The Curmudgeonly Professor's Sports Wishes for 2011

Here are the wishes that the Curmudgeonly Professor has for the New Year 2011:

1. That we could get through the entire year without some famous sports icon becoming infamous and embarrassing him or herself, the sports world, the fans, the media and the whole world by doing something stupid, selfish, immoral, cruel, or illegal.
2. That neither the Heat nor the Lakers will win  the NBA finals this year.  Go home early and practice up for next year.  We need some fresh faces.
3. That no other sports icon will leave a team, a city, and a state devastated with a moronic press conference to announce that "I'm taking my talents to Miami."  We'll get by just fine, thank you.
4. That the number of college bowl games can be reduced from how many? 200? to a respectable number of teams that actually deserve to be in a bowl game.
5. That we can restore New Year's Day bowl games to their glorious and rightful place in the sports agenda.
6. That we can get rid of the idiotic names of idiotic bowl games that no one cares about except a few alumni and, in some cases, apparently, only a smattering of fans who show up to watch some of these sports travesties.
7. That Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz will finally receive his rightful award of NBA Coach of the Year.  Absolutely shameful that he has never received this honor.
8. That the BCS will vaporize, vanish into thin air, taking their bloviating members who keep avowing the "BCS is good for college sports."  Wrong, you greedy folks.  The BCS is good for the monopolists who control the money, the bowls, and the teams and who invent shameful and distorted reasons why they won't allow worthy non-BCS teams to play in their precious big-money, big-time bowl games.  It's time to break up this little money grubbing love fest and make football playoffs into a system where any worthy team in the country has a right to be playing.
9. That no one on the Heat or the Lakers teams will be named MVP.
10. That a salary cap of $20 million will be put in place for maximum salaries for college football coaches.  How ludicrous is this slot machine jackpot winning system going to become?  Economists say it's a matter of how much $$$ someone brings in to the school, and, since English professors who win big writing prizes come cheap and work for peanuts and bring in little money, they labor teaching our next generation how to write and think, while football coaches teach great big boys how to bash the daylights out of other teams and generate zillions of dollars of revenue.  After all, what is the purpose of a university?  Something has gotten seriously out of hand here, folks.
11. That the entire year will go by without some sports commentator saying "That's what it's all about."  Egregious.  Two indefinite antecedents strung ungrammatically and unmercifully together.
12. That sideline commentators and reporters actually have some competence in the sport they are sideline commentating about, and that they actually think up some other question to ask a coach at half time whose team is losing by 40 points instead of "what changes are you going to have to make in the second half, coach?"  Bless the coaches, who by and large endure these inane questions and speak civilly.
13. That we don't have to hear "the game was closer than the score indicates."  The score is the game, and if someone blew it in the last 30 seconds after being ahead 30 points and then lose by 1 point, that is the game, people.
14. That we don't have to hear "we only beat ourselves, the other team didn't beat us."  This weak chestnut is the ultimate illusion of whipped teams.  Sorry, loser, but the other team beat you or you wouldn't be sitting on the bench 5 minutes after the game is over wiping away the tears and making excuses.
15. That the maximization of bare skin on cheerleaders be reversed so some sense of modesty prevails.  Oh, I forgot.  We're in the ticket selling business, not the modesty business.

There, sports fans, are just a few of the sports wishes the Curmudgeonly Professor fondly hopes for in the year of  2011.  And don't wait up expecting any of these wishes to be fulfilled.