Tuesday Football: All over the map

Football related thoughts abound this week.

You shouldn't do that on television:  I can understand why, as Comcast does here in Chicagoland, a local cable channel shows games involving area schools.  The same channel also has programs for local politics and the local arts scenes, so these games clearly qualify as local-interest programs.  I can see myself caring about a football game between, say, Geneva and Batavia, partly because those two schools are close to my home.  I could easily understand why a football fan in Sacramento would watch a televised game between Grant and Folsom, two Sacramento-area high schools.

But could someone at Disney please explain to me why, in the name of all that is unholy, a resident of exurban Chicago could possibly care about that Grant-Folsom game?  I don't care how highly ranked those two teams are, they're both 3300 kilometers and two hours west of me.  Why should I care how highly regarded individual players on either side are, when some -- if not all -- of them will crash and burn once they start playing college football?  [For what it's worth, I graduated from my school two years after a high-school All-America running back who fizzled in the then-Big 8, and a year ahead of an eventual NBA player who starred in the Big Ten.]

Apparently, people who have better things to do care that much about high-school sports.  At least the ESPN channels think so.  That's why, besides the Grant-Folsom game, I had to click away from at least four other nationally televised high-school games this weekend.  This is just more attention and adulation for athletic young people who already have too much of both.

He's staying?  Okay, fine:  To my surprise, Bob Bradley is staying on as coach of the U.S. men's soccer team.  During the World Cup, I opined that he should be replaced.  The team started quickly enough in its 2-0 loss to Brazil a month ago, but that needs to become the rule instead of the exception.  I'm not convinced that he's the man to make that change.  On the other hand, a 2-0 blowout of Spain, a Confederations Cup final and (at long last) a group win at the World Cup itself are real results; and Bradley also deserves credit for those.  I would've replaced him with Jurgen Klinsmann, and let him move on to Aston Villa.  (That would've been worth tracking.)  Besides those two men, though, I couldn't imagine an alternative as the U.S. skiper; so keeping Bradley makes some sense.

Twice the fantasy fun:  I wasn't sure that my fantasy-football league was going to convene this year, so I went ahead and joined a public league at Yahoo!.  That league auto-drafted last Friday, and I ended up with RB Chris Johnson, WR Miles Austin and TE Antonio Gates.  I've decided to call this team The Middlemen.

As it turns out, my old league is playing.  The draft is this Sunday night, and (as you may gather from my new tag line) I do not plan on having Brett Favre on my team this time.  Given his latest ankle issues, maybe the Vikings won't, either.  My team has a new name and its own helmet, which I'll reveal next week.

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