In honor of that most glorious time of year, TheSportsbean is proud to announce its newest series…

A celebration of lesser known college football traditions

A Sportsbean series

The Ohio State University dots the “I” and the Razorbacks run through the “A” but few know about Penn State and the “Bearer of the White Socks.”

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Every Friday before a home game at Happy Valley, a Penn State student is chosen to take coach Paterno to dinner at Hoss’s Steak and Sea Family Restaurant for his weekly 4:30 dinner, home for the 6:00 news, Wheel of Fortune, then most of a Matlock re-run.  When Paterno falls asleep in his recliner at 7:30, the lucky winner puts the coaching icon to bed and picks out the socks for tomorrow’s game from the hundreds of pairs available.  The following game day morning, the student then is greeted by an impatient Paterno at 4:30am for breakfast for the honor of putting the famous white socks onto the bare feet of the great Joe Pa.

 *editor’s note: TSB used “BCS” as a tag for this post knowing that this has very little to do with Penn St. However because PSU plays in a BCS conference we included it.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar converts to Judaism, changes name to Stanley Goldstein

Boca Raton, FL — Citing better food and less hastle in airports, Los Angeles Laker legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has seen the light a second time.  In an exclusive interview with TheSportsbean.com, Jabbar (or “Goldie” as his friends call him) has made another life decision.  He has put down the Koran and picked up a yarmulke with his new pursuit of Judaism.  “I just wish I had done this before now, said a finally content Goldstein.  “It stinks that my college career stats, my NBA stats and my homeowners association’s shuffleboard stats will all be under different names.”

Goldstein in July 2008

Goldstein last changed his name after the 1971 NBA season to Jabbar from his previous Lew Alcindor claiming that his new name more closely identifies him with his new adherence to Islam.  Goldstein’s new faith caused his latest change. 

“I thought about converting to homosexuality like a lot of people in LA did in the 1980’s but then I started reading about what they have to do and thought, ‘good lord!’ that’s really selling out for your religion!  I mean that’s really going all in.  Mostly, I’m just gld to get to eat bacon again.” said Glodstein.  When reminded that Jews don’t eat pork, an exasperated Goldstein threw his hands in the air and proclaimed; “Damn it! That’s was like half the reason I did it!”

The former Alcindor, who was raised Roman Catholic, feels confident that this will be his final conversion because quite simply, he is running out of religions.

Bob Uecker apologizes for starting so many fights over horrible tasting beer

Milwaukee, WI — From the opening statement of his press conference to the last question, Bob Uecker could not have been more contrite. “I don’t know if it was the money, the fame, rubbing elbows with a young John Madden, or just what it was but now I know it was destructive, I let it get out of hand and I’m sorry;”  proclaimed Uecker. “I have always taken my craft seriously and I guess when the director yelled ‘action’ I don’t know, I just really believed it tasted great. I mean, I got really pissed every time I heard Billy Martin or Bubba Smith say ‘less filling’. In short, I lost 30 years of friendship with Rodney Dangerfield, that old guy, Hightower, all of them.”

Uecker talked for sometime about his time away from the glairing lights of the Miller Lite ads and more importantly what turned things around. “I remember being pulled off of the set of Mr. Belvedere after Chris (Belvedere) made a crack about my acting being ‘less filling’ and ‘not great’. I went nuts. It was only recently that I actually tasted the product that brought me so much fame and ultimately, loneliness. I just can’t believe that I lost friends over this crap. I mean, have any of you ever tasted this horse piss? I’d really like to apologize to anyone that ever bought this stuff because of me.”

The baseball “legend” ended the day with an open invitation to everyone that he ostracized over the years to come to his home and catch up on the lost time. 

Ex-Strong Man wishes co-workers would Stop challenging him to lift things

FRESNO, CA – Former “World’s Strongest Man” competitor Darrell Sandifur says he is getting tired of everyone at his workplace daring him to various feats of strength.

“They keep wanting me to tear the phone book, or pull the fire hydrant out of the ground… just stupid crap like that” an irritated Sandifur said.

Sandifur has been working at a local Office Max loading and unloading supply trucks for several months now.  But it wasn’t until recently when co-workers found out Sandifur used to compete in “strong man” competitions, that the random challenges came about.

“It’s just getting really annoying. This one guy, Roger, comes up to me every day and asks me if I can punch a hole in a brick wall or lift a bulldozer over my head” stated Sandifur “I guess he thinks I’m a superhero or something. He might be retarded”.

Sandifur said if the harassment continues, he will be forced to file a grievance with management.

 

 

 

Rest of the pile: Top 10 worst sports movies ever

 

10. Tagline from the DVD box: His stripes made him an outcast. His heart made him a hero. They forgot “his movie works better than Ambien. 

The box however does offer this warning… Starring: Frankie Muniz, David Spade, Steve Harvey, Snoop Dogg, Mandy Moore, Jeff Foxworthy, and Whoopi Goldberg

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9. Let’s be honest, this was about a guy in the mid west who hallucinated an entire baseball game and people thought it was romantic. If he had hallucinated anything else, he’d have been arrested.

 

 

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8. Again, the producers try to warn you with the cover art. _______________________________________________________________________________

7. Just look at this poster. Let this soak in. Did Bugs Bunny really need the money this badly? Here’s your tagline, Half cartoon, half live action, all crap. These were Spacejammed into Wal Mart’s $1.99 bin with more authority than 23 ever dunked a basketball. 

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6.  Inside a studio executive’s head in 1982: Kenny Rogers, sports movie. Kenny Rogers, sports movie. Kenny Rogers, sports movie… How come this hasn’t happened yet?

Ignored child labor laws and a creepy bearded dude that hangs around kids are not enough to save this movie. 

 

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5. Even Tide fans left this movie rooting for Auburn.

 

 

 

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4.  High School Musical (w/out the music) meets Cheetah Girls, meets crappy WB sitcom.

Actual tagline: Everybody has a secret… Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who’s with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who’s crushing on Duke who thinks she’s a guy… This movie just makes the Bean angry!

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3.  Bean reader “Cody” suggested this one. Bean reader “Cody” was really just shooting fish in a barrel with this one.  This is really just piling on. 2 1/2 words… Lil’ Bow Wow.

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2. The Bean is still unclear why Hollywood hates monkeys so much. Here’s another example… Making one “act” with Matt LeBlanc. “You’re there to support the chimp. Just remember that, Joey.”

 

 

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1.  ANY movie that makes “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot” (with Estell Getty) not the worst Stallone movie deserves a place on this list.  Remember, Stallone made: Cobra, Judge Dread, Oscar, 

Best part of this movie?  Sammy Hagar’s song on the soundtrack. No, make that the closing credits. Let the Bean walk you through this movie’s premise.

Truck driver, Lincoln Hawk gets his kid from a military academy because his mother is dying. Not Stallone’s, his kid’s. Anyway… What turns into long story/longer… It’s the feel good arm wrestling movie of the year. 

 

 

 

Bean’s List: 11-20 worst sports movies ever. (Monday, top 10)

The premise of this movie is that the kid breaks his arm only to have it come back stronger and better than ever.

 

Maybe we should try breaking the DVD a few times.

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8 Seconds… That’s exactly how long this lasted in my DVD player before I hit the eject button.   

Luke Perry finds out that working with 1200 pounds of angry beef is a whole lot easier than working with Shannon Doherty. 

 

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B-list actors playing B-list football players. Rob Schneider, Kathy Ireland, Sinbad, Jason Bateman, Scott Bakula… If you once had a hit TV show in the 1980’s, you had a spot in this movie. I think Gary Coleman and Alf had small cameos. How on Earth could this not be an instant classic?  

Any movie with Sinbad and that Huey Lewis-looking Quantum Leap dude is probably going to suck. Turns out, it did.

 

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If you can’t get a bunch of inner-city street thugs to respect a bumbling line screwing-up blonde from Laugh-In, who will they respect?   The Bean rented this DVD just for the deleted scenes.  Turns out black guys do love blondes. 

 

 

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Penny Hardaway, and the O’Neill brothers, (Shaquille and Ed)? No wonder the producers of Kazam were falling all over themselves to sign Shaq after this classic performance.  This movie is likely what made Nick Nolte hit the bottle. 

 

 

 

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You don’t have to wear the cardboard 3-D glasses to see how crappy this movie is.

The Bean realizes that this is not a sports movie. However any movie this horrible deserves to be on a bad movie list. Here’s the plot… After a Nantucket family endures two summers being terrorized by this fish, sheriff Brody’s sons decide to take a trip to Florida. What’s there waiting for them? The most grudge holding shark ever born. Good lord! You get the feeling that if they had gone to Omaha, Nebraska, this shark would have been behind the counter at the truckstop where they stopped for gas.

Alright. Back to the sports movies.

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Al Bundy’s second movie on the list.  Honey, I shrunk the budget.  Shot entirely in a small town, with B-list actors, Rick Moranis take a rag tag bunch of misfits to the championship game and beats the better team. The Bean loved this movie when they called it the Bad News Bears.

 

 

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Let me set the stage. Don Knotts (Barney Fife) coaches the NFL’s California ATOMS. Their star “player” is a soccer playing mule from Yugoslavia. Tom Bosley (Mr. Cunningham) and Tim Conway (uh, Tim Conway) then mulenaps GUS for a climatic scene just before the big game. Team owner Ed Asner (Lou Grant) loses his temper and yells at people alot while wearing those giant ties that he wore when he worked in Minnesota at that TV station.   

 

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I guess Hogan doesn’t know best. Hulk “Thunderlips” Hogan was such a big hit in his draw in Rocky III that he rode his on rhinestone encrusted capetails to movie stardom.   If the court really wanted to teach his kid a lesson, play this 24 hours a day in his cell.  He’ll never drive again. 

 

 

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Ex- QB and current FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Reeves) is sent undercover to foil a group of bank-robbing surfers headed by Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper before Hopper is able to put a bomb on a city bus and force Sandra Bullock to drive it to Indiana to blow up a high school boys basketball team, the same team Hackman and Hopper would be coaching against in the state finals.  

 Oh wait… Maybe that’s a different movie.

UT Crew Team Faces 1 Year Ban For Non-Conforming Watercraft

Knoxville Tn –  The University of Tennessee’s newly formed crew and rowing team has come under fire from the NCAA sanctions committee for allegedly entering a “non-conforming” water vessel in its most recent meet against Rice University. The boat titled “Corn Squeezins I” was met with a mix of shock and uncertainty by those in attendance and came under immediate protest by the Rice team. ” There was no way we were going to row against that monstrosity” said William Needham III, captain of the Rice squad. Most egregious of the cited violations was the 60 hp Briggs and Stratton outboard motor the Volunteers had rigged on the back which they had initially tried to conceal with a rain poncho. Inspectors also added a depth finder, live well, pop-up duck blind and other sport fishing equipment to the list of irregularities

While acceptable specifications may vary depending on which club is sanctioning the meet. It is universally agreed that most boats (referred to as shells) cannot exceed 1/8″ to 1/4″ thickness and should make use of no apparatus other than its occupants and their sculls (oars) to aid in moving the boat. “We like to allow for some design flexibility in the boats from time to time”, said Blaine Worthing, assoc. chair of the Collegiate Crew Assoc, the governing body of division I competitive rowing, “it allows the students to incorporate some ingenuity into the sport and adds to its beauty and complexity but the Tennessee crew team took a few too many liberties in this case”, he concluded.

“I think them boys was jes plain yella… truth be told” commented Lee Suggs, 8th year senior and captain of the Tennessee Team.” We no sooner pulled her off the flatbed and dropped er in then thay come a runnin and lookin around and acting all smarmy like….so we was like brang it on you yankee SOB’s…go git yer own motor and we gonna blow yalls doors off….these colors don’t run….”

Competitive rowing, while offered at the collegiate level since 1815, has been slow to catch on in the southeastern state schools where football and basketball are clearly the preferred spectator and participant sports in that region. “We definitely want to branch out to some of the lesser known but equally as important sports programs here at UT” said UT athletic Director Mike Hamilton,” we considered gymnastics and fencing but it was deemed to “wussified” by the majority of our invested alumni. Rowing just seemed like the most logical next best thing. After all most of these boys have been around the water most of their lives, whether it be rock skippin’, frog giggin’, rowin’, or just plain old wadin’ ……Git er dunnn!” Hamilton concluded.

In his follow up report to the NCAA, Worthing admitted that while the motor was the only piece of equipment that could reasonably give the UT team a decided advantage, the fishing equipment, igloo coolers, and diving board would have to be removed before they would be allowed to compete again.

 

 

 

 

DANICA PATRICK NO LONGER TRYING TO PUT ON HER MAKE-UP DURING RACES

(from the archives) MONTEGI, JAPAN – After becoming the first woman driver in history to win an IndyCar race, Danica Patrick spoke with reporters on the relief she felt and some of the measures she had taken to improve her overall driving performance.

“Oh. My. Gawd. This is sooo great!” said the obviously excited Patrick. “I feel so relieved its not even funny. I haven’t felt like this since I finally passed the parallel parking part of my driving test, after like, the third time. Whew!”

Patrick was asked if she had taken any steps to maybe improve her IndyCar racing ability. “Well, for one, I decided to quit trying to put on my mascara during the race; I figured I would just do it when the race was over” stated Patrick. “I also decided to quit focusing so hard while I’m driving; I just turned up the radio and started thinking about what I was going to where to the party tonight – then about halfway through the race, I realized I was doing really good and I started texting my BFF Candi and it was totally awesome! Wow!”

Patrick said that this historic event sets the tone for women drivers everywhere and that hopefully they will look at what she has accomplished and maybe become better drivers because of it – but ultimately, they’re still women drivers.

Lennox Lewis’ children missing; Mike Tyson brought in for questioning

London, England –  On Sunday, Officials from the London Police Department and Scotland Yard took Mike Tyson in for questioning in thedisappearance of the children of Lennox Lewis. Tyson was in town for a sports memorabilia show just three hours before the children were noticed missing.  

“Mr. Tyson is a person of interest due in large part to his statements previously made regarding Mr. Lennox and his children; stated Sir Brian Nelson, Assistant to the Minister of International Crimes Committed Against Royal Academy Athletes. Such statements as; “Lennox Lewis, I’m coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah! My main objective is to be professional but to kill him. I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.”

Calls to Don King were not immediately returned. 

BCS to simplify formula by drawing names from a hat

GREENSBORO, NC – Speaking via cell phone Monday morning, ACC commissioner and BCS chairman, John Swofford revealed that the Bowl Championship Series had come to a conclusion on a revolutionary new way to determine who would vie for the National Championship each year: the contenders would be drawn out of a hat.

“Many people have been complaining that the BCS and its computer-generated rankings are too convoluted and don’t always ensure the correct or premiere match-up for number 1” Swofford stated “We here at the Bowl Championship Series feel we have come up with a more precise way to determine the teams that will compete for a national title, and we feel it will be supported by every conference”.

When asked if a playoff system wouldn’t be a more viable option, Swofford replied, “A playoff isn’t really much of a solution; there are a lot of variables that it allows in, and a lot of good teams that may be left out. We’re confident that our new method will help reduce, if not eliminate, error from the equation and give all parties a fair and equal chance at success.  Of course, Notre Dame will have several names in the hat in order to ensure that they have the fairest chance of getting in the BCS mix. Honestly, we know people don’t want this decided on the field.”

With all 117 Division I-A schools eligible under the BCS’s new “formula”, it wouldn’t be unheard of to have a 2-10 UNLV squad going against a 1 -11 Temple team for the right to hoist the crystal football at the end of the season.

“Again, our new system has been put in place to bring about fairness, equality, and simplicity in college football, and we feel comfortable it will do so and hopefully put to rest the annual debate over the validity of the mind-boggling computer ratings”.

Developing… College presidents fighting over size, style, and color of hat used to draw teams

MAN CAUGHT LOITERING OUTSIDE GIRLS LOCKER ROOM EXPLAINS “IT’S OKAY– I USED TO BE A GYM TEACHER”

WICHITA, KS — Local authorities were notified Wednesday night after concerned parents became suspicious of a strange man hanging around outside the girls locker room at Central Junior High. Police detained and questioned 43-year-old Todd Dobson then forced him to leave the premises before he could even finish watching the 8th grade girls basketball game. “With my experience as a gym teacher, I just wanted to be sure that the girls were stretching out and taping up” said the concerned Dobson, “and that I had some Icy Hot, if they needed some Icy Hot — that’s all”. Dobson, who actually did have a tube of Icy Hot with him, currently works at Dick’s Sporting Goods. He has had two stints in the past in which he taught Physical Education. Both times he was dismissed from his position for undisclosed reasons. Police officer Mike Fina said that Dodson became very defensive during questioning. “He kept saying things like ‘If you were in my class, your ass would be running laps all day’ and ‘You see this whistle? This is my badge’”. But since Dobson had not broken any laws, the officers could only escort him away from scene. “If there was a law against ‘creepiness’, we would’ve taken him in” said Fina.

 –thesportsbean.com

Gus Frerotte admits to being mildly retarded

Minneapolis, MN – In an interview appearing Thursday in The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minneapolis Vikings back-up quarterback Gus Frerotte said that he has known for quite some time that his mental abilities were far less than that of an average person.  Frerotte, who’s teammates have nicknamed him “Corky”, may be best remembered for slamming his head into a concrete wall for a touchdown celebration; where he sustained a concussion and sprained neck, says he’s not sure if he’s been mentally retarded from birth or if it was brought on by a lifelong series of poor decisions.

 

“My dad used to work in home remodeling, and at night I would sneak out to his workshop and drink paint” said Frerotte, “and when I was 14, me and some of the other 4th graders would play this game where I’d hit myself in the head with a baseball bat really hard, and then they would all laugh.”

 

Frerotte says he began to be suspicious while in college at the University of Tulsa, where he set several weight-room records, but that the coach said the records wouldn’t count because Frerotte possessed what he called “retard-strength”.

 

“I know that my mental handicap may never let me be as good as a Tavarius Jackson, but if I keep trying, I know I can be a really good quarterback someday”.