… Okay, that’s not exactly true. The watch corporation is donating a buck for each person the former Olympic softball gold medalist passes in November’s ING New York City Marathon.

Finch, perhaps the most recognizable softballer in the world (they’re called “softballers,” right?) will start the race dead last. Timex, in turn, will donate $1 to New York Road Runners youth programs for every person she passes over the course of the 26-mile run.

Former New York Giants receiver Amani Toomer also started dead last a couple years ago in the same marathon, which now forces me to evaluate if a solid professional football player with 13 years under his belt is more recognizable than the world’s most famous softball player. Although I’m sure I’d recognize Finch walking around in, say, a Whole Foods before I would recognize Toomer, I think more people would recognize Toomer first.

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The official word is that the Ravens celebrated the end of a long, hot practice by bringing in an ice cream truck. You can’t trust that though. When is the last time you saw a snack truck and thought, “I bet Ray Lewis is doing some terrible damage in that thing”?

Never right?

Precisely. That’s why it’s such a good cover.

Well played, you conspiratorial Ravens, you.

In a recent ESPN interview, Baltimore Raven and former murder suspect Ray Lewis said U.S. crime will almost certainly go up if the current NFL lockout doesn’t dissipate by the start of the season.

“Do this research if we don’t have a season … watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game,” Lewis told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio.

The All-Pro linebacker assured Paolantonio that there are bored people all over the country that would begin committing crimes if football wasn’t around to coax them back on the couch. “There’s nothing else to do Sal,” Lewis said followed by what I imagine was a pregnant pause lasting 20-30 seconds as Paolantonio tried to navigate the thin ice he realized he was standing on. The pause, of course, was later edited out.

Honestly, there’s no way one of the first thoughts zipping through Paolantonio’s mind was whether or not Lewis was predicting a spike in crime or promising it.

Lord knows when I’m in my local grocer, stocking up on guacamole and Pabst, not a week goes by where I don’t think, “Thank Christ for the Eagles and Raiders. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be stealing this dip and throwing each of these beer cans through vacant car windows.”

You gotta love Lewis’ triple-pronged attack on the NFL here. On the one hand, he’s crediting his sport with keeping at least a portion of America’s criminals at bay simply by existing. On the other hand, he’s giving a black eye* to football by vaguely suggesting it’s the sport of choice among criminals.And on the third hand, which is actually just a foot with a watch around the ankle, is Lewis’ explanation of how he ambled upon this conclusion:

“People live through us,” he said. “Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I’m not talking about the people you see all the time.”

I won’t pretend to know the kind of people Ray Lewis spends his time with or runs across in his free time, but I will admit that there is something uber-intriguing about the thought that it’s not just about walking the streets, but somehow tied into HOW one walks the streets and apparently this is not the kind of walk that you see people deploying on any kind of normal basis.

You ask me, the thought of seeing an entirely new sneaky-style walk if the NFL remains locked is enough to make me hope for another 700 days of bickering between players and owners.

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* That black eye, by the way? Yeah, that wouldn’t have happened if the NFL wasn’t approaching Day 70 of its lockout. See!? Ray Lewis is right!

Laura Vikmanis was a registered dietician, trainer and mom before she set out to join the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleading squad two years ago. Back then, she was a sprightly 40 years old.

Now? Super old. Old enough for Hollywood to make an inspirational movie about her oldness.

Honestly, is there any way Sandra Bullock doesn’t get this part?

At 42 years old, Vikmanis is the Ben-Gals* and NFL’s oldest cheerleader. That’s her up there in the picture, so that’s nice. New Line Cinema and the writers of the minor hit ‘Gnomeo and Juliet’ are set to write Vikmanis’ story. So even though I can sense your excitement already, I’m going to need you to settle down long enough to finish describing a film certain to give “Fever Pitch” a run for its money as the sports-themed movie my girlfriend inexplicably loves the most.

It’s hard to tell what the story line will be, I’m imagining a hybrid of ‘Showgirls’ and ‘Mr. Mom,’ except that instead of a male mom played by Michael Keaton, we’ll see a more traditional female mom played by someone other than Michael Keaton. I mean, where’s the conflict here? Sure, she was rejected as a spry 39-year-old in 2008, so she worked hard, quit her job as an industrial welder and became a dancer one year later! Or something. That might have been ‘Flashdance.’ At least ‘Flashdance’ had something more to offer than It’s hard to be a dietician and dance eight days out of the year while driving your kids to soccer practice. Unless one of her kids is a spy or someone somewhere has a codeine addiction, I think those ‘Gnomeo’ pensmen have their work cut out for them. ‘The Rookie,’ a similarly-themed sports movie about a 40-something pitcher who set his family aside to chase his dream of big league stardom, had familial guilt. To hear Vikmanis tell it this was well received by everyone.

“My family, I think at first when I told them I was going to try out, were like ‘Oh yeah, that’s something fun to try,’” she said. “When I finally made it they were in tears and just so excited. They have been behind me 100 percent. … My children thought it was cool, but I don’t think they understood fully until they went to the game and actually saw  me on the field. They think it’s so cool.”

So at first her family thought it would be fun, but after her hardship and struggle Vikmanis’ family eventually came to see that it was … exciting and cool?

Time to work on that character arc, guys.

For more on the film, click over to The Hollywood Reporter.

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* How many times do you suppose someone asks “Who is Ben” anytime a member of the Ben-Gals tell people what she does for a living? Every time? Three-fourths of the time? I refuse to believe it’s less than half the time. I understand that the word “gals” is built into the word Bengal, but you should understand that the squad’s name sounds like either a joint ointment or a pen full of hookers. That’s best-case scenario. At worst, it sounds like “Bang Gals,” which doesn’t dissuade that pen full of hookers image.

Picture if you will (you will!), Dallas 22 years ago. The Cowboys’ new owner Jerry Jones, a slim boisterous man whose face had only slightly brightened into the pasty mozzarella-hue it is today, found himself simultaneously hosting two over-the-hill luminaries: Taylor and the Washington Redskins.

The Redskins were in town because they were playing the cowboys. Taylor was in town to promote her perfume Passion, and part of that promotion involved flipping the coin before the game. The team captains from both the Cowboys and Redskins converged on the field with referee Pat Haggerty, Jones and Taylor.

From the unattributed Washington Times account:

There’s no accounting for degenerate gamblers. And this no account is never more illustrated than in the days leading up to Super Bowl Sunday. Anything is up for wager and anyone can be compelled to do it.

No, seriously. Anyone.

Because when one thinks of the guy betting on whether Fergie’s boob sees the light of day during halftime, how long Christina Aguilera’s National Anthem would last, or how many times Cameron Diaz would be shown on television jamming foodstuffs into Alex Rodriguez’s face, the type of person one usually imagines making these bets are the type of people that … well, that kinda want to see Fergie’s tit in the first place.

Which is why NPR’s story of two (competing?) art museums from the respective states of the Super Bowl combatants was so awesomely baffling: because they were degenerate gamblers who likely read Proust and watch the american Masters series on PBS.

From the good ol’ Enpee-are:

The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has bet a Renoir that the Steelers will win Sunday. The Milwaukee Art Museum took that bet — and put up a rare Caillebotte in return.

“Our docents were extremely upset,” Milwaukee Art Museum Director Daniel Keegan tells NPR’s Linda Wertheimer. “They said, ‘How could you possibly think of giving up the Caillebotte?’ I said, ‘That’s the point — we have no intention of giving it up.’”

Boom! Roasted, Carnegie! As the Packers won the big game, it appears like the pink maidens washing themselves in the sea aren’t the only ones taking a bath this winter.

The only difference between the degenerate gamblers making prop bets and this high-brow prop bet among art museums in towns not known for their appreciation of art, is that the bet does not will the Renoir to Wisconsin forever. Both museums agreed to a loan lasting a few months.

t could be worse, NYC’s MoMA lost one of Picasso’s guitars because one of its curator’s was positive the Super Bowl MVP would thank the fans first.

Darn it all, MoMa. Who doesn’t go with God at 4:5 odds?

Below is the most comprehensive collection of Superbowl facts you’ll read all week (assuming this is the only list you read all week).

The numbers accompanying each fact are to keep us honest. We promised you 100 facts and 100 facts are what you shall receive.

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T H E   H I S T O R Y

3. AFL co-founder (among many other positions) Lamar Hunt named the final playoff game of the pro season the Super Bowl after he watched his kids playing with a Super Ball. The Super Ball was a bouncy toy ball manufactured by Wham-O.
If Happy Super Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head. Happy Super Ball may stick to certain types of skin. Ingredients of Happy Super Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space. Do not taunt Happy Super Ball.

4. Hunt always assumed “Super Bowl” was just a placeholder name until a better one could be drummed up by pro football’s marketing wiz brains.
Unfortunately, by 1967, all the best ad men had developed cirrhosis of the liver from a decade of 9:30 am hi-ball glasses in their office.

5. College football referred to their championship games as “Bowl Games” and helped force the pros to stick with “Super Bowl.”
It remains the second-most nonsensical name for a championship next to baseball’s World Series, which never involves more than North America and rarely involves anyone else besides teams from America’s East Coast.

6. Roman numerals are used to distinguish each game. However, the first two Super Bowls were called, “The AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” Super Bowl III was the first to be numbered.
To this day, re-learning the Roman Numeral formula remain the most intellectually stimulating activity 84 percent of football enthusiasts will engage in all year.

7. The Super Bowl is measured in Roman numerals because a football season runs the span over two calendar years.
This makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard.

8. Over 700,000 footballs are produced annually for official NFL use and 72 of them are used for the Super Bowl.
Truly America’s sport, only the game’s most fortunate .0001 percent get to share in the Super Bowl’s vast wealth.

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T H E   S P E C T A C L E

9. From 2001 through 2010, the Super Bowl has accounted for over seven hours of commercial time, representing more than 850 announcements and $1.62 billion of network advertising sales.
Also, the Betty White career resurrection.

10. The 2010 Super Bowl contained a record 47 minutes and 50 seconds of network ads in an all-time high 104 messages.
At least 15 of those minutes were filled with GoDaddy.com commercials that begat another five hours in front of the computer.

11. As of 2010, the cost of a 30-second commercial on average is $3 million.
That’s 100k per second, or how quickly Nic Cage hemorrhaged money in 2008. Any way, go see Drive Angry 3D!*
*Cage paid me $1,000 to type that. That’s so Nic!

12. Previous ad rates for a 30-second spot were $2.2 million in 2000, $700K in 1990, $222K in 1980, $78K in 1970 and $42K the year of the first Super Bowl.
Oddly, the year before the first Super Bowl, ads cost nealr y $5 million. ‘Cause you know, Super Bowls didn’t exist yet. Every wonder what a ride on Pegasus would cost you? A lot. For the same reason.

13. The first famous Super Bowl commercial was a 1974 ad for Noxzema featuring Super Bowl legend Joe Namath.
It wasn’t that Broadway Joe had bad skin, he just wanted to get closer to the 15-year-old girls primarily using the product.

14. The Who played last year’s Super Bowl Halftime show. The first Super Bowl was in 1967, three years after the Who formed.
The Black Eyed Peas will play this year’s Halftime show. The first Super Bowl was also played three years after Fergie was born. Look at her face and tell me she’s not at least 47.

15. The University of Arizona and Grambling State bands, bandleader Al Hirt and the Anaheim High School drill team provided the halftime entertainment for the first Super Bowl. The first singer to perform during the halftime show was Carol Channing in 1970.
No, seriously. I’d rather have Channing than the Peas.

16. Kid Rock, P.Diddy, and Nelly were part of the infamous Wardrobe Malfunction Halftime show in 2004.
Don’t even pretend you remembered that.

17. Tickets were priced at $6, $10 and $12 for the first Super Bowl.
The $12 tickets got you a seat, a free popcorn and ear plugs to protect you from Channing’s 18 minute medley of Hello, Dolly! in front of a a football crowd.

18. In 1988, ticket prices soared over $100 and have continued to increase reaching $1,000 for Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay in 2009.
Or, if you’re my Dad and it’s 1986 again, a Super Bowl ticket would fetch bids of one firstborn son at several different auctions.

19. Face value for Super Bowl tickets range from $200 for the plaza outside the Cowboys’ new stadium to $1,200 for club seats inside.
Raise your hand if you believe anyone actually paid only $200 for their Super Bowl ticket. Put your hand down, Phil.

20. On the secondary market, ticket prices have soared, hitting an average of $4,375 on January 26.
Not doing so well on the secondary market? Sub-leases from homeowners who just spent $4,375 on a football ticket.

21. In 2002, the NFL paid for up to 150 rings for the winning Super Bowl team at $5,000 apiece (plus adjustments for extra gold or diamonds) and 150 pieces of jewelry for the losing Super Bowl team, at half price of the Super bowl ring.
So … I guess if you had fat fingers … Surprise! Your ring was worth more!

22.  NFL formula for dividing the game’s tickets: 17.5 per cent to each participating team, 5 percent to the host team, 34.8 percent for the other clubs and 25.2 per cent to the league.
Except in 1970. Carol Channing wouldn’t be caught dead singing musical selections from Lorelai without at least a 10 percent cut of the gate.

23. The Vince Lombardi Trophy presented to the Super Bowl’s winning team is made by high-end jeweler Tiffany & Co and stands almost 21 inches tall and weighs 107 ounces.

24. The trophy is insured for more than $25,000, but is said to actually be worth only $12,500.

25. In comparison, the Waterford crystal football portion of the BCS National Championship trophy is valued at $8,000. The NBA’s Larry O’Brien trophy is worth $13,000. The MLB’s Commissioner’s trophy is worth $15,000. And the NHL’s Stanley Cup is insured for $1.5 million, but widely considered to be priceless.
… By people missing no fewer than three teeth.

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T H E   E X P O S U R E

26. Last year’s Super Bowl victory by the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts drew a record U.S. TV viewing audience of 106.5 million. That’s 500,000 more people watching that than the series finale of M*A*S*H in 1983.
It’s M*A*S*H and nine Super Bowls on the Top 10 Most Watched Shows of All-Time list. We get it. Football! War! All I’m saying is if people were more open-minded, the season finale of Cake Boss would give those programs a run for their ratings.

27. It’s also 46 million more people than those who attended church services on Christmas.
Let’s face it, a Redskins-Bengals regular season game could outdraw Jesus, at this point.

28. … And 7.8 million more than the number of Americans who tuned in to the Super Bowl from two years ago between the Steelers and Arizona Cardinals (98.7 million).
I blame Leinart.

29. In 2000, 88.5 million people watched the Super Bowl. A decade before that in 1990, 73.9 million. In 1980: 76.2 million. In 1970: 44.3 million. In 1967: 24.4 million.

30. Nielsen found last year that 51 per cent of those polled tuned in more to watch the commercials than the Super Bowl.
On a completely unrelated note, 51 percent of those watching the 2010 Super Bowl were my girlfriend.

31. The NFL has given out 5,082 media credentials for Super Bowl XLV, the most in the game’s history.
Seven of those credentials were given to bloggers. Progress!

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T H E   G A M E S

32. In Super Bowl IX, the Steelers earned one sack against the Vikings in the first half and nothing else, making it the fewest number of points scored by both teams in one half of football. Pittsburgh ended up winning their first Super Bowl 16-6.
Fran Tarkenton demanded his O-Line call him Sir for the next eight months.

33. Although the Buffalo Bills are widely recognized as losing in four (consecutive) Super Bowls, they, at least, led in all but one of those games. The Minnesota Vikings however, have also played in four Super Bowls without every having the lead for a single second.

34. Dallas and Pittsburgh have met a record three times in the Super Bowl.
Four if you count Sunday as a meeting … which no one does.

35. Don Shula has one two Super Bowls and lost four. He lost his first two (Super Bowls III and VI) then won two (VII, VIII) and then lost two more (XVIII, XIX).

36. Shula was the first coach to lose two Super Bowls, but the second to lose four. Bud Grant snuck in between Shula’s two losing periods to lose Super Bowls (IV, VIII, IX and XI).

37. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have declared the Super Bowl as a National Special Security Event, which means there is increased security to the stadium as well as the surrounding area. It also means the infamous blimps that used to float over the stadium are no longer allowed to fly.
This being another Super Bowl starring Ben Roethlisburger, bathroom security has nearly tripled. What? Too obvious? Fair ’nuff.

38. Only three Super Bowls have been played in northern cities. Two in the Detroit-area and one in Minneapolis. But all three were played in domed stadiums.
Detroit has since complained about the lack of Detroit Super Bowls, but they may have meant Super Bowl appearances by the Lions. In fact, thinking back on it now, yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what was going on there.

39. The coldest Super Bowl on record was Super Bowl VI in New Orleans. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Miami Dolphins in 39 degree temperatures.

40. Miami has hosted the Super Bowl the most at 10 times.

41. Pittsburgh has won the most Super Bowls at 6 times.
What? That’s a stat you actually did know before reading it here? Well, here’s perhaps a dozen more that might fall into that category, but you can’t prove you already knew them, so we’re gonna go ahead and count them here.

42. The longest Super Bowl winning streak has only been two. (Patriots, Broncos, Cowboys, 49ers, Steelers, Dolphins, Packers)

43. Minnesota, Buffalo and Denver have lost the most Super Bowls at 4 times each.

44. Buffalo lost 4 times in a row.

45. The longest run in a Super Bowl was 100 yards after an interception by Pittsburgh Steeler James Harrison during Super Bowl XLIII.(Formerly 75 yards by Willie Parker during Super Bowl XL)

46. In 1989, San Francisco wide receiver Jerry Rice gained 215 yards on 11 catches. Also a record.

47. In 1981, Oakland linebacker Rod Martin set a record with three interceptions.

48. In 2000, St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner set a record with 414 yards passing.

49. Mike Ditka, Tom Flores, and Tony Dungy have all won a Super Bowl both as a player and a coach.

50. In Super Bowl XLI Tony Dungy of the Colts and Lovie Smith of the Bears made history as the first African-Americans to coach in a Super Bowl.

51. California leads with five Super Bowl MVPs, followed by Ohio and Florida with four.
Suck on that, Texas!

52. Dan Reeves, Mike Ditka and Tony Dungy have appeared in the Super Bowl as a player, assistant coach and head coach.
Wait, this can’t be true. No way would Ditka ever take orders from Tony Dungy. And Dan Reeves is wicked old.

53. No network footage exists of Super Bowl I. It was taped over, supposedly for a soap opera.

54. No Super Bowl has ever ended in a shutout.

55. The lowest amount of points scored in a Super Bowl is 3, put up by the Dolphins in Super Bowl VI.

56. The Dolphins are the only team that failed to score a touchdown in a Super Bowl game. Miami scored just three points in a 21-point loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI in New Orleans.

57. The team to score first has won 30 of 44 Super Bowls.

58. The team leading at the end of the third quarter has won 38 of 44 Super Bowls.

59. Twelve MVPs are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
… Which is weird because I was under the impression everyone except for the Falcons made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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T H E   F A N S

60. Spending in the United States on Super Bowl-related merchandise, apparel and snacks is expected to reach $10.1 billion, or an average of $59.33 per consumer, up from $8.9 billion, or $52.63 per consumer, last year.

61. More drivers are involved in alcohol-related accidents on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year (except St. Patrick’s Day), according to the Insurance Information Institute.

62. On average, Super Bowl plans are made 41 days in advance of the game.

63. There will be 20 million Americans attending a Super Bowl party this year.
The following statistics were all taken from a recent poll of 10,000 Americans. So, you should assume half of them were lying.

64. There will be an average number of 17 people attending each party.
About five of those people at each party will wish they were watching the game alone, in peace.

65. About 5 percent of people who watch the big game will be alone.
And wishing they knew someone who wanted to be alone, so they could swap lives for a little bit. Wait, I think that’s the plot of The Holiday starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet.

66. 40 percent of Super Bowl viewers won’t be football fans.

67. 25 percent of women who watch the Super Bowl will enjoy it.

68. Ten million man-hours will be spent preparing food for Super
Bowl parties across the nation.
Such preparation among party hosts will go on to serve as a running excuse for why they’re too tired to take out the trash for the next five months.

69. That’s the same number of man-hours spent making the movie Avatar.
Neither amount of effort will prove to have been worth it.

70. Here’s a Sweet Infographic if you prefer your facts cartoony. And another Super Bowl Advertising Infographic if you prefer them in multiples.
You’re welcome.

Wesley was knocked unconscious and experienced memory loss during a game on September 24 against SMU. Haraldson did what any physician worth his salt would do and told Patterson Wesley was done for the day. Then Patterson did what an unfortunate amount of college football coaches would do and flipped his lid on the doctor for unreasonably holding Wesley out of the game.

From Kevin O’Reilly’s American Medical Association report quoting Dr. Haraldson:

“Then five or six plays later, I literally was verbally accosted by the coach, screaming at me insanely at the top of his lungs that he doesn’t think [Wesley] has a concussion and what right do I have to hold him out.”

Once TCU took control of the game, going on to win 41-24, TCU Coach Gary Patterson returned and “cast a pseudo-apology” for the outburst, Dr. Haraldson said.

Asked days after the game by ESPN Dallas about Wesley’s condition, Patterson said the sophomore running back was fine. “As far as I’m concerned,” the coach added, “he was fine 10 minutes after he got hurt.”

So that happened. And before we get into what happens next, I’d love to know why Patterson got a free pass on the “as far as I’m concerned” part of his statement. The ESPN Dallas article was one of the few to cover the story and their copy merely recapped what had already happened. No one questioned what a football coach was doing arguing with the team physician? Or what Haraldson would have to gain by frivolously grounding his player. And this isn’t merely a conversation that took place. If you believe Haraldson, this was a one-way verbal shellacking. A shellacking that, at no point, involved Patterson attempting to get all the facts (which is his responsibility in this instance) before going bananas and showed a complete lack of pride and care providing toward its student-athletes.

Now let’s see what happened next.

From the October 20 statement made by Dr. Haraldson:

“TCU takes tremendous pride in the care it provides its student-athletes. Coach Patterson wasn’t aware of the full details of the incident, and I take responsibility for that. We sat down and talked it over, and it’s all been worked out. I apologized to Coach Patterson, and he apologized to me.”

… And everyone in the media let this statement go! Patterson went on ESPN radio and no one challenged him. TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte swept it under the rug as a non-issue. There is no impending investigation, despite the fact that Wesley did have a concussion, has lost portions of his memory and if left to his own devices would have trotted Wesley right back in the game.

Nothing. No biggie. It’s totally cool that Patterson publicly bullied Haraldson and then privately bullied him into softening his report to the AMA. He went from discussing how “insanely breated” he was to taking the wrap for not properly communicating the extent of Wesley’s injury while being embarrassed on the sidelines. This is the equivalent of a mob wife complaining about the restaurant’s food, being taken into the coat closet for five minutes, returning to the table with a black eye and nothing more to say.

The implications alone of TCU’s past and future reactions to player injuries is enough to make everyone’s sudden desire to make this incident go away an alarming development. Anyone who’s ever done a roommates dishes because it wasn’t worth the hassle of getting into an argument over it, or let their kid stay out past curfew because you were too tired to enforce it knows what this is like. But there are much bigger breaks in this system than the ones in charge of dishes and curfews and neither TCU’s coach, nor one of its team physicians seem all that keen on fixing what’s broken.

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Leave it to Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, one of the game’s oldest surviving brethren, to suggest an old solution to this new problem: if the head is constantly in danger, force players to take better care of it by protecting it less. Remove facemasks from helmets.

Last Tuesday, during his weekly press conference, JoePa reminded everyone that in his day, football helmets were made of oxen skin and presidents rolled around on wheelchairs and 3-year-old were expected to kill their food if they wanted to eat that day.

The gist of his suggestion is that by removing protection from the players, that players would be forced to go back to using their shoulders more and return to the fundamentals of safe tackling at the cost of a few more broken noses, but far fewer traumas to the head and neck.

“We used to have a single bar;” Paterno said about football helmets, “now we have a weapon.”

At first this idea sounds nuts, then after a beat it seems clever enough to work. Then after another beat the idea sounds nuts again.

The largest problem with Paterno’s logic here is that helmets (or any football safety equipment was never made so that players could adapt to them. They were made because players had already adapted. Players were already leading with their necks and faces and skulls before any metal was added to the front of helmets. The metal masks were added to protect blows that were already taking place.

Hall of Fame NFL coach Mike Ditka also suggested scaling back on player equipment, taking it a step further than Paterno, citing that helmets should be done away with completely. What neither philosophies (philosophers?) understand is there is a developmental point of no return in sports. If the bar has been set that players should hit with a particular minimum of force or a particular minimum of speed, as long as it is not illegal, there is no going back. Changing the rules of hits and spending numerous seasons enforcing such a change is one thing, but allowing the child to burn its hand on the stove once so they’ll learn never to do it again is (pardon the continued pun) playing with fire. The game’s culture must change, not its execution.

As irrefutable evidence of the effects and damage that contact sports do to players in the long-term continue trickling into our consciousness, the NFL, NCAA and high school athletic programs all over the nation will, like it or not, take action. But that action shouldn’t be to replace silver bullets with copper ones, when the problem is the gun.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

So imagine how my mood improved when I ran across Rick Chandler’s college mascot rankings on NBC’s Out of Bounds blog? Bunches. My mood improved bunches, thanks for asking.

Click here if you’re into it. This post won’t be about the list, but about the first pick of the list. Ohio University’s Rufus the Bobcat (seen at left dry-humping neck-tackling rival mascot, Ohio State’s Brutus.

There has never been a more deserving No.1 in the history of time. Not USC. Not Pete Sampras. Not pee. Nothing. To wit:

Brandon Hanning, who wore the “Rufus The Bobcat” costume during the game, has been banned from participating in Ohio athletic events as the mascot because he twice tackled Brutus Buckeye before the [September 18] game.

Top of the list, indeed.

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Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images