Three Things to consider on this sports Friday:
Thing 1: Tony Sparano laughed off Brandon Marshall’s semi-serious vow to “get kicked out” in the second quarter of Monday night’s game in The Meadowlands.
The Miami Dolphins coach insisted “Brandon is kidding,” then amended that to “50 percent kidding,” while assuring everyone his star wide receiver is “not going to do anything to hurt this football team.” Sparano even joked about calling Marshall “The Werewolf” at times for the way he runs after the catch.
Yet I still found it curious the Dolphins did not distribute an email transcript of Marshall’s wild comments on Thursday, as they typically do. The team sent out word-for-word transcripts of interviews with Sparano, Reggie Bush, Matt Moore, Jason Taylor (with the New York media) and Rex Ryan, but no Marshall.
So this is definitely a situation that bears watching.
Thing 2: Got a kick out of Marshall’s strained attempt to differentiate a “monster” from a “beast.”
Per Merriam-Webster.com, a beast is defined variously as “ a contemptible person” and ”something formidably difficult to control or deal with.”
“Contemptible” isn’t right, but the second part is pretty much spot-on, isn’t it?
A monster, meanwhile, is defined variously as “one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character,” as well as “a threatening force” and “an animal of strange or terrifying shape; one unusually large for its kind.”
There’s also this fifth and final definition of a monster as “one that is highly successful.”
If that’s the kind of Monster Marshall we’ll be seeing on Monday night, everything should be fine.
In the meantime, as I mentioned to Marshall after his entertaining burst of verbiage, his people should contact Monster.com ASAP. Talk about a perfect endorsement tie-in.
Thing 3: Congratulations to Howard Schnellenberger and everyone at Florida Atlantic University on Saturday’s grand opening of a 30,000-seat, $70 million football stadium on the Boca Raton campus.
From all accounts, the place is a jewel, something the program should be able to use as a recruiting tool for years, maybe even decades, to come.
Best of all, there’s no ”artistic” rendering of an angry, gigantic, mechanical owl that leaps up to celebrate the team’s touchdowns, perhaps by tearing off the “head” of the opposing team’s mascot.
On second thought, that sort of thing could be pretty cool.
Hey, somebody get to work on that, huh?