Sidetracked: Stars Align to Dump on Wisconsin Sports Fans

By: Melissa S. Wollering

Just when you thought seasonal depression had set in over the Packers’ playoff loss Sunday night, Jon Leuer breaks his wrist, jeopardizing the Badgers’ basketball season.  Then, Michael Redd decides he’s out for the season with a torn ACL/MCL combination kiss of death for the Milwaukee Bucks.  Would someone like to make the lives of Wisconsin residents any worse?  Please?

Dom Capers must have fallen asleep in the box. Or lost his brain while swapping out toupees.  How else could the otherwise competitive Green Bay Packers Defense have hosed it that badly? Here’s a look (at a glance) in the long overdue Chart Magnificence as to why we should not have relied on the extraordinary amount of luck we relied on just to get to OT with the Arizona Cardinals and their ‘I-complain-after-every-play’ QB Kurt Warner.

Speaking of Warner, you know it’s time to retire when your old fart QB complains like your flannel-wearing, sawed-off shotgun brandishing grandfather who’s about to go postal about another rabbit in his garden. Retire and take Terry Bradshaw’s job, but replace his Fired Up segment with Warner’s Whining.  Sorry, after Favre I didn’t think I had to worry about any other veteran QB beating our youthful Aaron Rodgers into submission. Now I’m witness.

Badger Basketball fans were psyched after the team beat Duke on the Kohl Center hardwood December 2nd.  Highly underestimated during the early part of the season, Bo Ryan’s team rode the roller coaster up before an embarrassing loss to UW-GB seven days later.

So when the Badgers defeated Purdue Saturday, the roller coaster to AP-ranked number 13 couldn’t possibly be spoiled in a similar fashion.  Until junior forward Jon Leuer had to break his wrist. As the second-leading scorer, I need not tell you: this is NOT cool. For more reasons as to why, head to David Kay & Paul M. Banks article on the Leuer situation.

Michael Redd hasn’t been the same contributor for the Milwaukee Bucks since he tore his MCL & ACL last January against Sacramento at home. However, he did recently pass Bobby Dandridge to enjoy the fourth place spot on the Bucks’ all-time scoring list.  It’s not as though the Bucks’ season rested on his shoulders; he’s only played 51 games in the last two seasons. But his injuries Sunday night just put the trifecta icing on the cake for Wisconsin sports fans, who already suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder during months with fewer hours of sunlight.

So now we can all sink deeper into SAD as we relish in the fact that our QB, not the Cowboys’ Tony Romo, remains winless in playoffs. We can transfer our Redd eggs from the Bucks’ basket into a Jennings-Bell-Ridnour basket.  And we can hope Keaton Nankivil undergoes a major transformation in the next 4-8 weeks while we pray to the Big Guy for a Leuer recovery miracle in time for any possible NCAA Tourney action. I love winter.  I love sports.  I’m just not loving Wisconsin sports this winter.

Thank you for reading our new column Sidetracked, where we branch out to bring you the best in non-mainstream Midwestern sports talent and off-the-beaten-path discussion topics. Remember, you read it here first at The SportsBank.net.