Ames Progressive

I entered college with hormones flaring and studious ambitions numbed by an intoxicating sense of freedom. My reluctance to shed a shy persona around the female persuasion in high school upped my own generated pressure to feast on swerves and innuendoes in my first months away from dear ole ma.Caught in a whirlwind of magnetic smiles whisking around me, I stumbled like a big market baseball team overlooking the potential for volatile chemistry with overpriced stars (The ‘08 Tigers). With confidence waning, I downed a handful of beers before the drop of sunset and summoned the courage to admit a crush to a sultry vixen. So maybe sobriety will suit my next romantic endeavor more appropriately.

Rejected! She used the standard I-only-see-you-as-a-friend line. Retrospect - I’m all about it, now. Then, I subconsciously vowed to woo my object of affection and eventually earn bliss with a night of unfiltered communion. Plans went awry and that innocuous crush with optimism bleeding out my ears, turned into an emotionally hectic obsession. I understand more following four years without much of an opportunity for self-introspection, and know the story played out with me as the driver, for I wrote the tale. No doubt, the girl, for embarrassment sake let’s call her NeNeLackabumba, bears a major role in the pursuit but I stood firmly in control of resolving a convoluted situation.

Allow a moment to store the travails of your emasculated narrator into the netheregions of your over-crammed mind and shift toward present day with NFL camps springing up all over the continental U.S. Surely the die-hards sling blade past the murk of Brett Favre sensationalism to find integral information concerning their team’s prospective seasons. But for reasons not worth noting I receive most of my sports news from ESPNEWS. I usually click over and find what I need to know about 75% of the time as NASCAR and golf still creep into the fray of the show. Without even pondering a guess at how much coverage ESPN has devoted to the ignominious and surreal Favre saga, I can only imagine how many more baseball highlights or hot stove pieces the network would air if it were not for this selfish and over-hyped quarterback. And that’s where I pull back.

My rage boiled over into words recently as I asked my friends whether they would spit in Favre’s face given the opportunity after his Kobe-A-Rod like flirtation with the talking heads of the sports world. But hey Favre’s a likeable guy and I hear he does a lot for his community. Just fucking with you as I am not going the altruistic route. Yet, I relate this media crush that has mutated into an amorphous obsession of incomparable proportions to my own adolescent crush in which I fooled myself into a forced hope of attaining puppy love.

Why in the name of Vince Lombardi does the media fawn over a quarterback that has won only one Super Bowl while one of the best rivalry in sports features two elite passers who could both break Favre’s touchdown record without nearing his dubious interception mark? Plenty of intrigue also spilling over into Giants camp as they shipped Shockey to New Orleans this week. The Olympics are rapidly approaching and as stated before, the baseball trade deadline nears with only one division presumably decided as a host of upstart teams like the Rays, Marlins and Brewers continue to remain viable.

Maybe you anticipated a well-versed guess that will enlighten us all but I am not the modern day sports Freud nor do I care to venture a hypothesis that fits into this sordid affair. I am just here to state an obvious and ugly truth: This is an obsession crafted from the finest stalkers in the world. This is A Current Affair and Fatal Attraction shit.

Bringing this back to my college years, I recall specifically that my ambitions suggested journalist because of my major but I vocally reputed that title and elaborated and how I considered myself above the media and was using the newspaper industry as a vehicle to bigger things. How esteemed! I’m out of the tabloid industry now and some peers have expressed wonderment concerning my choice to pursue other occupational valleys. Integrity means more to me than them and I can respect their opinions even if they usually are not warranted. Possibly, these same peers follow the Favre opera with fervent interest and can picture me hiding in dumpsters full of expired muenster cheese. But to those pushing the buttons that feed the Favre story I condemn you for your myopic and lustful approach to sports coverage. Fortunately, I woke up from my endorphin-induced stupor to realize my obsession focused more on my own ego. However, I see no such awakening for the media and I pity the lowly journalist forced to report on such hogwash and the faithful viewer seeking unreciprocated joy from ESPN and the other deplorable media outlets jamming filth down our throats.

Patience is a virtue lost long ago with you bastards running the sports coverage in this country into a wasteland of off-the-field filler.