DALLAS.  With skyrocketing player salaries and rising materials costs undermining their ability to build state-of-the stadiums, owners of professional sports teams find themselves between a rock and a hard place these days.  "It used to be we could look to the state or the city for a little something to cover infrastructure," says Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones.  "Now they tell us they've gone and blown all their money on stupid stuff like schools, firemen and policemen, and we're left high and dry."  

Texas Stadium:  "Hey--I was sitting there!"

So Jones, who had already imposed "personal seat licenses" on long-time fans which, for as much as $150,000, merely give them the right to buy season tickets, came up with the idea of the "personal butt license" to cover his funding gap.  "The seat license gives you the right to buy the ticket to the seat," says Martin Zimwurtz, an economist who studies professional sports because it's more fun than poverty.  "The butt license gives you the right to put your fanny in the seat that is licensed to you."

"Dude--I got a personal body paint license!"

Other teams with new stadiums on the drawing board are looking closely at the Cowboys' move, and considering other add-on fees of their own.  "Many of our fans like to touch inappropriate parts of their bodies while the TV cameras are scanning the stands," says New York Giants' co-owner John Mara.  "That depresses our advertising revenues, so people are going to have to 'pay to pick' if they want us to win another Super Bowl."

In Arizona, where the football Cardinals just moved into the University of Phoenix and Mel's Weed-Wacker Supply Stadium, patrons can upgrade to body odor-free seats for a one-time Air Wick Room De-odorizer charge.

"A lot of our fans get kinda sweaty on the long walk from the parking lot to their seats, so we're putting six-foot room de-odorizers in designated VIP seating sections," says Arthur Bidwill, Vice President of Nepotism for the team.  "The addition of these fine Air Wick products will not interfere with play on the field, where our team always stinks."

CONCORDIA, Illinois.  The walls and the rafters of the high school gym in this small downstate town are festooned with banners representing conference, district and state championships won by the boys' sports teams, the Cougars, a symbol of pride for local residents.

Cougar Pride!

"Kids here grow up dreaming of playing football or basketball when they get to high school," says local feed and seed dealer Lloyd Knox.  "It's just part of their heritage."

"That's it--let him get behind you!"

And yet Concordia, as the smallest school in the widely-dispersed Tri-County League, hasn't had a winning season in any sport besides bass fishing in over a decade.  "We know we can't compete with Champaign, or Urbana, or Champaign-Urbana," Knox says.  "So we tell our kids you've got to find what you're good at and stick to it.  That's a good life lesson."

The Cougar Marching Band

What the Concordia Cougars excel at is being good losers, and the banners represent "sportsmanship" awards handed out by league officials to keep smaller schools from cancelling their athletic programs and concentrating on academics.  "It's like in college, when you hope the dumb kids don't drop out of chemistry or whatever," says Holcomb Blasdale, volunteer commissioner for the Tri-County League.  "You need somebody to keep the curve down to a reasonable level."

"A spectacular dropped pass!"

Cougar athletes are taught to go out of their way to give opponents the benefit of the doubt in any contested situation.  "When a kid on the other team signals for a fair catch, he's basically running up the white flag of surrender," says head football coach Wilber Rees.  "If he drops the ball, we think you ought to give him a chance to pick it up before you just pummel him."

"Have I done everything I could to prepare my kids to lose graciously today?"

This Geneva Convention approach to interscholastic athletics has won Concordia--which means "place of peace" in Latin--many fans in other towns in the region.  "The people from Concordia are so nice and pleasant," says Lu Anne Diggs of Waverly, Illinois.  "We just love when they come to town--it helps our kids' self-esteem to beat somebody by twenty points without breaking a sweat."

As spring competition begins, Concordia Athletic Director Dirk Powell hopes his teams can again achieve a "hat trick"--worst record and best sportsmanship in the three major sports, football, basketball and baseball.  "My only regret is that we don't play hockey here," he says.  "Then we'd have a grand-slam."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

PHOENIX, Arizona. The United States Postal Service has bowed to pressure from Arizona Cardinals fans, agreeing Friday to assign a separate zip code to the team's mammoth rookie, Taitusi "Deuce" Lutui.

Lutui:  "Stay away from the buffet--it's mine."

"In terms of size alone, Lutui is bigger than certain counties in Rhode Island and rural free delivery routes in Missouri, so we caved," said U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter.

Bigger than Hazard, Nebraska.

"This is the Post Office--we have a lot of time on our hands," he added, "what with not delivering your mail and coming up with goofy stamp designs."

Lutui was an All-American guard for the Trojans of the University of Southern California, where at 370 pounds he was the heaviest player in the school's history. He was invited to rush the Sigma Nu fraternity but declined after learning that their dining hall was not large enough to hold him.

Sigma Nu: Not big enough.

A second-round pick in last year's NFL college draft, Lutui was nonetheless one of the first players from the class of 2006 to be honored with an entry in Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia. "Somebody put his bio up right after he was drafted," said Wikipedia chief information officer A.J. Turner, "but the site crashed when our servers couldn't handle his weight."

Lutui was born in Ha'api, Tonga. His name is an anagram for "Suiti tutu lait", a greeting in the native tongue of his Polynesian homeland that means "I wish to wear your sister's tutu."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman