Back Porch Youth Sports

Hell hath no fury like Goldy Gopher on the football field. The University of Minnesota mascot was criticized last month for mocking Penn State's Jerome Hayes during a pregame prayer. (The school later apologized on his behalf, God's wrath averted.)

Goldy was back in action this weekend, making a special guest appearance with other mascots, to take on a group of kids in an impromptu tackle football game. It was billed as the halftime entertainment for the Seahawks-Vikings get-together. Which it was. At least for Goldy.

Ridiculousness after the jump.

On his podcast Adam Carolla often talks about the [w]ussification of our country. Pretty sure this qualifies: dodgeball, a staple of public education for as long as there have been red rubber balls to wing at classmates, is now at the center of a lawsuit.

Nothing like a five-year-old goalkeeper making the save only to accidentally kick the ball into her own net to give you a little perspective. If nothing else, it's a gentle reminder that sports are meant to be a diversion from the drudgery of real life.

Not sure that'll placate, say, the Patriots supporters who are still staring blank-faced at their televisions, but it'll distract them for a few seconds.

Video therapy after the jump.

The medical procedure known as "Tommy John surgery" has always been considered a last resort: When a Major League Baseball pitcher suffers a career-threatening elbow injury, an elbow ligament can be replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body, possibly prolonging the pitcher's career.

But now something shocking is happening: Some parents are asking doctors to give their kids Tommy John surgery even when they're not injured, simply because they think it'll give their kids stronger throwing arms.

KILLEEN, Tex. -- The scene here at Leo Buckley Stadium late Friday night was reminiscent of most high school football venues across the country, as the Shoemaker Grey Wolves dealt with the reality their season was over.

Tears were shed, hugs were exchanged between players, coaches and players, coaches and coaches. Then the coaches thanked the seniors for great effort.

But this was no ordinary season-finale ritual for the Grey Wolves. Just over 24 hours earlier, many of them weren't sure if their parents or loved ones were injured -- or worse, killed -- in the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, the nation's largest military base.

Melanie Hain, a self-professed pistol-packing soccer mom who was praised by gun-rights activists for bringing a gun with her to her children's games, was found dead of a gunshot wound, along with her husband, in what police say was a murder-suicide.

Here's something you don't see everyday. Or at least I don't (primarily because, other than the occasions when it's on my television, I've lost the remote, and I'm too lazy to change the channel, I happily admit to not following softball.): a fight breaking out during a game after a player was hit by a pitch.

But that's what happened yesterday at a girls high school game in Colorado Springs.

Poor France. It's bad enough that they're still living down the 1940 German takeover, which turned out to be more of an understanding than an invasion. Now they have again suffered an international embarrassment, although that may be overselling it a tad.

Whatever, the French fell to the Americans in the inaugural Football Junior World Championship yesterday in Canton, Ohio. The final, 78-0, was slightly less surprising than getting run out of their own country by the Germans during World War II. Primarily because unlike the French army, considered the most powerful in Europe at the time, there wasn't much in the way of expectations for the French Junior National Team.

A 12-year-old Colorado boy died Sunday after he was thrown off the bull and trampled in a bull-riding competition hosted by the Little Britches Rodeo at the Boulder County Fairground.

As you can see, playing sports with kids on live television is a situation fraught with peril. You probably shouldn't trash talk, back them down, and then spin and slam home a dunk on a seven-foot goal. I'm no expert, but that might make a kid cry. Especially when you punctuate the dunk with a Scottie Pippen dunking on Patrick Ewing-esque arm ejaculation while screaming, "Don't bring any of that in my house!"

Somewhere along the way, basic humanity should have set in. The back down move? Questionable. The kid is four. At most. You can probably get away with one of those old-man wacky dribbling exhibitions where you push the ball around the kid and make him dizzy on live television. Maybe.

But when you dunk on him and the kid starts crying you can't laugh, absolutely, positively, can't laugh. Or say, "I think he's genuinely crying."