Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
It was boring putting this list together
Writer Drew Magary handled this week’s edition of the Funbag blog on Deadspin.com, in which he covered several topics, including a response to a letter asking him for the top boring athletes of all time.
“I’m not talking about personalities,” the letter reads. “I mean strictly based on their style of play, or lack thereof. Athletes with no flair or who actively make the games boring to watch, but are brutally effective.”
Given that criteria, here are the top five athletes Magary came up with: 1. Patrick Ewing: “No one’s even close. Frankly, the whole reason I’m doing this listicle is so I can rant and rave about how miserable it was to watch Patrick Ewing ply his trade,” Magary wrote. “Do you like watching a seven-foot fella wearing 16 different knee braces take five steps to the hoop without dribbling before turning around and bricking a sad midrange jumper from the baseline? Well then, ol’ Pat was YOUR GUY.” 2. Pete Sampras: “Everyone b****ed about Pete Sampras’ mechanical dominance back when he was racking up titles. And guess what? Everyone was right. There’s no revising history for Pete Sampras. There’s no looking back and being oddly appreciative of him turning tennis into a rote, serve-and-volley massacre.”
3. Brooks Koepka: “He’s young, but he’s got so much potential to be the world’s dullest golfer,” Magary wrote. “He’s already spoiled so many majors already with his beefy, vacuous presence, and he’s not done. Brooks Koepka is golfing chloroform. It shouldn’t be legal to make this sport MORE boring.”
4. Tim Duncan: “Every time you complain about Tim Duncan, a basket-blogger appears in your bathroom mirror to chastise you for having such an old and tired take. ‘Maybe YOU’RE the boring one!’ they’ll say. But they’re wrong. I am rock and roll, and Tim Duncan was a bank shot-hoarding dullard with a rainy day face. I don’t care how jazzy his footwork was.”
5. Lance Armstrong: “Did you ever watch Lance Armstrong race? Of course you didn’t. It’s a bike race. You’ve got a life. Even if you do watch a bike race, you still need the announcers to tell you why the guy in front is actually losing and why the dude a quarter mile behind is absolutely dominating.”
Other athletes that made the list include Peyton Manning, James Harden, Tom Glavine, David Robinson, Jason Witten and Troy Aikman.
No bull
Nashville Predators Coach Peter Laviolette pulled out a bull’s head to lighten the grind of the 82-game NHL regular season and challenge the Predators to get a couple of road victories.
Win both games in western Canada, and Laviolette would put on the bull’s head while talking to reporters.
The Predators won both games, beating the Calgary Flames 5-3 and shutting out the Oilers in Edmonton 3-0 on Saturday night.
So Laviolette put on the bull’s head.
“Guys want to have fun at the end of the day,” Laviolette said Monday. “When there’s a couple minutes left in the game and Roman [Josi] finally puts in the empty-netter and they’re laughing at me and calling for [famed rodeo bull] Bushwacker at the press conference, you know you’re in trouble. So like I said, it was fun. It was good to go up there and win a couple games and just have some fun.”