The only relevant comparison that I see between your campaign and Friday Night Lights is in the character of Buddy Garrity — who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan…Please come up with your own campaign slogan.Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg, in an irritated letter to Mitt Romney. Berg is annoyed that the Romney campaign has appropriated a tagline from his TV series—“Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose”—for use on the campaign trail. “Your use of the expression falsely and inappropriately associates Friday Night Lights with the Romney/Ryan campaign,” Berg writes. “Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in the series.” Oddly enough, the author of the book upon which the series is based has endorsed Romney for president. source (pdf)
Sad news, guys. Alex Karras had a diverse and fascinating career, in which he was featured in a George Plimpton book, had a Pro Bowl-caliber football career, was suspended by the NFL for gambling, starred in “Blazing Saddles” (as Mongo, the best character in the entire film) and had his sitcom usurped by a 12-year-old boy at the last minute. We wish his family the best.
Washington City Paper Editor in Chief Mike Madden wants you to help rename our hometown football team for reasons I hope are obvious to you. Personally, I’m also of the opinion that Washington should part with the name. Submit your ideas to WCP, and if your submission is good enough, the paper’s own art department will draw up a logo!
Madden is also promising to use the winning submission as the City Paper’s stand-in for all future references to the team that hails from Landover.
We were up to around 300 submissions when I checked them last night. Keep ‘em coming.
As I’ve said many times, I’m not big on comparisons unless they’re awfully close parallels, and I fail to see any relationship between war and the name of a football team.
And here, I also agree very strongly with The Star’s longtime policy on this matter. I remain unconvinced by every argument I’ve ever heard that the name is not a racial epithet, plain and simple. And I’ll even break my usual rule about commenting on issues outside The Star’s journalism to say that I find it inconceivable that the NFL still allows such a patently offensive name and mascot to represent the league in 2012.
I almost always come down on the side of publishing a word when it’s the crux of a debate (as I did here in the first paragraph). It isn’t healthy for discourse to pretend any words or thoughts don’t exist.
But I see no compelling reason for any publisher to reprint an egregiously offensive term as a casual matter of course. As brighter minds than mine have noted, nobody would be surprised if a newspaper or website decided not to name a team that used any other racial slur. I don’t understand why this should be any different.
The paper is from a region that also has a team with Native American themes, the Kansas City Chiefs. Think this is a good policy? (ht USA Today)
Obviously when you go through something like this, it’s painful for everybody. Most importantly, it’s painful for fans. We’re sorry to have to put fans through that. Sometimes you have to go through something like that in the short term for the right agreement for the long term.NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell • Apologizing to fans for the games officiated by replacement referees. Goodell was a target of much of the criticism over the lockout, criticism that intensified after a blown call during Monday’s Packers/Seahawks game.
After two days of marathon negotiations — and mounting frustration throughout the league — the NFL and the officials’ union announced at midnight Thursday that a tentative eight-year agreement had been reached to end a lockout that began in June.
The deal came on the heels of Seattle’s chaotic last-second win over Green Bay on Monday night in which the replacement officials struggled. Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was at the bargaining table Tuesday and Wednesday, said the regular officials would work the Browns-Ravens game at Baltimore on Thursday night.
“We are glad to be getting back on the field for this week’s games,” NFL Referees Association president Scott Green said.
What took them so long?
Two teams, four decades, two championships: The former Baltimore Ravens owner, who controversially moved the Cleveland Browns from their home base in 1996, has died. Modell, a former NFL president who played a key role in bringing football to national television (most notably setting up the deal for “Monday Night Football”), says that he lost money by staying in Cleveland, which is why he eventually moved the team, which became the Baltimore Ravens. “This has been a very, very tough road for my family and me,” he once said. “I leave my heart and part of my soul in Cleveland. But frankly, it came down to a simple proposition: I had no choice.” Modell, who had to leave the team’s branding and records back in Cleveland (where a new franchise eventually came to life), sold off most of his stake in the Ravens in 2004.
At first I was stunned. But I can tell you this: There is no celebrating in the Bowden household today. This is a very tough day for college football.Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden • Upon learning that fellow college football legend Joe Paterno had been stripped of 111 victories — making Bowden the winningest coach in NCAA history, by default. Bowden spent his entire career trying to fight Paterno for the mark, but Paterno finally prevailed after Bowden was forced out following a weak 2009 season. Bowden, by the way, supported the taking down of the Paterno statue, as a way to take away a constant reminder of Sandusky.
» No longer the winningest: As a result of the vacated seasons, Paterno will no longer be the NCAA’s winningest football coach, which means that Florida State’s Bobby Bowden is now the winningest coach in NCAA history — and a statistic that once meant everything means nothing.
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The world’s most famous football club has dropped plans for a $1 billion IPO in Singapore, in favor of an offering in the United States. The team is owned by Americans Malcolm and Linda Glazer, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and holding company First Allied Corporation. Many fans were already uneasy with new ownership, particularly after MU failed to win a title last year for the first time since 2005. So, United fans, what do you think about the decision to go public? US readers, any interest in the IPO? (Photo by pixeljunkie_) source
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I was just in awe that we were at the Coliseum. I’ve made movies for about 20 years and I’ve done a lot of things, but that one really stands out.Porn star “Mr. Marcus” • Discussing his 2001 adult video shoot on the floor of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum football field, where the USC Trojans play football and two Olympics were played (among other things). Officials are unaware of how the production company, Anabolic Video, managed to get approved for the shoot, which featured 40 minutes of explicit scenes under the lights of the same stadium where Pope John Paul II once held mass. Yikes.
Though no evidence has been revealed regarding a suicide note or any wishes Seau might want carried out in the wake of this tragedy, that he spared his brain the effects of a bullet suggests he, too, is willing to have it studied.San Jose Mercury News columnist Monte Poole • Suggesting that Junior Seau’s death by self-inflicted gunshot wound — to the chest, not the head — suggests that Seau intended on leaving his brain behind for medical study. This is not dissimilar to something that former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson did before committing suicide last year, saying explicitly in his suicide note that he wanted his brain to be donated for study. The NFL has faced many questions about the impact on the game on its players, many of whom find themselves with significant mental and physical problems years after retiring. The shock of one of the game’s most popular players dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound leaves a lot of questions for the league to answer, the biggest of course being this one: How do they prevent this from happening again?
Here’s A bit of background info on seau, for those playing catch-up: A graduate of the University of Southern California, Seau was drafted fifth overall by the San Diego Chargers during the 1990 NFL draft. He spent 12 years in San Diego before being traded to Miami, retiring briefly, and finally landed with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. While he made two Super Bowl appearances, and 12 Pro Bowl starts, a championship ring eluded him his entire career. Seau retired again after the 2009 season, and was inducted into the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame before the opening game of the 2010 season. More information on his reported death as it becomes available. source
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Junior Seau dead, TMZ reports: Authorities are investigating the 43-year-old former NFL star’s death, which was a shooting that may have been self-inflicted. Details still coming in. We’ll keep an eye out.
EDIT: Here’s a local news report on the shooting. According to San Diego’s 10News, a witness reportedly heard about Seau’s death from police.
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