Outside Features

You know that scene in Back to the Future when Marty McFly is playing guitar at the big dance and he glances at the Polaroid photo of his family to see that his brother and sister have disappeared from the image because his mom is getting sexually assaulted by Biff (boo!) out in the parking lot, thus destroying the space time continuum?
Well, that's basically what's happening to the NBA season right now. While the owners and players yell at each other about (among other things) which side should be able to buy more diamond-encrusted unicorn horns, the NBA season is slowly vanishing.

For the past few years, I haven't seen many Monday Night Football kickoffs, mostly because I'm one of those people who lives on the West Coast works on Mondays, but also due to the fact that for the past 20 years, these games have begun with the trite country-rock of Hank Williams Jr.
Of course, I'm referring to the “Are You Ready For Some Football?” song that Williams customizes to include the names of that week's teams, performing it amidst pyrotechnics and ostensibly sexy women who are roughly one-third his age. The song is ridiculous, as is Williams. And I've hated it from the first time I heard it at age seven.

Last week, on a Wednesday, which is typically the toughest day on which to discuss NFL football with people who have actual functioning lives, the league pole vaulted to the top of the news feed by distributing a memo to all 32 teams warning players not to fake injuries. Or else… well, they'll have to go into the league office and explain why they faked, or didn't fake, an injury.
“Those found to be violators will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action for conduct detrimental to the game,” said the memo. The offender's team could also be hit with fines, suspensions and forfeited draft picks (really?), or so the rumor mills say.
There are a lot of injuries in the NFL, and at all levels of the game, for that matter, but there are still some players and coaches who've been watching too much soccer and have found the upside of laying on the turf for five minutes before walking off to the applause of adoring fans – only to come back two plays later. You stop the clock. You inspire a level of impatience in no huddle offenses found only in airport security and urinal lines. You give your guys a breather. Makes sense, however lame it may be.

While we wait around to see if the NBA actually has a season this fall, something is happening in the world of basketball and it's that this is truly becoming a “world of basketball.” This is cool and we should be proud to see other cultures continuing to embrace what was once a uniquely American sport. This is a good thing and not being a xenophobe, I'm fine with it.
But after taking in a few games of Eurobasket (the surprisingly efficient name for the European basketball championships), I've realized something. Those Europeans are slowly, but convincingly, turning basketball into soccer, or something very much like soccer. I'm also convinced that they're trying to bring this to the NBA or maybe if there is no NBA for a year or more, completely take over the sport. Let me lay out some evidence.

“OK, so here's what we're gonna do, gang. After we kick the ball, all of you… well everyone except for our skinny little kicker, is going to run fast, pretty much as fast as you can, down the field. There will be 11 guys ahead of you and I don't want you to run in any direction but straight ahead and if someone gets in your way, run into him. Oh yeah, and you should still be at a full sprint when you do this. Try to tackle the guy with the ball. He'll be going at full speed, too. And, just a quick FYI… one of you is likely to break something. Probably your collarbone. Maybe a femur. I'm not sure, we'll have to wait and see. All right, go get 'em!”
No high school, college or professional football coach would actually says this to his players because no one likes getting his femur snapped, but this is nevertheless the most direct, efficient and truthful instructions as to how to conduct a football kickoff, far and away the most violent, and potentially most entertaining play you'll see in a football game. While it's no secret that football, despite all its glory, allows players to perform physical acts that would otherwise be considered felonious, the kickoff is where it all comes to a head. And it's also why NFL players, each year beefier and faster than the prior, are no longer too keen on kick returns and why the league pushed the kickoff spot up five yards in the hopes of creating more touchbacks and less smashed brain matter.
There were a lot of sports-talk chatterboxes chattering on about how this rule was going to all but terminate the kickoff return and, in turn, football as we know it. We'd see every kicker punch it through the back of the end zone kick after kick, rendering useless the sinewy speed of NFL kick returners, these guys were saying. They were wrong.

I don't only read sports magazines. I'm an indiscriminate fan of several publications, many of which are left on my coffee table and toilet tank with the intention of letting my houseguests and/or bathroom users know of my varied and erudite interests.
So now you know why I was reading Esquire the other day. As I flipped through a few pages about how to appropriately dress for the upcoming fall season in clothing affordable only to the male versions of Sex and the City characters, I damn near dropped the magazine. Why? Well, because looking back at me with an uncomfortable degree of sexiness was Tom Brady. And this wasn't an article about the NFL's fading stars, but rather an advertisement for Ugg boots.