Come one, come all to the seven-year reunion of the 1995 Florida Gators football team! Join former Gator frontman and new Washington Redskins Head Coach Steve Spurrier as he “fun-n-guns” with new quarterbacks Danny Wuerffel (almost rhymes with “awful”) and Shane (third-string on the Bears) Matthews and new wide receiver Chris Doering (almost rhymes with “worthless”). Watch as they try to take a bite out the competition, but then realize that perennial doormat Vanderbilt is not in the NFC East ?
Yes, it was a sad week to be a Washington, D.C.area sports fan. The Redskins seem to think that mid‘90s Florida football was the greatest thing to ever happen in sports (Spurrier once said that Danny Wuerffel was the best quarterback in the history of college football). The Wizards lost the actual greatest player in the history of basketball, Michael Jordan, for possibly the season and possibly forever to a knee injury. And with the loss of Jordan so goes their playoff hopes. The recent attempts to purchase the Minnesota Twins decreases the chance that a baseball team will be living within the Beltway anytime soon. Things have gotten so bad in the D.C.-area that the Boxing and Wrestling Commission, supported by Mayor Anthony Williams, has taken steps to license the craziest man in sports, Mike Tyson, to help the city’s economy. Ugh.
One would think that the Hoyas’ victory this week over Syracuse would ease the pain that D.C. residents must be feeling. In our opinion, however, whatever satisfaction it brought was outweighed by the frustration in knowing that we are such a damn talented team and the record doesn’t show it. The same phenomenon is occurring in Philly with St. Joseph’s struggles, in Chestnut Hill with Boston College’s collapse and in Tennessee with Memphis’ uneven play. Fortunately, the conference tournaments are next week and are a last-ditch effort for these teams to pull themselves from the depths of despair, or at least the NIT.
And finally since we don’t publish next week, we will continue the tradition of making up predictions for the coming sports events. First, Gonzaga will be a No. 3 seed on Selection Sunday, but exit early in the tournament because they will be disqualified after mistakenly showing up to the No. 12 seed’s game. The Baltimore Ravens will make their final cuts of the offseason, linebacker Ray Lewis and offensive tackle Jon Ogden, and then promptly fold when they realize they have no players left, but are still over the salary cap. Lastly, Georgetown will upset Pittsburgh in the finals of the Big East Tournament off of a 55-point, 30-rebound outburst from Mike Sweetney. Let us pray.
