I love sports. I love ESPN.com. It's my trusted source.
Now I'm happy for that 13-year-old girl from Jersey that won the Spelling Bee. I really am. That's some tough stuff, winning a spelling bee. (I should know, the word chasm ended my run for glory back in 1990 in the county bee.) But, uh, what the fuquois does that have to do with ESPN.com?
Since when is spelling a friggin' sport? It has similar elements for sure, but it's not a sport. Help me understand this. Is it because there's elimination involved? Emotion? Mental prowess? Nerves? (What other qualifiers am I missing?) Because if so, job interviewing should be up next ... which I guess would make The Apprentice a sport, too, so there, I think we've 'bout got it all covered. Sure spelling is climatic and all, and a bunch of those younguns I'm sure've got some awfully sweaty palms, but someone has got to draw the line ... somewheres ... please.
I'd like to say it's as easy as ABC, but it looks like they're part of the problem. You see the good ol' Walt Disney Co. owns ABC, which aired the contest LIVE on national telly. Disney also owns ESPN, and you know if they'll kill Bambi's mama, they'll have no problem killing two birds with one stone by plasterin' the Bee champion on their SPORTS webpage.
Yes, the line between geeks and jocks has grown even fainter, as if curling (dudes, a member of the U.S. Olympic team that won bronze was a pizza delivery guy???), trampoline (and rhythmic) gymnastics and bowling (among others too far removed from the top of my head) haven't etched away at our concept of sport enough.
Katharine Close by all accounts is an intelligent, wholesome (lookin') sort of girl who's a great speller. She's not on any dope that we know of, but she's right up there with the Barry Bonds ("alleged"), Lance Armstrongs (alleged) and Ricky Williams (um, yeah, there's dope here for sure) of the world. I don't know how happy her mom would be about her baby keepin' that sort of company.
Okay I'm done. I just had to say something about it when I saw it because it just struck me as too odd to resist.