Ramblings. Because thinking of a premise is for the birds.

I'm beginning to wonder what qualifications are listed for many sports journalists around the field. I've read far too many columns chastising Bode Miller and other U.S. Winter olympians for their "failures." The media continues to jump on the back of Miller, the extremely talented skiier, because he's failed to win gold. Nevermind that he was the first American to ever win skiing's World Cup overall championship. Most don't even know what that means, but it's a much more impressive accomplishment than a medal performance, in my opinion. The olympics are centered on one race. In downhill skiing there are so many variables that the breaking of wind by a competitor could send him rocketing off-course. People calling him the most overrated athlete in history should jump off the ignorance trolley and kiss my ass. He hasn't medaled yet, but the man can ski. As a nation of people who only watch skiing once every four years, we should just admit this.

Speaking of the olympics, I'm also going to come out in support of Lindsay Jacobellis, who lost a gold medal while performing a mid-air trick with a substantial lead in women's snowboard cross. She claims the trick was to maintain balance on a jump that had given her trouble throughout the competition. Regardless, the grace with which she has handled it has been enviable. What Olympic purists don't recognize is that when you bring in X-Games competition you get X-Games attitude. Snowboarding is a sport that is about flair, energy and fun. It's commonplace for a snowboarder to showboat a little bit. Sometimes it bites them in the ass but it's part of the game. For those who scream that she's disgraced her country, move to China where athletes actually are placed under that extreme scrutiny. She still has a silver medal, she's 20 years old, she spent two weeks on the slopes in Italy and she's cooler than us. Still, the media screams out for blood. The media sucks...don't listen to the media. (Except for me, listen to me.) So place me firmly on Team Jacobellis. Hell, maybe I am a Bodeist.

Today marked the start of the 2006 NASCAR season and the Daytona 500. For the last few years, I really don't understand why more people don't watch stock car racing. As a real-life Appalachian, I've been surrounded by the sport for most of my life and see it as normal. Others see it as a joke. Race fans get a bum rap, being squeezed into the mold of a backwoods inbred whose only discernable talent is his ability to spit a loogie out of the gap in his teeth. This is particularly ironic as racing is probably the sport that takes the technological know-how and intellectual preparation than any other. Windtunnel sessions with experts from MIT and elaborate aerodynamics packages built by highly skilled technicians are standard in race shops around the sport. NASCAR also has become one of the more watchable programs as of late with rivalries that haven't been found since the golden era of WWF...only, you know, they're real. Some think NASCAR is going to pass hockey as America's fourth sport. Well let me tell you what I think...it already has, a few years ago. It draws in more fans, gains better television ratings and doesn't take seasons off. Sorry hockey fans, but race followers are greater in number...and in brainpower.

On a small aside, NASCAR is getting pretty mainstream. Carl Edwards, who drives Jack Roush's #99 Ford, appears on this week's ESPN the magazine...topless. A small visual comparison with 1989 Winston Cup Champion, Rusty Wallace.





















Rusty is the one on the right by the way.

Similarly, NASCAR up-and-comer Kurt Busch recently had PLASTIC SURGERY done in the offseason. Busch, once easily spotted by his enormous ears, now has a much sleeker look. NASCAR drivers are getting work done now? Maybe things are getting worse than I thought. Then again, maybe I'm biased since Kurt is what most, including myself, would call a jackass.

Staying on that auto-sports train, Miller brewing has issued a challenge to Anheuser-Busch as to whose sponsored driver will finish higher in the Nextel Cup final standings. Miller is apparently thrilled with Kurt Busch, who is their new driver, is confident he could top Dale Earnhardt Jr., who drives the #8 Budweiser car. If I'm Anheuser-Busch I'm immediately launching an anti-plastic surgery ad campaign.

Broomball is a game that requires a certain strategy. This is a gameplan I have yet to figure out in two years of playing the game. A sadistic mixture of hockey, soccer, and PAIN, broomball has engrossed my brain for the past six weeks as I've tried desperately to devise a plan to PUT THE FUCKING BALL IN THE GOAL. This year's experiment, The Icy Hots, went a dismal 1-2-1. The only win coming, of course, by forfeit. Oh well, intramural softball will start soon enough. This year's goal: Keep my ERA under 15.

Went to see North College Hill play Oak Hill Academy in a match up of the two best high school hoops teams in nation. The way I see it is this, North College Hill never had a chance. They may have two all-star D-I talents, but when asked to put the rest of their normal high school kids against Oak Hill, (whose BENCH will be playing college basketball,) they can't win. Regardless, NCH star OJ Mayo scored 43 points when Oak Hill knew they only had to concentrate on him and his teammate, Bill Walker, who had 20+ points.

I'm off to see if I have anything to write that is supposed to be graded instead of writing another thousand words on things I think to be important. Except broomball and NASCAR, I know that to be important.