Hypocritic oath

Perhaps this will please fellow Sun employee John Hughes:

Miami Dolphins' defensive end Jason Taylor was the first NFL personality to finally step up and call a spade a spade on the NFL's blind-eye hypocrisy to steroid use.

One day after Jim Caple made a brief mention of it in his ESPN.com Page 2 column, Taylor went on record to call out the league's idolatry over San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne (Lights Out) Merriman.

For those unaware, Merriman was suspended for four games this season for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing drugs.

Here's Taylor's paraphrased take:

"You really shouldn’t be able to fail a test like that and play in this league, to begin with. To make the Pro Bowl and all the other awards, I think you’re walking a fine line of sending the wrong message. ... You fail that test, I think it’s not right, it’s against the rules and ultimately I think it’s sending the wrong message to the youth in America and the people who look at this game not only as entertainment but also to learn lessons from it."

But for whatever reason, the NFL and its fans have a very short-term memory and convenient amnesia is prevalent. While the likes of Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa (etcetera, etcetera) are under constant scrutiny for their use (or alleged use) of performance-enhancers and perhaps will never again be looked at by fans without a tinge of skepticism, here's a player who was caught breaking the rules but yet is back in the league with everyone forgetting it ever happened.

In his Page 2 piece, Caple surmised that the reason the baseball players are taking it a lot worse than the NFLers (or more accurately the NFLers are getting off so much easier than the ball players) is because baseball is a sport married to its individual statistics and the historical importance that they hold. Undoubtedly he's right. The most sacred aspects of the American national pastime are the records, the ones earned decades prior when the game was pure and still an intrinsic part of American sports culture. Roger Maris' home run record was the ultimate of those marks, the one almost-untouchable feat that — whenever challenged — was sure to capture the awe of baseball's followers.

When it was broken, and the subsequent steroid allegations came on like wildfire, the sport and its athletes had forever sewn their seeds with an already cynical following who felt betrayed and were, rightfully, peeved at being duped. That was that and even the likes of good-guys Ryan Howard or David Ortiz are placed under the same unflattering spotlight that exists because of their cheating predecessors.

But the NFL is different. Perhaps of the rough-and-tumble nature, perhaps because you expect your favourite players to be nearly unhuman masses of muscle, perhaps because you just don't care what they're doing to get their shape so long as they can outrun, outhit and outlast their opponent. Yet it's foolish to ever think that all these muscle-bound men who get bigger and faster and more freakish by the year are all doing it simply with a solid commitment to workouts and healthy diets.

The nature of the NFL is different than the laid-back, easy-going world of baseball where a 5-foot-7, 165-pound David Eckstein has no problems competing against a landmass like Big Papi Ortiz. He can still be a big part of that team even if he doesn't jack 40 bombs a year. An Eckstein-ian player in the NFL? He'd better be able to kick.

That there are fundamental differences between the two leagues doesn't excuse the blind eye, of course. It just serves to explain why a guy like Merriman can skate and avoid public scorn even when he's been publicly identified as an offender while Giambi, or Tour de France champion Floyd Landis are verbally stoned by a hypocritical sports public that seems to find their transgressions infinitely more indefensible yet can provide no reasons why.

For the record, here was Merriman's rebuttal to Taylor's words:

"The NFL will always have the level of integrity. That’s what makes the NFL. In my situation, everything happened in an appropriate way. I sat out my four games, my money was taken away from me, my four games were taken away from me, and I came back and played my rear off.

"If I wasn’t having the kind of season I’m having, this wouldn’t even be a conversation."

But Merriman is having the season he's having and his successes should be scrutinized just as any other cheater who's been forced to face-up and answer the questions of their integrity. But he's not. He's back on the field, he's in the Pro Bowl, heck, he was this week's AFC defensive player of the week. By not only allowing players right back in the league but also rewarding them with these individual honours, the NFL extends a tacit approval of their actions and essentially says that streoid use isn't a paramount concern.

U.S. Congress was so intent on exposing the dirty secrets of baseball and the major leagues took a significant step in disciplining the offenders with harsh sentences for those found using performance-enhancing drugs.

It's likely time for the NFL to start waking up to it as well instead of slapping wrists and staying silent while it takes one of its player who actually gets it to stand up and say what everyone should have already known.

Unfinished Business

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this at some point.





Last weekend the Nebraska Cornhuskers women's volleyball team captured its third ever national championship in front of a record (and astonishing) 17, 203 fans in Omaha, Neb.

I mentioned this in a column in a Brandon Sun column I wrote earlier this week, but the team was led by a Canadian. If you follow volleyball and don't know Sarah Pavan's name ... well, you don't really follow volleyball. A 6-foot-5 junior, Pavan won seemingly every individual accolade possible in leading the Huskers to a one-loss season and undoubtedly has a place in the NU volleyball Hall of Fame sitting and waiting for her.

One thing I found interesting, however, was after the Huskers had beaten the Stanford Cardinal in four sets, Stanford head coach John Dunning was quoted as saying: "“She has been playing volleyball a long time. ... Like some of the players (in Canada), it’s in her blood.”

It was a nice tip of the cap to Canadian volleyball, which has been hindered by the success of some of its players down south. Pavan is not a national-team member because of her commitments to Nebraska and don't doubt for a second that Canada would be much more competitive on the international scene if it could get everyone it desired.

I also drew comparisons in the aforementioned column between Nebraska and Manitoba for volleyball because both are quietly the hotbeds of their respective nations for producing female volleyball players.

But enough of that. The Huskers have another national championship to their credit and for anyone suggesting that UNL is a football school only, consider the fact the volleyball team repeatedly set attendance records this season.

Oh, and another thing: Pavan was the most highly recruited athlete in Nebraska athletics history.

Giddy. Up.

My sister just told me it's not in my nature to be giddy.

She's exactly right.

Still there's a couple things that lift the spirits. In this case it's randomness. Stumbling across some clips online like

Lauryn Hill's "Killing Me Softly" rendition off Block Party.

OR...

Kanye's West "Jesus Walks" rendition with the backing of the Central State University marching band. and John Legend on vocals.

OR...

And I don't even hesitate to tell you how janked up this made me to FINALLY find it online. After searching every P2P music-sharing program, scouring the internet, trying to find this song ANYWHERE and — even with a pretty good knowledge of how to find obscure things online — striking out with great frustration, I found it.

Cody Chesnutt's very brief appearance in the final scene from Block Party. His performance of "Parting Ways," the song I've never been able to find, plays solely for just a moment. I even blogged about all of this here.

It is one of my favourite 30 seconds of music ever, even though it's not the whole thing. But you take what you can get.

So, it's not giddy, but it's close.

Take what you can get.

---

You know what, while we're at it: Step shows are pretty cool, too.

For those unitiated to step shows, or 'steppin,' the practice is common and popular in historically black colleges and universities. They are highly-detailed dance routines that incorporate the likes of cheerleading, military, and drill-team moves, as well as the call-and-response element of those forms. Large competitions are held all over the continent and they're likely to populate any number of school homecoming weekends. They are highly intricate and definite crowd engagers. Step shows are rooted in the black colleges and universities — specifically fraternities and sororities — because the history they draw from is a hybrid of African culture and African-American music and culture.

Have a look here and, if so compelled, watch Part 2 here..

Big Red to Big Blue

Went to the Winnipeg Free Press' sports section to read Ed Tait's annual "Bomber Bowling" feature, which gives Blue Bomber fans a glance at who their home team is looking at in the slew of NCAA college football bowl games.

Opened up the paper, went to C1 and... literally made a noise comparable to a yelp mixed with a wahoo. It went something like "Ah!!"

Before I proceed allow me to just say I know full well how big the gun is that I'm jumping right now, but it's fun to do it.

So there on the page, staring back at me, was Nebraska quarterback (and some will say program saviour) Zac Taylor who has apparently found his way onto the Blue Bombers negotiation list.

From a guy who has longed for a Nebraska player to end up in Blue and Gold, let me just channell Keith Jackson here and say: "Ohhhhh nelly."

A little background perhaps on Zac. A native of Norman, Okla., home of the evil Sooners, Taylor was ignored by his hometown school and bounced from Wake Forest to Butler (Kan.) Community College before being recruited to come to rival Nebraska and lift Husker fans out of the doom and gloom that was the short-lived Joe Dailey Era.

In his first full season, Taylor was up and down as the Huskers adapted to the West Coast system but finished 2005 by helping Big Red win its final three games including the Alamo Bowl victory over Michigan. It was in that game that Taylor fully earned his reputation as a gamer and the confidence of the Nebraska faithful. He took an absolute beating but hung in and led the Huskers to a season-ending upset that had everyone immediately ready for 2006.

This season, he's continued what he started and — I at least — have been mournfully realizing that once Jan. 1 has come and gone, so too will have Taylor. He has passed for more than 3,000 yards, tossed 25 touchdowns, just seven interceptions — a record-breaking season on every level at UNL — and won over the enamoured followers like the protagonist in a Disney movie.

So perhaps one day I'll have the fortune of watching two of my football worlds collide and, obviously, I feel like the Bombers would be better off for it, although it's hard to say how Taylor would adapt to a CFL game. He's got decent mobility and if put in a situation where he can thrive off making quick decisions — like he does in the Husker offence — he's the type of QB who could one day really thrive in the CFL. Think young Dave Dickenson.

Taylor will at least get a look in the NFL, however. Perhaps depending on what he does in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day, Taylor is a lock to be drafted somewhere after being named the Big 12 Conference's 1st Team quarterback this season. That said, my never-ending desire to see a former Husker dressing for the Bombers (to my knowledge it's never happened before) is telling me that it's OK to go complete overboard on this one. (For that matter, I would like to see RB Cory Ross placed on the neg list, too. (At 5-foot-6 and slippery as all get out, think a future Charles Roberts without the drama).

So not wanting to see Taylor leave Nebraska combined with wanting to see a Husker go from red to blue, has me excited for something that will probably not happen for years down the road. If at all.

Zac Taylor, Winnipeg Blue Bomber. It looks good in writing too.