The arc of Bill Simmons' sportswriting career has forcefully intersected with the ascendant exponential function of bloggers. Many believe the Sports Guy has discarded his outsider status (hobnobbing with Anna K in Miami?), run out of material (so now he's a college basketball fan?), and generally lost his touch (his mailbags lately consist of letters from readers who agree with him). Simmons has always said he's not going to hang around Page 2 forever, but it's clear some feel he should already have moved on.Few, if any, of those people fail to acknowledge Simmons' contribution to the kind of unconventional sports coverage that bloggers now engage in regularly: Writing somthing sportive in connection with television/music/movies/cars ... Posting diaries of live events ... Criticism of tv sportscasters. It's fair to say that blogging has unleashed the vast talent on the internet (and me - $1, Sheehan) to in effect out-Simmons the Sports Guy.
ESPN has allowed TSG to branch out from writing columns. They've sent him to the Super Bowl and various league all-star games. He's provided color commentary for a couple of minor college hoops games, and now he's formally blogging (Can one "formally" blog?). His latest basketball post listed the following as a dislike from the NCAA tourney:
"Holy Cross hoops: Honestly? I'm embarrassed. That was a disgrace. The Cross is now going on 30 years without an NCAA win. And you know what? I've had enough. Somebody needs to save our basketball program and it's going to have to be me. Details to come this spring."
The Sports Guy is foreshadowing this Holy Cross project on his Page 2 blog, thus it's likely he has the blessing of the Worldwide Leader to "fix" the 'Cross and write about it for ESPN. So, with apologies to The Cultural Oddsmaker and The Balls, AJ Daulerio...
I'm clicking over to Page 2, affecting my best Boston accent, and placing odds on exactly how Bill Simmons will save the Holy Cross men's basketball program.
Suiting up for the team: 25/1
Simmons is always writing about that one time, back in college, when he set a pick and then rolled to the basket while his teammate passed him the ball for an easy layup!!!!! Holy Cross is a "mid-major" school that plays in the Patriot League alongside noted basketball powers Colgate and American. The only Patriot League school ever to make a Final Four are your Holy Cross Crusaders, back in 1947. Simmons could easily make the varsity squad and contribute to a "whitewash" starting five. He could even borrow the #10 jersey of graduating senior Keith Simmons. The Sports Guy still has years of NCAA eligibility left, and you know he's been rehabbing his back for this very reason.
Writing for the Holy Cross student newspaper: 7/2
Don't call it "slumming." TSG would tell you himself, since he's started writing the ESPN column he's witnessed Patriots and Red Sox world championships. The collective karma of his thousands of readers rooting for Holy Cross would undoubtedly boost his alma mater's chances to bust everybody's 2008 NCAA bracket. Simmons himself admits that when he "started writing for the Crusader, everything fell into place..."
Becoming Holy Cross Athletic Director: 3-1
If Simmons has said it once, he's said it a thousand times: The Sports Guy would be one of the best general managers in the entire NBA, right now. And everybody knows college basketball is easier than the pros. He's even won the NBA Celebrity Fantasy League. You think he can't do better than Richard M. Regan, Jr.?
STFU: Even money
The Sports Guy adopted an EPL soccer team and has since written once about soccer, because he doesn't know jack about soccer. He has season tickets to the Clippers but only mentions the team to advise us that his farting friend Blueboy could repair the team's poor chemistry. When the first Holy Cross column appears on Page 2 later this Spring, expect perhaps one follow-up column and then radio silence, because Holy Cross does not need to be fixed, certainly not by Bill Simmons.
10 comments:
Bravo.
what a doosh
Why are so many people jealous of Simmons?
there will always be haters.
Everyone writing sports blogs (and probably all the commenters) is jealous of Simmons because he gets paid the big bucks to do what we're doing for free.
What does that have to do with Simmons being wrong about needing to "fix" Holy Cross, a school with a good academic reputation that's 109-47 since 2002?
Because he's trite and hackneyed. He just makes easy jokes (the WNIT - hey I did the stats, and the WNIT was only about 10 TOTAL points per game under the NCAA tourney thus far - which means it's like 70-65 games instead of 75-70), references bad movies thqt only he and his friends enjoy ("ROUNDERS???"), and can't fathom why anyone would have differening opinions about things when he himself is of such narrow focus that when he tries to branch out and talk about college basketball, for example, he can't fathom the game and immediately picks on teams (like Butler) who are the antithesis of the NBA.
Other than that, no reason...
How much do you guys think Simmons makes?
Bill Simmons is a fine man and the quintessential example of someone who just knows sports inside and out.
I feel if Simmons gets involved coaching or recruiting at Holy Cross in any way, they will be a Final Four team by 2009.
I strongly encourage both fans and foes of Simmons work to seek out an online community dedicated to the works of Bill Simmons.
www.sonsofthesportsguy.com
I don't really know about Simmons.
To compare apples and oranges, it's public knowledge that Harold Reynolds was to earn $750,000 in 2006 for a minimum of 85 studio appearances.
http://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/589056.html
It's been speculated that Jemele Hill will earn $200,000 for each of her two years under contract with ESPN.
http://thebiglead.com/?p=1237
I'd say Simmons makes somewhere in between. Say $400,000 per year.
I have to qualify this by saying I'm not a HC alum. Clearly, it takes allot of hubris to personally claim that you are going to “fix” a D1 school’s basketball program. Of course, that is not going to happen. But his overall frustration at HC hoops is understandable. The record is clear, HC has not done well in the tourney (or even won one game) in many, many, many years. HC has simply not played basketball at a nationally competitive level for a long time, and many hold an attitude of complacency that is satisfied with that. Yes HC has won the Patriot League, but I’m sorry, that is a small accomplishment at best. I think all would agree that academics come first, but that doesn’t stop top tier universities (with more robust academic profiles than HC) from fielding nationally competitive sports teams: Berkeley, Stanford, UT, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Duke (to name a few). The tradeoff between sports competitiveness and academics is not automatic. HC could benefit from a higher level of competition in basketball. It could raise HC’s profile, and attract a higher grade of students and faculty to the school.
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