I’m ready. Ready to waste space every Tuesday with a column that has just one goal — not to waste space.

You can make the call on that one. But before you do, please understand a bit more about me. My goals may be few, but my ignorant judgments are plentiful. In a world of dime-a-dozen opinions, mine sell for a nickel.

And how better to introduce myself than by supplying an entire roll of them?

— First off, I wouldn’t hesitate to group basketball recruiting gurus in the same social category as porn-booth window-washers. The people who actually care about what these so-called experts say don’t deserve to be much higher. Give these 17-year-old kids a break. They’re already living under a microscope — and I think the lens happens to be in the shape of an Adidas logo.

— I’d guess that a surprising number of students leave ‘… at the gym’ away messages when they’re actually shipwrecked on the sofa with the remote control pointed at ‘Friends.’

— I don’t necessarily blame athletes who dislike the media. Heck, sometimes I dislike the media. As a general rule, we’re slovenly, obese and deceitful. That’s about a third of the deadly sins right there. If it was a crime to wear clip-on ties and wind-blown comb-overs, half of us would already have a press pass to hell.

— I think cell phones are ruining the world order, and I bet a lot of professors here would say that’s an understatement.

— I’m pretty sure that when the Syracuse football season kicks off Thursday against Brigham Young, I won’t care one way or the other if baseball is about to strike. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, the Pirates are generally eliminated from mathematical contention the same day football season starts.

Meanwhile, with 28 bowl games this year, I think Syracuse could still remain in the bowl picture even if it recruited a starting offense of Sour Citrus Society tuba players.

— I’ve been back at school for barely a week and I’m already sick of Billy Fuccillo.

— I am puzzled about where the Carrier Dome acquired this reputation as, if not the Eighth Wonder of the World, at least the First Wonder of I-90. More often than not, that billowy Teflon roof only spoils a crisp afternoon of college football. Sorry, but I’ll take the colors of a late-afternoon sky and the smells of autumn over the colors of concrete and smells of a urinal trough.

— Since we’re on the subject of the Dome, I’m convinced that Syracuse athletics has the worst logo this side of the Cleveland Browns.

— I think there is something to Paul Pasqualoni’s overuse of three words — very, good and awful. The Syracuse head coach could have a point. After all, the Orangemen will have a very awful offense. They’ll have an awfully good defense. And they’ll have a special teams game — led by punt-returner Jamel Riddle — that will be, quite simply, very good to watch.

— I’d be willing to wager that if no well-known human being has gotten stuck in a bathtub since President Taft, Anna Nicole Smith will follow any time now.

— I still need to rub my eyes over just a few mistakes — yes, they have to be mistakes — in the SU football schedule. First, the Orangemen decided to schedule a non-cupcake (Pittsburgh) for their Homecoming game Oct. 5. The school deserves further kudos for scheduling Parents Weekend on Nov. 9 against Virginia Tech. Wow, mom and dad won’t have to sit through another game against Temple or Rutgers. My parents thought those were the only two teams Syracuse played each year.

— I get annoyed by freshmen who still wear those ratty Syracuse hats and T-shirts they bought back in high school. Dude, we know you’re here.

— I’ll say it right now, just to corner kick a dead horse: I hate soccer. It’s just hype one month every four years followed by a period of American disinterest that rivals the typical C-SPAN broadcast. The game has lots of running but hardly any scoring, and I’m almost certain this would remain true even with MiniMe in goal.

— Lastly, I’m slightly amazed that I reached the conclusion of this column without penning a single complimentary word or positive remark about anybody or anything. Nothing but negativity these days in the press, huh? See, I told you I was ready.

Published on August 26, 2002 at 12:00 pm