Sports Bank #2 officer David K. and I go way back. Like myself, he’s from Palos Township and the idea of this site was tossed around in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago many years before it’s founding in 2008. Dave, myself, and our closest bunch of friends refer to our hometown not as Palos Park, Palos Heights, or “the burbs,” but “the SICA” instead.
Named after the now defunct high school sports conference SICA (South Inter Conference Association), we felt our home needed a nickname. This area stretches from Summit to Kankakee, Bolingbrook to Chicago Heights. Obviously, SICA country is more than a geographic area, it’s a state of mind like “Margaritaville.”
Now that high school football season has started, we constructed the short list of SICA-bred jocks. Our home region is so rich in talent, we probably left off a few big names but we both agree on the all-time #1.
By Paul M. Banks and David K.
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The New England Patriots’ all-time leader in receptions, 15 year NFL veteran (all with New England) Troy Brown is a classy guy, and a tireless worker. Today, Brown is as an NFL analyst on Comcast SportsNet and resides in Huntington, W.Va. He was inducted into the Marshall University Hall of Fame in 2002.
Considered the single-most dangerous scoring threat in all of Division I-AA during his two seasons in Huntington, Brown led the Thundering Herd to back-to-back trips to the Division I-AA National Championship game, garnering the NCAA title in 1992. He had 139 receptions for 2,746 yards and 24 touchdowns in his career en route to earning First Team All-America honors his senior year.
Brown won three Super Bowls with the Patriots. A 2001 Pro Bowl selection, he served as the Pats’ team captain for five seasons. I recently had an exclusive with Brown on the day of his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.
For part one of this interview, where Brown and I discuss the current Patriots receiving corps go here.
By Paul M. Banks
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Each year, the NFL becomes a more pass-happy league. And the team that dominated the last decade, the New England Patriots, are currently among the most pass-oriented, if not the most pass-oriented team in the league. In order to make their high powered air attack work, the Patriots need wide receiver Wes Welker to be back to his usual self. The fact that he actually played and caught a couple passes in tonight’s exhibition game with Atlanta is a great sign.
In a Week 17 game against the Houston Texans last season, Welker injured his left knee, forcing him to undergo ACL and MCL surgery this offseason. The original timeline for his return was Thanksgiving, but due to rapid advances in medicine, and Welker’s strong work ethic, he’s back now! Apparently, ACL injuries are not as career-threatening as they once were.
To further assess the state of the Patriots‘ passing game, I enlisted the help of New England‘s all-time leader in receptions, 15 year NFL veteran (all with New England) Troy Brown.
I recently had an exclusive with Brown on the day of his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.
By Paul M. Banks
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When I think of NFL pregame shows, I think of a bunch of 50-year-old ex-jocks in suits incessantly giggling at each other’s stupid inside jokes, making sophomoric remarks about the token sideline princess and when it comes to actual football analysis…the only way you’ll learn anything is if you haven’t been paying attention to your team for six months.
NFL pregame shows are to dumbing down your football knowledge what the singer of ’90s one-hit wonder the New Radicals was so wearing a stupid-ass fishing hat.
They are to be slept through and missed at all costs.
By Paul M. Banks
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I’ve always thought NFL hazing of rookies was rather sophomoric and troglodytic- until now. This is pretty funny. If you haven’t heard, Tim Tebow, the most overrated athlete (and the world’ most famous virgin) has a new ‘do, and it’s extremely trendy and attractive; if you’re transporting wine in a wagon through Sherwood Forest.
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It’s that time of year again, and I’m not talking about “going back to school.” All the NFL training camps are open, NFL Betting is heating up, and the NFL preseason kicks off Saturday night in Canton, with the annual Hall of Fame game. The Cincinnati Bengals will take on the Dallas Cowboys at Fawcett Stadium across the street from Pro Football’s Hall of Fame.
I happened to take in the Hall of Fame last week, so I can give you a very fresh account of what’s included in their collection. Therefore, if you happen to be making the trek to Canton (a small town about an hour south of Cleveland) to honor this year’s class -Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Dick LeBeau, John Randle, Floyd Little, Rickey Jackson, and Russ Grimm- here’s what you should know about what artifacts they showcase.
By Paul M. Banks
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On a day that everyone is talking about Brett Favre, his indecision, and his alleged retirement/fake retirement publicity stunt (or whatever you want to call that media mush)…this happens! And by this, I mean allegations that could conceivably take the biggest Favre story of the day, crush it, and grind it up into dust due to it’s enormity. If true, and enough smoke is visible now to make us believe there’s a legitimate fire burning here- this will overshadow everything Favre related.
Deadspin’s A.J. Daulerio claims that The Daily Line’s Jenn Sterger, the infamous Florida St. Cowgirl who rode a screen capture of her large artificial chest into 15 minutes of internet fame, and then generated a media career from those 15 minutes, claims former Packers legend and Minnesota Vikings QB BRETT FAVRE SENT PICTURES OF HIS YOU KNOW WHAT to Sterger’s cell phone; and also left the sideline princess creepy, borderline stalkerish sounding voicemails. This allegedly occurred when both were members of the New York Jets organization.
If Sterger releases the evidence, as Daulerio is aggressively cajoling her to do, let’s see how the NFL spin can this damaging information about their silver-haired fox.
By Paul M. Banks
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I don’t buy this garbage. Not for one second. He’s not really retiring. How do I know? Because Favre is an attention whore. Plain and simple. Even HIS OWN AGENT called him one.
Well, he specifically called Favre a drama queen, and “attention whore” is a common synonym for that word. Here’s one of the word “drama queen’s” definitions according to Urban Dictionary.com
Someone who turns something unimportant into a major deal. Someone who blows things way out of proportion when ever the chance is given.
Sounds an awful lot like the current Minnesota Vikings, and long time Green Bay Packers QB, doesn’t it? Isn’t it great when the people in the NFL closest to the celebs we hate feel the exact same way that we do about that celeb’s deluded self-absorption?
By Paul M. Banks
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By the end of today, and certainly by the end of tomorrow most NFL teams will have opened training camp. So it’s officially football season!
The NFL is an extremely complicated game when you break it down on paper for betting purposes. Just ask the Vegas odds makers who literally live and die by a three-point margin week after week. And we’re just talking about a regular game here. Picking next season’s Super Bowl favorites and actually being right about it is a shot in the dark, no matter who’s doing the picking.
Gambling in July over who the top dogs in each conference will be in February is about as accurate as betting the “sure” thing via internet slots. Nevertheless, some teams just stand out as head and shoulders above the competition and earn billing as early Super Bowl XLV favorites.
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After Steve McMichael was finished with his college, Chicago Bears and NFL careers, he spent four years as a professional wrestler. On the day of his enshrinement into the college football hall of fame, I had the opportunity to interview him. (And it was a pleasant surprise that the media availability hour happened to overlap with cocktail hour of the enshrinement reception)
“Mongo” told me the primary reason he got into wrestling was to again experience the transcendent thrill that accompanies walking out of the tunnel and hearing the crowd, anxious to bestow adoration upon him, roar in approval from his appearance.
But I’ll let him describe this phenomenon in his own words.
“Oh, there ain’t no drug like that. When you walk out of that tunnel baby, there’s nothing in this f***ing world like that adrenaline rush,” McMichael said.
By Paul M. Banks
For part one of this exclusive, go here
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The NFL is the richest, most powerful sports league going these days. Therefore, they have the most money to spend on spin control and message manipulation. However, retired NFL players (and this goes for older ex-jocks across the board in sports, not just football) are almost a million times more quotable than what you hear from athletes currently beholden to the corporatespeak training of NFL public relations departments.
And then there’s Steve “Mongo” McMichael, who’s on another, unclassifiable level. When interviewing him, you can’t really do Q & A with this 1985 Chicago Bears and Texas Longhorns legend.
He’s too smart and interesting for that.
Instead, the process is like a more sophisticated word association exercise. And the end result resembles the feeling of playing a radio controlled boat game at an amusement park. You put an effort in towards steering the vessel in the direction you want, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get to your intended destination. And even if you do, it won’t be via your intended path.
By Paul M. Banks
For part 2 go here
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“It’s a totally different game today than it was even five years ago,” said former Notre Dame and Oakland Raiders great Tim Brown, when I asked about the seismic shift currently occurring within the NFL.
The league is more obsessed with the forward pass than ever before. And since the major pass-first teams are consistently winning, this trend will only increase in the years ahead.
I caught up to Brown in South Bend for the 2010 College Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Weekend. Brown himself had an interesting conversation on the topic with a fellow member of his enshrinement class; one with the same last name.
“(Former New England Patriots WR) Troy Brown and I were talking about this. How are they going to judge receivers? If they are having a hard time judging me and Cris Carter, how are they going to judge these guys who are in a 100 catch offense, and average 9 yards a catch?” Brown told me.
By Paul M. Banks
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Remember that email forward circulating a few years ago? Listing the shortest books ever written?
Updated for today, it would read something like “Sobriety, Sanity, and Self-Control” by Lindsay Lohan, “Anger Management” by Mel Gibson, “Racial Tolerance and Understanding” by Rush Limbaugh, “Sound Logic, Reason and Decision-Making” co-authored by Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann…well, you get the idea.
I would put Pete Carroll’s “Win Forever” in the same exact category. A man who just burned the once proud USC program into the ground, and then fled college football to find safe asylum with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, dodging NCAA repercussions, doesn’t deserve dollar one from his book tour. He doesn’t even DESERVE A BOOK.
He won’t admit it, and it hasn’t been proven yet, but he knew what was going on USC, and did nothing to stop it. And now the Trojans are a shell of a program because of rampant corruption occurring on his watch.
This is supposed to be a role model?
By Paul M. Banks
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People just don’t go through the trouble of trying to visit NFL stadiums the way they do MLB parks. And it’s easy to understand why: most NFL stadiums are built for size and utility, not for character and distinctiveness. From the ’60s-’80s, baseball and football parks were often one and the same. And these multi-use facilities were often bland, cookie cutter, perfectly symmetrical, and about as interesting to look at as the most austere building that the Bauhaus school ever produced.
But today, “less is more” only applies to the gridiron cathedrals. In baseball, there’s been an emphasis, perhaps a dysfunctional obsession, with quirkiness. So while the Mariners’ home, Safeco Field has quirkiness, Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks is more straight edge.
So I took a tour of the place that now serves as refuge for Pete Carroll, as he fled here to avoid NCAA sanctions at USC
By Paul M. Banks
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Perhaps no figure in the world of college and NFL football is as deep and intriguing as the late, great Pat Tillman. He was a high-achieving intellectual whose rare combination of distinctive individual traits shattered every stereotype you could ever hold of a: “football player,” “soldier” or “Arizona State University student.” When he was alive he was a man whose actions worked on many levels.
He was much more than the one-dimensional football player-turned-war hero archetype presented to the American public by the far right military and NFL establishments. His personal depth and complexity also went beyond the Noam-Chomsky-loving bookworm atheist conveyed to us by the far left.
You’ve heard of that game where you can pick any five people in history to have a dinner party with? Tillman would easily make my top five. I wish I could have met the man while he was alive. Instead, I’ll have to settle for getting to know him through cinema.
And beginning next month, Tillman’s memory will be kept alive by “The Tillman Story,” a movie revealing how both the military and the government covered-up his death by fratricide (or “friendly-fire”) in Afghanistan. The lies and conspiracy surrounding his tragic death reach to the very top of our government and military-industrial complex hierarchies.
By Paul M. Banks
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When the Chicago Bears drafted Cedric Benson into the NFL, scouts couldn’t stop talking about his character issue red flags. He was often compared to another Texas running back, Ricky Williams- who similarly has been a tremendous pain in the ass to every NFL team that has employed him. But Williams just likes to smoke a little greenery, and you know hippies- they’re always mellow. “Stoned bar fights” never occur. “Drunken bar fights” are commonplace.
Cedric “the Entertainer” Benson seems to find himself getting into more violent and surly situations than Williams does. He’s had a drunk driving arrest, legal troubles making him sillier “on a boat” than T-Pain, and now this: a bar room brawl resembling an episode described in a Merle Haggard song.
Guess it’s not such a great thing he joined the Cincinnaughty Bengals. Williams seems like a guy who just wants to spread the love, Benson by contrast appears like a man who would rather a fight.
By Paul M. Banks
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Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014 isn’t going to be as great for media members as pretty much any Super Bowl in the past. It’s likely to be cold, windy and maybe even snowy for kickoff of the NFL title matchup in the New York area – the first time for a legitimate shot at “football weather” for football’s biggest game. So now the NCAA has to wake up and realize conference expansion isn’t the biggest issue with college football.
By Kevin Hunt
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The Sports Bank collaborated with Versus’ sports talk show “The Daily Line.” Check out the cast: Reese Waters, Liam McHugh, Rob DeAngelis, and Jenn Sterger answering the queries I sent them on the topics of the World Cup, Big Ten expansion, the Super Bowl and MLB.
By Paul M. Banks
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NFL fans, please bare with me through this next article. Unless you’re a lawyer, and in that case you’ll likely find this next topic riveting. If you’re an MBA like I am, you might find this case moderately fascinating in ac couple ways.
Everyone else will find the Supreme Court ruling in the NFL vs. American Needle, about as exciting as watching the Wisconsin Badgers run their half-court offense. But again bare with me, this is important. VERY IMPORTANT TOWARDS HAVING A 2011 SEASON.
By Paul M. Banks
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The case of St. Tim Tebow is an interesting one. The media blatantly and obviously want him to succeed professionally. And I can’t think of any other case that comes even remotely close. If he doesn’t make it in the NFL, the mainstream football media will probably collectively commit suicide. I asked an expert on the topic, Clay Travis, if he could recall any other athlete who had the media acting as a de facto PR agent on their behalf.
By Paul M. Banks
Travis, who authored a chapter entitled “Tim Tebow is God” in his book “Dixieland Delight,” had this to say:
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