Some thoughts to ponder:

-So FIFA wants to move the World Cup to November or December because of the weather in Qatar and the Middle East region is insanely hot during the “normal” time the Cup would be played in summer months.  The proposal is to play the Final days before Christmas.  While I do find that a really intriguing Christmas gift, did anyone not really stop and think about this when they were taking the bribes?  Did someone look at the drawings of these super fans on stadiums and think they really were going to work?  I mean we are big into technology these days, but I’m certain we are going to have to invest a lot of technology and resources into super fans for this.  Something tells me there are much more pressing matters.  In all seriousness, maybe these games should be sent somewhere else altogether.  The elite leagues in the world are going to suffer, although in what may be an interesting twist, some of the mid-level to bottom teams may find themselves earning much needed points during that time.  In places such as England, you could see how the fair play rules take shape, if they really are going to take any shape at all.  When you have to spend money to keep up with the Joneses just to stay in the league much less compete with the big boys, it doesn’t seem like fair play at all.  Granted this is all seven years away in 2022, but if you did it now, I still think the top teams in England still hold all the cards even with the fair play rules.

-Kansas State is looking for a fan who ran into a Kansas player after the Jayhawks were upset at the K-State gym.  A mass of students stormed the court and ran into players and coaches and administrators alike.  Every year it is the same thing.  There’s two side to this coin, the history and the passion of kids storming the court verses the security of the players and coaches alike.  How do you weigh that?  What is it going to take to stop it?  Who is going to be the bad guy that finally stops it?  Does it take someone getting seriously hurt?  I hate to bring up Ron Artest but we see how easy it is for something to get seriously out of hand, but you can see the boundaries in these arenas are small between player and fan.  It can take something small for a mob to suddenly find it’s way to break lose.  Take a look in Europe at all the soccer riots that happen and it’ll let you know what could possibly happen if we lost our sense of compassion for one another.  I guess it comes down to control, how does a group of security and police keep control of 20 to 30,000 spectators?

-I was thinking about it last night, it’s amazing how far we’ve come with technology.  When I was growing up the only way we got close to athletes was when we saw them outside of the ballpark or before the game.  Maybe you could send them a letter and hope they’d write back.  But now you have twitter and instagram and all those different types of social media.  It’s amazing that the youth of today have the ability to connect with their favorite players.  It’s something I never got the chance to do.  I’m not sure what I would have said to Lance Parrish, but I probably would have been happy just to get the chance to send him a message.  Sometimes you look at the things that people say to athletes though and you have to think that it’s a double edged sword and you wonder why they put themselves out there.  I mean afterall they are human.  We tend to elevate them to levels that sometimes I don’t believe they belong.  Yeah they are playing a game, and it is a game.  20 years ago I might have smacked myself for saying that.  But it is just a game.  No matter what when they are hitting that home run or scoring that goal once the game is over they are still humans just like us.  That’s not to say that I don’t celebrate that, but they go through the same lack of confidence and emotion like we do.  Before we start screaming at them on social media, think about whether you would like someone to scream at you on social media.