Last Friday, dog owners and people in Tommy Bahama shirts from across Central Florida and eastern coastal towns gathered in scenic Cocoa Beach for the inaugural East Coast Dog Surfing Championship. Amazingly, this is believed to be the first competition of its kind in the Sunshine State, which makes sense because surfing dogs are awesome and other states have been doing it for years. But then, it just goes along with the state’s motto: “Florida – we’re nothing if not 10 years behind.”

Better late than never, though, is what I say, and I commend these daredevil doggies for riding the waves for a good cause.

The two day event kicked off with the qualifying rounds and several canine contestants took to the waves for a doggone good time at the Cocoa Beach Pier.

Proceeds from the dog surfing event go to the Central Brevard Humane Society, which had shelter dogs there available for adoption.

… “Booker D. Surfdog’ will compete against “Pippin Yachtdog,” “Onyx Shorepound,” “Queen Abby,” “Moses Rock of Ages,” and “Koa and Boaz.” (Via 13 News)

Is there a contest for the Greatest Surfing Dog Name? How about Greatest Dog Name Ever? Because I’m pretty sure Onyx Shorepound is the coolest dog name I’ve ever heard.

However, I do have one complaint. I get a lot of mail each day and I read every piece, junk or not. But I do not recall receiving my invitation to attend and possibly judge this surfing dog competition. If the people at the Central Brevard Humane Society are reading this – and I know they are – I fully expect to receive such an invite for next year’s East Coast Dog Surfing Championship. I’ll even bring a camera so the only pictures in existence are these crappy screen grabs that I took from a crappy :45 video.

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Welcome to the most 1990s thing that ever existed.

For anyone who doesn’t know, ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ was a live-action television series about teenagers who come together to use recycled Japanese action show footage to sell toys to American kids. It first aired on Fox Kids in 1993 and is still on, jumping from Fox to ABC to Toon Disney to Nickelodeon, changing its name and cast as many times as it needed to remain fresh. The most recent incarnation is ‘Power Rangers Super Samurai,’ but they’ve been Turbo, Zeo, in Space, in a Lost Galaxy and affixed with everything from time travel to dinosaurs and something called ‘jungle fury’.

Today, Sports On TV tackles the show that brought the Power Rangers to the dance — the first three seasons of ‘Mighty Morphin’ — featuring the original cast (mostly), the original bad guys and all the horrible dubbed-in dialogue and grainy footage that made the franchise a 20-year success. Yeah, I can’t figure it out either.

For your morphenomenal pleasures, I present to you my picks for the 20 greatest sports moments in ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ history.

As an added bonus, you can MAKE YOUR MONSTER GROWWWW and unlock the Rita Repulsa badge by sharing Sports On TV: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ 20 Greatest Sports Moments on Facebook and Twitter. All you have to do is click the handy-dandy share buttons at the bottom of the post, and the badge is yours. What better way to say “I know a lady who spent 10,000 years on the moon”?

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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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And now for your sort of creepy but also sort of touching story of the day… California dude Dana McGregor originally adopted his pet goat, Goatee, so she could chomp on the foliage around his home. But then he grew to love Goatee as a pet, so he started taking the nanny goat places with him, like most people would with a dog. This included trips to San Onofre State Beach, where he eventually taught Goatee how to surf with him, as you can see in the above image from their surf excursion this past Wednesday.

While I’m not quite sure how it happened – if Goatee was already preggers or if McGregor found her a goat stud – Goatee eventually gave birth to a billy goat named Pismo. Of course, McGregor taught Pismo how to surf, too, because why not? So we now have stories, pictures, and videos of surfing dogs and goats, which closes yet another chapter in my long, thorough novel, “Why Cats are the Most Useless, Meaningless Little Balls of Allergy Death on the Planet”. Available this fall in paperback.

After the jump, check out McGregor’s special tribute to Goatee, The Surfing Goat, Goatee & Me.

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Photos from the latest ESPN The Magazine Body Issue have landed, and in this year’s issue we get to see Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey in nothing but pink gloves … possibly our only chance to ever do so without being glared at and having our arms ripped off.

The Body Issue is no stranger to MMA stars in the buff, lest we forget last year’s epic Jon ‘Bones’ Jones naked and peeing into a swimming pool effort. Nobody gets it that badly this year, but some of the more bizarre highlights include a naked jockey letting a horse lick his head, a lady with no legs climbing a rope swing and nude sailboat sailing. Maybe they should change the issue topic from “bodies we want” to “bodies we want doing things we wouldn’t be photographed doing with clothes on”.

Anyway, after the jump are a few choice shots from the issue (we can’t include them all, we want you to visit ESPN for that) including Ronda’s full appearance. Naked horse-licked jockey not included.

(you’re welcome)

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We’ve reached the point that my most highly anticipated events of the year include the Super Bowl, World Series, Masters, any Channing Tatum movie, new 30 Rock episodes, and now, probably above all else, the Loews Coronado Bay Resort Surf Dog competition. And once again, over the weekend, 50 dogs were brought to San Diego for the ultimate pooch paddle party, and it was undoubtedly awesome.

Dogs were divided into three competitive categories, but I wanted to give a special shoutout to my main Twitter dawg dog Ricochet, the lovable retriever that surfs and helps train his fellow dogs to become service animals. Ricochet won the large breed title, which he adds to his title of reigning ASPCA Dog of the Year.

Additionally, this year’s competitors helped set three Guinness World Records, including Most Dogs on a Surfboard. Word is that Guinness has yet to confirm this record, which only further justifies the need to have me at this event every year, judging and verifying all records. Let’s make this happen, people.

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