Stuff yourself silly with the 2012 Turkeys of the Year

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It's that time of the year, when thoughts turn to the turkey on our plates and the Turkeys who inhabit the sportosphere.

My tradition of choosing a Turkey of the Year goes back to my first year as Copley Newspapers' Chicago columnist, 1998, when Bears president Michael McCaskey was so inept that his mommy fired him.

Since then, it's been a parade of clowns, cads, chokers and chumps: Jerry Krause (1999); Bobby Knight (2000); David Wells & Frank Thomas (2001); Dick Jauron (2002); Sammy Sosa (2003 and 2004); Andy MacPhail, Jim Hendry & Dusty Baker (2005); Aramis Ramirez (2006); Charlie Weis (2007); Choking Cubbies (2008); Milton Bradley (2009); Mark McGwire (2010); Joe Paterno & Penn State Enablers (2011).

(You'll notice that from 1998-2009, most Turkeys of the Year had Chicago and/or Midwest connections because of where I lived and columnized. Now in my second full year as a Southern boy, the Turkey Countdown has a different flavor.)

As always, I dedicate this tradition to my absent friend, Gene Seymour, my Copley columnist predecessor, the founder of Copley's sports turkey awards and one of the great guys journalism has ever known.

10. RYAN KALIL: The Panthers center took out a full-page newspaper ad before the season promising Carolina fans that the team would win the Super Bowl. By the time the Panthers reached their bye week, they were 1-4 and Kalil was done for the season with a foot injury. Great. Now nobody will take out full-page newspaper ads. As if the business isn't in bad enough shape.

9. JEFFREY LORIA: The Marlins owner got taxpayers to foot the bill for a new ballpark and then filled it with expensive players ... for about half a season. When the team stunk, he dumped just about every player who made more than 12 cents and fired Ozzie Guillen for being what Ozzie Guillen always has been. And hey, even Loria's ballpark is ugly.

8. LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yeah ... I know ... it's only really a headline if a cyclist doesn't dope. Still ... this was Lance Freakin' Armstrong, all-American hero, who spent most of a decade cheating and lying.

7. BOBBY VALENTINE: The biggest Boston disaster since Cheers went off the air.

6. NHL OWNERS, PLAYERS & COMMISH GARY BETTMAN: Working together marvelously to keep hockey an irrelevant, niche sport.
 

5. REX RYAN: The Jets had just signed Mark Sanchez to a huge, long-term deal when Ryan traded for Tim Tebow -- ensuring that ever-patient New York fans would be calling for Tebow to play every time Sanchez threw an incomplete pass. Even Jets players know Tebow is terrible, but why should that stop fans from praying for a Tebow miracle?

4. MELKY CABRERA: He was All-Star Game MVP for the winning NL team, thereby giving his Giants homefield advantage in the World Series. Cabrera wasn't there to see the Series, though, having been suspended for juicing. The cool thing is that the Giants won without him. I wonder if he'll get a championship ring?

3. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS FANS: By cheering when QB Matt Cassel got hurt, these yahoos proved that they belong in a second-rate sports town. 

2. ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Followed a bad season with an almost surreal postseason. The richest man in baseball history was benched for three playoff games and pinch-hit for six times. The good news for A-Dud is that the $114 million left on his Yankees contract can buy lots of HGH and plenty of masking agents.

And now, the 2012 Turkeys of the Year:

U.S. RYDER CUP TEAM

There are chokes, there are Cubbie chokes and then there was this, arguably the most complete choke-job in the history of professional sports.

The chokiest of chokers was Jim Furyk. His collapse in his pivotal match capped a year in which he also frittered away the U.S. Open and two PGA Tour events.

This result hardly could be pinned on Furyk alone, however. Tiger Woods didn't record a single point in the entire event. Neither did Steve Stricker, who was joined by Furyk, Bubba Watson, Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson on the list of Americans who wet themselves down the stretch.

Holy Heimlich, Batman ... talk about a total team effort.
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Neil Reed: ruined forever and ever by Bobby Knight

If you were known for only one thing in your entire life, how would you like that one thing to be this:

You were bullied by somebody famous.

That was the fate of Neil Reed, who back in 1997 foolishly put his throat in the way of Bobby Knight's vice-like grip.

Even though Knight was a bellicose boor -- and, by the late-90s, an out-of-touch geezer who had stopped winning NCAA tournament games as he ran a once-proud program into the ground -- many fans/apologists/lemmings never forgave Reed for his role in Knight's exodus from Hoosierland.

The incident, caught on tape that clearly showed Knight throttling the young basketball player, led to Bobby being put on double-secret probation by Miles "Dean Wormer" Brand. Another incident soon followed (of course), and Knight was sent packing.

Ridiculously -- but predictably -- the bully was deified and the victim was vilified. This, of course, is typical behavior of blindly loyal college sports lemmings (see: Paterno Worshippers, Penn State University).

With the pitchfork-and-torch crowd closing in, Reed had to bolt Hoosierland and ended up at Southern Miss. He eventually became a high school coach and teacher.

Neil Reed died last week at 36 of heart complications. I'm guessing that thousands of Hoosierland sickos were happy when they heard the news.

His obituary in every newspaper in the country identified him as the player choked by Knight. That's who Neil Reed was -- not only until his dying days but for all eternity.

Bobby Knight not only ruined Reed's basketball career and Reed's life, the bully also ruined Neil Reed's death.

How sad is that?

It's Turkey Time!!

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Politicians don't get to have all the fun. Jocks get to be turkeys, too, which is why I count down the top sports gobblers every Thanksgiving.

This tradition dates back to my first year as Copley Newspapers columnist, 1998, when Michael McCaskey had so mismanaged the Bears that his mommy took the team presidency away from him and demoted him to official Halas Hall gardener.

Since then, it's been one doofus, doper or downer after another: Jerry Krause (1999); Bobby Knight (2000); David Wells & Frank Thomas (2001); Dick Jauron(2002); Sammy Sosa (2003 and 2004, an unprecedented back-to-back showing!); Andy MacPhail, Jim Hendry & Dusty Baker (2005); Aramis Ramirez (2006); Charlie Weis (2007); Choking Cubbies (2008); Milton Bradley (2009); Mark McGwire (2010).

(You'll notice that from 1998-2009, most of those fine folks had Chicago connections. That's because I columnized and blogged mostly about Chicago sports during those years. Having moved to Krispy Kreme Kountry last year, the Turkey Countdown has a different look.)

As always, I dedicate this tradition to my absent friend, Gene Seymour, my Copley columnist predecessor and one of the great guys I ever encountered in journalism.

And now for the countdown ...

10. WILLIAMSES. Rough year for Stevie, Serena, Hank Jr. and Ken. Oh, and last we knew, Ted's head was still frozen somewhere in Arizona.

9. TIGER WOODS. Remember when he used to ... I don't know ... be really good at golf?

8. RON ZOOK. Who's got next? Somebody? Anybody? Please?

7. DALE EARNHARDT JR. & JR HILDEBRAND. On the very same May Sunday, Earnhardt and Hildebrand put on a clinic on how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With the checkered flag just seconds away, Hildebrand crashed into the wall, making a winner of Dan Wheldon at the Indy 500. Hours later, a half-mile from the finish line at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, Earnhardt ran out of gas as Kevin Harvick claimed victory.

6. ADAM DUNN. Arguably had the worst offensive season in baseball history. The only reason I say "arguably" is that the White Sox stopped playing their $56 million man the last couple of months, keeping him from putting up some truly eye-popping failure numbers.

5. JIM TRESSEL. Really? You really have to cheat to win football games at Ohio State? I mean, I'd understand it if Zook did it. But Tressel?

4. LeBRON JAMES. Selfish and clueless, he is a perfectly good representative on this list for all the millionaire players, owners, agents and lawyers responsible for shutting down the NBA. (Oh, and we're still waiting for him to start delivering those seven titles after taking his talents to South Beach.)

3. CARLOS ZAMBRANO. He's been a few cards short of a deck for a decade now, but the dude I call Cra-Z completely lost his mind when he threw at Atlanta batters because he couldn't get them out. Once just a bit quirky, Cra-Z has joined Milton Bradley, Phil Nevin, Kent Mercker, Dave Kingman and a select few others on the list of least cuddly Cubbies of the last 40 years.

2. JOSH BECKETT, JOHN LACKEY & JON LESTER. Booze-swilling baseball buddies put the "club" back into clubhouse. And the choke back into the Red Sox.

And now -- drumstick roll, please -- the 2011 Turkey of the Year ...

1. JOE PATERNO (& HIS FLOCK).

JoePa quietly passed the buck upon learning that a sexual predator was molesting kids right in his locker room.

When the allegations finally came to light years later, thousands of students protested -- not because kids had gotten raped on JoePa's watch but because Penn State fired the old ostrich who had stuck his head in the sand.

I'm not sure if this says more about our deification of coaches, our societal woes or the value of a Penn State education.

All I know is that JoePa is a doting father and grandfather many times over ... and if he had received word that one or more of his progeny had been molested, he wouldn't have just told his boss and then moved on.

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JoePa had to go

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Has any college coach in history done more for his institution than Joe Paterno has done for Penn State these last five decades?

The school became famous during his tenure, he made "Nittany Lions" synonymous with success, he ran a clean program and he donated millions of dollars to the academic side of the university.

And yet ...

Under his watch, a heinous act took place repeatedly: an assistant coach's predatory sexual behavior. Because Paterno passed the buck instead of directly addressing the problem, numerous youngsters were scarred for life.

So when the truth finally came to light, JoePa had to go.

I applaud the Penn State trustees who summoned the courage to fire Paterno, denying the 84-year-old legend the kind of feel-good farewell tour that would have taken place over the next two months had he been allowed to resign at season's end.

As for the Penn State students rioting in the streets in protest of the trustees' decision, I wonder how they would feel if their little brothers or nephews or cousins were among the molestation victims. Grow up, kids, and learn an important life lesson: Everyone -- no matter how tall one's stature in the community -- must be held accountable for one's actions (or in JoePa's case, inactions).

Though we shouldn't dismiss the wonderful things Paterno did for Penn State and for college football, the sad truth is this:

He lost his chance to go out on his terms when he knowingly failed to protect defenseless children from harm.

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