Sidelines
Back to the sports
side of sports, pleaseENOUGH already. Enough with the policies and politics. No more products or presentations or public meetings, or private ones.
Enough with the infighting. No more candidates or controversies. Forget the secrets, the subcommittees, the searches, the votes, the issues, the public debates, the number-crunching, the rate hikes, the resumes.
Procedures. Legalese. Interviews. Subterfuge.
Forced donations. Sarcastic orations. New athletic administrations.
Enough!
Enough of this serious stuff.
Let's talk about sports.
>> The World Cup. Yes, you might not like soccer, but you don't need to like soccer to love this. The pageantry! The passion! Competition at its highest level. Entire countries live and die with every ebb and flow of every possession of every game. This is almost as big as football in the Southeastern Conference.
It's astonishing drama. Insane fans. Powerhouses choking like dogs. Impossible underdogs moving on. People getting hit in the head by the ball on purpose. A lot of singing. Mass hysteria!
So many great stories.
You may think the greatest of these great stories is the United States' incredible run. You would be wrong. The greatest story of the World Cup is this:
Ahn Jung Hwan, a national hero for scoring the winning goal (with his head, on purpose) in overtime for a 2-1 South Korea win over Italy, was immediately cut by the team he plays for professionally. ... Which just happens to be an Italian team.
According to the New York Times, the team chairman was quoted as saying, "That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia (Italy) again."
Now THAT'S a sport!
Of course Ahn wasn't let go just for scoring the winning goal to eliminate Italy, we come to find out. In his jubilation he also said that Korean soccer was better than Italian soccer.
That might sum up the World Cup right there.
>> Speaking of great sports television, can you see Hawaii back in the College World Series? No, not for a while. But it could happen. Nebraska has shown it can happen quickly, and under much more difficult (some would have said impossible) circumstances. All you need is the right coach, the right backing, some talent, a little luck at the right times ... and a Shane Komine.
>> And can you picture UH coach Mike Trapasso, after a season like this one, watching his old team (Georgia Tech) playing at the promised land? See above, Coach.
>> I'm looking forward to reading the Star-Bulletin's special package this Sunday on 30 years of Title IX.
All this talk makes me wonder who had it worse:
The women who lived their lives convinced they would have been great athletes if only given the chance?
Or the men who were given every chance to find out that they were terrible at sports and had to live with that?
>> The college football magazines are here!
>> Happy second retirement, Les Keiter.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com