As an “Old White Man”, I took notice when LeBron James claimed recently that National Football League owners are “Old White Men with a slave mentality.” LeBron’s blast is not the first time that a “worker” has attacked an “employer” with criticism. I also noticed that James was very careful to call out only the NFL owners, not the NBA owners. It’s obvious that he knows where his “bread is buttered!”

It is not unusual that people who have accumulated wealth and own businesses are “old” It takes a while to get there LeBron. That is, of course, unless you are a mega-talented athlete. I am sure the time is not too far away when some youngster will call out James for being an “Old Black Man” who has lost his way and not doing things the way they should be, according to the complainer. 

To invoke the “slave mentality” thing though, is just another form of racism, applied in the other direction. It smacks of the same thing as comparing someone to Hitler or Naziism. Such name calling I would have hoped that James would be above. Sad to discover it’s not so.

Kansas State’s dismantling of Vanderbilt last Saturday in Kansas City was impressive and a reminder to Big 12 basketball teams that, with or without Dean Wade, the Cats are still dangerous! I picked up another candidate for my “All-Name-Team” in that game from the Vanderbilt roster. Simisola Shittu will be vying for top billing!

In case you missed the FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL, don’t worry; there are 38 more bowl games, 39 if you include the championship game of the FBS playoff. Speaking of All-Name-Teams, you could do the same with the names of some of these bowl games. The Gasparilla Bowl ranks right up there along with the First Responder bowl. First Responder, that sounds like some kind of emergency waiting to happen. How would you like to play in that bowl game? You’d always be looking over your shoulder, wondering, “Are they coming to take me away on a stretcher?”

We don’t want to miss the Camping World Bowl. Makes one wonder if Syracuse and West Virginia are going to have to use tents for their dressing rooms!

The Outback Bowl gives us Mississippi State vs. Iowa. Of course The Outback is exactly where the New York media thinks those two schools are from!

Perhaps the game we might wonder the most about is the Redbox bowl. I don’t know what the heck a Redbox is but when you mix red with that garish color of green that Oregon wears and also mix in the green that Michigan State wears then, well, you could have a kaleidoscope of color that just might break the tint control on a lot of television sets! Shouldn’t this be called the Greenbox Bowl?

Somehow, some way, this will all conclude in January when either Notre Dame, Clemson, Oklahoma or Alabama kick it off for the so-called National Championship. Of course, undefeated (two years in a row)  the University of Central Florida (UCF) won’t be there as the Big Cigars at the NCAA continue to cling to this four-team championship format. 

Alabama coach Nick Saban had the quote of the year when asked about the NCAA’s newest rule that didn’t address this issue but, instead, took on how many headsets could be used on a team’s sideline: “To me it’s kind of like mouse manure when you’re up to your ears in elephant doo-doo!”

Hey coach, that’s what the NCAA is best at; spreading the doo-doo!

Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.