The Friday Four

* Sports Illustrated's Michael Silver often comes across as a smug, "too cool for the room" type of guy in his writing. That his SI.com picture (right, complete with hipster glasses, unkempt hair and stubble) makes him come across as a smug, "too cool for the room" type of guy clearly doesn't help matters.
Still, Silver is a very good writer and despite my repeated intentions to dismiss his work, his player profiles are the best around. Sometimes his stuff is a little too cutesy (like that time he deemed the NFL "insufferable"), yet other times I want to stand and applaud a column (yes, Dan Snyder is one of the best owners in the NFL). To say that I'm on the fence about Michael Silver is about right. But just when I think I'm stuck there, Silver writes a lede like the one that appeared in his magazine piece on Ricky Williams and I realize that even though it may be a love/hate thing, Michael Silver will always be alright with me:

The moment of truth for the Toronto Argonauts arrived at 4:20 p.m. last Saturday, as the home team faced a third-and-one at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' 15-yard line in the first quarter of a scoreless game.

I'll just let that one speak for itself. (If my mom weren't out of town this weekend, I'd be expecting a call in a few hours asking why that paragraph would make me like Michael Silver.)

* Man-hug to Mr. Irrelevant for directing my attention to the health woes of Redskins superfan Chief Zee. The Chief, aka 65-year old Zema Williams, is well-known to all Redskins fans as "that guy who dresses up in the headdress and cheers loud at every game." He and the Hogettes have been fixtures at 'Skins games for decades.
NFL Films immortalized Chief Zee in 1983 when they put a clip of him cheering on John Riggins ("here comes the diesel, (diesel engine noises), let's go diesel") before the RB's Super Bowl-clinching 43-yard TD run. That same year, the Chief was hospitalized after Eagles fans at the Vet beat him up and stole his costume. (Hey, if Eagles fans need to get their jollies beating on a defenseless old man, that's cool. It's not like they've ever had a Super Bowl win to celebrate.)
Last season my excitement before the crucial Skins/Giants Christmas Eve tilt was greatly intensified when Chief Zee pulled into the FedEx Field parking lot driving an old school Cadillac with his horn blaring "Hail to the Redskins". When he came around to high-five everybody in the tailgate it felt like a "moment". The same people who would duck their heads if a real mascot ever came around were enthusiastically running over to the Chief to get some love before the game.
Sadly, Chief Zee has had a run of health problems since the season ended and his medical bills might cause him to sit out the 2006 season. Mister Irrelevant writes, "Even if he does find the dough to attend games, making his usual rounds throughout the stadium will be pretty difficult."
He, and other bloggers, are imploring all Redskins fans to email the Redskins in an attempt to get Dan Snyder on the case. If the man can afford one year of Deion Sanders, surely he can foot the bill for Chief Zee to get to the games.

* Either Chris Sheridan has some really big balls or he's just a huge idiot. Judging by his picture and this column about the USA Basketball team, I'm going to guess the latter.
For those who don't have somebody else's Insider name and password (it's the gift that keeps on giving... right up until you got a message saying too many IP addresses are accessing this account), Sheridan does a complete rip-job of Coach K's coaching strategy for Team USA.
According to Gilbert Arenas (and that in itself could be a stretch - I love Gil, but he's not exactly the most reliable source), Coach K told the team, "We have to go out there and be dominant for 56 quarters -- every quarter of every game we play. That's our mission."
Sheridan proceeds to criticize this statement over the next three dozen paragraphs, oft repeating the argument that since the U.S. hasn't won a world title since 2000, they should focus more on winning rather than dominating. (Look Chris! I just made your point in one sentence. They must pay by the word over at Insider.) Ballard's entire point can be summarized with this gem of a paragraph:

You can't be dominant if you're not even superior, and right now there's a team in Argentina that has first dibs on worldwide rights to being the best. Manu Ginobili and Co. earned that distinction fair and square in Athens, and they get to keep it until somebody knocks them off their perch.

There's so much disjointed logic in that paragraph that I don't know where to begin, so I'll just say this: The U.S. is still the team to beat in any international competition. Just because Larry Brown was in over his head with a team the selection committee did a terrible job of picking doesn't change this fact.
The last World Championships and Olympics were a wake-up call to Team USA. They now know that they can't simply show up and collect gold. But they're still the best. And as such, they should play like the best.
In the past when these "Dream Teams" would get down in a game they didn't play with any urgency. Since they were supposed to win, they figured they would win eventually. With his words, Coach K is letting his players know that it's not OK to get down in a game. It's not OK to get complacent with a halftime deficit. They will, surely, but that should never be alright.
There's no reason Team USA should drop any game in these Tournaments. They are the best team in the world, past results be damned, and Coach K knows this. He also knows the best way to appeal to these multimillionaire superstars is to play to their ego. "You want to be the best? Then play like the best." That's essentially what Coach K is saying with his "dominate for 56 quarters" schpiel. Even though I despise the man, he was chosen for this job for a reason. I have complete faith in Coach K's ability to bring back gold. Had Team USA hired Chris Ballard; well, that'd be a different story altogether.

* And finally, if Nike ads were more literal: