One of the best phrases of all-time, which holds true in nearly every walk of life: “You never want to be the guy to follow THE GUY.”

This phrase rings true in most family structures in addition to professional environments. As fun as being Billy Madison is, you really don’t want to be Billy Madison when all is written. You want to be Billy Madison’s dad. You want to be the creator, the innovator, the guy who gets the credit, the guy who gets the good lookin’ gal, the guy who built the dream.

That’s why, contrary to most reports, it sucks to be Nate Montana.

Nate is the son of legendary 49ers quarterback Joe Montana and, of course, he has big dreams of following in daddy’s footsteps. Save for members of the Manning family, this plan rarely works out.

Nate chucked the ball around Cowboys Stadium on Monday as part of the NFL Super Regional Combine, with NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks calling Jr. Cool (bad ass name he should already be using) a “long shot.”

While the sports geek in me wants to combat Mr. Brooks and say foolish things like, “Yeah, that’s what they said about Tom Brady, idiot,” and “I can’t recall the last time a Super Bowl quarterback won due to having the best ‘zip,’” Mr. Brooks is probably right. I’m guessing Nate will be waking up hungover as hell at the crack of noon at the Montana family pool come late April instead of spending countless hours learning an NFL playbook.

In fairness, Nate Montana did have a decent Division II college career. He led the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in passing last season with 2,480 yards and 19 touchdowns while the starter for West Virginia Wesleyan, a school that boasts just over 1,400 students (but the tailgate scene is amazing.)

The worst thing that could happen to Nate going forward is some NFL team inviting him to camp just because he’s Joe Montana’s son. If Nate actually earns a spot, well, then, great.

Maybe the motivation here is Nate Montana’s need for daddy’s approval (shocker). We know that Joe Cool can be a little ornery at times and we know that he doesn’t really appreciate underdog stories like that of former teammate Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger.

So maybe Nate just wants to stick it to No. 16? Good luck, Jr. Cool, we’ll be rootin’ for ya.

Follow Metro Boston sports editor and columnist Matt Burke on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

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With the Final Four taking place in Atlanta in just a few days, one would think that the sport of basketball is being celebrated. Quite the contrary.

Money grabs and shady dealings are all the rage this week when it comes to hoop talk.

WFAN sports radio reported this morning that Erick Murdoch (the guy with all the dirt on now-fired Rutgers head coach Mike Rice) tried to blackmail Rutgers for $1 million to not release the tapes of Rice abusing his players and that Rutgers may have countered with a $200,000 offer at some point.

You think this type of behavior could land Rutgers in some hot water with the NCAA? If they even engaged in those type of talks it’s a guarantee that Rutgers basketball won’t see the NCAA tournament until about 2078 (lame joke alert: the same would have been true even without this Mike Rice stuff).

Elsewhere in “Basketball & Benjamin Franklins” drama, we had the Pac-12’s referee boss Ed Rush “joking” around with his officials that if they gave Arizona head coach Sean Miller a technical in the Pac-12 tournament, he would give them $5,000 or a free trip to Cancun. Of course, there was a controversial technical foul given to Miller in the Pac-12 tournament (one that made Miller a SportsCenter star for a day due to his postgame press conference tirade about the call) … nothing to see here! Still, Pac-12 commish Larry Scott believes that Rush is doing a fine job and that he did nothing to warrant a firing.

Finally, we turn to the pros where the Los Angeles Lakers (the NBA’s marquee franchise and biggest money maker) are battling out West for the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference. There is a strange trend happening in which the Lakers are getting most EVERY call from the stripes down the stretch, so much so that someone was kind enough to make the following, brilliant YouTube video about it.

Take it sleazy!

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  Basketball & Money: Lakers 2013 playoff conspiracy video

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Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season is supposed to be one of the cherished sporting days on the calendar and no MLB team is supposedly more cherished than the 27-time World Series champion Yankees.

However, if you are a San Diego Padres fan or Kansas City Royals fan or Seattle Mariners fan and have heard time and time again about the perceived love affair with baseball in the northeast and how it’s “just different there,” you can rest easy today. Boston, Philly, New York – we all can have our Mickey Mouse sports moments. But yesterday’s Opening Day “celebration” at Yankee Stadium took the cake as one of the more JV operations we’ve seen in quite a while.

- The not-so-memorable day opened with something called a “Constantine Maroulis” singing the National Anthem, which would have been a good get for the Yankees, maybe, in say, 2005. That’s the best the most revered organization in sports can do on Opening freakin’ Day?!

- The visiting and supposedly HATED Red Sox were introduced to the humdrum crowd while the Star Wars “evil theme,” the “Imperial Death March” blared over the loud-speakers. Every other day out of the year, I’d be fine with this. But it’s Opening Day. A little decorum, please. The Red Sox, for all their faults, introduce the opposing team on Opening Day with old school organ noises (ya, know something that screams ‘this is baseball … we’re different. We’re special. Embrace the history!).

Instead, the Yankees show here that they’re no different than a small market NBA team. “Let’s show our fans how much we HATE the opponent by playing this sinister music when they come out!!!”

The Orlando Magic play this song when the Milwaukee Bucks make visits. The Yankees should be a step above this.

- Even Red Sox brass wouldn’t have had the balls to call Monday’s game a “sell-out.” Yes, Yankee Stadium is a 50,000 –seat canyon of a ballpark. And yes, it is ridiculously expensive to watch any game there. But last time I checked, there were a lot of people in New York  and there are more than a few Yankees fans in this country that make decent livings. To have an empty ballpark in the late innings on Opening Day is an embarrassment. The Yankees were down 8-2 to the Red Sox late in the game. Six runs against the Red Sox, a team that won 69 games last season? Not impossible.

Plus the folks that were at the game probably had already taken the entire day off from work. What’s the rush? Enjoy yourself. Oh and one more thing … It’s Opening Day!!!!

- To sum up the day, a stream of trash was flying all over the field in the late innings of Monday’s game. Now, there’s not much the Yankees can do about that. New York streets are, after all, filled with trash and it just happened to be a windy day. But the image on TV of a dark sky, trash whipping all over the field and thousands and thousands of empty, dark blue seats painted quite the picture. And no, that picture had nothing to do with “fresh starts,” “new beginnings,” “peanuts,” “Cracker Jacks”  and/or “spring.”

I suppose we should expect this from the Yankees and their fans at this point. They failed to sell out THREE PLAYOFF GAMES last year. Still, the New York Yankees are supposed to be a beacon in sports. Here’s guessing the Tampa Bay Rays will do it up right in their home opener Tuesday afternoon.

Matt Burke is sports editor and a columnist at Metro Boston. Follow him on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

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The injury that Kevin Ware suffered in Sunday’s NCAA regional final between Louisville and Duke was, arguably, the most sickening sight in sports television history.

If you get queasy when watching someone roll an ankle or have a finger popped back into place, do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch this video:

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  Louisville’s Kevin Ware breaks leg (gruesome)

If you are an under-the-weather puppy that DOES like to watch this type of stuff, with one eye closed at least, then you will want to compare Ware’s injury with these disgusting breaks:

The gold standard

The video is grainy and it’s tough to tell just how bad he got it, but every sports fan over the age of 40 swears that Joe Theismann breaking his leg against the Giants is the the most gruesome sports injury of all-time. There is breaking your leg and then there is BREAKING your leg like Theismann did that night.

Theismann’s name is so synonymous with this type of injury that his tweet Sunday was agreed to be the most relevant tweet of all: “Watching Duke/ Louisville my heart goes out to Kevin Ware.”

Your knee isn’t supposed to bend like that

The world was watching when University of Miami running back Willis McGahee had his knee bashed in during the 2002 National Championship game. Most in the world wished that ABC never showed the replay 500 times.

Who says wrestling is fake?

WCW was in a ratings war with WWE at the time of this hideous leg injury. Things were so ridiculous at the time that many thought that the injury was just a ploy by WCW to grab more viewers. Nope. It was all too real for Psycho Sid that night.

The post Kevin Ware leg injury was disgusting – you sick puppies will like these too appeared first on Metro.us.

It’s official: The Red Sox have completed their transformation from the gold standard in the cutthroat sports business to gold standard in bush-league promotional machines.

Perhaps it’s a last-ditch effort to save the fraudulent sell-out streak at Fenway Park or, perhaps, it’s actually (maybe? possibly?) a show of goodwill to a fan base it has bankrupted both literally and figuratively over the past decade. Yup, for the better, the Red Sox are going all San Diego Padres on us. They are slashing food and, most importantly, beer prices at Fenway Park.

That $5 Fenway Frank? Consider it $2.50 because they’re now buy one, get one free. Have a kid who lives on nothing but corn syrup and processed meats? Fenway is the place for you and your boy because he’ll eat free if he’s under 14 (just good luck fitting mini Mo Vaughn into one of those hard red plastic seats).

It’s plain to see that the Red Sox best move of the past year was not bringing in nice-guy Mickeys and Goofys named Victorino and Dempster in order to change the clubhouse atmosphere at the amusement park on Yawkey Way. It wasn’t dumping all that salary and headache last August in the Beckett-Gonzalez-Crawford trade. Nope, their smartest move in quite a while came when they decided to win back the hearts of their fan base with cheap food and booze. That type of strategy is more American than baseball itself.

Grappling with life

Without question, X-Pac’s Bronco Buster was the most crowd-pleasing wrestling move this side of Goldust’s Shattered Dreams production. But as we all know, you can’t keep pulling off the Bronco Buster for two decades and expect to have your anus come away unscathed.

X-Pac, aka Sean Waltman, who is apparently still wrestling in armories and bingo halls across this great land, tore his anus over the weekend while attempting the move on his opponent. His girlfriend tweeted after the injury, “We don’t know if there is a medical term for it…but he did a bronco buster last night that literally ripped his ass apart! :-/ Lost a lot of blood! Had surgery this morning and is on the road to recovery! Believe it or not..this has happened to him once before! #wrestling #seanwaltman #xpac @therealxpac #getwellsoonxpac.”

Awww, man. What I would have done for a nice anus hashtag.

Hopefully Vince McMahon will show some sympathy for his former star and throw X-Pac and his anus into some throwaway three-man tag at WrestleMania coming up in a couple of weeks. One can dream.

In the meantime, let’s refresh everyone’s memory on X-Pac’s personal life. He dated Chyna, who once dated his best friend Triple-H (who is now married to McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie). While dating Chyna, the two made a sex tape together. X-Pac now bad-mouths Chyna like nobody’s business, and Chyna is involved in full-fledged porn. Who says the wrestling business is sleazy?

Matt Burke is sports editor and a columnist at Metro Boston. Follow him on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

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The Madness begins (for real, none of this First Four filth) on Thursday at noon when Greg Gumbel bumps the local news and then proceeds to infuriate all 29 fans of “The Young and the Restless.” It’s a few of the best few minutes of the year for any sports fan. Cliched for sure, but you truly get that “Christmas morning feel” around 11:59 a.m. on the first Thursday of the tourney.

One of the biggest storylines we’ll be following as soon as the Big Dance tips is, “Which female fan will steal the show, Katherine Webb-style?” during this year’s tourney. I just filled out my bracket and wittled my way down to a Final Four: Kate Upton out of the Anna Nicole Region, Katherine Webb herself out of the Kathy Ireland Region, Amanda Marcum out of the Brooklyn Decker Region and Juli Boeheim out of the Nina Hartley Region.

Kate Upton has always been associated with the sports world, because it seems that sports fans are the only people out there who truly appreciate her. Critics call her fat. We defend her. Critics say she’s dumb. We defend her. Critics wanted her to stop dating Justin Verlander. We put an end to that.

She seems to be gearing up for a big run this March, considering what has gone down the past few days. A teenage boy, who claims to be a huge nerd (that’s in these days, remember), asked Upton via a Youtube video if she would go to prom with him. Upton curiously responded via Twitter, tweeting to young Jake Davidson, “you can call me Katie if you want! How could I turn down that video! I’ll check my schedule.”

That’s right, if there’s one thing Upton knows how to do, it’s finding a way to stay relevant.

Katherine Webb’s fame is waning but if she can get on CBS cameras in the next few weeks and cause Jim Nantz to break code and not act like an alien, she could win our hearts all over again. Just confirming — we all know that’s still her role in American pop culture, right? … appearing at the biggest events in college sports and making old play-by-play men tingly?

In the relevancy category: Webb is starring on that diving TV show that I purposely forgot to watch.

Amanda Marcum is a sleeper, but she is about to endure one hell of a media ride. Marcum, a former Maxim cover girl and Victoria’s Secret model, is actually married to Florida Gulf Coast head coach Andy Enfield. Jake Davidson, take note: It is possible to land a major league woman even if you’ll always be a Birmingham Baron.

“I thought he looked like a great driver that would give me a free ride,” Amanda said jokingly. “And we had lots of things in common — especially sports — and we talked and talked about that. I thought he was really funny and very confident. And I’m a sucker for sports guys, obviously.”

Obviously.

Finally we get to Juli Boeheim. Yup, she’s like a team with three or four fifth-year seniors making it to the grand stage, but she’s a proven winner this time of year. On an annual basis, we all see her in the stands on TV and gaze in amazement at just how in the world Jim could have scored that. I’m sure it had nothing to do with him being a millionaire hoops coach.

She was a big deal when I was in college, but her fame has sadly plummeted (@JuliBoeheim has a whopping 328 Twitter followers) in recent years.

Here’s saying Juli’s got one more magical month left in her.

Matt Burke is sports editor and a columnist at Metro Boston. Follow him on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

The post Playing the Field: The sports chick Final Four appeared first on Metro.us.

Not a good month to be part of the female entertainment at sporting events. 

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  Lazy ball girl at Phillies game

Last week one of the Hooters ball girls picked up a live baseball and tossed it into the crowd. Tuesday we got the exact opposite. This Hooters girl, who looks to have the same range as Derek Jeter, doesn’t even flinch when the ball comes her way. This is what often happens when suits micro-manage after a small flub. Employees go way too far the other way.

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  Atlanta Hawks cheerleader takes digger

Follow Metro Boston sports editor and columnist Matt Burke on Twitter @BurkeMetroBos

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It took a Wilt Chamberlain-esque parade of women for Tiger Woods to figure it all out, but he and we now know that he has a type: white, blonde and athletic.

Woods and women’s downhill skiing champion Lindsey Vonn officially announced what has long been rumored: they are, in fact, dating. Woods announced his relationship status like most famed golfers turned sex fiends always have – on Facebook, at the exact same time as his new flame.

“This season has been great so far and I’m happy with my wins at Torrey and Doral,” Woods wrote. “Something nice that’s happened off the course was meeting Lindsey Vonn. Lindsey and I have been friends for some time, but over the last few months we have become very close and are now dating. We thank you for your support and for respecting our privacy. We want to continue our relationship, privately, as an ordinary couple and continue to compete as athletes.”

Vonn wrote:

“I guess it wasn’t a well-kept secret but yes, I am dating Tiger Woods. Our relationship evolved from a friendship into something moreover these past few months and it has made me very happy. I don’t plan on addressing this further as I would like to keep that part of my life between us, my family and close friends. Thank you for understanding and your continued support! xo LV”

Other than being world-class athletes, we also know that Woods and Vonn have this in common:

The 28-year-old Vonn made headlines just last month when she tore her ACL and MCL in a brutal crash in Austria. Woods tore his ACL in 2008 and hasn’t really been the same since (though that other set-back on Thanksgiving weekend of 2009 may have played a factor as well).

Follow Metro Boston sports editor and columnist Matt Burke on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

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To be quite honest, when I first heard the name “Kobe” and “porn” in the same phrase I was thinking about things much more sinister than dunk contests.

Ya know, cause after you’re charged with rape all bets are off when it comes to public sex stipulations.

But Kobe and the NBA have done such a masterful job of rehabbing his image (the 10-year plan most certainly worked) after the Lakers superstar bawled his eyes out for the world to see in a July 2003 press conference, that most people in today’s society don’t even remember the incident.

It seems suits at Sex.com (do porn sites actually have high ranking execs, and do they actually have offices and wear actual ties and stuff to work?), have forgotten about what did or did not happen in Eagle, Colo. a decade ago as they offered Kobe $5 million to participate in a dunk contest with LeBron James. Yup, Magic Johnson and Sex.com are here to save the NBA slam dunk contest by throwing gobs of money at the game’s most famous stars.

Kobe, of course, should do it – if for no other reason than to send David Stern into a “Jordan gambling at 4 a.m. in Atlantic City” – like tantrum. The same way Rob Gronkowski should hook up with everyone’s favorite girl next floor, Bibi Jones, in exchange for $3 million (also a Sex.com project) just to wrinkle the feathers of Lord Goodell.

One of these days, one of these famous athletes is going to break the porn barrier. You can bet ESPN is already scrambling on how to handle it.

Bad idea genes
So Paris Jackson, the 14-year-old daughter of the late Michael Jackson, is a cheerleader today for some high school out in LA.

In turn, Philadelphia Eagles cheerleading guru/publicity hound Barbara Zaun jumped at the chance to get her name on TMZ by saying that Paris would “make a great Eagles cheerleader!”

Uh, actually I can think of about, oh, say, 31 other NFL cities that would be a better landing spot for Ms. Jackson. Do we really think Eagles fans would treat the emotionally fragile daughter of the most famous dead, multi-colored, formerly emotionally fragile pop singer in the history of the world with class and dignity? I’m sure there would be zero child molestation jokes reigning down on young Paris from guys 10 whiskey-sodas deep at Lincoln Financial Field.

Plus, warm-weathered LA is going to have an NFL team by the time Paris is 18 and her aunt Janet already has the NFL halftime show deal flat-out conquered. Calm down Barbara Zaun.

Follow Metro Boston sports editor and columnist Matt Burke on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

The post Playing the Field: Sex.com approaches Kobe Bryant, Eagles approach Paris Jackson appeared first on Metro.us.

Thankfully there is still separation between sports and reality TV. Know why that’s still true despite the Manti Te’o saga, Lance Armstrong on Oprah and Nick Cannon hosting the NBA dunk contest?

Because Lamar Odom remains the most normal person on any of the Kardashian’s 20 different spin-off shows. Whenever he appears (my wife watches the show … that’s the excuse I’m using … yup, that’s the excuse), a giant brush of humbleness and calmness clobbers the giant head of Khloe. No, Odom is not on the show all that much, but when he is on there is a change in everyone’s demeanor. He is truly the steady rock that holds the Kardashian-Jenner clan together. In the reality TV world, Odom has his sh** together.

In the sports world? Entirely different story. Compared with his pro sports peers, Odom is an IHOP garbage-disposal at 4 a.m. mess.

He is such a diva that he can only play in Los Angeles to maintain a clear head. When he played in Dallas last year, he flat-out quit on the Mavericks and, in turn, his teammates were ecstatic about it. Today, the NY Post wrote that Odom fell asleep on a courthouse bench in New York while his children’s custody war was being waged.

“Excuse me, are you OK?” a court officer asked the slumping Odom. “I need you to sit up.”

The Clippers slug was sleeping for 20 minutes, according to the Post. He blamed it on jet-lag and “the flu.”

While this was going on, the two sides in the custody case were talking over crucial matters like whether or not the kids could appear on two separate reality showS (PLURAL). Because, of course, the mother of these kids, Liza Morales, appears on her own reality show, “Starter Wives.”

Head meet ball
In the age of concussions, we can still laugh at stuff like this, right? It’s our obligation as a society, right?

The second best part of these ball-to-head videos is always the reaction of the person who threw or kicked the ball. You always get that classic, “uh, Hoah!” chuckle right after contact. Like it’s hilarious for .2 seconds and then you realize that you’re a complete a**hole. It’s OK, we’ve all been there.

Matt Burke is sports editor and a columnist at Metro Boston. Follow him on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

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