2007 Legend Of Cecilio Guante Sports Stuff Awards

The Award For Our Favorite Picture We've Used In This Space

I don't know if I hate end of the year awards/top ten lists and the such or if I like them. I definitely don't love them. On one hand I'm kind of a sucker for Top Ten Lists and Year End Awards, but on the other hand they always leave me feeling a little empty. Plus, it's a long fricking year so it always kind of confuses me. Sports wise, I think in terms of seasons.

For example, all of last season's NFL playoff games took place in 2007, which means that they happened this year. But back then, the Pats weren't an uber-team whose television presence or lack there of could bend the NFL Commissioner's will (with a little help from the Senate), the Jets were in the playoffs, the Ravens were 13-3 and the Saints were enjoying their run as America's darlings. Likewise for the NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, important Bowl Games, and the college hoops tourney. All of the important teams in those sports now A.) have a completely different make up and new rosters at this point and B.) have started a new season making last season's games that happened during this calendar year kind of irrelevant.

But what the hell, if I can't stop myself from reading all of the end of the year crap, how can I possibly stop myself from writing my own end of the year crap? So, without further ado, here are the 2007 Legend of Cecilio Guante Sports Stuff Awards:


The Best College Football Game That I Was Too Tired (hungover?) To Watch: Oklahoma vs. Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. My friends and I had rented a lake house for a week's worth of New Year's festivities, and by the time that game came around I was bedridden. I kept hearing yells and screams from those watching the game downstairs and kept thinking to myself, okay that must be the last big play of the game. No game can have enough big plays to keep a group of partied out friends yelling for two straight hours. I watched the highlights on youtube, and sure enough, that game did have that many unbelievable plays. Why couldn't I have rolled downstairs to watch that? How did I miss that game? What a lapse of judgment.

The Athlete Who Learned The Least From Rafael Palmeiro: Roger Clemens. Rocket Man, do you remember Raffy's immortal quote? Here's a refresher, "Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I don't know how to say it anymore clearly than that. Never." Denial my man, is not the way to go at this point. How about a statement like, "I just want to be clear that needles are the only thing that other men have ever put in my ass." On the plus side, we did get this ironic twist, the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association getting cold feet over having Clemens as their keynote speaker and launching into a speech about how his training routine has kept him in baseball for so long. Even if they don't replace Clemens, they should at least demand a transcript of his speech before he takes the podium.

The Billy Packer, Did He Just Say That? Award: Tim Hardaway. Timmy, don't sugar coat it, tell us how you really feel. How did that attitude pan out for you during your Golden State days? This award dates back to Packer's "tough monkey" comments describing Allen Iverson driving strong to the basket for the Hoyas against Villanova circa 1996.

The Maria Sharapova, Hottest Breakout Athlete Chick On The Planet Award: ?????. I don't know, I'm at a loss here. Have there been any breakthrough smoking hot chicks that are good at tennis, golf or soccer this year? Who is the next jail bait, super hot athlete chick? Please let me know, it's been awhile since we've had a fresh face to take the torch. And really she doesn't have to be jail bait, it just seems like they usually are. Funny, that leads perfectly into the next award.....

The Mascot Who Looks Most Like A Pedophile Award: Steely McBeam. He's real popular in Pittsburgh. I hate you, Steely McBeam

And of course there's the Shut Your Whine Hole Award: This one goes to all the Pats and Bill Belichick haters out there. The Pats run up the score, boo-hoo. Belichick wants to run the other teams in the league into the ground, and all of his players do to. The Pats look for every edge they can get. Good, that's what a football team is supposed to do. They just go out and kick ass, so good for them.

**Editor's Note, if you hate the Patriots simply because they're from somewhere near Boston or for some other reason than the fact that they kick the crap out of everybody, then that's okay.