Friday, August 15, 2008

Classroom Contest

There's nothing more useless than a lock with a voiceprint, with the possible exception of sport website online "contests". "Whose quarterback is better?" "Who has better tailgating?" And, of course, the piece de resistance of the genre recently undertaken by the Kiddie Paper, "Whose female fans are hotter?" Yeesh.

Usually the domain of EsPN and its ilk, sites frequently use these ridiculous constructs to pit manic fans against one another, usually for the sole purpose of gathering eyeballs and/or attention. But this attempt, brought to my attention by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's Mike Rothstein, has an associated good cause, so I'm eschewing my usual disdain of the things and encouraging you to participate.

SI's Stewart Mandel is a pretty solid writer who at least tries to stay out of the hyperbolic hair-pulling so prevalent in op-ed these days. In his latest weekly mailbag, he challenges college sports fans to put their money where their fandom is and donate money to classroom-related charitable causes through DonorsChoose.org.

The user selects his "team" (in our case, FBS independents), and then donates money to an associated effort. The group whose constituents contribute the most will "win", although one would argue the kids in those classrooms win no matter what.

As I said, these kinds of contests are usually worthless. But this is a chance to put some dollars somewhere they can do some good. So dip into your tailgating fund a little bit. You'll be glad you did.

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10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geetar - you are smarter than to think that anything Mike Rothstein says/write is of any good. I make a point not to read any of his articles since early summer where he got into the habbit of making news when there is none - e.g. Coach Weis's meeting in OH.

HERE COME THE IRISH

8/15/2008 09:04:00 AM  
Blogger Mike Coffey said...

On the contrary, I enjoy Mike Rothstein's writing very much, think he keeps biases to a minimum, and believe he's the hardest-working ND beat writer these days.

8/15/2008 10:06:00 AM  
Anonymous Lazarus said...

I agree wholeheartedly. I find him objective and balanced. He also seems well connected to the program and is fairly knowledgeable about the sport. I especially enjoy his comments and anecdotes from practice.

The guy is in a no win situation, every word he writes is vilified by someone. Frankly, the 'anonymous' comments left on his bog entries make ND fans sound like idiots.

8/15/2008 10:44:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of ESPN, they published an article in their magazine ranking college football student sections ("Sonic Youth"). We placed fifth overall, not bad considering our smaller enrollment.

8/15/2008 11:19:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The helmet contest the "worldwide leader" just wrapped was a joke -- an attempt to put eye candy in Molly Qerim on the screen. I found it interesting, though, that the trophy ESPN awarded to the winner was a gold helmet. Hmmm -- what team wears a shiny gold helmet every day??

8/15/2008 12:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's generalize a little bit more, Laz.
Sheesh.

But, yea, Rothstein is an ok duck in this anonymous poster's book.

8/15/2008 02:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm still puzzled by the opening Dr. Who reference...

8/15/2008 04:36:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm also a Rothstein fan. I believe he wrote one hair-pulling article a long, long time ago, and all of the specifics of that article have since passed out of my memory. Now, I enjoy his writing, and check his blog regularly.

8/16/2008 09:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

your a douche.

8/22/2008 02:24:00 PM  
Anonymous HikeND.com said...

It's nice to see the internet used for something besides anonymous blog comments. Good catch.

8/23/2008 12:30:00 PM  

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