On Insightful Critiques of Terrible Ideas

I've already expressed my regard for Dan Wetzel's ability as a columnist on this forum, and I had a chance to read an advance copy of his new book, written with two talented Yahoo colleagues: Josh Peter, who wrote a book about professional bull riding that I've been meaning to read for years, and Jeff Passan, who regularly manages to craft the kind of baseball stories that someone like me, who's fallen out of love with baseball, still finds fascinating. And then Dan and I spoke about the book and GQ's Devin Gordon transcribed the whole thing. It doesn't really matter if you agree with these guys or not; if you care at all about college football, this is a book you really should read. Because I guarantee there are at least two or three completely insane facts about the BCS in here that you have absolutely no idea about.

Anyway, here's Devin's intro, and the first question. Follow the link for the rest, and then buy the book:

Like all great works of investigative reporting, this one began with a question: everyone knows that college football's Bowl Championship Series—a.k.a. the BCS—is the stupidest thing in sports, so why can't we get rid of it? The answer, like in all great works of investigative reporting, is complicated. Fortunately Dan Wetzel, an ace writer for Yahoo! Sports, and his co-authors Josh Peter and Jeff Passan, took the time and did the leg work to unravel it. Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series, Michael Weinreb, whose new book, Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, The Punky QB and How the '80s Created the Modern Athlete, is the fall's other must-read sports book. delivers exactly what the title promises, bolstered by exhaustive reporting. It is a must-read for passionate fans of college football; just be prepared to be infuriated once you're done. The upshot? Yes, the BCS is as craven and foolish as you think. No, it isn't going anywhere, not for a while. To explain why, Wetzel got on the phone with another ace sportswriter who is similarly addicted to college football and despondent over the BCS:

After the jump, Wetzel and Weinreb pick apart the system and explain why the myths about its worthiness persist, how we can possibly get rid of it, and exactly how much bandleaders get paid for bowl appearances by their schools. (Yes, even they get paid.)

Weinreb: Your book is a great read, and there was a ton of stuff in there about how the BCS works that I didn't know about at all. And I think that's true for most fans of college football. None of us know this stuff.
Wetzel: We didn't either. The book started a few years ago when we decided to figure out why we really don't have a playoff system in college football. The excuses that they pop out—"We don't wanna inconvenience the cheerleaders"—is clearly not a reason. We've heard the propaganda for 14 years. And nobody believes it. So what's the real reason? Well, this is America, so you follow the money. We literally went through thousands of pages of tax documents, university contracts, talked to accountants, everybody. And at various times the light bulb would go on and we'd be like, "Wow, I hadn't thought of this." So where we ended up with the book was not where we started.

 

Read More: http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2010/10/death-to-the-bcs-sportswriters-dan-wetzel-and-michael-weinreb-destroy-the-stupidest-system-in-sports.html#ixzz12S1uSKLm

On Self-Promotion, Mingled With Random Thoughts

1. I'll be on Marketplace this afternoon, talking to host Kai Ryssdal, who has one of the greatest voices in the modern history of National Public Radio. Local stations and further information here. (Update: Here's the interview.)

2. F this. Seriously, I have no reason to believe that Tony Dungy isn't a far better human being than me, but he's a football coach, and in football, men bleed and break bones and do irreparable damage to their bodies in the name of a particularly American sort of glory. If I played in the NFL, I'd want my coach to swear, because when I'm playing center and some 340-pound defensive lineman inserts a sweaty fist under my facemask and jabs my eye with his sausage-sized finger, I'm going to swear, as well. And I understand that the NFL has to put up some kind of stern public face about this, but my hope is Roger Goodell is sitting at his desk in Valhalla laughing about this in the same way Pete Rozelle laughed at Jim McMahon when he put on that homemade headband, even as he kept throwing fines in his direction. Because the only thing worse than a football being associated with vile profanity is football being associated with Emily Post.

3. I did an interview with the NFL Gridiron Gab blog, which you can find here.

4. I don't know why Fantasy College Football isn't a more popular pastime. If fantasy sports are all about attaining new heights of nerderation, there is nothing quite so geekish as spending twenty minutes researching the top wideouts of the Sun Belt conference. Every year, come mid-to-late August, I find I've missed football even more than I did the season before.

5. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo!, whom I happen to believe is one of the four or five best general sports columnists in America, gave an extremely generous endorsement* of Bigger Than the Game in his summer reading column. (That Steelers book looks great, as well.) If you're not familiar with Dan's work, I recommend this amazing obit on Don Haskins (he also wrote Haskins' autobiography), and this masterful piece of deadline journalism on last year's BCS Championship game.

*One other selfish request: If you have read the book, and you're the type of person who doesn't mind writing Amazon reviews, my lonely page would certainly welcome them.