Take heart, Atlanta: We no longer lead any league in stupidity!
Bobby Petrino once was a Bird. Now he's just a birdbrain. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
This hasn’t been the easiest time to care about sports around here. The Braves collapsed in September, made no moves of note over the winter and started the new season 0-4. The Falcons didn’t score a point on offense in their playoff loss, made no ripple in free agency and don’t have a Round 1 pick in the draft. The Georgia Bulldogs lost the SEC championship game by 32 points, blew the Outback Bowl and have seen much of their defensive backfield arrested and/or suspended.
And here’s where we cast our eyes toward yonder horizon and espy …
A silver lining.
Our sporting fortunes might not be all that exciting at the moment, but we’ve gotten past the point (at least for the moment) where they’re utterly stupid. For utterly stupid, we must turn elsewhere in the South.
• An SEC head coach wrecked his motorcycle with his girlfriend aboard, and he did it, appropriately enough, on April Fool’s Day. He failed to mention the girlfriend’s presence to his boss (or, presumably, to his wife and children). Apparently this young woman was so dear to the coach that he not only hired her but gave her $20,000. The coach was fired Tuesday night.
• A National League East manager gave an interview to Time and expressed an affection for a despot, saying: “I love Fidel Castro.” That manager’s team had just christened a shining new stadium in an area of Miami known as Little Havana for its preponderance of Cubans, many of whom fled Castro’s regime. The manager was suspended Tuesday for five games.
• An NFC South team condoned a bounty program that was in place when this long-suffering franchise finally won a Super Bowl. The NFL’s discovery of these bounties resulted in a year’s suspension for the head coach, a half-year’s suspension for the general manager and a six-game suspension for the assistant head coach. The NFL upheld those penalties Monday.
It isn’t just that we Atlantans/Georgians can bask in the warm glow of schadenfreude. (That’s German for “pleasure taken from the misfortune of others.”) There’s a chance our local entries will benefit from this run of misbehavior. The NFC South team is New Orleans, which has beaten the Falcons 10 times in 12 games under the now-suspended Sean Payton. The NL East team managed by Ozzie Guillen is the Marlins, who spent heavily on personnel and have been tabbed by some to finish ahead of the Braves. And the SEC West team …
Well, that’s a double boon. Arkansas was seen as a top 10 team for 2012, just like Georgia, and the Razorbacks were coached by Bobby Petrino, who ran out on the Falcons after 13 games in 2007 and stands alongside Steve Spurrier and Jim Leyritz as the biggest villain in Atlanta/Georgia sports annals. Our response to Petrino’s (literal and figurative) fall: It couldn’t have happened to a nicer rat.
There’s another savory twist to this outbreak of idiocy. For once, Atlanta hasn’t been the source of such gaffes. Goodness knows, that hasn’t always been the case.
We’re the city that saw its NFL team’s only Super Bowl appearance besmirched by the arrest of Eugene Robinson for solicitation only hours after he accepted the league’s good citizenship award. We’re the city that saw its NBA franchise snarled in court for five years because one owner balked at the trade for Joe Johnson. We’re the city that recoiled when its baseball team’s closer gave an interview to another Time-Life publication — in John Rocker’s case, it was Sports Illustrated — that offended nearly every ethnicity. We’re the city that lost its NHL franchise — twice!
We in Atlanta saw our NFL team draft Michael Vick No. 1 overall and pay him big money, some of which he invested in a dogfighting enterprise in Virginia. To maximize Vick’s talent, the same NFL team hired Petrino away from Louisville. (As it happened, Petrino never coached Vick in a game.) We’re the city where the Georgia athletic director Damon Evans took his swerving midnight ride up Roswell Road with a woman who wasn’t his wife and whose undergarments weren’t in place.
Over time, we in Atlanta have known far more than our fair share of ridicule, so you’ll have to pardon us if we’re chuckling at the moment. We were just named the nation’s most miserable sports city by Forbes, and you know what they say about misery. It just loves company. And here’s where we say:
“Pull up a chair, Brother Petrino, and tell us all about it. Heh, heh, heh.”
By Mark Bradley
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235 comments Add your comment
alpharetta alice
April 12th, 2012
1:17 pm
no new downtown stadium…build it in northern suburbs around acworth or canton, or keep the garbage youhave…philips should have been built in the north also…nobody wants to go downtown and deal with the bs surrounding downtown…
microphone assassin
April 12th, 2012
1:18 pm
check check
microphone assassin
April 12th, 2012
1:19 pm
no new downtown stadium…canton, acworth…any northern suburb, yes…downtown, NO…
Bill in NC
April 12th, 2012
1:20 pm
nice article, Mark; especially like what you captured in the first paragraph about no free agency splashes and GA’s spat of arrests. Guess we’ll trust the Wrens, Dimitroffs and CMRicht a while longer. Maybe CMR should wratchet up the discipline, but GA definitely knows they’ve got quite an incredible leader of young guys in Coach Richt. Don’t think Shakespeare could have written the Petrino fall. What tangled webs we weave
evil empire
April 12th, 2012
1:22 pm
bill in nc…you were kidding about the cmr/incredible leader thing, right?
Ozzie G. the Marxist
April 12th, 2012
1:35 pm
I love communist tyrants like Fidel. I really like how he and his buddy/comrade Kruschev brought the world to the brink of nuclear war when Kennedy was President.
Move the Marlins to the Peoples Republic of Cuba now!
Taxi Smith
April 12th, 2012
1:47 pm
I’d like to remind Buckeye about Hayes and Tressel. But his point is well taken.
J-Dawg
April 12th, 2012
2:10 pm
GT-Falcon………Ya’ll are apart of Georgia……..kind of like bat boys being a part of the Braves
Moneyball
April 12th, 2012
2:13 pm
Pamela, why all the bitterness? Sounds like no one is inviting you for a motorcycle ride.
dougbq
April 12th, 2012
3:19 pm
Bobby Petrino is a sports villian for much greater reasons than Steve Spurrier and Jim Leyritz . Atlanta people may not like them, but at least they were just playing the game. Petrino was/is an idiot. Completely different and much worse. Idiot may not be a strong enough word.
sting_em
April 12th, 2012
3:26 pm
Hate it for his family, but Petrino got what he deserved. I hope his wife takes everything else as she walks out the door.
Kyle
April 12th, 2012
3:29 pm
The Georgia Bulldogs lost the SEC championship game by 32 points,
Tell me Mark….perhaps you can comment on the 10 teams THAT DIDNT MAKE IT TO THE SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME……and funny, you talk about the Braves, Falcons and UGA but fail to mention the trade school on North Ave who has a long and storied history of gaffs…..GEEZ
dean
April 12th, 2012
5:05 pm
My last word on this gift from the heavens: There is a reason Harleys are called Milwaukee Vibrators.
Smitty
April 12th, 2012
7:42 pm
Say What….very true comment
Smitty
April 12th, 2012
7:44 pm
J-Dawg…now that’s funny
Disgusted
April 12th, 2012
7:58 pm
If the Braves had not folded in September there would not be as much bashing of Fredi Gonzalez who I still think was a good move.
I was happy with him through August of last yr.
I do think Fredi will have a tougher time around this time because the NL East is better.
Liberty Cheapedia is the problem. TW helped set up the problem with that lousy TV deal. But Wren has fared as well as almost any GM could under the circumstances.
Outside of Kawakami, cannot really bash any of the Wren moves at the time they were made.
Yall telling me that U did not think the Mc Louth move was great at the time it was made? Did not work but hindsight is 20/20.
Disgusted
April 12th, 2012
8:00 pm
Petrino is a fool but I still say he did Blank, the Falcons and their fans a big favor walking away.
Hey, in spite of the playoff losses, we have never had it so good as we have it under Mike Smith.
We are not great but pretty good. We never had even a mini run before, just a few spotted yrs of success that never were sustained.
Disgusted
April 12th, 2012
8:01 pm
Mike Bradley forgot about losing the Thrashers in addition to the supid stuff that has gone around.
Did not have to happen.
Mark Bradley
April 12th, 2012
8:39 pm
“We’re the city that saw its NFL team’s only Super Bowl appearance besmirched by the arrest of Eugene Robinson for solicitation only hours after he accepted the league’s good citizenship award. We’re the city that saw its NBA franchise snarled in court for five years because one owner balked at the trade for Joe Johnson. We’re the city that recoiled when its baseball team’s closer gave an interview to another Time-Life publication — in John Rocker’s case, it was Sports Illustrated — that offended nearly every ethnicity. We’re the city that lost its NHL franchise — twice!”
Is that not a nod to losing the Thrashers?
Tide Rising
April 12th, 2012
9:05 pm
Probably still the nation’s worst sports city. The pro teams for the most part have traditionally sucked except for the Braves in the 90s and early 2000s. And in college the 2 college football teams have to look 1 state over to see where the last 3 national titles have resided. Kinda of embarrassing if you’re a dawg or jacket fan and you have to look at the dominance of the state of Alabama over the state of Georgia in college sports- particularly football.
Promethius
April 12th, 2012
9:38 pm
Jealous of CMR or not, I don’t think you can in good conscience attack his character. But I can say this about Coach Johnson as well. State of Ga. has two fine men football coaches (same for Coach Curry). I have my doubts about coaches in Fl. and Alabama. Tenn coaches and La. coaches are fine with me as well.
is there any truth to the rumor that your colleque
April 12th, 2012
10:46 pm
jeff schultz was engaged in a 3 way with petrino and is gf? jeff must love giving reach arounds. lmao.
j
April 12th, 2012
10:48 pm
Atlanta Hawks, they at least did something … same for the Atlanta Dream … football and baseball isn’t everything numbnuts
Disgusted
April 12th, 2012
10:49 pm
Sorry, I missed that Mark Must have sped read too fast. .
Guess I am still DISGUSTED that we lost what was my favorite live sporting event in the city, but the Phillips Arena is still DEAD to me as long as the Octocluster is around.
And I respect what the players and coaches of the Hawks have done this yr but do not want to support them. Used to go to a couple games a yr but not now, if and when the Spirit go, will be back.
j
April 12th, 2012
10:50 pm
Ga Southern football also did well and racked up the most points against Alabama.
Disgusted
April 12th, 2012
10:53 pm
I would take the charachter of Coaches Richt and Johnson over just about anything that most schools have to offer.
The National Championship would be nice but in College sports its not everything.
Richt is underappreciated, he cannot be there all the time to make sure his guys do the right thing.
Jim R
April 12th, 2012
11:00 pm
At this hour, George OLeary is still trying to type his resume properly.
gt forever
April 13th, 2012
7:51 am
Petrino’s accident on April fools day bettered my receipt of orders for VietNam on April Fools day 1970. The goats of the UGA campus probably started on the job on April Fools day as well. Petrino and his girlfriend, UGA and goats on campus, the ex-UGA AD and red panties, you just cannot make this stuff up. Makes me laugh in between working math problems.
pace53
April 13th, 2012
8:31 am
Mr. Blank is nobody to turn your back on….be careful what you wish for ..and Petrino got it back-
IN SPADES..
Don
April 13th, 2012
9:29 am
In your listing of reasons why the Braves no longer lead any league in STUPIDITY, you left off the MOST IMPORTANT, SIGNIFICANT REASON. —-
THE BRAVES NO LONGER HAVE BOBBY COX AS MANAGER – no matter how bad that Fredi may be – he doesn’t come close to the Boob.
Billy
April 13th, 2012
9:50 am
“This GM always in a hurry,” Mark……I love it!
Braves would have been better off with D Moore than F Wren. JS and all front office needs to go.
Milburn Drysdale
April 13th, 2012
10:07 am
Tise Rising…..”worst sports city”? Well, at least we have a sports city. A lot more than we can say about the dump of the South of Alabammer.
Ranger
April 13th, 2012
9:09 pm
Do you think Petrino might have had difficulty driving that motorcycle because he was also undergarments for his female companion?
Beefstu
April 15th, 2012
3:37 am
Who cares about hockey?
Dawg1
April 16th, 2012
9:45 am
Buckeye – really? The land of cheating football players, with your last National Championship tainted by a thug. With a coach who lied to the University and the NCAA? In a conference that also gave the NCAA it’s biggest scandel of all time – hiding a Coach who sexually abused boys for decades…
On the professional side – that means your likely a Brown/Bengal fan, Cavs fan, Reds/Indians fan – if it’s the Reds, then you got a little.
Your right… Thank goodness your a Buckeye.