theDIRTalert – 7.21.12

Penn State, Joe Paterno, Dwight Howard, NFL DUI’s, and the MLB HOF are today’s topics!

theDIRTalert is an article series that let’s you get the thoughts and opinions on the biggest stories in sports from theSPORTSfeast’s own Matt Dirty.  Please feel free to comment or leave your feedback as well as giving us your opinions via twitter @theSPORTSfeast!  Thanks for reading!

I’ll start off today by talking about two stories that I am absolutely sick of hearing about.  I’ve heard enough about the tragedy at Penn State and if I hear Dwight Howard’s name one more time I may vomit.  Seriously, how long are we going to have to deal with these two stories?

Yes, the Penn State situation is tragic and is something that should not have happened, but please, move on.  The football team should not be punished.  The university should not be punished.  Those involved in the situation are gone and Jerry Sandusky will have plenty of time to think about his actions behind bars.  Punishing the university or the football program would just do more harm to both, and I’m not sure that either of them can take much more.  There are discussions about the Joe Paterno statue on the campus of Penn State and weather or not it should be taken down or moved.  My opinion is that after all of this talk about Jerry Sandusky calms down and passes, when you think of Penn State football the first person you will think about will STILL be Joe Paterno.  Why would you erase the history of the man who built this football program and put it on the map?  I’m not saying you honor or condone the fact that he did not go to the correct authority in the Sandusky situation, I’m just saying he was one heck of a football coach and as a university, you can’t erase that.  I don’t know why you would want to.  Move the statue so it’s not the center of attention, but don’t erase everything that Joe Paterno has done for you because of this.

As far as Dwight Howard is concerned…I don’t care where you play next year, who you get traded for, or if you sign a long term deal.  The bottom line is that you are killing the Magic and any team that they trade you to by not signing long term.  I think about all of the running backs in the NFL who would absolutely love to have a long term deal, but you refuse to take one.  Any team that you get traded to is going to have to deplete their roster without the assurance of you playing for them beyond next year.  You’re killing the Magic and your future team right now.  If I were an NBA GM or coach, I wouldn’t want you on my team.  None of this matters anyway, because no matter where you go you won’t win a championship…the HEAT are going to REPEAT!

Another day, another DUI story linked to the NFL.  This time it’s Kenny Britt, WR for the Tennessee Titans.  How does this keep happening?  Are you telling me that NFL players can’t afford someone to drive them around and keep them out of trouble?  Actually, they don’t even have to do that…their teams provide escort services for them.  Are these NFL players really not smart enough to see all of the stories about DUI’s and do something to make sure it doesn’t happen to them? I’d really like to see the average Wonderlic scores of  every NFL player who has had a DUI or legal troubles this off-season…I can imagine it wouldn’t be pretty.

Despite all of these negative things happening in sports, there are GOOD stories to talk about too.  On Sunday Barry Larkin and Ron Santo will be enshrined into Cooperstown when they are inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame.  Barry Larkin played every one of his 19 big league seasons with the Cincinnati Reds.  Guys like this won’t be found very often these days.  Will there ever be another player inducted that played his entire career with one team?  Derek Jeter comes to mind, as well as Chipper Jones, and Mariano Rivera.  Larkin was a 12 time all star and won 9 silver slugger awards in his career.  Santo, who unfortunately won’t be here to experience his induction as he passed away December 2^nd, 2010, won 5 gold gloves in his career.  It’s always great to see careers celebrated with HOF inductions, hopefully we can have this ceremony without anyone shifting the focus to steroids.

That’s all for now…thanks for reading!

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison