The Life of a Sports Fan: A Reliably Unreliable Narrator Narrating A Reliably Unreliable Outcome

By Evan Scarlett

Editor’s Note: This article was written before the Patriots-Broncos most recent contest that took place on Sunday, November 2nd. 

 

In sports, teams are constantly evaluated through two opposing lenses. One lens is broad, all encompassing, evaluating the totality that builds up within a complete body of work such as a full season or an entire career. The other is narrow, short-sighted, concerned with the present, or, for that matter, the most recent past – in other words, one game.

For a clearer picture of these contrasting modes of judgment, let’s examine the way Bill Belichick evaluates his team versus how the media does. Bill Belichick is a boring, grumpy old man with below average social skills and an annoyingly humble kind of arrogance. But this same man is also a football genius, a reliable motivator, and a proven champion. Ever listened to one of Bill’s press conferences? If the answer is no, you haven’t necessarily missed out. Belichick is blunt, rude, and matter-of-fact – he’s basically the greatest all-time when it comes to answering the media’s questions in the least preferred manner possible. But this habit of simple, obvious, and uninspiring responses is also calculated, intentional, and, quite arguably, beneficial. You see, Bill Belichick and his team talk very little and say even less to the media because he views the media as a distraction that is always hungry enough to feed its own essence. In other words, according to Bill Belichick, there isn’t a lot to gain from being totally honest, upfront, and personable with the media, so the less you say and the more boring you make it, the better. In his mid-week press conference, Belichick responded to any and all questions related to the hype of this Sunday’s Pats-Broncos match-up by commending Peyton, recognizing the Broncos numerous strengths (and lack of weaknesses), and ultimately stating, as always, that it’s just one game and that winning this game is the ONLY thing he is focused on. If you ask Bill how important this game is in the context of the regular season and even playoff seeding, he’ll tell you that every game is important, and that every team in this league is hard to beat. Not necessarily the answer anyone is looking for, but that’s what you get with this guy.

Anyways, back to my initial point. There is a strange dichotomy in sports between the identity of a team now vs. their identity over the course of a season or even over the course of several seasons. Particularly in the NFL, the media tends to be extremely reactionary on a week-to-week basis. A week ago the Cowboys were the best team in the league. Now, thanks to one mediocre performance and one Tony Romo injury, they suddenly have a lot of question marks. Give it another couple of weeks and sports nation may flip flop back to its initial intuition. Remember that abysmal performance by the Patriots in week four against the Chiefs? I blocked most of it out of my memory, although I do recall Trent Dilfer’s post-game comments. “They’re not good anymore,” he stated, as if it was a universal truth that the New England Patriots simply don’t have what it takes to contend right now and won’t have what it takes to contend this season or even next season and Tom Brady’s career is over and Bill Belichick has mismanaged his team over the past ten years and hasn’t given Brady enough support and got arrogant in his scouting. Most people agreed with Trent at the time. But now he looks pretty foolish. You see, even though it’s important for players and coaches to take it one game at a time, it’s also important for fans and the media to recognize that there’s a f**cking reason why it’s a 17 week season and how you play in week four has close to no significance in terms of how you will be playing in week 16! This honestly grinds my gears, because every time the Patriots remind fans and the media why patience pays off, people forget about it and fall back into their overly presumptuous and impatient ways.

As fans, our attention is constantly split between the now, the was, and the what could be. This is in large part due to our human nature. Humans seek to recognize patterns. It’s how we cope with the world around us. The same applies to spectating sports. As fans we want to feel more aware than we actually are, so we seek out patterns and tendencies in order to ‘gain insight’ and predict the future. Watch as I find patterns in the Brady-Manning rivalry and try to use them to predict the verdict of Sunday’s game. Pay attention to how, by throwing in a bunch of stats at you, it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, even though in reality I think it’s going to be close to impossible to accurately predict what happens in the game, with the possibility of an accurate guess being heavily influenced by luck or chance.

I like to view this weekend’s Peyton vs. Brady match-up as one quarter of a sixteen quarter game (yeah, I get it, one sixteenth of a sixteen period game – quarter just sounds better…). Actually, scratch that. We don’t know how many football quarters will be in this match up. Peyton and Brady could very well compete head-to-head another five times before both of them retire (this season’s AFC championship, next season’s, the season after…). These guys are like the most entertaining and athletic fine wine – they literally have gotten better with age. And I get it that oftentimes age hits athletes in a blink of an eye rather than in a sustained, linear regression. That could very well happen to both Brady and Manning, but do I expect it to in the next three seasons? Honestly, I don’t. Counting this season as apart of that cluster, I legitimately see no reason why Peyton and Brady shouldn’t face off in the next three AFC championships (which would make it four years in a row dating back to last year). Sure, the Colts have been impressive of late and Andrew Luck continues to get better. But will they really have a better roster and coaching staff than the Pats or Broncos anytime soon? Sure, the Bengals are talented on both offense and defense. But is there any reason to trust Marvin Lewis and Andy “The Red Rifle” Dalton in games that mean something?? Sure, San Diego is having it’s best season in a while and Phillip Rivers seems to have caught a second wind in his career. But I view this year as more of an outlier in what is sure to in hindsight be a slightly above average ten to fifteen year span for the Chargers with Phillip Rivers under center. There is no logical reason to favor any other teams over the Patriots and the Broncos for this season, next season, and the season after. Plain and simple. Even if Peyton and Brady aren’t as good next year and the following year, they’ll still be better than the other QBs in the AFC and will still have stronger rosters and coaching staffs.

 

 

So, back to the point that I almost started to make (Sorry, I’ve done that twice now. My apologies to anyone with a short attention span…that’s probably all of you). This Sunday’s match-up between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, or, rather, between Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning, is but a blip in the all-time showdown. Because of that, this game shouldn’t be emphasized over any others. If we actually try and listen to the point that Belichick drills home in every press conference instead of getting annoyed with him and chalking it up as nonsense, the truth is quite transparent: it’s just one game. Nothing that’s happened before it will be an ultimate factor. Nothing that might happen in the future should matter either. What kind of game will it be? Will it look like last year’s windy, frigid showdown that was bizarre and compelling all the way through overtime? Or will it be more of a grind-it-out wrestling match where the stronger, more talented, and more motivated team will get an early lead and put its opponent in an aggravatingly gradual chokehold from the second quarter on (see last season’s AFC champion game)? The answer, of course, is neither. This game will be it’s own game. Players will treat it as such. The outcome will be unique. It may or may not resemble past match-ups in terms of the scoring margin, but each play call, each execution, each move within the chess match will be of its own genera and of its own complexities.

But that relative truth isn’t nearly as fun to explore. This is why, from a fan’s perspective, the history does mean something. This is why this isn’t just one isolated game. From a fan’s perspective, it must be taken into context. Let’s look at Brady and Manning’s history against one another. In the first six match-ups, Brady won all of them. Manning then went on to win the next three. Brady then went on to win two of the next three. At this point it was Patriots 8, Colts 4 as far as the team match-up was concerned. Peyton went on to the play three seasons with the Broncos. So far, the head to head is Brady 2, Manning 1 in Pats-Broncos scenarios. Let’s take a look at some more figures:

 

Total Wins When Both QBs face off: Brady 10, Manning 5

 

Regular Season Match-ups: Brady 8, Manning 3

 

Post Season Match-ups: Brady 2, Manning 2

 

Super Bowl Rings: Brady 3, Manning 1

 

Super Bowl Appearances: Brady 5, Manning 2

 

At Gillette: Brady 7, Manning 2

 

In Indy/Denver: Brady 3, Manning 3

 

What does this tell us? On the road it’s a toss up, with the slight advantage to Manning in the post-season. At home Brady has been dominant, including vs. Manning in the post-season. If we’re going with our gut, which tells us to look for patterns that could somehow predict something that shouldn’t in actuality be predictable using numbers alone, history says the Patriots will win this game. But just as I don’t think this should really be factored in to who wins on Sunday, I also don’t think what we’ve seen thus far this season should have too much baring.

Think about this. The Patriots come in to this game averaging 29.9 PPG and the Broncos come in averaging 32.0. The Patriots have given up an average of 22.1 Points Allowed, whereas the Broncos have only given up 20.3. Okay, so edge Broncos…if we think that every game each team has played should be factored in equally. In their last four games, the Pats have scored 39.5 PPG and given up 21.5 PPG, whereas in the same span the Broncos have scored 37.3 PPG and given up 18.8 PPG. Much closer differentials this time. The Broncos have been consistently good all season, but the Pats have turned things up of late. The biggest difference, apart from a few unfortunate injuries? Their newcomers finally had enough time to learn the system. Let’s try and examine the key Pats players who weren’t on their roster last year. Revis, Browner, Tim Wright, Brandon Lafell, etc. Notice a pattern? They’ve all emerged in the last four games. It’s been the same thing with some of the Pats’ rookies. Plain and simple, Bill Belichick’s system is complex. Players need time to understand it and excel in it. The longer they have to get used to it, the better they perform. Thus, this Sunday should theoretically be the Patriots’ best game of the season. And I, as an extreme New England homer, believe that it will be.

But the same could be said about the Broncos. The Denver Broncos have not slowed down. They continue to demolish their opponents by an average margin of almost two touchdowns. They are relatively healthy, and you could make the argument that they are the most talented roster top to bottom in the NFL. The Pats have been up and down against good teams this season (although to be honest they haven’t played that many), whereas the Broncos have been consistently strong. There’s no reason why this couldn’t also be the Broncos’ best game of the season thus far.

So, what’s my point? My point is that I don’t really have one when it comes to predicting this Sunday’s match-up. But my other point is that while it’s fun to analyze trends, they don’t decide what happens over the course of the next 60 minutes that these two teams play football. The players and coaches decide what happens. They will game plan and scout based on the past, but everything will be taken with a grain of salt. It doesn’t make much of a difference that the Patriots beat the Broncos last season and the season before when both teams faced off in Foxboro. It doesn’t really matter that the Broncos beat the Patriots in their most recent post-season match-up either. These things can be motivation. So can first place in the AFC, which will be awarded to the winner of Sunday’s game. But in order to win, players will need to forget about the past and ignore the future. A week of diligent preparation will certainly help, but the only thing that gives your team the W is sixty minutes of solid, hard-fought, team-oriented football.

Here’s another fun pattern I picked up on, this time relating to baseball. The World Series just ended, and boy was it a compelling one. In case you live under a rock, the Series went to an all-or-nothing Game 7, where the Giants took care of business on the road by a score of 3-2. Apart from a nail-biter in Game 3, no other individual game within the series was remotely close. Series-wise, super even. Game 7-wise, super close. But let’s take a look at the final scores of the other games. Game 1: Giants 7, Royals 1; Game 2: Royals 7, Giants 2; Game 3 (which I pointed out was the only other close match-up): Royals 3, Giants 2; Game 4: Giants 11, Royals 4; Game 5: Giants 5, Royals 0; Game 6: Royals 10, Giants 0. Again, series-wise, super close. Individual game-wise, not so much. But here’s the most interesting part – going in to Game 7, both teams had put up virtually the same total numbers. If the first six games of the World Series weren’t viewed as separate games but rather were seen as one very long 63-inning marathon match, the score at the end of 63 innings would be Giants 27, Royals 25. Remarkably close, eh? So, if we’re going by the numbers and assuming that the World Series will turn out much like any game of NFL Blitz 2000, we should have seen the law of averages come in to play yet again in Game 7. But we didn’t because in reality the only trend we needed to monitor was what happens when Madison Bumgarner takes the mound. If we had been aware of this all along, then the outcome of Game 7 would have seemed rather obvious (and, to some people’s credit, it was). The Royals didn’t win by a few runs in Game 7 in order to even the total scoring margin. Instead, they got beaten by Bumgarner for the third time in what is sure to be deemed as one of the most prolific and dominant post season performances in MLB history.

 

 

Part of the beauty of professional sports, from a fan’s perspective, lies in the urge to analyze longterm trends and individual games at the same time, while also being open to throwing both measurements out the window. As predictable as outcomes can seem beforehand or even in hindsight, what happens in professional sports usually is not something you could accurately foresee. That’s what makes every game so compelling. But it’s also what makes sustained success so impressive. Statistically speaking, a player like Madison Bumgarner wasn’t supposed to deliver the dominant performance time after time. But he did. A team like the Patriots aren’t supposed to average 11 wins or better for a decade and a half. But they did. A player like Peyton Manning isn’t supposed to have his two best statistical seasons ever, coming off several surgeries at ages 37 and 38. But he is. Sports are a game of defying the odds. Most teams and players that stumble upon success do, eventually, regress. Just look at what the law of averages has done to Peyton’s brother, Eli. Eli Manning has twice as many super bowl rings as his brother. But in pretty much all of the seasons where Eli’s Giants didn’t make a super bowl run, they were mediocre at best. In this day and age, it’s really, really, really difficult to have sustained success in any professional sport. That’s why you gotta tip your cap to the teams and players that pull it off. So here’s to you, Madison Bumgarner. Here’s to you, Peyton Manning. Here’s to you, Bill Belichick. Some people say that the greatest thing about professional sports is the reliable parody that exists. I say it’s the emergence of players, teams, and coaches who defy such a thing.

Here Are Your Finalists for Biggest Villain of the 21st Century

In Chuck Klosterman’s most recent book of semi-related essays, I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains, he defines villainy as the act of a person who knows the most but cares the least. Klosterman argues that knowledge of doing something malevolent and going through with it, regardless, is the root of evil. For without this knowledge, the actor can be declared unknowing or innocent.

While some of the villains on this list “maintain their innocence”, it can have a knack of implicating the individual further. Denying an act in some cases only proves the person cared so little that they neglected the collective feelings of the public, and only in order to serve themselves. On the other hand, why would denying make them more evil? Wouldn’t admitting to their “crime” prove how little they care?

“Hey look, I cheated, but we won, and it was worth it.”

The catch, however, is that if athletes admitted their wrongdoings, they would be seriously jeopardizing their careers; they must maintain their innocence in order to keep playing/winning/cheating. Thus, in keeping with Klosterman’s parameters, evil athletes don’t care that they gain an unfair advantage (at least for the ones that cheat), but care about winning and/or being successful so much that they can’t come clean.

Over the last 14 years, American sports has had its fair share of players, athletes and coaches who have embraced the “role” of the villain, even if they were labeled inappropriately. For the purposes of this exercise, we are also going to include them, simply because its extremely comical in some cases (we’ll arrive on that point later). In a way, this prototype of villain is similar to the actual concept of Klosterman’s, because the person knows they are hated, and they simply don’t care.

Regardless of how you want to classify it, it’s simply fun to root against some people in the Twitter-24-Hour-News-Cycle Era. Without further adieu, we give you the “best” villains since the year 2000.

 

 

Lance Armstrong

Sir Lance may very well be the poster child for this piece, for he achieved high status in his field of sport, American popular culture, and the business/philanthropy world. And those yellow bracelets. All of this of course was based on a lie. Perhaps the most undervalued aspect of Lance’s villainy is that in a way, he toyed with the public by gaining so much support over the fact that he survived–and beat–cancer.  Not only did Lance Armstrong become the most successful cyclist of all time (winning seven consecutive Tour de France’s), he also created a foundation that raised over $400 million for cancer research, creating a billion dollar enterprise in the process.

Here’s the problem with what Lance did: he parlayed his miraculous fight with cancer (which no one can ever take away from him, and is by far his greatest accomplishment) with the prospect that he was able to maintain exceptional shape and become one of the world’s most elite athletes. Lance inspired hope in everyone who has ever been diagnosed or known someone with cancer, but in doing so he raised the public’s level of hope and belief to an unattainable degree. Lance Armstrong was a great athlete, but he wasn’t that great. He is a villain because he based his entire life’s cause on the premise that he was that great. Lance wasn’t saying “I beat cancer, and now I’m living a happy, successful life”, he was saying “I beat cancer, and now I’m The Greatest”.

This type of false message is wildly unethical because it produced large sums of money for accomplishments that were tainted by strict, explicit anti-blood doping laws in the sport of professional cycling. Niccolo Machiavelli may argue that there was an end to justify a mean (Armstrong’s ability to raise awareness and money for cancer is the worthiest of causes), but I find it hard to believe that Armstrong selflessly kept his lie alive sincerely for the purpose of ‘protecting’ the public. No, I believe that Lance knew exactly what he was doing, and didn’t care. This makes him one of the biggest sports villains of my lifetime.

 

Barry Bonds

I don’t have anything very funny to say about Barry Bonds, which is fitting because nothing he ever did or said was close to funny.

Barry Bonds, perhaps the most obvious cheater of the 21st century, should be considered one of the best (or worst) villains of our era because to put it simply, he didn’t give a fuck. While the ex-Giants slugger did sign off on an autobiographical documentary , he otherwise appeared to make no attempt whatsoever to win over–or even engage with–the media and his fans. Bonds takes the idea of “knowing and not caring” to a new level because he was actively involved in his defense against performance enhancing drugs during the peak of his Home Run conquest as a ballplayer. While Bonds may have broken the all-time record for HR’s, it’s a) not even a question whether or not he cheated in order to do it, and b) likely that he won’t ever be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Barry Bonds is such a villain that no team would sign him after he left the Giants in 2007. He was too controversial a character for any professional team to seriously consider investing in him. That’s how much people hated him. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a villain.

 

Roger Clemens

Clemens appears at Fenway Park last week to have his number retired as a Red Sox. Ted Williams simultaneously rolls over his his frozen grave.

The Rocket is a special type of villain, because he remained evil throughout his career and afterwards, for separate reasons. Many years ago, there was an article written that covered Clemens’ wrongdoings up until 2001, so I won’t bore you with too much information. Instead, I’ll sum up all of the shady things Clemens has done since he entered the league.

-Did Roger Clemens leave the Boston Red Sox in 1996 to sign with a weak Blue Jays team for more money, hire a personal trainer to get into better shape, and not acknowledge Boston fans in any way when he departed? Yes, he did.

-Did Clemens then leave the aforementioned Blue Jays to sign with the Yankees to chase championships in a LeBron James-like fashion? Yes, he did.

-In the 2000 World Series, did Clemens throw a piece of a bat at Mike Piazza for no apparent reason, and defend his actions by claiming that he thought it was the ball he was throwing directly at a player for no reason, but NOT the bat? Of course.

–Before he achieved his 300th career victory, did Roger Clemens wear a patch on his glove commemorating the milestone, only to lose the game to his former team? 100%.

-Did Roger announce his retirement before the 2003 season, and make his rounds in visiting ballparks like Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter, only to return to baseball–but for a different franchise? Did Clemens pull the exact same move 3 years later? Next Question.

-Was the fireballer from Texas explicitly implicated in using performance-enhancing drugs, yet VEHEMENTLY denied it for years and years, thus getting him into further trouble with the law? You get the idea.

Roger Clemens, in the words of MC Ren, is a “ruthless gangsta, definition: villain”. Nobody that I can think of was hated by the public for such a long period time, and he managed to attain this while going from one heinous act to another. The good news for Clemens? He’s only 52 years old. He has plenty of time to engage in more shady business.

 

Bill Belichick

Coach Belichick actin’ all friendly and such with his ex-Quarterback, Drew Bledsoe.

Me to my fellow Patriots friend Brian: You know we’re going to have to include Belichick in the villain article, right?

Brian: What? Why??

Me: I mean, people have plenty of reason not to like him. He got caught taping other people’s practices, he may have known about some of the illegal activities Aaron Hernandez was getting into–plus his press conference after Hernandez’s arrest was awful–and he walked out of the stadium without shaking Tom Coughlin’s hand after the 18-1 game.

My friend Ben, also a Patriots fan: Also, he’s just kind of a dick.

That’s right, folks. You heard it here first–Patriots fans admit Belichick is sort of a scumbag! It would biased of me to speak otherwise. I think that deep down, everyone in New England sees Belichick for kind of an evil dude, but is willing to look past it because he is such an intelligent individual. Belichick is more unlikable than he is a villain to be honest; he hasn’t broken the law, hasn’t lied to a grand jury (which I know is also against the law, but I figured I’d clarify because Clemens was acquitted of this charge). However, the combination of success and arrogancy is what makes Belichick the NFL’s most hated individual (other than the impossibly evil Roger Goodell).

Going through Chuck Klosterman’s diagram of a villain, Belichick certainly appears to know the most. His draft choices, play calling and roster moves are unethical to say the least, and he continuously lets his best players walk to save salary cap space. But Belichick doesn’t care; it’s all about being successful at the end of the day. Perhaps a Patriots hater’s favorite moment in the past decade was seeing Brady and Co. get stopped on 4th and 2 on their own 28 yard line with time running out in the 4th quarter against the then-undefeated Indianapolis Colts. People loved it because not only did the Patriots lose in gut-wrenching fashion, they lost because of Belichick’s strategic cockiness.

Whether or not you think Belichick’s “bedside manor” in press conference is funny, smart, rude, or horrible, its obvious that Belichick has done very little to connect with the media and fans. This is fine for supporters of the Patriots, because they understand that winning is more important in a case like this, but it’s easy to see why his poor reputation stems from his lack of tact in public. Plus, everyone hates how damn good Belichick and the Pats are, even with their best players are sidelined with injury. GO PATS!!

 

A Villainous Digression: Alex Rodriguez is Not a Villain

A-Rod makes an appearance at a Madonna concert with a woman who he dumped moments later for Madonna.

While A-Rod may be one of the most hated athletes (not only this century, but all time?), I can’t classify him as a villain. While he may have one of the qualifying attributes (maintaining innocence for using PED’s over a long period of time, regardless of the countless evidence to the contrary), he fails to register on any villainous scale because he cares too much. All his career, Rodriguez has tinkered with his public perception–especially once he joined the New York Yankees in 2004–in order to “appear” like a nice, fun-loving guy. Now, I’m no body language expert, but I can tell the difference between Derek Jeter being a leader and A-Rod pretending to be one. I can’t speak for Yankees fans, but I think this is the root of their problem with their highly overpaid 3rd basemen–he has always tried to act like he is a good teammate and person, but acting simply isn’t enough.

By holding on to his idea of what Alex Rodriguez means to the general public, A-Rod has been unable to embrace the prospect of being one of Baseball’s biggest villains. While I won’t be condoning this type of behavior any time soon, A-Rod’s problem is that he wants other people to like him so much that he can’t even bring himself to understand how others might perceive some of his actions as wrong, or evil. Alex is no villain, just a phony.

 

Kobe Bryant

Bryant welcomes Jeremy Lin to the Lakers while appearing in his self-mandated uniform of all-black.

The Black Mamba is a curious case, because he is actually a very nuanced type of villain. He started out just a competitive young guy, with a common upbeat energy. Winning championships brought him to a mental state from which he could not return (“I’m the best, this is my team”). His subsequent issues with Phil Jackson and Shaq, amongst rape allegations took his villainy to another level.Without shedding too much light on the events take took place in Eagle, Colorado all those years ago, it’s safe to conclude that this was a pivotal moment in Kobe’s villainous career. Once Kobe was charged for statutory rape–and then acquitted–he became one of the most hated players in the NBA. The chip on Bryant’s shoulder grew to an astronomical size, and he fully embraced his role as the anti-hero. In his formative years, Kobe has taken to wearing black at all times (perhaps to promote his clothing line? probably not…) to further embrace his persona. Someone with cultural awareness as high as Kobe’s is smart enough to understand that the color black is most associated with being The Bad Guy, and Bryant has passed the test of evil with flying colors (pun very much intended).

Last season, as he was maimed by injuries, wearing black at the end of the bench,  Kobe endured being the last big star remaining on the Lakers. He’s now the veteran that players and fans alike love to fear or to hate. You want to respect him, he wants you to respect him, but if he knows you respect him, then he considers you to be a peasant. It defies all the normal conventions of respect. Respect is usually returned by gratitude. So you end up saying, “fine, fuck you, Kobe” which in the end is what he really wants.I think this thought process (which we’ve projected on to Kobe) is what makes him a villain, but also a fierce competitor. While it’s also important note that he’s never (successfully anyway) “teamed up” with another superstar in order to win a championship–at least not in the artificial way that it seems to happen these days–,one should also keep in mind that Kobe enjoys being The Guy. In the Mamba’s mind, the more negative spin on his persona, the better.

Tony Stewart

While the jury is still out on Mr. Stewart, try your best not to let this photo sway you in either direction.

While criminal charges don’t appear to be coming, Tony Stewart killed a fellow driver, Kevin Ward Jr., after he spun the guy out of the race. Did Kevin Ward walk dangerously out on to the race track after he was fishtailed by Stewart? Yes. Will this exempt Tony Stewart from criminal charges? Yes. Does it make Stewart less of a villain? NO!

I know it’s easy to sit back and say he could have avoided him, but my humble opinion is that Kevin Ward’s death was no accident . Both men are at fault, but once Ward wandered out on the track, only one man could change what happened next. Stewart is a really good driver. As in good enough to avoid Kevin Ward.

Also, I don’t follow NASCAR, but everyone says Stewart is an asshole. This doesn’t help his reputation, accident or not.

Ben Roethlisberger

Unfortunately–for the legal system and the NFL’s credibility–this was the closest Roethlisberger ever came to wearing a prison uniform.

I think what makes Big Ben such a bad guy is that he committed one of the worst crimes known to man, got off relatively unscathed, served a 6-game suspension (6 games!!!), and then went back to living his life like nothing happened. In the case of “Ben” (as broadcasters so amicably refer to him), I find it loathsome that he did little to maintain his innocence. Roethlisberger has been rumoured to have sexually assaulted a woman not once but twice (!!) and he’s still playing in the NFL. To me, Roethlisberger is one of the biggest villains on this list because he seems to be so under-the-radar. Perhaps this is because his skills and numbers have declined (stats may say otherwise but Pittsburgh has tended to pass the football more and more often, inflating passing averages for Big Ben), or that his team hasn’t made the playoffs in a couple of years, but all I have to say is the Mike Vick got suspended and went to jail for abusing not human beings, and Big Ben sat out 6 weeks for abusing a real-life human being.

 

Rick Pitino and John Calipari: The Most Interesting Villains in the World

Vito Corleone doing his best Rick Pitino impression.

If a big part of being a villain is looking the part, Rick Pitino fits the bill. His white suits, slicked back hair, and overall demeanor is straight up frightening. Oh, and before I forget, he had an affair with a woman in a restaurant after closing (the owner left him the keys so he could lock up after). Pitino paid her 3k to get an abortion as a result of their sexy times, but refused to give her the cars and college tuition for her kids that she demanded. As a victim of extortion, Pitino not only came clean about the affair, but provided some great detail about the deed. According Rick Pitino’s wikipedia page, under oath, “Pitino down played the pair’s sexual escapade. The complete act took, the coach testified, ‘No more than 15 seconds’”. Great stuff.

Pitino’s recruiting violations are not really notable, at least ones he’s been punished for. As an assistant coach for the University Hawaii in the 70s, Pitino was cited for handing out McDonalds coupons to his players, buying their plane tickets back to the continental U.S., and providing players with used cars (cause Hawaii’s public transportation system sucks). This violations pale in comparison to Coach Cal’s, but they are not exactly ethical.

Finally, I have to add that Rick Pitino’s tenure as the Boston Celtics coach adds to his villain legacy. This press conference sealed his fate in Boston Celtics fans’ eyes as an a**hole. You can’t call the legendary Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parrish ‘gray and old’ and expect to stick around long. Pitino cemented himself as a villain in Boston in just 15 seconds 😉

I assume that if you rub Coach Cal’s head enough, money starts to come out of his ears.

John Calipari is perhaps the toughest of characters to categorize. In my summation, Coach Cal is one of two things: he is working so hard to build his public persona as a go-getting, smooth-talking guy because he so desperately wants to cover up his bad side, or his go-getting, smooth-talking attitude forces people to presume he is a bad guy because of how we label successful people like him in society. Take a look at these undisputed facts:

-Every University John Calipari has left has been under direct violation of NCAA grades/recruiting policy, and all wins under his tenure have been vacated.

-John Calipari openly talks about how his goal as a college coach is to prepare players for the NBA, as opposed to finishing school and getting an education.

-John Calipari is set to make somewhere around $7 Million each year from now until 2021.

-For the most part, every player who has ever played for John Calipari adores him.

Does this mean that Kentucky’s Head Ball Coach is using his players’ talent alone to move up the ladder of success, while callously overlooking NCAA restrictions on recruitment? Or does he genuinely care about his players, and will do whatever it takes to ensure that they live successful, prolonged professional careers in the NBA which they can’t legally attain at the age of 18?

There are two sides to any story, and in the case of Calipari, both arguments are extremely compelling. Perhaps we will have to wait for the inevitable Kentucky recruiting violations to surface after he leaves his current school, but until now Coach Cal’s status as “villain” will have to remain up to the people to decide.

 

Honorable Mentions: Nick Saban (too similar to Belichick), Rasheed Wallace (kind of the man), Skip Bayless (too obvious) , Stephen A. Smith (ditto), Any ESPN Personality (too boring), Mike Vick (America “forgave” him, I guess…)

Too Evil to Write a Think Piece About: Roger Goodell, Donald Sterling, Jerry Sandusky, Aaron Hernandez (yes, we’ve grouped Roger Goodell with a racist, pedophile, and murderer)