It’s about that time in the NFL season. Names of quarterbacks become as familiar as Chapter 3, Monetary Policy, that you forgot to read for your Econ midterm tomorrow. Instead of the normal names?Stewart, Warner and Fieldler?we’re stuck with Tommy “XFL MVP” Maddox, the spicy Sage Rosenfels and the pseudo-dirty Marc Bulger. On a week-to-week basis, we still don’t know who the Redskins quarterback is going to be, whether the ageless Rodney Peete will be healthy once more or what juvenile comment Joey Harrington is going to make next. We say that Georgetown senior quarterback David Paulus should have a tryout for some team. Thirteen touchdowns in nine games is a whole lot better than any of the Bengals’ triumvirate of not-good-enough-to-play-for-Seattle Jon Kitna, the immortal Gus Frerotte and ?berfailure Akili Smith.
While we are having trouble recognizing any one who’s playing QB in the NFL anymore, the NBA season is unfolding just as unexpectedly. The Cavs held the Lakers to 70 points Tuesday and Darius Miles is quickly replacing Craig Ehlo as the last reason anyone pays attention to Cleveland basketball. Memphis Grizzlies Croatian shooting guard Gordon Giricek looks like this year’s deluxe-model European import throwing down 29 on the stunned Mavericks. Even more surprising, Washington Wizards’ second-year forward Kwame Brown finally looks like a No. 1 draft pick, averaging a double-double and clearing up that horrible acne that infested his face last year.
When thinking about Brown’s success in the league further, however, it makes us feel like failures. He’s 19; we’re 19. He is starting to outmuscle NBAers; we still can’t hit a 15-foot jump shot. He practices with Michael Jordan; our roommates smell. When we were younger, we were satisfied that all the players in pro sports were older than we are. We thought that maybe if we had a growth spurt, gained 50 pounds, learned how to hit a curve ball, etc., we would be able to possibly, you know, be a pretty good athlete, catch a few breaks and be starting for the Phillies in 10 years. Now we’d just be satisfied to be someone like Marc Bulger. At the very least we could hope that our nickname would be “Marc Bulger.” Aw yeah
