Week’s worth of fightin’ words

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Five opinions having nothing to do with Opening Day that, like cleaning out the garage and changing the oil in my car, I just didn’t get to last week:

Expletive conceited

I have had only one experience with Dana White, the commissioner of the UFC, and I have to say that it was a pleasant one. We chatted for like an hour and half, and he probably used the F-word only about eight times. I wasn’t offended at all, because he’s a tough guy from South Boston, and that’s just how they talk back there.

But when an Internet reporter wrote something he didn’t like, White used the F-word a lot more than eight times in a video blog. In fact, I think he broke the previous record co-held by Lou Piniella and a dozen seamen apprentices at Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois.

Plus, there were some expletives deleted that offended women and gay people.

White says he’s not prejudiced toward either group and he and those in his inner circle are quick with a story or an anecdote that, taken at face value, would appear to prove it. There’s definitely a soft side under the rough exterior.

But his foul-mouthed rant made the knee-jerk comments of boxing promoter Bob Arum sound like the humanitarian dissertations of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

For a controversial sport trying to catch on with the mainstream public while appeasing Sen. John McCain, who once referred to it as human cock fighting, that’s probably not a good thing.

Unnecessary roughness

When a high school football star allegedly threatened his former girlfriend with a screwdriver, a lot of people wanted to make it a Bishop Gorman problem, because that’s where the kid played football.

No one has ever accused me of being a Bishop Gorman sympathizer. That’s probably because my school used to lose 56-7 to private schools that recruited star running backs, too. There’s no defending what he allegedly did, but kids get into trouble at schools that aren’t perceived to be elitist or entitled or recruit star running backs.

Had this incident occurred during the football season and the kid received a court injunction allowing him to play in the big game on Friday night, then it becomes a Bishop Gorman problem.

Money for nothing

At another high school — see, it’s not only Bishop Gorman that has these problems — a bunch of money the football team had raised for new jerseys went missing.

The head coach at Coronado High, who said the money was stolen, has been placed on paid leave. One of the other coaches doesn’t believe his story. He said the situation makes him sick. A parent said the same thing. She wouldn’t give her name, because she said her son would never get off the end of the bench if she did.

And you thought Tim Riggins and Coach Eric Taylor have problems on “Friday Night Lights.”

The head coach says he’s confident a police investigation will clear him of any wrongdoing. He blames the school for not teaching him what to do with student-generated funds.

You know, I didn’t graduate from Duke, but my crazy idea would be taking the money to a bank. Or, better yet, encasing it in the shrink wrap they use on DVD movies, because that’s just about impossible to break into.

Kings of the court

The Findlay Prep basketball factory of Henderson beat the Oak Hill Academy basketball factory of Mouth of Wilson, Va., to capture ESPN’s de facto national high school basketball championship on Sunday. This is fine and dandy if you believe that having student body members who can’t dunk a basketball or haven’t verbally committed to Syracuse or Georgetown is optional.

I’m not a big fan of high school basketball factories. At the same time, I realize they aren’t going away. I also realize it takes a huge effort to go undefeated and beat all the other high school basketball factories in only your third year of existence.

So congratulations to the Pilots of Findlay Prep.

The Fightin’ Oscars

Although the press release on the AEG Worldwide Web site still says Harrah’s and AEG have agreed to develop a world class sports and entertainment arena on the Las Vegas Strip that will be completed in 2010, I’m still not buying it, because it still says construction will commence in summer 2008.

So I don’t think the Fightin’ Oscars, or whatever Mayor Goodman proposes our first major league sports franchise be called, will be tipping off or dropping the puck any time soon.

Last week Tim Leiweke, president and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, said if you announced a new sports arena today, it wouldn’t get built on account of the recession.

Nobody is blaming AEG for the bottom falling out of the economy. But it should take down that press release about the new Las Vegas arena at least until it comes back around, because people around here are willing to believe just about anything.