Congrats Tumwater High, Your Bouquet Pass Is The New Play Of The Year

Written by Brandon Stroud / 09.28.12

crazy two point conversionThe behind-the-back flag football Hail Mary already has a challenger for objectively unimportant but amazing football play of the year.

To set the scene, here’s Cameron Smith at Prep Rally:

The action unfolded in Washington State, where Tumwater High was facing off against highly-ranked Olympia (Wash.) Capital High. In a tight game, Tumwater quarterback Jayden Croft connected with tight end Jamie Bryant on a 4-yard touchdown grab with just under 3:00 remaining. The grab brought Tumwater within two-points at 21-19, setting up a two-point conversion to tie the game or, in all likelihood, seal a loss.

This is the play they called: Croft would turn around and throw the football over his head like he’s throwing a bouquet at a wedding and hope 6-foot-5 Bryant could just jump and grab it before anybody else. It’s the gutsiest, most insane-to-call-with-the-game-on-the-line play I’ve seen in years, at least since that time the Dolphins called “let Leon Lett f**k up” back in 1993. It was real play, it worked, and Tumwater tied the game. After a double overtime, possibly featuring a play where Croft pretended to take off somebody’s garter only to throw a touchdown pass, Tumwater outlasted Capital for a 35-28 win.

I’m definitely giving this one and the flag football pass a try during my next pick-up football game. Fun fact: I will also try those shots the next time I’m playing basketball.

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In The Name Of Everything Holy, What Uniform Hell Hath We Wrought?

Written by Ashley Burns / 09.20.12

Between Nike’s Employee of the Year Lebron James fawning over Oregon’s admittedly awesome uniforms and me declaring that the Seattle Seahawks uniforms don’t look that bad (our opinions are equal, naturally), it was really only a matter of time before a team somewhere at some level tried to emulate this new era of uni-swag and fail miserably. I’m a few days late on this, but ladies and gentlemen, I submit for your failure approval, the uniforms of the Atlantic High School Eagles.

To be fair to the kids, they don’t think these neon explosions are all that bad. According to the Palm Beach Post, the group that paid for and donated the uniforms are just trying to create buzz.

“We definitely don’t expect these to be loved by everybody,” said Lee Cohen, a Delray attorney and Delray Beach 21′s chairman. “That’s what they should do. Spark conversation. We want to bring these kids the attention they deserve. We want to draw attention and bring excitement to the program. We want to get people talking.”

And to take it one step further, I’ll add the thoughts of Internet newspaper commenter “Class of 79” who clearly studied debate at the nation’s top institutions:

“It something new don’t look at the uniform. Look at the coach that wat yours should be talking about is founding new coach atl coach suck”

That’s a hell of an argument right there. Does the team need to focus on “founding new coach” or is it okay for the players to have some fun? After the jump, I’ve included a photo of one of the players in the actual uniform at gametime, so you can determine for yourself if these outfits are as butt ugly as a nuclear diarrhea hurricane or if they’re harmless generators of buzz.

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Sports On TV: The Brady Bunch’s 20 Greatest Sports Moments

Written by Brandon Stroud / 09.20.12


Joe Namath Brady Bunch

Pictured L to R: Mark Sanchez, Tim Tebow

“Here’s the story, of a lovely lady…”

‘The Brady Bunch’ is one of my favorite shows of all-time. Its reruns were my first real, sustained exposure to popular culture from before I was born, and something about a house full of lingo-spewing, disco-monster siblings appealed to an only child from the 80s. And hey, thankfully for me (and the Sports On TV column) the show is full of sports content, be it memorable (like Joe Namath showing up in a dream sequence to reveal he couldn’t have won the Super Bowl without a buck-toothed 8-year old) or the obscure (Wes Parker? Really?).

If you’ve never watched ‘The Brady Bunch’, flip through the column anyway. I’ve included applicable clips when possible, and at the very least you’ll want to see a Pony League game set to funk music. Show it to your parents or something.

And now, the 20 greatest sports moments from ‘The Brady Bunch’. Keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on clickin’ on through the post.

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Sports On TV: Married… With Children’s 20 Greatest Sports Moments

Written by Brandon Stroud / 09.06.12

Let’s rock.

Each week, Sports On TV looks at the 20 (or so) greatest sports-related moments from television shows that aren’t always about sports. This week we tackle the low-brow 1987-97 FOX classic ‘Married… With Children’, and honestly, it’s the closest we’ve come to saying f**k it and just writing about sports shows. MWC featured more sports moments and guest appearances than almost any other sitcom, and even featured a sports moments clip-show in the middle of its 10th season. Instead of just finding that on YouTube and posting it here, we’ve put together our own list.

The entire run of ‘Married…’ is currently streaming on Netflix, so if you read about Al Bundy punching a heavyset lady in the stomach or beating a bunch of old people at track and field and want to check it out, you can do so there. If our top 20 didn’t feature your favorite moment, be sure to drop down into the comments section and let us know what we missed.

But for now, enjoy the 20 greatest sports moments from ‘Married… With Children’. Let’s get the greatest moment in television history out of the way first …

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Homophobic Alabama High School Students: Now Able To Spell 3-Letter Words

Written by Brandon Stroud / 09.06.12

Homophobic sign Alabama

In case you’d forgotten that Alabama sports fans still think “you are gay” is the best possible insult for rival teams, feast your proud, heterosexual eyes on these Spanish Fort High School students and their “Purple? Man, that’s GAY” sign. Hold on, the reason for this is really complex and I don’t want to lose you — rival school Daphne wears purple uniforms, which makes them homeauxs. Or whatever.

If that wasn’t enough, ESPN’s broadcast of the Spanish Fort/Daphne game also featured a giant DAPHNE, ISN’T THAT A GIRL’S NAME banner, cementing the idea that Daphne High School is full of not only gays, but gay ladies. As Jason at Sportress Of Blogitude points out, the worst part isn’t the rampant, regressive homophobia or the casual misogyny of rednecks, it’s that somebody played a football team named “Daphne” and didn’t Scooby-Doo Joke the shit out of them.

Maybe Scooby-Doo is too dated of a reference. If so, and if you’re gonna be a gay-bashing moron anyway, at least start blasting “Single Ladies” and pull one of these routines:

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Meet Jacob Rainey, High School Football’s Amputee Quarterback

Written by Brandon Stroud / 08.31.12

amputee quarterback

Last December, Woodberry Forest School quarterback and college prospect Jacob Rainey made the news when his career was (we assumed) tragically cut short by a mishap on the playing field.

Well, “mishap” is a pretty light way to put it. He got tackled and lost his leg. Here’s the most psychologically terrifying description of events possible from a recent profile in the New York Times:

Rainey went left and cut back to his right. A tackler dived and grabbed his legs. Rainey tried to shed him, fighting for more yardage, and then he went blank. “I feel like I blacked out for a second,” he told me. “I just heard a pop, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground.”

Jeff Johnson, Woodberry’s athletic trainer, knew it was bad even before he laid eyes on Rainey. “The screams were just overwhelming,” Johnson told me, recalling the moment months later. “I still hear them.”

Rushing to Rainey’s side, Johnson quickly realized that the injury was unlike any he’d seen. Rainey’s lower right leg was dislocated at the knee and cocked at an impossible angle — “an obvious deformity,” in Johnson’s words.

He asked the quarterback not to look at it. Rainey didn’t listen. He asked him to take deep breaths. Rainey was inconsolable. “My season,” he kept saying. “My season.”

The upside to the story is that Rainey got outfitted with a prosthetic and chose to keep playing high school football instead of becoming a Paralympics athlete, a move that inspired everyone (including Tim Tebow, who I guess just goes around getting inspired by things). With football season starting back up, the next chapter of Jacob’s story begins, and a full piece on his story in the Times isn’t a bad way to start it. I definitely recommend giving it a read, because not only is it inspirational, it features wonderful out-of-context quotes like this:

“Maybe my skin’s just not ready,” Rainey suggested.

My girlfriend works at an orthotics and prosthetics company that makes a lot of the artificial limbs you see on athletes like Jacob (and Winter, the real-life dolphin from the movie Dolphin Tale), so stories like this have really been brought into perspective for me. If you need more of a reason to check out the article, take a look at some of the awesome photos that go along with it …

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