It’s not a terribly original idea, but why mess with a winner? In a year with so many contenders, here are my choices for a few of the turkeys, and turkey moves, of the year….
Sports first.
Whoever had the bright idea of spending over $4 million – including a buyout to his old school, West Virginia, to hire Rich Rodriguez as the new Michigan football coach. While many expected a transition year, few expected a 3 and 9 record. On the bright side, no one’s talking any more about that loss in 2007 to Appalachian State.
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The Oklahoma City Thunder. Group effort, players and management. Besides stealing the team from Seattle. management came up with a silly name, and made the Warriors give up their Thunder mascot. As for the players, well, 1-14 speaks for itself. Some sympathy here for the citizens of Oklahoma City who have never had a major professional team before. And they still don’t.
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The BCS – probably a Hall of Fame contender in any top turkey list. But this year they could outdo themselves, with a strong possibility of seven strong one-loss teams, and two undefeated smaller conference teams (Ball State and Indiana.) Barack Obama wants a college playoff system – had he announced this before the election he might have won the South too.
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Politics.
Mark Penn – for so many reasons, the capper being perhaps the fact that he didn’t know that the California Democratic primary was winner take all. And for taking a New York Yankees level type payroll and getting New York Yankees type results. (Although campaigns don’t even have to pay a luxury tax.) On the other hand, if Hillary likes the Secretary of State job she can thank him for helping her get in that position.
Bill Clinton – for deciding the week of the South Carolina primary to remind everyone that Barack Obama was black. Like we wouldn’t have noticed.
Ralph Nader would have won, except nobody cares anymore.
Left Coast Sports Babe 