New year means new resolve

By Brian Betz

As self-appointed, all-powerful commissioner for a day, I'm taking the opportunity to make some belated New Year's resolutions regarding the sporting world.

First, for every home game, men's basketball will receive the same fan support that turned out for the team's win over San Francisco. When I walked in midway through the first half, I thought they were playing Gonzaga based on the attendance.

The NFL will experience a player-shuffling offseason much like Major League Baseball has witnessed this winter. It would be nice to see a blockbuster trade that doesn't involve draft picks in such a monotonous league.

LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony will continue to rekindle my NBA interest, so long as the Los Angeles Lakers keep unraveling. That, and Detroit Pistons first-round pick Darko Milicic will play more than 6 minutes in a game and average more than one point per game by season's end.

The BCS (aka everybody's favorite computer system) will be completely overhauled with a playoff system. In three weeks, the top eight teams will compete as No. 1 plays No. 8, two plays seven and so forth until one team is crowned national champions in the final weekend. The higher seeded team gets homefield advantage except for the title game, where the site is neutral. The six teams that didn't make it to the title game fall into the three other BCS bowl games based on the computer's rankings. This way, sponsors are happy. Finals week will figure itself out.

Pete Rose enters the Hall of Fame, but because of a shameful attempt to sell his book, all sales go to the charity of Bud Selig's choice. No wait, charity of my choice. I'm commissioner here.

Roger Clemens will retire and un-retire three times this year, just to stay consistent with the past trends of other prominent professional athletes that couldn't make up their minds.

Analyst John Madden will overcome his fear of flying to return to coaching with the Oakland Raiders. Seems fitting with Bill Parcells and Joe Gibbs back.

And lastly, the Triple Crown of horse racing will be won in 2004 and interest in the once revered sport will regain some of its Seabiscuit-era notoriety.

OK, I lied. So it's more of a decree rather than a resolution.

Maybe I should write a book about that.

Contact Brian Betz at (408) 554-4852 or at bbetz@scu.edu.