Boo Gordon! Booooooooooooooooo (quick breath) Booooooooooooooooooo!

The Illinois men's basketball team is, to be kind, ungood.  As of this writing, they are 2-9 in the Big 10 (note: the Big 10 has not been 'The Big 10' for some time.  There are 11 teams playing basketball in that conference.  Is the Big 10 a lie?  Yes.  Yes it is.  You might as well call it the 'Purple 4' or the '37 Mountain Goats Playing Teatherball And Watching Reruns Of Growing Pains Who's Theme Song Was Sung By Alan Thicke; Is There Anything He Can't Do?'.  You can't just lie to people.)

Here's the quick back story:

Eric Gordon (pictured) is a star Freshman at Indiana.  He is really good.  Like, 2nd best freshman in the country good (if you haven't seen Kansas State's Michael Beasley play, do so. He will make you hope your NBA team ends up in the lottery.  'Hi, Mike Beasley power forward, can you just pencil me in for 20 and 10 for the next ten years?  Thanks bruh!')

What's wrong with this?  Eric Gordon committed to Illinois.  He COMMITTED.  Somewhere along the line, he changed his mind.  He de-committed (not a word) to Illinois.  He knew they would be awful.  He also knew that Indiana could be pretty good (ranked 12th in the country at 20-3).  So, Eric Gordon committed to Indiana where he now plays.  

Indiana played at Illinois this past week.  The Illinois fans were happy to see Gordon, in the same way that I'm happy to see an X girlfriend holding hands with her new boyfriend.  The Illini faithful let him have it.  In fact, they let his parents have it too.  They booed every time he touched the ball, stepped on the court, breathed, or blinked.

Know what I say?  Good.  It's fashionable now for every sports writer with a column to come out against these kinds of things with faux outrage and indignation.  How dare they? They'll write things like: 'when you go after a 19 year old kid, you cross the line', 'when you yell at a player's parents, that's just excessive', 'You can't blame a kid for changing his mind'...

Yes you can.  What are you teaching a young man?  It's fine to be a frontrunner.  Sure, abandon ship at the first sign of trouble.  If things are hard, quit on your commitments and just go somewhere else where it'll come easier for you.  Remember, you're the talented one and it's all about you!  No need to think of the people you screwed over.

Now, I'm not advocating violence, cheap shots, or doing anything that would get you arrested.  After all, it's sports.  It's not a custody battle on Maury.  But you know what, booing, heckling, and being ticked off that a guy screwed you over is totally within reason.  I would have yelled at his folks too.  Your son is a liar and you didn't do anything to stop him.  Good life lesson.  I would have heckled everyone involved.  If I'm an Illinois fan, my team stinks and we would stink a lot less if we had a great player, like Gordon, who said he would play for us.  Do I blame him?  Yup.  Am I supposed to let him walk in, drop 30 and just be OK with it?

Thanks for coming over Eric.  Don't worry about the mess, we'll clean it up! 

This is a general point that really bothers me about the way sports are covered now.  Columnists and pundits are now judges.  They legislate after the fact and wield so much power (in terms of Hall of Fame Voting, framing stories, and shaping opinions).  Lately, the theme in sports coverage has been players owning up to their mistakes and being accountable.  In the wake of the Mitchell Report and BALCO, we want our athletes to face the music.  Well you know what?  The music played loud in Illinois last week.  I hope Eric Gordon heard it.