REAL Sports

Got to watch the newest installment of REAL Sports on HBO which while managing to be politically slanted in covering sports is always an interesting hour. Segments included:

A look at national media coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal. Almost no details about the incident itself but rather the portrayal of Duke University as a home of the white and privleged and neighboring North Carolina Central University as black and poor and the tensions between the two schools as well as tensions between Duke and the city of Durham. Points were made about Duke being recommended in Black scholarly journals as "Black-friendly", the 12% of White students that go to Central and the shared resources of the two schools. Students testified to de-emphasizing racial tensions to national news reporters but claimed that footage hit the cutting room floor. The story seemed to blame District Attorney Mike Nifong for exploiting the racial dynamics of the case to gain re-election earlier this month a theory that is shared by most observers of the case itself. Duke's location in "The South" was also debated as exacerbating the controversy. The correspondent was new and I did not get his name but he was apparently a Newhouse grad as Bryant Gumbel asked him if this incident happened at other "big-time" schools outside of the south "like a Stanford or Syracuse" if there would be this much controversy. The correspondent said that this would absolutely receive the same attention if this incident had happened at Syracuse. All I know is when you hear your alma-mater mentioned in the same sentence as Duke and Stanford, its time to start sending out resumes.

Bernard Goldberg did a "Where are They Now" piece on Ryan Leaf. Leaf is now the Quarterbacks Coach at Division II Western Texas A&M (not ATM). He claims his 5 years in the NFL were the worst years of his life. I would have to imagine so. While Leaf seems happier and at peace, he is still a walking contradiction. He claims he was never good enough to be an NFL Quarterback, but considers the infamous tantrum he threw at the San Diego Tribune reporter the downfall of his career. On HBO, they aired the tantrum uncensored (he just says "fucking enough already" at the beginning and screams "fucking bitch!" at the end, but the whole thing is even funnier uncensored). The reporter also gave a swarmy smirk at the end and looked like he should've be at a porn store. Leaf says April is his least favorite month of the year (if you're having trouble figuring out why, that's when the NFL Draft is and experts warn of drafting "the next Ryan Leaf") and he has nothing to say to former Chargers GM Bobby Bethard. Goldberg thinks his goal is to be Head Coach at the University of Montana and that he has no friends or any fond memories of the NFL.

Mary Carillo's segment was on the coach of the University of Texas Women's Outdoor Track team, her crippling car accident and inspiring recovery. I forwarded past this. Not to sound jaded, but this was the 800th piece like this shown on REAL Sports. I'm happy for the coach, glad she's coming around but when you start to guess correctly every facet of a story, the formula is overdone. And I was doing that with these bonding out of adversity pieces a long time ago.

The final piece was a profile of and interview with outgoing NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue by Bob Costas. Tagliabue was the son of a stonemason (his father "didn't chop no fucking wood") and played basketball at Georgetown. He leaves the NFL proud of the 19 years of labor peace the NFL has enjoyed. Broncos owner Pat Bowlen credits him with single-handedly getting owners to vote for the new collective bargaining agreement passed this past March. His greatest embarrasment was the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII. In an "only on HBO" moment the last question Bob Costas had for the outgoing NFL Commissioner after a successful 19 years was about his gay son Michael and whether or not he would be accepted in an NFL locker room. Tagliabue answered the question citing progress by society in the 19 years since he took over but the question must be asked why are we so obsessed with finding out who is gay??? The only point of putting that question in the piece was to let most people who didn't know know that the NFL Commissioner had a gay son and the irony of that.

I'm not gay by the way...LOVE CHICKS!

Gumbel's closing remarks were about the passing of Floyd Patterson and the record tying 100m performance of Justin Gatling happening on the same day (they were both from Brooklyn, ironically) and how low they were on sports fans priorities because of the sports they played. Boxing has no one to blame but themselves for the sports lack of interest. Promoters and the alphabet soup of organizations have brought down Boxing to where it could possibly be surpassed by Ultimate Fighting. Track's lack of interest is an enigma however. Seemed like half of everybody's high school did some form of track and Americans are perrennial medalists in the sport but it is only followed closely in Europe. Perhaps a IAAF World Championships in the States could spark interest again.

Next month a feature on pollution's effects on asthmatic athletes. Sounds exciting.