FanHouse AngelinaJolie

Martellus Bennett has a blog at the Dallas Morning-News' Cowboy Insider. It's becoming a pretty common trend, really, seeing athletes blogging. But most of them are usually pretty tame. Not Bennett's.

In his latest entry for the DMN, he discusses female flatulence, presumably having watched South Park this week. I wish I was kidding. And, obviously, some potentially offensive language after the jump.

They were two of the most boneheaded plays you may ever see in college basketball, like Chris Webber somehow calling two timeouts instead of one.

The University of Arizona, battling the University of Alabama-Birmingham, was trailing most of the night in a contest to see who would advance to Madison Square Garden to face Oklahoma in the NIT semifinals, but then late in the game they started to come back. That comeback ended with two "seriously, guys?" fouls that could best be described as poorly coached and poorly executed.

After the Wildcats put together a comeback that had the team down three, Arizona's Garland Judkins got fouled, and after making the first and missing the second, freshman Kyle Fogg made a great play on the rebound, snatching it up, avoiding the defender and laying the ball in with just over 26 seconds left in the game. All tied at 71-71. Great. But what Fogg did next was inexplicable. The freshman, obviously confused on where he was or what the score was -- or even what game he was playing -- fouled Aaron Johnson right as the ball was inbounded, putting UAB on the line in a one-and-one opportunity.

As the foul happened, interim head coach Russ Pennell could only put his hands on his head in disbelief. You could almost read his mind, as you could most Wildcat fans, who probably have never played college basketball in their lives but know that when the game is tied you don't foul to put a guy on the line.

Context!

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd wrote an article about USC offensive line coach Pat Ruel, discussing his itinerant career, accomplishments -- and man date with Pete Carroll before accepting the USC job.

Carroll worked all the angles. The two had been assistants together at Arkansas in 1977. USC's coach used picturesque Manhattan Beach to his advantage, taking his recruit to lunch there on a sun-splashed day.

"Pete's like a beautiful woman," Ruel said after taking the job. "The closer you get, you better look out. He is very charismatic. He can smile and make you feel like a million dollars."

I wonder who he thought of when calling Carroll a beautiful woman? Jessica Alba, perhaps? Or Halle Berry? Maybe Angelina Jolie? Maybe Cook's girl, Scarlett Johansson. Or maybe one of my favorites, Diane Lane? The world may never know.

One thing we do know, when your masculinity is set -- see: coaching offensive linemen and ownership of one awesome moustache -- you can safely get away calling your boss a beautiful woman. Just don't do it too often.

If you couldn't make out what LeBron James said after dunking the baby, it was: "Let's see if Angelina Jolie can adopt that baby." Don't rack your brain, it doesn't make sense and I'm not sure it's supposed to. I'm guessing this was LBJ's attempt to break the mold of his carefully constructed P.R. exterior with a little shock humor.

But as I'm sure you'll agree, it missed the mark. Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer ripped LBJ for the stunt in a column yesterday, pointing out the dry reception it received during the ESPYs (thanks to SLAM Online for the link):

No one except comedian Dane Cook acknowledged the ill-advised skit. Cook wondered if James' dancing in a Hammer/Bobby Brown send-up or "when he dunked the baby" was more tasteless.

And seriously, when Dane Cook is saying your humor sucks, you know you've bottomed out. Should anyone actually care about the dunk? I mean, isn't getting upset about a 15-second joke going a little overboard?

Maybe, but maybe not. Ignoring for a moment why LBJ was even pretending to dunk his kid in the first place, I happen to agree with Livingston who thought it was extremely odd that LBJ would take the chance to inject a shot at Jolie. She may be somewhat of a self-serving, attention-starved public figure herself, but at least she's a self-serving, attention-starved public figure not scared to use her fame to alert the public of a serious issue, that being the level of poverty children in third-world countries are exposed to.

That's not to say that both James and Jolie don't try to help in their own special way, but I find Jolie's strategy of adopting every other child she comes across much more effective than simply sticking them in front of a sewing machine to make more Nikes. In other words, LBJ has a long, long ways to go before he can start making fun of anyone actually trying to make a difference.
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Previously on FanHouse:
Live from New York, It's LeBron James!
Stephon Marbury Calls Out Michael Jordan
LeBron, Damon Jones Not Into Activism