2006 Unsportsman of the Year
Barstool Sports third annual ranking of the year's biggest nitwits, frauds, attention whores, dickweeds, malcontents, mental defectives, misanthropes, cheatin' weasels, lamebrains, mouth-breathers, jackoffs and
habitual criminal offenders:
10. Floyd Landis- For seven years, the Tour de France anti-doping squad dogged Lance Armstrong like paparazzi going after Britney Spears' hoo-hoo, with no luck. But Landis wins the race once and they catch him filled with more imported testosterone than St. Catherine St. after a Bruins-Canadiens game.
9. Maurice Clarett- The highlight of Clarett's post-NFL non-career might be the time he stuck someone up outside a bar, but paused long enough to flirt with a girl who ID'ed him as "Maurice." But I'm going with the police chase, high on Grey Goose and carrying an AK-47. Why the artillery? The former Buckeye had run afoul of the Israeli mafia, and thought the cops were a hit squad.
8. Harry Sinden- Like most evil despots, Harry finally went too far and forced a revolt among his loyal subjects with one final act of supreme arrogance. Like Longshanks' the Right of Prima Nocte or King Edward's Stamp Act, Harry's last abuse of power was the Joe Thornton trade. When he bungled the NHL's post-lockout free agency period and built a team hopelessly unable to play the NHL's new, wide open style, he went right to the Bruins mismanagement playbook (which he wrote), and scapegoated the team's best player. Harry's ballwashers in the Boston media blamed Mike O'Connell, but B's fans know he was just the Wormtongue to Sinden's Saruman. So Thornton earned a scoring title, an MVP and a trip to the conference finals. The trade ended the Bruins playoff hopes, Sinden's career and the 52 glowing tributes to him in the Sunday Globe hockey column each year.
7. The U- In July, Miami Hurricanes safety Willie Cooper got shot in the ass out front of his house, while teammate Brandon Merriweather who surprise! had a gun on him, fired back. The team stomped on the Louisville Cardinals logo prior to kickoff. They started a bench clearing brawl during which Merriweather ran around stomping FIU players lying on the ground as Miami TV analyst Lamar Thomas cheered the 'Canes on. In November, lineman Bryan Pata was shot and killed in his apartment. And while you hate to blame a dead guy, police have ruled out the possibility that Pata died cramming for his Western Civ final. Proving no one is all bad though, they did beat BC.
6. The Jim Moras- This is sort of an apple-and-tree thing. Jim Sr. Of the NFL Network called Falcons QB Michael Vick a "coach killer," which is something, especially when the coach in question is your own son. You felt bad for Jim Jr., with his dad dumping on his most important player in the middle of the season, until a couple of weeks later when he openly campaigned for the U. of Washington job. "It doesn't even matter if I'm available," he said. The problem with that? Oh, just that Washington has a coach (Ty Willingham) and, did I mention it's the middle of the season?
5. BJ Wie- Most fathers, 99.99% probably, would be thrilled to have the world's best female teenage golfer for a daughter, but not Michelle's dad. The kid has demonstrated an ability to play competitive golf on the LPGA tour, which isn't enough to satisfy this megalomaniac. So he carted her around on men's tours all around the world even as it destroyed her swing, her scores, her confidence and her image, in that order. What started as a novelty devolved into pure freak show. We can only hope her massive PR machine will issue this press release in '07: "Michelle in DSS Custody; BJ led away in handcuffs".
4. Footbawlers- The World Cup rates a mention on this list, but not for Zinedine Zidane. The head butt which ended his career and cost France the championship, for all its stupidity, at least was something the non fan (i.e. me) could understand and relate to. The rest of the tournament was one long highlight reel of guys trying to draw penalties by flopping on the ground, writhing in fictitious agony, screaming in pretend pain and crying over
facetious injuries. What could have been a great event was a month long continuous tape loop of the Mr. Spock death scene from "Wrath of Khan."
3. The Benjails- If one more Cincinnati player gets arrested this year, the Bengals organization will get indicted under the RICO statute. At the draft, Marvin Lewis said he wanted players that would "raise the level of professionalism in the whole building." So they took solid character Frostee Rucker (domestic A&B, vandalism), moral compass AJ Nicholson (broke into college teammates house), salt-of-the-earth Reggie McNeal
(disorderly conduct outside a nightclub) and upright citizen Ahmad Brooks (drugs). By the end of year, the total was eight arrests, which Lewis called "embarrassing to our organization, to our city, to our fans." This from a
man who couldn't get along with Corey Dillon.
2. Michael Irvin- Not content to merely make ridiculous points in incomprehensible Ebonics on ESPN every week, in '06 Irvin did pioneering work in the field of genealogy. All it took was for Tony Romo to show decent movement in the pocket for Irvin to question the moral fiber of ancestors. "[there must be] some brothers in that line somewhere...[maybe] his great, great, great, great Grandma ran over in the hood or something went down...[maybe his] great, great, great, great Grandma pulled one of them studs up outta the barn [and said] 'come here for a second'... back in the day (hee hee)." So to recap, Irvin believes not only that white guys can't be athletic, but that poor Nana Romo was a slave owner and sexually harassed the employees.
And this nonsense from Irvin came at the end of a year that he spent acting as the personal ESPN interviewer/ PR guy for our No 1 pick. He worships of our 2006 Unsportsman of the Year so much, on the guy's birthday Irvin puts a pine tree up in his living room.
1. Terrell Owens- I admit this is a disappointing No. 1, but there really could be no other choice. Calling TO the biggest ballbag in sports is like giving Tiger Woods the PGA Player of the Year award; it's so obvious you probably should just name the trophy after him and award it to someone else. But make no mistake; TO won the UOTY because he wanted it the most. He was the hungriest, worked the hardest and flat out earned it this year. From shooting his way of Philly to spitting in DeAngelo Hall's face and everything in between, he pulled so many asinine stunts that he could've published a "TO Dickhead Move of the Day" Desk Calendar. And his overdose was a masterpiece of crying for attention. It was his "To Painkill a Mockingbird"; his Moaning Lisa. This year he introduced us to publicist Kim Etheridge, who found him, called 911, told the EMTs he was trying to kill himself, then kicked them in the nuts publicly by calling them liars after they saved her client's life. That's the kind of stuff that puts you at the top of this list.
Make note of that if you want to be on the 2007 list, ARod, Scott Boras, Chad Johnson, Kobe Bryant, JD Drew, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds...the balloting starts this week.