Laughable Pride in the Desert: ASU and Marketing and Full Bladders

On Saturday I was fighting a nice hangover.  That morning I would also make a less-than-shocking realization.  To combat said hangover, I had consumed a multi-vitamin and a medium coffee.  Black.  Overall it was shaping up to be a nice morning: laundry, homemade egg sandwich, that coffee, lazy wake up, some good college hoop.  Indeed, Saturday morning was glorious.

And, per most mornings, I had to urinate at some point.

Now, let’s briefly recap: hangover, multi-vitamin, coffee.  Such a consumption combination and subsequent urination is what led to my less-than-shocking realization.

What I realized Saturday morning as I urinated was how little Arizona State has to be excited about.  It’s a miserable athletic program with little going for it.  They are the worst basketball team in the Pac-10 and they had to apply for bowl status (denied).  They’re ranked below NAU in the Director’s Cup rankings and their primary color is the same as my hungover/multi-vitamin/coffee piss.

This is their current marketing slogan: You Are Proud.  You Are Bold.  You Are ASU.  You Are Our Home Court Advantage.  So, ASU fans are not proud or bold?  They don’t constitute the fan base?  What sort of advantage might they provide?  The athletic department, so averagely run by Lisa Love, is literally reminding their fans to be fans; how to feel and what to be.

Their position of mediocrity neither angers nor saddens me.  It feels about right.  The chants of “U of A” echoing through the emptying Wells Fargo Arena felt about right, too.   Ultimately, Arizona State’s athletic deficiencies are irrelevant to the things I care about, like conference and national championships; so Bear Down.

Allow me to spell out the beginning of what I started here: ASU gold looks like piss.  And piss is bodily waste.  Let’s take that logic and add one more line to ASU’s marketing slogan:

YOU ARE PISS POOR.

The Monday Roast: Cleatus the Fox Sports Robot

1.  Few things could be made better with Shia LaBeouf, you might be one.

2.  Aren't enough stupid, overly dramatic gestures already provided by people during a football game?

3.  If my only friend were a robotic chicken I would taunt the audience too.

4.  A Decepticon would blow something up, you do the worm.

5.  Are you explicitly suggesting that football players are mindless robots made for our entertainment, or just implicitly?

Boom, roasted.

Not Even 'Terrible Towel' Can Clean up Big Ben

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was arrested late last night after he was discovered in the bathroom of a local night club masturbating.  

Aleksy Pierogi, a long time Steelers fan was with friends last night at Fort Worth's "Hard Times," one of over 2.6 million "Steeler Bars" in the United States.  It was just an ordinary night until Pierogi excused himself to use the restroom a little after midnight. 

Pierogi walked into the bathroom where he said he found the Steelers' quarterback "masturbating with a 'Terrible Towel.'"  Fortunately for the Steeler Nation, Pierogi acted quickly.

"I acted on instinct," Pierogi said, "I immediately  snatched the 'Terrible Towel' away from that pervert (Roethlisburger)--not going to let some S.O.B. desecrate a sacred Steeler symbol."  Laughing, Pierogi added, "I don't know why yinz call him 'Big Ben.'"

After discovering Roethlisburger Pierogi told Petey Fonduluci, the manager of Hard Times, what he had seen.  Fonduluci immediately phoned the Fort Worth Sheriff's Department.  Sheriff Tex Daniels, and several officers, arrived shortly afterward and apprehended Roethlisburger in the bathroom.

The Sheriff's office issued the following statement:

"The perpetrator was discovered in the bathroom of a local night club with his pants off around 1 a.m. local time.  He was promptly arrested and taken to the Sheriff's department where he is currently being held."

Roethlisburger was unavailable for comment but issued a statement through his lawyer, Dusty Labia:

"Ben has committed no crime.  He believed the door was locked.  When Mr. Pierogi entered the bathroom, Ben was only freshening himself up for a date, who was supposed to have arrived at the bathroom at 12:15 a.m." 

Apparently the standard is the standard.

The Steelers' organization issued the following statement:  "We support our quarterback, but at the current time we are deeply troubled that a Terrible Towel was involved."