Hate Mail: Choke by another name is still a choke
Updated April 9
Memphis is leading by nine points with less than two minutes to play in the national championship game -- but loses after missing four of five free throws, committing a horrible turnover, losing its best defensive big man to a dumb fifth foul and then allowing Kansas to shoot a 3-pointer in the final seconds of regulation.
And that's not a choke?
Not according to my daintiest of readers, who think I'm too mean.
Wait until they get a load of Hate Mail.
From: Doug
It seems too easy to use the word choke.
Funny how that happens ... when a word is 100 percent correct.
From: Pete F.
Choke? Little harsh, sir. They're college kids, not pros. Remember what amateur athletics is supposed to be about.
Right you are. College athletics is about smoking dope and slapping women and skipping school. Who am I to write about missed free throws?
From: Mark
First I hate you for writing about Ron Guenther's comments and Illinois. Then I read you a little more and I love you. Do you have this effect on everyone?
Absolutely. See this next guy? In six months he'll love me, too.
From: Gabriel Arnold
After reading the choke article I really question you as a journalist. You're not a writer -- you get off on destroying young people's hopes and dreams. I hope your fingers get swollen and fall off.
You think I'm mean now? Wait until I have to start typing with my toes.
From: Will
Your Hate Mail was lame last week. It was too short, like your manhood. If you don't get enough hate, which I'm sure you do, make stuff up. Who knows the difference? All of us readers are in-bred, hill rats that don't know the difference. We just want the hate, so take a journalistic Viagra and make it longer!
Take a Viagra? Yeesh. Then again, I'm just glad you didn't hope that something of mine gets swollen and falls off.
From: Jacob Busiahn
It's about time. The Memphis choke-job article is sure to make Hate Mail worth reading again. Thank you, Gregg.
My pleasure. Except for the part about my manhood fingers swelling and falling off.
From: David Hughes
Regarding the choke ... this kind of sports writing is the very worst kind of garbage. Like the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of pornography, this writing has no redeeming social value whatsoever.
What would the Supreme Court say about all this talk of my manhood?
From: Rick Milone
I better see a Dick Vitale column from you. Otherwise all my rage from his insane election into the Hall of Fame will be directed at you.
Depressed as I was, this was all I could muster.
From: David
You were prophetic a year ago when it came to Vitale. As a sports writer, can't you start a recall of Vitale's induction? I'll bet you have the power.
I have no power. None. I'm impotent. Wait a minute, I take that back ...
From: Matt Jenkins
I just listened to you on ESPN Radio 1100-AM in Las Vegas, and the way you treated the hosts was absolutely awful. I can honestly say I will never read another column of yours.
Aww, you sweet little thing. Sorry to come into your backyard and blow up one of your heroes, but the guy kept putting words into my mouth. So I stuck my foot up his rear end.
From: Mike O'Kelly
Have you ever played sports in your life? Just wondering. I'm pretty sure you were always picked last in gym class.
From: Rob
For what it's worth, that hair on your chin does not make you look cool.
Neither does playing the "I was all-state in high school" card. Yet I just played it. And adroitly, too.
From: Seth
Pretty sure if you've seen them both play that you'd never write in favor of Tyler Hansbrough making a better pro than Kevin Love. K-Love is a white Charles Barkley. Psycho-T will have career numbers along the lines of Mark Madsen.
While I applaud your ability to make an outside-the-box comparison to Love, get serious. Love is bigger than Barkley yet still plays below the rim. Barkley was an explosive SOB. No comparison.
From: Cole
You're a fool and this article proves it.
Which article? You've got to narrow it down for me.
From: CT Hoosier
Do you have Skype?
I do not. But if I did, I would tell you ... I do not.
From: Dan Mcmillan
Hansbrough is too stiff and mechanical. Love is smooth. Remember college basketball has been really watered down the past 12 years. Many of those teams winning titles wouldn't have made the Final Four in the day. Tyler is really kind of a clod.
A clod?!? Hahahahaha.
From: Todd Gleason
Seriously, you're using your article at the Final Four to take a shot at someone's hair? With your looks you really ought to stick to writing about the events and leave grooming and personal hygiene out of the equation.
He's referring to my comments at the end of this story about Kansas assistant Joe Dooley, whose hair is somewhere between laughable and unforgivable.
From: Russ
Were you drunk when you wrote that thing about Joe Dooley? Why are you so offensive to practically everything?
Because I dislike so much.
From: Bill
How did you get your job? You are the biggest idiot in the sports media. You always jump on bandwagons and make no sense of anything. Loser. Quit while you are ahead.
How did I get my job? I'm an idiot? I jump on bandwagons? This is weak, Bill. Hate Mail Cliches 101. Is that all you got?
From: Bill
Oh. You are ugly also!
Now you're bringing it.
From: Deborah Humes
It was a heartbreaking loss for Memphis and an awesome game for Kansas. Gregg is a jerk.
Is not.
From: Jim Carr
Grow up. Stop feeding your ego trip with your unimaginative, negative sports journalism. I am 53, have been around the block, but I never felt the need to rip young athletes to get there.
Why do old people brag about their age?
From: Joe Joe
You are a pathetic, sad, balding little man with a chip on your shoulder. You only serve to entertain yourself. There have to be better things to do with your time, Gregg.
I'm not sad.
From: Earl
You aver that Kevin O'Neill has been hammering Lute Olson behind his back, yet you can't reveal just what it is that he allegedly said. Sounds like bull---- to me. I'm not buying it.
I can reveal. I just won't. But O'Neill's disloyalty to Lute was a fact. You can aver, infer or transfer for all I care. But given my position as an expert, I prefer that you defer.
