In case you have not been following, there has been a fun journalism tiff going on in which Rick Reilly just delivered a line that would make Costanza proud.  It started when Reilly wrote this article about how Larry Fitzgerald’s father, who is a journalist, has the tough job of occasionally covering his son’s game.  The article talks about how the father does a great job of separating his father-ness from his writing.  Nice idea, nice angle, but not exactly 100% accurate (as you might imagine).

Then, Josh Levin of Slate.com answered the article by doing something called “research.”  His research found that Fitzgerald, Sr. had written 23 glowing articles about his son since 2003.  Levin’s main point, it seems, was just to show that Reilly was picking his info as he wanted to make his story more heartwarming.

But then we get to Reilly’s answer to Levin: “Looks like someone just got a new search button and decided to use it.”

Turns out Reilly’s first choice - “The jerk store called, and they’re running out of you” - had already been used.

***Any insight as to how Reilly’s dig actually is intended to insult?

While none of the CIV folks are Wake Forest fans, exactly, we don’t mind Wake.  The Deacons bring a lot of good things to the table…

—We liked Skip Prosser and were saddened by his passing away so early;

—We like what Dino Gaudio has done in stepping in under some tough circumstances;

—We like the name “Dino Gaudio”;

—We like that Wake ended BYU’s garbage home winning streak;

—We like the way Jeff Teague plays;

—We like what Al-Farouq Aminu brings to the table, and his nasty rebound unk versus Duke;

—We like that it sounds like a WWE event could be headlined by: Dino Gaudio taking on Al-Farouq Aminu in a steel cage;

—We like that Wake is talented enough to look great at times, but young enough to keep games interesting.

But there is one thing we hate about Wake.  It’s stupid, hack, wannabe fans.  That’s right.  You can’t rush the court every time Wake beats another team in North Carolina.  You just can’t do it.  Even the blog entitled “Rush the Court” has chimed in that it’s getting old.   We don’t like your stupid, 1980s tie-dyed shirts either, but we can handle that.  It’s the running onto the court that’s got to stop.

One surefire way to tell a program is still not “there” is to see their fans constantly storming onto the court.  Sure the ending of the Duke game was exciting, but just cheer and move on.  Same with your win over UNC - exciting game, but Wake was ranked 4th.  Not to mention that Wake has now beaten Duke 5 of the last 6 times in Winston-Salem.  And we’re pretty confident that their idiot students have rushed the court after each and every win.  Let it go!

We here at CIV have not been big fans of the now former Alabama hoops coach, Mark Gottfried.  He was an excellent recruiter, but a horrible game coach who could never improve his players after they arrived on campus.  Nor could he manage to keep his talented players around (see: Gerald Wallace, Rod Grizzard, Kennedy Winston, Richard Hendrix).    It should also be noted that really only Wallace - of Bama players that left early - has done anything significant in the pros.

But the telling state of Gottfried’s tenure in Tuscaloosa - in our opinion - is his home and away record.  It’s truly a wonder how one could amass such a disparity in records.  We have commented in the past on how Gottfried was terrible halftime (once suggesting he should wear a huge foam cowboy hat to loosen the team up); and how his teams would play back-to-back games where they would beat a ranked team at home by 10, then lose to an unranked team on the road by 25.  It made no sense.

In the end, here’s what we will remember about Gottfried…

Home record: 145-28

Away record: 27-77 (including 20-62 in conference)

At Youngstown State, learning kids English ain’t exactly our speshulty.

(A sign held up during Friday night’s Youngstown State/Cleveland State game.)

By now, you have likely heard the story of The Covenant School defeating Dallas Academy 100-0 in a girls high school basketball game last week.  If not, you can check here for the story, including Covenant’s request to forfeit the game since dropping 100 on a team is clearly not what Jesus would have done.

In the article, one of the parents of the losing team stated that the players handled things well, but that “spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.”  We wonder who that assistant coach was, who would cheer for his team - while pitching a shutout - to make it to 100 points.

But alas, we have 3 guesses…

(1) Florida coach Urban Meyer (likely not him, though, as there was no mention of Covenant calling a timeout with 45 seconds to play);

(2)  Former Houston Cougars’ quarterback David Klingler (well known for this proud display); or

(3) Coach Harris from “Revenge of the Nerds.”

We have learned that there is already an early effort to get newly sworn-in President Obama to back an amendment to the U.S Constitution.  Apparently, Representative Gus Billrakis (R - Florida) is hoping to capitalize on the new president’s love of sports and push an amendment that would modify Article II of the U.S. Constitution to allow a potential president to also be born in the Philippines.

For more info on this, click here.

We’re probably not the first and likely not the last, but we would like to congratulate the Detroit Lions on their new hire, former Titans’ coordinator Jim Schwartz, which you can read about here.

And we have a word of warning for the rest of the NFC North from the immortal Yogurt: “Never underestimate the power of the Scwhartz.”

And we also have a word of warning for the Lions in case they start the season strong, courtesy of Dark Helmet: “There are two sides to every Schwartz.”

And we… ah, that’s enough.

If you’re like us and don’t have a tie to any of the teams in NFL playoffs, then we know who you should cheer for… the Arizona Cardinals!

Why?  Because if a team like the 9-7 Cardinals wins the Super Bowl, then the NFL will finally be forced to re-evaluate its archaic playoff structure and try something rational like the BCS.