Basketbrawl

So judging by the amount of texties, BBMs, and comments I've received today, I'm sure most of you have heard by now about the "fracas" between the KU basketball and football team. ESPN had the story about Tyshawn Taylor throwing a punch in a little skirmish last night, but shit got REAL this morning. Apparently one of the football players was talking shit to the Morris twins about how they roughed Taylor up last night, so one of the twins (my bet is Markieff, or whichever one got in trouble for shooting a BB gun out his dorm window last year) threw that player down the stairs at the student union. I can only hope that he then yelled "check yo' self fo' you wreck yo' self!" while the other twin chimed in "cuz gettin' thrown down the stairs is bad fo' yo' health!" That's how it went in my head, anyway. In any event, there happened to be a large amount of football players and about 3/4 of the basketball team in the near vicinity, and it got out of hand real fast. I mean, it escalated quickly. It jumped up a notch. There were horses, and a man on fire, and Brady Morningstar killed a guy with a trident. He should probably find a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for awhile, because he's probably wanted for murder.

Naturally this is all that anybody in town is talking about today (yet another reason why I love living here: I was putting on hole #8 today when a 70-year-old man pulled his cart alongside the green and yelled, "Have you heard the latest news about the brawl?!?! I heard one of the Morris twins pushed someone down the stairs!!!" 70 years old.) According to the background "facts" (read: what I've heard from the beer cart girls at the course, who range in age from 20-23 and have their ear to the streets on campus) this all started a couple years ago, with the football players having beef with Sherron "ain't no seats" Collins**, for reasons involving a girl. So I'm ready to come to a quick and irrational judgment on my Jump to Conclusions Mat: fuck the football team. Trying to ruin the basketball team's preseason #1 ranking? I don't play that shit.

Background on college football and me: when I was a youngster, I was a Florida St. fan, due to Deion Sanders. I was never diehard, though Charlie Ward remains my favorite college football player of all time- plus he really rocked the shit on Bill Walsh College Football for Sega. He was no Bo Jackson on the Auburn '83 team, running the triple option all over the field....but that's a post for another day.

For all my pretentiousness regarding jumping bandwagons and favorite teams, I admittedly waffled quite a bit with college football. I know that I loved Colorado for a couple years after I ran into Kordell Stewart on the CU campus when I was around 11 years old or so, and I also know at some point I owned a Florida Gators Starter jacket- I bet Stenj and I were the only dudes in the tri-state area who wore one of those. I went back to loving FSU again in high school, and then in 2001, when they won the national title and I realized I didn't really care that much, and knew I wasn't a true fan anyway, I officially stopped actively following college football. Then the BCS got more out of hand, and listening to college football fans bitch year in and year out about getting screwed, or arguments about strength of schedule, completely pissed me off. So college football was completely dead to me for a 6 year stretch.

When I moved to Lawrence, I figured I'd jump on the KU bandwagon, since I could follow the team closely and go to games and whatnot. However, that process has been slow to develop. Despite being on the stadium grounds nearly every autumn Saturday, drinking my face off, I've only stepped foot inside the stadium for one half of football (30 minutes) in 2+ years. I can only name 4 players on the entire team (the QB, RB, and top two WRs) and still don't care much if they win or lose. As Eldest Brother Schneweis puts it: "I'm a huuuuge KU football fan. Until basketball season starts. Then I don't give a shit anymore."

SO. Back to today. If anything serious comes out of this (suspensions, kids getting kicked off the team, lingering injuries to Tyshawn's hand) I am fully prepared to break up with college football again. This romance was hanging by a thread as it was.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that the four football players I can name are all seniors anyway.


**If you haven't heard the "ain't no seats" story, or if you've heard the ESPN commentators try to tell it and completely butcher it, it goes like this: during some 100-level class a couple years ago, the KU basketball players had set up shop in one corner of the lecture bowl to cheat off one another. One day, during a test, when the prof had set up a seating arrangement with at least one empty seat in between every student, Sherron strolled in late, grabbed his test, and took his normal seat among the other basketball players. The professor, motioning to the rows and rows of empty seats at the front of the class, told Sherron to find an empty chair and take his test there. Sherron, without even looking up from his neighbor's paper, yelled out: "Ain't no SEATS!!!" and continued on his merry way. Naturally, the prof didn't make him move, the story spread around, and pretty soon the student section had made an "ain't no seats" sign for home games.

Ahhhh Division I athletics. Sports at its purest level.