It’s the Hope That Thrills Us

August 29, 2023

Good Day Grover Pickers, 

Welcome back to football season. You may now stop cluttering your mind with trivial things like politics, meal planning, traffic safety, little league baseball, major league baseball, interminable soccer seasons, interest rates, deciding where you should work each day, storm surges, or your kids academic regression. 

The annual return of football season is the birth of hope. It’s like spring, when birds chirp, flowers bloom, and the verve a life renews after a miserable winter, but without allergies or golf. So… better. 

Even hope has degrees. 

You have hope. Your team may be great, and you hope there are no injuries or bad calls. Hello, Georgia. 

You have hope. Your team may suck, but worst to first is a real thing and this could be your fairy tale year. Hello Commanders, Bears, Falcons, Jaguars? Anybody seen Deion Sanders lately? What’s South Florida got cooking? 

You have hope. You’ve got Saban. 

You have hope. You are a blissfully misguided fan of the Jets, Lions, Bills, or Niners. 

In the interest of equal time, the idea that we ‘All’ have hope is inaccurate. Here is a list of the hopeless:

Auburn– you hope your coach implodes sooner rather than later so you can get on to the next embarrassing hire. Tiger fans are praying that the issue this time is not hookers. If you are not a Tigers fan, a few more uncovered 1-900 calls to hookers in Tampa would be the funniest outcome. 

FSU– you are not getting out of the ACC and in 4 years, Florida will be spending up to $30 million a year more than you just on player salaries. 

Cal– it just doesn’t matter

Arizona State- you put yourself on a bowl ban this season. The NCAA doesn’t ban teams from bowls anymore. That was stupid. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers- that old pre-2000 Bucs feeling gotta be creepin’ in. 

Texas A&M- I would pay $399 just to watch every Aggie coaches meeting this season. They are an expensive group. They have no idea how to communicate with other humans. They don’t like each other or even know each other’s names. The show would be the reality TV version of David Letterman throwing watermelons off of buildings. You know how it ends. You watch it fall, and fall, and fall until…. splat! At least you get to beat Texas again soon. 

Arizona Cardinals- The Commissioner hopes that by Thanksgiving someone, maybe Adam Schefter, can identify and name the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and their quarterback. Schefter is good, but he’s only a man. 

Pac 12 10 6 4 – Joining the ACC would be the best thing to ever happen to the Stanford Band. What do you think they’ll do to ‘celebrate’ ‘schools’ like FSU, Miami, and Clemson. I can’t wait. 

On with the season. 

COMMIT TO THE G hopes (or more likely knows) that he will defend his Super Genius of the Year status by picking every single game correctly. Undefeated. Just like his Georgia Bulldogs. UGA is on a 17 game winning streak, the longest active streak in the WORLD! 

Gators v Utes 

The failed Gator season begins in Salt Lake City with a guy who can’t play at Wisconsin starting at quarterback. The Gators are unranked, unloved, and unknown. The best hope in Gainesville is that nobody notices the consecutive double-digit losses that likely await this squad. I, The Commissioner, can verify that I, The Commissioner, will not acknowledge any of those losses. 

Or… none of you are prepared for absolute super-chomp the mighty Gators will unleash on the SEC. Faster, tougher, stronger. You missed all the signs. This is a fully operational Gator football team. See you in Houston for the trophy presentation. 

Tennessee v Virginia

This rivalry dates back all the way to October 29, 1927! The Vols and Hoos have met FOUR times over those 96 years, with UT holding a 3-1 advantage. In ’27, the Vols won 42-0. The Vols went 8-0-1 in Robert Neyland’s second season, with 7 home wins and a share of the Southern Conference Championship (with Georgia Tech). The tie was against Vanderbilt. The Vols hope for a repeat of 1927, except for the tie, which would put them in Championship position.

UVA hopes you have anything better to do than watch them on Saturday. Maybe your neighbor’s fondue pots need polishsing? 

Humble Hope: Professional football wide receiver Desean Jackson is reviving the “Pros v Joes” tv show with his own version called “Pros v. Bros”. The concept is that over-the-hill pro athletes take on younger ‘Bros’ who believe, strongly, that they have enough game to compete with an elite athlete. Hilarity ensues when the pro athlete crushes the proud bro and than talk unrelenting pro-level trash. 

I hope this show never ends. There is nothing, NOTHING, you can do physically that will challenge a professional athlete. You can’t catch a pass in a game. You won’t gain a yard running the ball. You WILL be carted off the field with permanent injuries and the doctors will have to remove body parts. You CANNOT beat the worst NBA player one-on-one, at free throws, at 3-point shots, or even towel waving. If you think you can swing a bat, right now, and make contact with a pitch from a AA pitcher, then you should sign up for Pros v Bros right now and entertain us all with your wayward hubris. 

This weekend’s college football version of Pros vs Bros is Clemson v Duke.

Miami v Miami (Florida v Ohio)

We all get the joke. These teams have the same name. I think, I hope, you will be able to tell them apart. It’s not that difficult. 

The Commissioner acquired an embargoed script for the game already. See if you can follow along and tell which team is which. 

ANNOUNCER: “That’s a first down for Miami at the Miami 32, with four minutes to play in the half and Miami leads Miami 10-7 and… wait, theres a commotion in the booster section. It looks like some police are involved and are escorting a fan out of the stadium. 

Hold on! That’s not just any fan. The authorities have cuffed Miami booster John Ruiz and he’s on his way out. He’s funded the whole Miami program with millions of fake dollars from his sham healthcare business. 

And now Miami has called a timeout and an FDLE pickup truck is on the field. They are loading Miami’s sideline gear onto the trucks. The benches, the headsets, the gatorade, it’s all going away. Ruiz is fuming in the stands. Mario Cristobal has chained himself to the kicking net. 

I have never seen anything like this. Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke just dashed the whole 53 yards to the Miami sideline and he’s talking with head coach Chuck Martin. Martin’s got his phone out and it looks like he’s opened the Zelle app. He has! That is Zelle and that is a loooot of zeroes! He hit send! Martin hit send! Van Dyke is pulling on a Miami jersey and headed back on the field! Oh, my! You can’t tell the players without a checkbook!

Miami is back on the field on defense, but they are not wearing pants!” 

Rutgers v Northwestern

What’s the opposite of hope? 

Sodfather On the Record

I hope you heard this interview and never forget it. George Toma, the Sod Father, went on a rant last year after the Super Bowl. Toma is regarded as the greatest sports turf man who ever lived. The Bo Jackson of grass. During the Super Bowl, the turf was subpar. The turf got in the way of the game. Toma had blame to heap on the incompetents who have followed in his wake. 

Toma calls for firing Ed Mangan, the new turf manager. He calls for the head of the union. He blames Roger Goodell and everyone else who ever mowed a lawn. Toma is 95 years old. His ear buds fell out during the interview. He rants for 30 minutes. It’s the greatest interview about football or lawns you will ever hear. 

An excerpt, not a highlight or the one thing you should hear, just a few sentences in a half an hour barrage of comeuppance: 

“You blamed the ryegrass for the cause of that disaster, BULLS***!…In 27 years of using ryegrass, I only spend $1,000 on the field, now we’re spending $800,000 and give the players a horses*** field?! That’s Bulls***.”

(the “***” stand for “hit”). 

The whole interview is worth your time.

UNC vs USC

This game combines football and mayonnaise. I hope you like mayonnaise. Either of these quarterbacks, Drake Maye for the Heels and Spencer Rattler for the Gamecocks, could go to New York for the Heisman ceremony. Are these bowl teams? Are these conference championship teams? Is this the year either team beats another good team? 

LSU v FSU

I Hope Spain is a Blueprint for these programs.

Spain’s women’s soccer team won the world cup in spite of terrible treatment from… Spain. For a year before the championship, players complained, and even quit the team, over allegations of poor coaching and harassment about their whereabouts and shopping habits. 

Then, after carrying on and winning the World Cup, Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales chose to kiss Jenni Hermoso, who scored the winning goal, on the lips during the medal ceremony. Is this appropriate ‘in some cultures? Is that a real question? Do they even know each other?

Rubiales, the guy wearing a suit, says the kiss was consensual. Hermoso, the woman wearing the jersey, says it was not. 

Rubiales won’t quit his job in shame. The federation wouldn’t fire him. So, the entire Spanish women’s World Cup Championship team resigned in protest. 

Then the stalemate got weird. 

Rubiales’ mother went to church, refused to leave, and started a hunger strike in defense of her son. Here is what she told Spanish TV as reported in The Independent (an article not written by Trent Crimm):

 “I will remain here for as long as my body can,” Angeles Bejar messaged a Spanish TV station from inside the church in Motril, southern Spain. “I am willing to die for justice because my son is a decent person and it is not fair what they’re doing.”

I hope everything about this Spanish soccer story, right down to a guy in a suit kissing a player on the lips, repeats itself for both LSU and FSU (or maybe Hugh Freeze?). Imagine the social carnage of an entire roster of professional amateur athletes ‘resigning’ because an AD kissed a player on the lips and it’s the last straw of years of abuse and neglect. 

Imagine Lee Corso having to make a comment on Gameday. 

Imagine Stephen A‘s meltdown. 

You know it would be discussed on a presidential debate. 

The Stanford Band would be in business for seasons to come. 

CNN, Fox News, NPR, the New York Times, Newsmax, every blogger, podcaster, Uber driver, Karen, barber and YouTuber would have an opinion. 

It could be the healing event America needs! 

What would a hunger strike by someone’s mom in Louisiana or Tallahassee look like?

Would Waffle House shutdown?

Which church is best for a hunger strike and why is it First Baptist?

Who is going to eat this mountain of Funions filling all the warehouses from Lake Charles to Lake Micosukee? 

Please, please, let this happen. Keep hope alive! 

Welcome back football. This is our year. This time it’s going to be different (unless you root for Georgia or the Chiefs). 

It’s the hope that thrills us. 

Happy Picking,

The Commissioner