Saturday, December 4, 2010

Drew Brees is the Sportsman of the Year

Drew Brees is the 2010 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. I read the SI article this morning (after reading some more of the Vanderbilt biography, which has been an enjoyable tale; I've liked the recent part about his contribution to the Union effort during the Civil War).

I think Brees is the right choice for 2010. He sounds like an extremely admirable individual, invested in community work in each of the places he's lived as an adult (Purdue, San Diego and New Orleans). He's also a big-time family guy, which I love. The image of him holding his son after the Super Bowl victory is definitely one of the indelible sports images of 2010.

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I am watching Auburn defeat South Carolina in the SEC Championship right now; Auburn is ahead 49-14.  The big story for the past month, in college football, has been the allegations that Cam Newton was offered (and considered taking?) money to attend Mississippi State. Newton is the consensus favorite to win the Heisman, and there was some talk that people might not vote for him in light of the revocation of Reggie Bush's Heisman earlier this year because of (similar) issues with Bush receiving benefits while at USC.  I am not a big Cam Newton fan because he showboats excessively.

The other big game today was Oregon defeating Oregon State, to claim the other spot in the BCS title game.  This means that TCU (the third undefeated team) will not play for the title. I had been rooting for either Auburn or Oregon to lose so that TCU would get a shot at the championship.

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The Skins are 5-6 after losing last week to the Vikings (who have been awful this year), and are headed to yet another 7-9/8-8 season.  Notwithstanding that it will be another December with the Skins out-of-it, I have still enjoyed watching them more this year with McNabb at the helm.