Barch Unrated
By Andy Barch
I know, I know, its been a very long time since I last appeared on the blog. My apologies, although I must admit, I'm still ahead of Maurice Clarrett's 40 time.

The Tice is right for anybody who wants scalped super bowl tickets. This story is outstanding, I mean this guy's job is "saved" after he beats an embarrassing Packer team in the playoffs and then he loses a GIANT headache in Randy Moss, while getting a decent linebacker, 2 draft picks and is still 31 million dollars under the salary cap. Suddenly, a coach who makes millions of dollars a year is too good to give these tickets away to charities or donate them to a family who would love to go, but can't due to financial restrictions. I hate bashing Tice because I've always thought that he was a great guy, but if this is true, then he's no better than Marc O'Hair.

How do the two compare? Who is Marc O'Hair? Two obvious questions that I feel I need to answer. If you read Rick Reilly's articles in Sports Illustrated then you know who Marc O'Hair is. Read the article and you'll soon learn to hate Marc O'Hair who treated his son Sean like dirt and for all intensive purposes FORCED him to be a golfer. Sean has succeeded in becoming a golfer but his dad made him sign a contract when he was 17 to give his father 10% of his earnings for life and $100,000 dollars for various expenses. Thus, capitalizing on something that he took for granted. This was another OUTSTANDING article by Mr. Reilly, you can read this article of Reilly's in the January 31st, 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated.

Now that you know who Marc O'Hair is and what he did, you're probably asking how the two compare. Marc O'Hair has something special, no its not a great golfer, but a son. One that he put through hell and back and took for granted and tried to capitalize off of him by FORCING him to sign a contract when he was 17. While Tice's actions, not quite as extreme, are somewhat similar because of what he DIDN'T DO. Mike Tice is a coach with a lot of integrity, a lot more than O'Hair for that matter. What he did by selling his tickets to the highest bidder and not giving them to someone who really could have used them (charities, unfortunate families etc.) really makes him look bad. Tice was given something special, and he completely and totally mis-used it. He had the chance to go to the game, or he could have done the right thing and given the tickets to somebody who was less fortunate. Instead, he became a classic example of the Rich breaking the rules to try and get richer. As for O'Hair, he had something special, and he completely mis-used it as well. Instead of raising his son, and not force-feeding him, he decided to make his son live life HIS way, and now, he is suffering the consequences because of it. Sean hasn't spoken to him for 2 years, and deep down inside you know Marc is suffering. No man ever fully recovers from losing his son. Perhaps that's the largest difference between Tice and O'Hair.

This just in, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jeremy Giambi and Scott Steiner are all on steroids. Is anybody at all surprised at this? Some people who are shocked by all this absolutely amaze me. What are we going to uncover next? Michael Jackson's number of psychological examinations have equaled his amount of facelifts? No no, I got it, Ted Kennedy's addiction to alcohol rivals that of R. Kelly's infatuation of urinating on minors. Can we please uncover something that we didn't already know? This is getting ridiculous.

On that same token, I think we have begun to scratch the surface on the real problem here. Somebody needs to pat ESPN on the back for their poll a few months ago when it was revealed that 49% of the people polled said they would take steroids if they knew that it gave them a better chance at stardom in professional sports.

This is a very scary number. The media needs to do a better job of exposing the consequences of steroids. That 49% needs to be reduced immediately. If kids begin to think that they're all destined to be Giambi's, McGwire's or Bonds's by injecting themselves with the juice then the youth of America is in serious trouble. Again, ESPN's weeklong series on Sportscenter did expose some of those consequences and they should be complimented for that but the bigger networks need to crackdown harder on the consequences.

I appreciate the exposure, I'll see you all again when Jeffrey Lebowski and Walter Sobcheck defeat Jesus and Leo O'Brien in the much anticipated bowling match in the sequel to the Big Lebowski.