The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Like with Boston Bruins' goaltender Tim Thomas skipping the White House visit after his team won the Stanley Cup last year due to politics, center for the 2012-2013 Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens - Matt Birk - did likewise. I wrote a blog about Thomas' action and I will just copy and paste the tail end of that for this occasion: "I thought about Thomas' actions for a few minutes. I'm all for a person expressing his or her opinion, for making a political statement (so long as it's non-violent), but don't support his decision here. I may not agree with Thomas' politics, but that isn't the reason I feel this way. He can believe whatever he wants to believe. That's his right. The reason I feel this way is because I think it was a selfish gesture on Thomas' behalf to both his teammates and the organization. Instead of the media's focus being on the Bruins' celebrating their Stanley Cup Trophy at the White House, it wa...

Word broke a couple days ago that head coach Ben Howland was going to be fired from UCLA men's basketball team following the team's disappointing first-round loss to Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament Friday night. Minnesota fell last night in the 2nd-round to 3-seed Florida and have since fired head coach Tubby Smith as a result. In my opinion, both are bonehead moves. Let's first look at Ben Howland. The guy has been at UCLA for 10 years, has reached the NCAA Tournament in 7 of those 10 years - going as far as the Final Four twice (2006-2007 and 2007-2008) and the Championship Game once (2005-2006). His Bruins finished 1st in the Pac-12 this year with a 13-5 conference record and 25-9 record overall. His overall record at the school is 118-58 in conference play (.671) and 230-105 overall (.687). Under Howland, UCLA has been crowned the conference regular season champion four times (2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2012-2013). The team won the Pac-12 conference tourname...

The NHL champ Boston Bruins went to the White House yesterday to meet and be honored by the president, Barack Obama. MVP goaltender, Tim Thomas, was a no-show due to politics. He's a devout member of the Tea Party and released this statement regarding his absence, "I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People," the message read. "This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government. "Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL. "This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT" I thought abo...