Your Chance to Join NIAFL Football: The Essay Contest

No, you were right the first time.

 

A real problem plagues sports journalists today. I'm not talking about low morale or plummeting circulation numbers or Kit Hoover no longer being on Cold Pizza. I am talking about the obvious problem that is never discussed in journalism school: gang wars.

I had no idea of the feud between sportswriters coast-to-coast until I got my first job at a medium sized paper in a cheese-producing Midwestern state which shall remain nameless. My first day on the job, I was given a pair of hidden elastic waistband pleated Dockers and a faded blue polo shirt. Disgusted at the pair of ketchup stains in the Dockers and the coffee stain on the polo shirt, I disdainfully asked if my paper was so poor that it couldn't afford to wash my uniform before giving it to me. My editor took me aside and explained that the stains were gang symbols. A writer with two ketchup stains and a coffee stain, like me, was an East Coast writer. Two gravy stains and a mustard stain represented a West Coast writer. The Mississippi was the dividing line. He said the feud went all the way back to 1963 when Jim Murray and Red Smith got in a shouting match at a Dodgers-Mets game and the entire press box got into the squabble, dividing along geographic lines. It soon escalated from a shouting match into a pressbox-clearing melee with Leonard Koppett yelling "Take that you fucking bitch" and smashing a typewriter into Milton Richman's skull. Word quickly spread about the dispute and every sportswriter across the fruited plain took up arms against their brother. St. Louis, with its prime geographic location, was always a hotspot for the feuds. The Bloods and the Crips modeled their tactics on the sportswriters' battles.

While many of the current participants have no idea how the entire squabble began, it remains alive and well to this day. Few outsiders realize that Steve Wilstein was not shunned by his peers for his 1998 reporting on andro in McGwire's locker. Rather, Wilstein had the temerity and death wish to wear a gravy stain -- the sworn symbol of the West Coast writers -- as an East Coaster in a WC locker room. The Sun-Times did not put Jay Mariotti on temporary leave for his involvement in the Ozzie fiasco. Jay the Joke committed a similiar crime as Wilstein, wearing a tie with a mustard stain during cable TV interviews, vainly hoping to elicit WC sympathy. But the reaction to Jay's miscue was minor. When Bill Plaschke committed a walk-by gravy boat "spill" on Dave Anderson at last year's World Series, it was on. Plaschke was immediately pelted with a three-day old dinner roll by Peter Gammons, knocking Plaschke unconcious. Joe Posnanski stabbed Gammons in the neck with a plastic spork and suddenly we had a melee for a new era. And it carried over past the World Series. At this year's Big Ten basketball tournament, I had trouble meeting deadline because Sid Hartman spent the evening pelting me with bratwurst. And this year's World Series is apparently the site where many sportswriters are plotting their revenge for last year's brawl. I heard that Tracy Ringolsby made a shiv out of a bigass belt buckle and plans to use it to reduce the membership of the EC -- killing a few members each game. God help the East Coast if the World Series goes 7 games.

But I am a uniter, not a divider and I can use the bully pulpit of a NIAFL membership to bring about change. This brawl has gone on long enough. Why do we hate each other when we could channel our energies to fight true evil in this world, like Islamic terrorists or Skip Bayless? I am the Pope. I have the personal cache to bring the two sides together, like Jimmy Carter with the Egyptians and Israelis, and come to a lasting peace. But I need the cache of a NIAFL membership to make my voice heard. Be the change you have always envisioned and give peace a chance. Elect PopeDirkBenedict to the NIAFL.

 

Goddammit, as funny as it was in a PM last year, it's even funnier fleshed out.

I bow to the Pope.

 

Dammit - I thought it was the Pope and my synopsis for our IJAG movie.

 

I can't decide who to vote for.

So, the help the non-idiot rise above the idiots, I present a quiz. The only right answers are the ones I think are the right answers. She/he who answers the most questions most correctly will get my vote on the NIAFL ballot.

Here goes:

1. Which high school did I attend?
2. Which college football team do I want to see finish 0-12 every season?
3. In which Uma Thurman movie does Uma Thurman's character most resemble Uma Thurman's SportsJournalists.com alter ego?
4. What are the names of my children?
5. Which Idahoan has made the most impact on the world?
6. Which Idahoan is the state's best ever athlete?
7. Which SportsJournalists.com personality would I most like to see nuked?
8. Which SportsJournalists.com personality would most like to see me nuked?
9. What specific field of medicine does Doc Idaho practice?
10. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? And how hard is his nutslap when he can't chuck wood in less than 10 seconds?

Answers can be submitted via PM or on the thread.

 

My esteemed co-member Idaho, please be reminded that Rule 387 specifies that PMs from applicants to voting members which are in any way related to the voting process are not allowed.

 

they're allowed. I can just post them on the thread after I get them.

 

Absolutely correct. I withdraw the statement. Carry on.

(Note to other members--does anyone else see Idaho's quiz as a tricky ploy to get his wife into the league??)

 

1. Which high school did I attend? Bear Lake
2. Which college football team do I want to see finish 0-12 every season. BYU
3. In which Uma Thurman movie does Uma Thurman's character most resemble Uma Thurman's SportsJournalists.com alter ego. Beautiful Girls
4. What are the names of my children. Sam ... and I'll get back to the other ones.
5. Which Idahoan has made the most impact on the world? Sacagawea
6. Which Idahoan is the state's best ever athlete? Picabo Street
7. Which SportsJournalists.com personality would I most like to see nuked? DyePack
8. Which SportsJournalists.com personality would most like to see me nuked? DyePack
9. What specific field of medicine does Doc Idaho practice? Pediatrics
10. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? And how hard is his nutslap when he can't chuck wood in less than 10 seconds? The train will reach Boston at 5:47 p.m.

 

Were you going to explain the Tony Dungy comparison?