Sports Fan

Is it still possible to look at Michael Vick without seeing images in our heads of Vick slamming helpless dogs to the ground over and over again until he killed them?

Can we honestly watch Vick on television, dressed in the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, without imagining what it must have been like for those frightened dogs that he either drowned or tortured to death by electrocution?

Apparently we can. At least that’s the message we’ve sent during Vick’s much-ballyhooed return this season to the National Football League.

Network TV has lined up for interviews, and heavily promoted Vick, hoping to generate higher ratings. Newspapers and web pages have filled their notebooks with Vick propaganda in an effort to increase readership. And we the sports fan have lapped it all up with the enthusiasm of — excuse the reference — a hungry dog at dinner time.

This Sunday, sports’ most notorious figure, will step out into the sunshine at Qualcomm Stadium when the Chargers host Philadelphia. Other than a few PETA types sprinkled throughout the area, will anybody care?

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One of the problems with being a San Diego sports fan is reconciling your heart and desire with the modest results of your city’s teams and universities. Let’s face it, our sports history stinks. No championships outside the San Diego Sockers, some Taylor Cups for the Gulls, and a lone men’s volleyball title for SDSU. Our baseball team has a long-entrenched history of failure, to the point that my cohort Chris Ello called their 2004-2007 period the “Golden Age” for Padres baseball, and I’m pretty sure he was being serious! Our Chargers have made the NFL’s biggest stage only once, and performed such a convincing pratfall that they looked like the junior varsity on the wrong field.

So, allow me to float this modest thought: this is the Golden Age, right NOW, for SDSU basketball. Now. This second. Before tipoff tonight between the SDSU women and Stanford at Cox Arena. Before the Aztecs men find out their opponent for Wednesday night’s NIT quarterfinal showdown on the Mesa. While we can still look back at the 25-win season for the men (most in school history) without knowing whether their tourney run will end in New York or San Diego. While we can still savor 24 wins for the women and a first-round NCAA victory over DePaul, and dream of a much bigger upset tonight.

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