It's unlucky week 13 for Sports on Monday, and this morning's news about Alonzo Mourning has got me thinking about the fickleness of fate, so to speak.  Mourning, for those of you who haven't heard, is the NBA player (Hornets/Heat/Nets) who has been battling kidney disease the last few years; this morning it was announced that he needs a kidney transplant and will have to retire. S.O.M. wishes 'Zo the best.  But it is yet again a testament to my brother Dylan's uncanny bad luck in selecting favorite atheletes.



When Mourning first came into the league with the (then) Charlotte Hornets, his was the first replica jersey Dylan ever owned.  He even had a Charlotte Hornet on his birthday cake that year.  Unfortunately, D's jersey was out of date in only a few seasons, when Mourning moved to the Miami Heat. By then, Dylan had transferred his allegiances to the Magic, then with the Penny Hardaway-Shaq 1-2 punch.  We had no idea that a monster run of bad luck had just begun.



Dylan's favorite player on the Magic was Penny Hardway, who not only wound up in Phoenix (after Shaq moved to L.A.), but who has scarcely played in the last five seasons, and certainly is not the promising future Hall of Famer he once seemed. At the same time, Dylan's baseball loyalties were settling on the Griffey-A-Rod-Randy Johnson version of the Seattle Mariners.  Guess how many of those players currently play for Seattle? To make matters worse, Ken Griffey, Jr., once the heir apparent to Hank Aaron's home run record (among others), quickly became my brother's all time favorite athlete. (Our second dog is named Griffey, and Dylan is his favorite person) Not only did he have to suffer his favorite player leaving his favorite team yet again, but since leaving Seattle, KGJ has suffered a string of bad luck injuries.  He has hardly played in the last three seasons, and though one wonders what might happen if he got healthy again (similar to Mark McGwire's rejuvenation with the Cardinals), for now he is simply another huge disappointment.  Dylan, loyal fan that he is, has stuck to the Magic and the Mariners -- which means he's had to endure the Ankle that Ate Grant Hill and the Mariners winning 116 games but failing to make the World Series.



So what's the point of all this? It seems like lately even half a season of athletic achievement -- individual or as a team -- is enough to start tossing around labels like "greatest ever" or "future Hall of Famer." There were sportswriters using "dynasty" to describe the Lakers after just two consecutive titles.  (By that criteria, the mid-90s Houston Rockets would be a dynasty, and I don't think anyone wants to admit to that.) People are using "greatest team ever" around my Sooners this year, which makes me extremely nervous; in 2000, the Florida State team we upended in the National Championship, was being touted as the latest in the Seminoles dominant championship dynasty (which itself was less than a decade long).  In sports, (oh go ahead and say it --"as in life") you never know what's going to happen in the long run; perhaps we should call that the Ryan Leaf Principle.  That's something Dylan knows well.  Go ahead and root for the hot hand, jump on the bandwagon all you want, but please, hold the superlatives until they've actually been earned. 

Win-Loss Smileys
University of Oklahoma (vs. Texas Tech)
Oklahoma State (vs. Baylor)
Tulsa (vs. San Jose St.)
NY Jets (vs. Jacksonville Jaguars) /

Sports on Monday Person of the Week
Chad Pennington, Jets QB. Better late than never!