Monday, May 3, 2010

Monday's Musings on Sports - Leaders and Scorers and the Power of YouTube

As regular readers of this blog are aware, the Monday post was usually devoted to sports with highlights and analysis of the Max Kellerman show which formerly aired on 1050 ESPN Radio. Although Max resigned from 1050 almost one year ago, I have tried to continue the tradition of linking sports to Torah which I believe was an undercurrent of the Max Kellerman show.

Tonight I was planning on writing on something that I heard on the Colin Cowherd show about the difference between a scorer and a leader. I was all set to write about how Kevin Durant was merely a scorer but not a leader since he disappeared at crunch time in all of his team's games against the Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Then, I happened across a post by Shutdown Corner on the Yahoo NFL page which contained a very funny story which I just had to share as comedy relief (no moral tonight, just a funny story).

It appears that the Cleveland Browns have taken Internet surfing to a whole new level. As reported by Matthew Darnell, the Browns signed a collegiate player as an undrafted free agent. As I wrote last week (http://kosherbeers.blogspot.com/2010/04/mondays-musings-on-sports-of-sacrifices.html), the prospects of succeeding as an undrafted player in the NFL are remote (although Scott Sicko did in fact change his mind and sign as a UDFA with the Dallas Cowboys). Still, each team will sign about a dozen of these players every off season and give one or two of them a shot at making the NFL.

So what makes the Browns different enough to catch my attention? The first departure from the norm is that Joel Reinders (the player signed by the Browns) did not play college football for an NCAA Division I or IA team. In fact, he did not play in the US, as his experience constituted eight games played for the University of Waterloo (home to Brick Brewing!) in Ontario, Canada.

The second major departure from the norm is that the Browns did not send a scout to watch Reinders, or even invite him to the team's complex for an off-season workout. Instead, the Browns "found" Reinders by watching a demo tape that he recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

If you would like to read the full article about Reinders incredible ride click here - http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/The-Browns-turn-to-YouTube-to-find-able-bodied-f;_ylt=AuuqWPum96r_iTttUvKEhJJDubYF?urn=nfl,238186 .

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