An indecent proposal?

This weekend we had perhaps the best football player/cheerleader on-field moment since Boise State’s Ian Johnson proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend.

Of course you remember when Johnson’s Broncos stunned Oklahoma in one of the wildest bowl games of the last decade, but this week an NFL player scored a touchdown and ran to give his girlfriend — a cheerleader on the opposing team — the ball.

In the Bills-Cowboys game Sunday, the crowd was stunned by what went down, and the announcers, who apparently don’t read sports blogs, had no clue what was going on.

David Nelson plays for the Bills. He’s from Texas and went to the University of Florida. Kelsi Reich is his girlfriend, and she’s a cheerleader for the Cowboys.

After Nelson scored he jogged down the sideline toward his girlfriend. The camera operator seemed to know what was up, but the announcers were clueless about the whole thing.

Reich hopped on Twitter Sunday and showed everyone the ball, proclaiming she was the “happiest girl in the world.”

Uninformed vs. ‘fans’

I lobbied the editor of this space to get in a word about the lurid Penn State scandal. How can I not at least address what is the biggest scandal in the history of college sports? I’ll try to be succinct in my two points on the subject.

There are two groups of people chiming in on this sordid tale: Those who have read the 23-page grand jury report (they’re informed), and those who haven’t (they’re uninformed).

While the report is detailed, it does not include everyone’s entire testimony. It did contain enough detail to press charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky though.

At the same time, there are two other groups of people who feel compelled to talk about the topic: college football “fans” and people who have zero connection to the sport besides maybe having heard of Joe Paterno prior to the scandal.

A large portion of college football “fans,” for whatever reason, find it hard to believe a coverup could take place. Most of these people have not read the grand jury report.

People who live in a world unaware 107,000 people pack Beaver Stadium every game think everyone involved in the scandal knew what was going on and, disgustingly, did nothing.

– Jason Raj McIntyre covers athletes off the field and runs the popular blog, The Big Lead.