Before he disappears into the dustbin of discarded blue-chippers gone awry, we bring you HornsFans’ superb variation on the definition of Bomar-ed. Theirs is a more visual one:

Fan paintings–the visual hagiography of coaches, players, and those associated with your football program–reaches some seriously pitched heights in college football. None get weirder (or more moving, depending on your perspective) than Daniel Moore’s Alabama paintings. In photographic detail they’ve broken down every single significant moment of Bama football over the past 50 years or so in watercolors and oils. Our favorite is “The Kick II,” mostly for the blurry effect he’s painted onto the Tennessee player.

Groooovy.

This reader submission, though, comes close to equalling the lunacy of Alabama fan art without the pesky polish and professionalism of Daniel Moore. we have to bust out our art critic speak for a new series: Fan Art Critiques. Behold case one: Spurrier and his giant cock. (Go ahead and click–it’s an odious pun, and totally safe for work. HT: John.)
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We’re pooped. After three straight days of guest stars (thanks to our close personal friends Dirk Benedict and Hugo Chavez for coming by–si se puede!) and all the coffee we could handle, we now bring the EDSBS telethon to a close, having surpassed our fundraising goal thanks to the hard-earned donations of the faithful, the degenerate, the hypocrite lecteur… you, the EDSBS reader.

Thanks for stopping by and singing “Kokomo” with us, Mr. Van Der Beek.

We have a shitload of thank-you notes to write, but we want to know: since we surpassed the fundraising goal, we’d like to see what you want out of the site in the way of bells and whistles to build into things here. For example:

–More video and video archiving. YouTube’s offering endless bandwidth and possibilities as far as video hosting, but the software and equipment takes some a-purchasing. Is their demand for this? We’ve gotten a video camera out of the deal, but if you want further video, we’ll do our damndest.

–Tailgates. We’re tentatively announcing the first EDSBS tailgate, scheduled to take place at the ND/GT game here in Atlanta on September 2nd. The idea is that we get some donated beer, rope a little area off informally, and take donations in exchange for frosty beverage for our favorite local charity, an all-refugee soccer team in the Clarkston area. They need cleats; you need beer; voila! There will be expenses associated with this, however minimal they might be. Given some realistic parameters, we’d like to have three or four of these throughout the season, including a massive one in Gainesville on September 30th for the Bama/Florida game.

–T-shirts. Long rumored, oft-promised, we have a designer working on these. We’re thinking of doing Cafe Press, and they should be available before the season starts.

These are just a few ideas, so leave your own suggestions and comments below.

Finally, thanks again. We raised a total of $2,620 dollars, double our original goal. The tip jar will remain open, of course, but for 2006 we consider the official EDSBS telethon concluded in triumphant fashion. In celebration, we’re going to purchase a wetsuit, twist our hair in minibraids, and bop around the office to Living Colour. Huge gratitude goes out to all our donors–thanks from the bottom of our black, whiskey-stained heart.

Brent Schaeffer, the starting quarterback for Ole Miss and College of the Sequoias transfer who has yet to actually appear at Ole Miss, finally finished the American History crossword he was working on and has completed the coursework allowing him to transfer to Oxford. (Helpful reminder: Austill.) Orgeron may breathe a sigh of relief now, and release Schaeffer’s family from the undersea prison/mountain lair/backwater stilthouse in the swamp he’s been holding them in for the past month or two.

Starting qb + one month of practice prior to season = mandatory comedy watching for first four games, especially the unusually feisty Memphis Tigers in game one. Cue the wacky blooper music from the Sport Machine. Hey-OOO!!!

“Snap the ball, or I’ll crap a set of brass knuckles right now and beat you all to death with them.”

The season’s approaching, so it’s time to build the language and lingo of the upcoming season one brick at a time. The neologism of the week will be:

BOMAR’D

Pronunciation: ‘bo-MARD

Function: Adjective

Etymology: derived from the last name of an Oklahoma starting quarterback who gave his team the pipe in 2006 by taking cake jobs specifically prohibited under NCAA rules, Rhett Bomar. He was then kicked off the team before playing a single game of his sophomore season.

Definition: To inconvenience a team in grandiose fashion with behavior of a selfish and illicit nature off the field.

Example: “To the astonishment of teammates and others, quarterback Paint Strapley was kicked off the team for attempting to illegally import a ton of Mexican nandralone and 2.3 million dollars of gold bullion into the United States. Strapley’s blimp was intercepted by U.S. Customs officials at the border at 3 a.m. yesterday. He has been suspended indefinitely by Coach Bobby Bowden, who responded to reporters’ questions by saying “Herbert Hoover, y’all, applesauce, sleepy…” Teammates are left feeling bomar’d.

NOTE: Slight variant of “Rixtirpated” (participle of verb “rixtirpate”), which is to inconvenience team in grandiose fashion on the field.

Bomar’d.

Addendum: SMQ wants a do-over after Bomar’s booting.

Ernest Thomason, wide reciver for D-III Emory and Henry, heard the words for the first time in high school. A rangy wide receiver for Grundy County High in Tennessee, he heard them as he watched a local community television of his 8 catch, 118 yard performance early one Sunday morning.

“I’d just made an over-the-shoulder catch against a corner who later got a scholarship offer to Virginia. Nothing little, mind you. The announcer couldn’t give me credit; he said I had…”

At this point, the tears come. They often do when he talks about that game. Thomason wipes them away with a few rubs of the same huge hands that cradle passes in easy catches like a fat man catching donuts from heaven. He stares into space composing himself, then speaks in deliberate tones as he says the words that burned him so deeply that night.

“He said I had ‘deceptive speed,’” Thomason says, choking up again. “He might as well have called me a ‘possession receiver.’”

Chris Doering: “deceptively fast.”

Thomason is not alone in his pain, according to Mike Sembler, founder and spokesperson for the Caucasian Wide Receivers Association of America. The discrimination faced by Caucasian wide receivers everywhere follows a similar pattern in football.

“The story’s always the same. Possession receiver. Deceptive speed. Good blocker. White wide receivers are always discriminated against in the same terms. It’s a national problem, and we’re taking steps to fight this on its own terms.”

The CWRAA’s campaign—“Catch And Release:Getting Stereotypes on the Hook and Letting Go of Predjudice”—aims to fight discrimination by turning the tables on the conventional perceptions of white wide receivers versus their predominantly African American counterparts. The tools: a website, a dream, and a series of pamphlets Sembler hopes to distribute at high schools across the nation.

“Our favorite is the ‘Role Reversal exercise, where we try to turn the tables on conventional use of language in sports situations. What if we always described a black wide receiver as “speedy” or “athletic”? Or calling a Jewish running back “wily?” What if we let every tall white kid who couldn’t run a 4.4 get automatically put at second string tight end? Or god forbid, long snapper? We can’t let the Chris Doerings and Mike Hasses of the world get pigeonholed before they ever get get tackled on a nine-yard curl route.”

Clemson English professor Dr. Anthony Marco thinks Sembler is onto a real phenomenon. He’s even written a paper on it: “Gritty Team Players: Language, Race, and the Semantics of Oppression in Sport.”

“We counted the number of times broadcasters, coaches, and journalists referred to white wide receivers in terms we consider stereotypical,” said Marco in a phone interview Tuesday. “What we found was astonishing: over 83 percent of the time any statement was made it referred to the terms we consider to be a negative stereotype about ‘white’ wide receivers.”

The list of terms used to describe wide receivers included:

–”Posession receiver”

–”Team player”

–”Not the most talented guy in the world”

–”Deceptive speed”

–”Gritty”

–”Slow-ass, tiny-penised, Bass Pro Shop sticker-havin’ cracker zombie”

The CWRAA hopes to petition the FCC to ban these words during sports broadcasts. Activists like Dr. Marco and Mike Sembler say that they hope to save the next generation of lanky white athletes, but at least one casualty won’t be coming back from the disabled list of athletes hurt by the harsh language of predjudice: Ernest Thompson, who left the Emory and Henry team shortly after being labeled “deceptively fast.”

“I can’t deal with it anymore,” he said, lacing up his running shoes before practice, the sound of Coldplay playing on his stereo in the background. “I’m going to where I’m wanted, where I feel accepted. Some people say Ultimate Frisbee isn’t a real sport, but I’d challenge them to come out and try to hang with us for thirty minutes.” He smiles, pauses.

“And no one ever called me possession receiver out there.”

A safe place for white wide receivers: Ultimate, man.