'Special' means just that

By DAVID GREEN

Tom Sorenson is a good guy and he writes a good column -- usually. This one is not one of his good ones. With all due respect to Tom and my Turn 3 blogmate Mike Harper, you guys have stated your opinions, and now, here's mine.

Sorenson's job is to be provocative. But in doing so this time, he has bought into the NASCAR mentality that every race and every championship battle MUST be breathtaking. If they ever succeed in making it that way, they will seriously devalue the sport.

Comparing the Ford 400 to the gripping 42-39 victory by top-ranked Ohio State over No. 2 Michigan is an easy way to make the NASCAR race look bad, but it's a flawed comparison. And it supports my point, not his.

That game was not special because it was like every other college football game ever played, or even like every Ohio State-Michigan game ever played. It was special because the overwhelming majority of college football games are NOT like that one.

I notice there was no mention of last year's OSU-Michigan contest (a 25-21 victory by the Buckeyes in a game that did not happen to match the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation). Should the Big Ten and NCAA be alarmed because that 2005 game was not much more exciting than, say, watching the Wendy's drive-through?

A better comparison would be to other sports' championship contests, most of which turn out to be something less than classic. The overwhelming majority of Super Bowls have been anything but "super." In that respect, NASCAR's season finale had just about the same "pizzazz" as other sports' championship events, not less.

Sorenson picked the OSU-Michigan game for comparison for two reasons -- one, timeliness, and two, because it was such a knock-down, drag-out classic of a game. So far, I have not heard legions of college football fans complaining that every game is not just like that one, and (so far, anyway) nobody is suggesting that we do something to make sure that every game is like that one.

That's a good thing, because we shouldn't.

We don't remember and talk about the Pearson-Petty finish to the 1976 Daytona 500 because it was so much like every other NASCAR race. We don't remember and talk about the 1992 Winston Cup championship drama because it's like that every year. We remember and talk about that race and that championship battle because they were so different from most races and most seasons.

That does not automatically mean there is something wrong with all those races that did not end in a last-lap crash or the championship battles that are determined in some manner that doesn't cause fans to swoon in their seats from excitement.

When everything is special, folks, nothing is.