F.U. T.O.

Double-shot today, since I completely forgot to post yesterday.

Today I ask, why the hell do I care that Terrell Owens may or may not have attempted to commit suicide yesterday?

I have enough trouble mustering up any kind of sympathy for regular people that can’t battle their way through their tough high school lives, or whatever problems they have in their lives, let alone millionaire athletes.

In addition to my inability to give a damn, there are conflicting stories from every side of this thing, and it’s possible we’ll never know the truth.

Plus, there’s a school of thought (to which I subscribe) that says the idiots that don’t get the job done are even bigger cowards than the people that do kill themselves.

Another thing that nags at me about this whole Owens thing, which is just the latest pathetic chapter in a pathetic story, is the fact he’s on the front page of pretty well every sports website out there right now, and I repeat, we have now idea what actually happened.

Meanwhile, Sunday afternoon a 19-year-old defensive back for Rice University died during a workout, and the story was buried.

Dale Lloyd, a freshman at Rice is a student-athlete, playing for a respectable football program at a school with a respectable academic record just trying to have a chance to make the pros.

Student-athletes are faced with enormous pressure every day of their lives, and most of them don’t end up cashing in on the talent they have.

So when a student dies, trying to live the dream, the story really shouldn’t be buried by a maybe-maybe not suicide attempt by one of the game’s leading money makers and the game’s leading prima donna-- a man who, by most accounts, makes a mockery of the dream every time he opens his mouth.

To Terrell Owens: go away.

To the family and friends of Dale Lloyd: all the best in this difficult time.

Lastly, and off-topic completely, an updated link from the end of the Ken Griffey Jr blog a couple days ago: Click

From yesterday:

For the second time, this space is forced to come face-to-face with a legend leaving the world of golf.

Byron Nelson passed away yesterday at age 94.

Memorials and tributes will pour in, as will tales of the legend. All of them will come from figures more authoritative than this space, so please, indulge in what others have to offer.

From this corner of the Internet, we’ll admire the stats and the numbers because it’s what we’ve grown accustomed to. Having never seen Nelson play, we can only marvel in what the numbers tell us he accomplished.

Among those accomplishments is an 11-tournament winning streak in the summer of 1945, which paved the way to his record 18 wins that year. Both records still stand today, and by comparison, Tiger Woods’ longest winning streak is his current streak of five tournaments.

A major part of Nelson’s story is a lifelong battle with fellow legend Ben Hogan, as well as a strong rivalry with Sam Snead. Alongside Nelson’s 52 PGA Tour victories, Hogan and Snead helped the trio finish with 196 victories between them, including 21 major title wins, and another 18 second-place finishes.

Before Jack Niklaus won the Masters at age 23 in 1963, Nelson was Augusta’s youngest winner at age 25.

And above all his accolades and triumphs on golf courses all over the world, it was his reputation as one of the nicest and friendliest golfers around that made Nelson the fan favourite he was.

So long, Byron, the game was better when you were with us.