With just two days left of school, I was having trouble thinking of a topic to write about and instead reflected upon the last year of sports and what’s happened. What has justified by existence as a sports fan? What has made me laugh? Who deserves some recognition for some great achievements? Before long, I had accumulated a list of tens of things and thought that they all deserved a shout out for collectively making a great year of sports happen. Let’s go through some of them, with a short blurb for each.
Big shout out to Jason Collins openly admitting he was gay earlier this week. In the macho world of sports, it’s great to see progress made towards homosexuality and the acceptance of his announcement throughout the NBA community has truly been inspiring. Of course, there are still plenty of bigots out there, but it’s great to see progress made, and I hope for even more progress in the future.
Shout out to the Jets and screwing up seemingly everything they can. They lost their best player and leader, Darrelle Revis, to a trade and this headline recently appeared on ESPN: “Jets GM: All five QBs to vie for job.” There’s an old football adage, “if you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have one.” What happens if you have five quarterbacks? Do you have two and a half quarterbacks? Answers to be revealed next season.
Shout out to the Denver Nuggets and Andre Miller. Although they are currently behind in their series with the Warriors, they’ve been by far the most fun team to watch all year. They play fast, with incredible energy and almost seem to make spectacular plays. While 37-year-old Andre Miller continues to be extremely effective, despite shooting flat jumpers, looking out of shape and moving at the slowest pace imaginable.
Shout-out to the Lakers and that circus of a season. You could write a 900-page novel about this season. Coming into the season with great expectations, the age, lack of chemistry and injuries to everyone just completely derailed any hope of winning anything in the playoffs. The way Dwight Howard got ejected in their final game was a perfect way to end the most disappointing season for any team in any league I can.Shout-out to Spike Albrecht and being able to live vicariously through him in the NCAA Championship game. The way he caught fire and dominated Twitter for half an hour is what makes sports — especially college sports — so perfect.Shout out to Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. With incredible seasons by all three of these rookie quarterbacks, it leaves the NFL in capable hands as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and the rest of the old guard start to grow older. The NFL is an absolutely boring game without great quarterbacks (see: Jets, NY and Cardinals, Arizona) and it’s comforting to know that this will not happen any time soon.Shout-out to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love for their PepsiMAX commercials by far the greatest sports-related commercial out there.Shout-out to Lionel Messi and his absolute dominance. The statistics for the miniature striker look straight out of a video game, where you only shoot with one person. Watching him play makes it seem even more like he’s a video game character, moving faster and doing things the computer-controlled defenders simply can’t stop.Shout-out to Cleveland and the continued struggle of their sports teams. Making fun of my friends from Cleveland is one of my favorite pastimes, and it would not be made possible without the Browns, Cavaliers or Indians. At least the Law of Large Numbers says they’ll all be good at some point?Shout-out to LeBron James and turning into the dominating basketball machine we all wanted him to be. Pundits have criticized him for years for not concentrating on basketball, not using his immense physical gifts to their full extent and not being clutch. At this point, he makes anyone who criticizes him seem like an idiot. We love to watch greatness in sports, and right now, LeBron James is great.Shout-out to James Harden’s beard. At this point, it’s approaching a homeless man’s beard. I don’t think he even trims it anymore. I really wonder how long he’ll keep this up … until he retires? It is firmly his identity at this point, but it is getting a tad ridiculous.Shout-out to DeAndre Jordan for his dunk on Brandon Knight. Weekly, I take a break from my homework, put this video on repeat and just sit back and enjoy. It pumps me up every time I see it.Shout-out to the Cornell men’s ultimate team, the Buds. This past weekend, the Buds competed at regionals and won for the fifth year in a row by beating UConn in the finals, 15-6. They are the only team in the nation to have won their region and advance to nationals for five consecutive years. The team doesn’t get much publicity because they are not a varsity sport, but it’s quite an achievement.Shout-out to anyone who reads my random musings about sports. I don’t do any actual reporting or say anything meaningful, but I hope you have learned some things from my columns and enjoyed my opinions. Either way, expect one more year of the same. Have a great summer!
Original Author: Albert Liao