YouTube, the way sports should be watched

So I sat down to write this column but made the classic college mistake of clicking the YouTube tab at the top of my browser.

Game over.

I started out watching highlights of last night’s Indiana Pacers game and ended up watching a cat named Nora play the piano.

But along the way, I ran across a few of my favorite YouTube sports moments, which I’ll share with you now. (I’m not going to include any tedious URLs, just go to YouTube, use your Google prowess and type in a few key words. They’re all worth it.)

The NBA:
Devin Harris, point guard for the New Jersey Nets, got embarrassed on an outdoor court in London. Harris, who has dropped more than 30 points in half of his games this year, got crossed over by some white guy wearing a v-neck sweater and tight jeans. (In Harris’s defense, the guy was known as a bit of a local streetball legend.)

A bigger defense? Another, more prominently known player got worked over at his own camp. That’s right, Michael Jordan. At Flight School, His Airness lost a short one-on-one match to some CEO named John Roberts.

Shaquile O’Neal was a born entertainer. He pleases the crowds with everything from his dominating game, antics during interviews and freestyle raps. He didn’t let us down during All-Star week a while back. The Diesel challenged new school ballers LeBron James and Dwight Howard to a dance off, showing the young guns how to tear up the court in a different way.

Coaching Rants:
Oklahoma State football coach. This thing went viral in a matter of minutes. References to the winning coach’s tirade protecting his player from the insensitive media were weaved into every national sports broadcast for weeks. And with good reason. Who doesn’t know this guy is 41 right now?

But if women’s basketball was a bit more relevant, then everyone would know that current Michigan coach Kevin Borseth’s performance trumped Gundy’s in a major way. After an Incredible Hulk-like approach to the podium, he harps on officials and his own players for poor offensive rebounding stats in his semi-famous outburst. Did I say harp? I meant yell, Joe Kines-style, for a solid 45 uninterrupted seconds. The number of times he tosses his eyeglasses, pitches the idea of his players wearing football pads, says a cuss word or “frustrated” are roughly equal.

Other coaching notables:
Former baseball manager Hal Mcrae tells reporters know he hates their nightly “stupid ass questions,” then shows them by destroying their equipment and his office. The Braves Double-A manager that stole third base then launched the rosin bag like a grenade. Wyoming head football coach Joe Glenn prefers sign language to words. Glenn guaranteed a victory over Utah last year. Up 43-0, the Utes attempted an onside kick. Glenn expressed himself with a cross-field middle finger.

Commentators/Broadcasters:
Boom goes the dynamite is the video title of a college sports broadcast with a rookie anchor who just found out what he’s not doing for the rest of his life. There’s not much of a way to describe this one. It’s just plain awful, and consequently hilarious.
A football announcer on ESPNU was suspended for comments he made about catching the football during an Iowa/Northern Illinois game. He describes the beauty of the human hand before deciding his entire line of thought was, well, “kinda gay.”

Pure Humiliation:
A girl started signing the National Anthem at a professional ice hockey game but bailed just a few words into it. When she mustered the courage to come back and finish the job, she slipped on the ice and fell flat on her back. Priceless. And no, she didn’t finish the song.

One More For Good Measure:
At Texas Tech they have some tradition where somebody is selected as the Texas Tech bell ringer. It’s pretty much how it sounds. The guy stands on the sideline and rings and old-timey bell. Now, I have no idea when he is supposed to ring it (mostly because every time I search for the answer, only this video surfaces), but I don’t care. Given the right camera angle, it’s the funniest video on the list. Make sure you find the one with the longhaired guy; his unknowing facial expressions send it over the top.

Ryan Wright is The Crimson White’s sports editor. His column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays.