a 30 for 30 thread

i saw the usfl one and was reminded that my dad took me to a generals/federals game @ rfk once lol

just tivo whole seriesed this

I was not as blown away by the Len Bias one yesterday for most of it, since it seemed so hyperbolic in discussing how good a player he was, and how huge the impact of his death was--although I did like that they addressed that with the Wilbon talking head about how, even though older people and younger people don't really understand it, to people of a certain age (and probably of a certain region of the country), it was a giant world-stopping event. But yeah, I'm too young to remember it, so it was really hard not to be like, "Really? You're putting it with JFK and 9/11?"

But then that clip where they interviewed his father after Jay Bias was murdered, and his father used Len's name instead of Jay's, then caught himself and couldn't continue the interview...that was just devastating. It might be the image that sticks with me the most out of all of these docs so far.

I was 12 when Len Bias died and didn't even follow basketball, but I remember the news coverage of his death and all the controversy that followed crystal clear.

same here; there was a science times weekly tabloid that they gave out to all the kids that had a cover story on bias and the PLAGUE OF DRUGS

My husband doesn't follow basketball at all and he remembered Bias' death vividly. I hadn't heard of him, but I didn't follow sport til later in life (and grew up on the other side of the globe). But I found it pretty fascinating, and so sad. His mom, wow what a rock. And the footage of his actual playing was no joke. Great episode. It didn't overdo the message, because 'the message' is just so clear in Bias' story, it tells itself.

The Ali/Holmes episode was great too. Again, not having followed sports much til the last 10 years or so, and being quite young when a lot of this 80's stuff was happening, I'm learning so much from this series. Looking forward to the Jimmy The Greek episode next week.

i actually had no idea who jimmy the greek was until tonight--dude was before my time. but that was a sad fucken story.

I remember the statements that got him fired, but I wasn't watching The NFL Today yet at that age.

Phyllis George = hot.

are these available to watch online?

the other day the tv guide said that they were going to be playing the bias one but they let horse racing coverage bleed into it

i don't think they're online but they're repeating them a lot on 2 and classic

caught the last half of jimmy the greek one, probably the best one yet :(

I could've done without the Jimmy-as-narrator angle.

totally, that was weird

not a great decision but i'll let it slide

I was hoping this would be back tomorrow night, but it doesn't return until Sunday night 12/12. That's the bad news. The good news is that it returns with "The U."

I found Jimmy The Greek really interesting...I really didn't know much about that story at all. But as mentioned upthread, the Jimmy narration and weird 're-enactment/blurry Jimmy' scenes were way too much cheese. Reminded me of History Channel's penchant for re-enactments of everything. BLEUCH.

Favorite so far has been the Len Bias story. Damn that was sad.

oh man The U is gonna be sweet.

just saw the ad. will watch The U if there's that much miami bass music in it. sweet!

i cannot WAIT for the U tho i really wish it didn't premiere on the weekend.

the u was a good one

I didn't know it was going to be 2 hours. It was really good, though. I love that about 90% of the things you can't do in college ball now are because of Miami.

Bernie Kosar is lookin' rough these days.

Man, this one is really awesome.

I mean, if the plan was to get me to fall desperately in love with the Miami Hurricanes, mission accomplished.

Did you guys see Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in the Texas/Miami victory celebrations? Totally forgot he played there.

and LOL at that line about running up the score: "It's football, it ain't badminton"

And yeah...definitely an awesome episode. It felt more like a complete 'documentary', compared to some of the others. It's unbelievable the amount of players that come out of there when you sit down and look at the list.

Did you guys see Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in the Texas/Miami victory celebrations?

Yeah, I paused and rewound because I thought I'd seen him. I never knew he played there until now.

Miami used to be in the Big East and always kicked our asses with impunity. I remember a game in 2003 when Miami had both Clinton Portis and Frank Gore in the same backfield; the final score was something like 45 to 3. It was hard to love the Canes on that day, but in retrospect what a collection of talent. Those dudes invented the modern college game.

Portis was already in Denver in 2003.

It was pretty magical. I was an undergraduate at U.M. from 1986 -- 1990. The football team lost two, maybe three, games during the regular season in the four years I was there.

Sad I missed the documentary.

loved schnellenberger purposely leaving his pipe @ most-prized recruits houses

young jimmy johnson sounds & has a lot of the mannerisms of coach taylor in FNL

Watching that kind of makes me sad to see Jimmy trapped behind a desk at Fox on Sunday mornings. I don't know that he needs to go back into the NFL, but I'd love to have him take over another college team.

I don't think he has any interest in coaching anywhere, at any level.

He is an all-time great coach, but he's apparently v. happy in retirement.

Daniel, it's going to play two more times:

* The U by Billy Corben
* Sunday Dec 20
* 12am ESPN 2

* The U by Billy Corben
* Sunday Dec 27
* 1pm ESPN

Portis was already in Denver in 2003.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, 13 December 2009 15:49 (6 hours ago)

Johnny's right, make that 2001. I think the Canes had Jeremy Shockey in 2001 too.

Thanks, Michael. I'm on it.

We're going to have a very good team next year, but I miss the days when we routinely stomped Top 10 teams into the dirt.

and LOL at that line about running up the score: "It's football, it ain't badminton"

― VegemiteGrrrl, Sunday, December 13, 2009 3:40 AM

yesss, also loved the stories about them fuckin w/ ~the boz~

the stories about them fuckin w/ ~the boz~

^^ fave bit of the whole thing!

dunno if anyone knows but did the UM baseball program become as good thru similar recruiting methods? or was it just cuz UM football made all other sports programs better, etc? or neither?

I don't follow baseball, but especially not college baseball. zzzzzzzzzz

i feel like sarge might know how long til hes back

oh did he get sb'd out? ffs.

I think the baseball team became good-to-great at an earlier stage than the football team. A stretch of Ponce de Leon Blvd. was renamed Ron Fraiser Way when I was an undergraduate (or shortly thereafter), giving you some idea of when the baseball team began winning and/or competing for championships. I never heard about discipline or recruiting problems involving the baseball team.

(Ponce de Leon Blvd. is the street that runs in front of the main U.M. campus).

that is sorta what i woulda guessed ~ just curious, thanks

man these shits are like nowhere in the internet

I KNOW

so i watched the u on lol regular tv last nite and ehh it had its moments but the promise to deliver a higher standard than yr typical outside the lines typa shit was largely unfulfilled

It was definitely not a well-crafted film, but the subject matter was awesome, and the soundtrack (which was like 90% 2 Live Crew) was great.

yeah it got pretty redundant tho u must admit - an occasional great anecdote surround by endless ol mamai dudes being all WE WERE BAAAAD then vague unedifying season summaries and some fairly delightful footage of end zone celebrations - i found the whole thing quite credulous - it desperately needed dissenting voices

must say uncle luke was the best of the talking heads by far

i'm not even sure a player like him could exist in the internet age.

ok, plz explain to the old man what the HELL this means

i just love how much laettner leans into his assholishness. it makes him even more hateable because he's so blasé, but the fact that he knows THAT too...he's got it down to an artform, like he's made of douche. as a wrestling fan you just gotta love a heel as meticulously honed as he is

and goddamn he was cute. that made it so much worse lol

morbs i was exaggerating but i just cannot imagine the amount of thinkpieces and social media volume a white, good-looking, arrogant, dirty, skilled basketball player whose love of being the villain bordered on the perverse would generate.

now will always be someone else's simpler time
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nodding_clint_eastwood.gif

nd coach gerry faust looks exactly like george c scott

not a 30 for 30 but the Lawrence Phillips doc on showtime fits the bill. very tragic, the letters he writes from prison def show his intelligence

Watched the LMU/Westhead/Gathers "Guru of Go" again last night, such an amazing story. Feel like if Moneyball could be made into a film, then this whole saga could be adapted for the big screen.

Anyone else watch pt1 of Vick yet?
Aired Thurs, part 2 up next week.
Pretty good so far.

sidebar: I had NO idea about this:

Chris weinke playing college football at 27 will never not be funny #30For30 #Vick pic.twitter.com/2NwZVrjKWQ

— craw (@notthefakesteve) January 31, 2020

However: They didnt cover this in the doc & i still want to know if it’s really true

Vick is right handed. But throws left. Cuz the kids in his neighborhood made him throw left cuz that was the only way he wasnt unfair.

— Beyonce has an uncle named Larry Beyince. Bruh.... (@DragonflyJonez) November 9, 2014

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2020 season is nominated in the 2020 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2020 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 29, 2021

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

You know, funny you should bring this thread up -- earlier this morning I was all "Am I wrong? Was he in that one episode?" So I rewatched Broke, from 2012, and:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/RbfL78RT3_tuj4OkIbxAxsM3LkwfYul6fxhSgHcS6uAQn3YJ0f4c2PE1LvDnl12AfteMLHCuWGVnVdx68mEef_xvV8R9H6PBqnrEz2DgDFtcVExHurBx-UYITrs8phvZwA

And if you don't recognize him, google Ed Butowsky, then google Seth Rich. And I thought having Curt Schilling in this episode was the guy whose profile tanked the worst after this!

Sounds like Disney is breaking out the Moff Tarkin tech for this one

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2021/2/5/22267485/al-davis-pete-rozelle-deepfakes-30-for-30

i watched it
the deepfakes were terrible
so bad. whoever did the pete rozelle voice sounded like Andy Richter.

It was uncanny valley hall of presidents crossed with Salvatore Leone from GTA Liberty City. Weird. Bad.
Those bits felt like I was watching, idk, a Doritos Superbowl commercial. Like “let’s waste a bunch of money to badly execute an empty gimmick”

i saw of miracles and men last night. it's probably the best documentary i've ever seen in my entire life. definitely a must-watch for all hockey fans.

i haven't seen a lot of 30 for 30 documentaries, so i don't know how it compares to the rest. but in terms of other, non-30 for 30 documentaries, it's better than russian five. i'll probably watch red army later.

i'm also excited to watch into the wind. it's a little trite to say as a canadian, but terry fox has been an inspiration to me my entire life.

“Once Upon A Time In Queens” four-parter about the 86 Mets is up now on ESPN

as an outsider it’s pretty great.
i dont have much of a frame of reference for the Mets except the stuff i’ve gleaned from Morbs, Jon Stewart & the Simpsons, & other bits and pieces that i’ve tangentially absorbed, so its been cool piecing it all together

the music is really good

Would watch that for sure--just bought an oral history of the '86 team.

All the current Keith Hernandez interview of him
chilling at home with his cat was such a great flex

i give schiraldi credit for participating, wouldve liked to hear from more red sox; also maybe some broadcasters? like could they not get costas who was in those nbc dugout shots when prepping for the sox celebration

overall it was p solid

NOT including Costas was a blessing imo but thats just me

Loved the mid 80s Mets, finally got around to watching this today. In some ways, this probably could've been shrunk to three episodes instead of four, but also feel like it could've gone far more in-depth than it did even with four hours to fill. Still hate Dykstra.

the wrap-up-everything ending, post series, felt a little whiplash-y to me as a newbie