Say, Charlie: What do you think about the NCAA changing the rules for football players that want to transfer and the new redshirt rule?
Football players that wanted to transfer from one school to another previously had about as much freedom as the Union soldiers did at Vicksburg! NADA! K-State’s Bill Snyder is not going to like it-he was famously against allowing players to transfer-but the new rule allows any football player to announce that he wants to transfer and the school MUST post those desires on a website and allow him to transfer. Previously that player had to get permission to transfer. It is a step, albeit a small one, in granting student-athletes more control of their lives and playing careers. The redshirt change allows schools to have a player play in as many as four games and still be eligible for a redshirt year. Thus, it enables coaches to kind of look at players in an “exhibition season” before making the fateful decision about whether or not to use that freshman season.

Say, Charlie: Have you ever been to Ireland? I see that 2,500 women stripped naked on a beach in Ireland-Magheramore Beach-to attempt to break the world record for the largest skinny dip?
Well, yes I have been to Ireland but I think I kept my eyes covered! Maybe not. Anyway, this DEFINITELY is a sporting event and demands more coverage. No, not coverage for the participants but press coverage. I want to take a photographer with me!

Say, Charlie: Did you watch the NBA FINALS?
I must admit I was a casual observer. A few minutes here and a few minutes there, piecing together that the Warriors were a lot better than the Calvaliers. The big news out of this was that the NBA Finals were a disaster for the league and ESPN/ABC. Nobody watched! The clinching NBA Finals Game 4 drew an abysmal 9.3 rating and only 16.2 million viewers for the ABC network. More people watched SWAMP PEOPLE for goodness sakes! Those ratings were down 15% from a year ago which was down from the year before. Something is going on in professional sports that the viewers are trying to tell the owners and the networks but I don’t think they are listening!

Say, Charlie: How long has it been since Tiger Woods won a golf tournament?
I don’t know, it must have been just before WWII ended! Still, the mainstream media is in love with the guy. This past weekend at the U.S. Open, Woods stumbled to a 7 on the first hole and finished miserably and STILL he got a huge picture and big story on the weekend edition of USA TODAY. They just can’t stand it that the guy is not the top golfer. Meanwhile dozens of the new “young bucks” have passed up Woods and a number of the old guard but the press just can’t make the transition. It would be like when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit all of those home runs for the Yankees but the Press kept writing about Babe Ruth. It’s over baby!

Say, Charlie: What’s worse, the KC Royals baseball team or the U.S. Men’s soccer team?
Well, NEITHER of them are in Moscow for the World Cup though I bet there are some Royals’ fans who wish their baseball team WAS in Moscow! I am having a hard time deciding if Americans care about this thing called soccer, this thing called the World Cup. For 25 years we’ve been assured that soccer is the next great thing in American sports but , so far, it hasn’t happened. How many of you can name even ONE player on the U.S. Soccer team? How many of you can name the team that defeated the U.S., keeping them out of the World Cup? Who is the coach? Where do they train? Are the players paid? Good questions all and hardly any American sports fan would know any of those answers! Meanwhile, we have a baseball team that all of us would like to forget, to not know anything about! Perhaps it would make a difference if the
Royals’ announcers would announce their baseball games like the soccer announcers do: “And Moustakas rounds third, he’s coming home, he might make it, he DOES! GOOOAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! Royals winnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!! Ah, we just need some of that soccer flair!
They say that pessimists see the cup as half empty and optimists as half full. U.S. Soccer hasn’t even SEEN The Cup!

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.