your New Site Make Things More Difficult?

3 February, 2009 / Kat

I woke up Tuesday morning and literally bounced to work from my new apartment. I woke up early, stopped by my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts, got my iced coffee, put on the iPod, put on Kevin Rudolf’s Let it Rock (my obsession since October) and bounced to work.

I bounded up the three flights of stairs to my office, jumped through the door, smiled to the student who was working the main desk, skipped into my office, and fired up the trusty laptop. I fired off a few emails, and then opened up Google Reader to catch up on the morning’s recaps of the event that had made me full of so much bounce – BU’s blood-pressure-raising win against Harvard in the Beanpot semifinal the night before.

And then, there it was, in the Terrier Hockey Fan Blog. Yet another BU Beanpot goal had made the Sportscenter Top 10. In 2006, it was Chris Higgins’ crazy “How’d He Do That?!” slide into the boards goal. Monday, it was his classmate from down Route 1 North, Jason Lawrence’s game-winning goal that made the Top 10.

A La Carte Cable – What Would You Choose?

14 January, 2009 / Kat

A few days back, I posted the following as a Facebook status message:

“Kat thinks the only things on TV worth watching are on her digital sports tier. Who needs CNN and MTV when you can have Fox College Sports Central and the like?”

That may be the truest Facebook status message in the history of status messages. Continue reading

Please Don’t Touch Mr. Young. It Makes Me Sad.

10 December, 2008 / Kat

I just read on Awful Announcing that Steve Young was in rare form Monday evening during Monday Night Countdown and the post-game show.

steve-young-smile First off, he called ESPN “dumb.” Oh Steve, for all of your smarts, you can sure put your foot in your mouth sometimes. Like the time you called out Phil Simms on national television. I despise Simms as well, and think he was wicked overrated as a quarterback (just like his son), but I’d never call him out on it on national television.

Hmm…maybe I would, but I would do it under a pseudonym and hide for a few weeks following.

Steve, I’ll offer you the same piece of advice I offered Bill Simmons a few months ago. Don’t publicly “dis” your employer. Don’t blog on a underground Blogger account about how ESPN is the man and how they don’t let you post every 7,000 word tomb you write, even if you have a legitimate point. Don’t call out ESPN on ESPN, even if you have pent up anger about having to do a show with Emmitt “I Have Never Heard of Subject-Verb Agreement” Smith and Stuart “Boo-yah!” Scott. Both are examples of burning bridges. I tell my students all the time not to burn bridges, especially with employers, potential employers, and the like. If you ever want a job, it probably isn’t a good idea to burn bridges.

Steve and Bill, you need a career counselor to give you the counseling you obviously didn’t receive at Brigham Young and Holy Cross, respectively. I volunteer. Email me. I’ll help you.

Secondly, in the most egregious assault of one of my favorite athletes since Saturday night’s BU-BC game, a Carolina Panthers fan threw a beer cup at Steve Young. Fortunately, he missed. Steve stayed calm and professional throughout the incident, which does not surprise me. Think about it. For one, he’s a lawyer. Lawyers get stuff thrown at them all the time. (Well, I mean, not all the time. But they are the recipients of a lot of vile comments and hate, which are metaphorically thrown at them. Right?) Additionally, Steve Young has like five children under the age of 10. He has toys, clothes, diapers and cut-up-bits of food thrown at him every single minute of his waking life.

Therefore, having a empty beer cup thrown at him was not going to phase Steve Young. Nothing phases Steve, except for sharing a show with Emmitt Smith or Michael Irvin. But then again, wouldn’t that bug you too?