Idiots Write About Sports

This Tim Keown piece on ESPN is worth reading. Among other things, it exposes just how much better Tim Keown is at his chosen profession than Dave Albee.

I watched a middle-aged guy… lose his mind over a football game. He… hurled some of the vilest words you can ever imagine at Cal quarterback Joe Ayoob as Ayoob left the field…. This was nasty, hide-the-kids stuff: Ayoob was awful, he was worthless, and he apparently is lying about his gender. One of his points is difficult to argue: Ayoob has not been a good quarterback, and his work against USC was so bad it was often hard to detect the target of his passes….
You know what saved it? A guy standing two feet away from the obscene loudmouth lit him up. He kept it clean, but he made it clear that anybody whose life is that empty should find another way to express his inadequacies. Most people within earshot showed their agreement with a round of applause.

That pretty much says it all. Ayoob may be a terrible quarterback, but he’s also a college kid who is trying his best and wants to succeed. If you want to brand him with the scarlet J (which stands for Torchio and/or Vedder), go ahead — but please don’t pelt him with obscenities. Don’t make it personal. Nobody wishes Joe Ayoob was a better quarterback more than Joe Ayoob.