i remember a couple other bloggers writing posts about new rules that should be adopted by different sports.  i know ultramega was one, but i cant remember who else did it.  anyway, credit to you for the idea.

RULE #1:  announcers are no longer allowed to talk about other games, teams, players, or sports while they are supposed to be calling the action.  i think d!ck vitale got off the topic of wisconsin vs. ohio state about 37 times tuesday night, talking about anything from other teams such as the florida gators and purdue boilermakers, to the friggin BCS title game between the buckeyes and gators.  d!ckie, your job is to announce the basketball game in front of you.  as annoying as you are in general, lets keep the focus on the game at hand.  oh, and nice job slipping in yet another mention of bobby knight's history of coaching at indiana and whining about your salary by bringing up the fact that ESPN just gave mike wilbon a 5 year contract extension.

 RULE #2A:  speaking of wilbon's contract extension....from now on, contracts should no longer be written for a length of more than 3 years for ANYTHING.  not for coaches, GM's, players, athletic directors or anyone else.  no extensions can be discussed until the final 2 months of your current deal, and nobody is allowed to discuss a job with another team or school until AFTER the contract is officially OVER.

 RULE #2B:  no coach, GM, player, AD, or anyone else is allowed to say "i'm not interested in that job" while giving a press conference.  your response shall be "no comment" or "we're talking about THIS team, and this team only."   if a coach is interested in another job, he can worry about it when his contract is up, and he is free to go wherever he wishes.

 RULE #3:  free throws at all levels will be shot blindfolded.  in a desperate move to improve FT percentages from college to the nba, this drastic measure will be put in place first at the high school level, then in 2 years be put into effect at the college and pro levels as well.  this will give the paid athletes plenty of time to get used to the idea that their shooting will improve, and bonuses can be written into their future contracts for actually making more than 50-60%.

 RULE #4:  to the media, coaches, and whoever else votes for college top 25 teams in every sport, forget voting for wisconsin at all.  if we're ranked high, we dont deserve it, even though we were voted there by you.  if we're not ranked high, yet have won almost every game (and most other teams are racking up losses), it's because we havent "played anyone yet" or the teams we have played "havent reached their potential yet."  by not voting for us at all, we can just go ahead and play the games, and not worry about what reason(s) will be given as to why we're being written about as if we just took your parking space and your corner office.

 RULE #5:  if your team loses, blame the refs.  it's never about your team not being good enough, it HAS to be the officiating.  one of them, if not all, have a grudge against a certain player, the coach, or the team in general for some reason.  that 15 yard face mask that was called against your guy was a terrible call.  so what if the player who was yanked around by his head gear is laying motionless on the ground with his head twisted around at a 180 degree angle, it should have been an incidental 5 yarder, or not called at all.

 RULE #6:  if for some reason you dont want to blame the officials, blame it on having to play on a muddy field, wet field, field with grass that's too long, artificial turf, inside a domed stadium, outside in the cold, or the heat (football).  for basketball, claim the floor was too slippery because the ice for the hockey team was underneath, causing condensation (which i actually think is a problem), the home team turned on fans to alter the flight of the ball, or the rim is 2 inches too high/low (basketball).

 RULE #7:  eliminate the cut-ins to show us what's happening on your other 18 network stations.  chances are, if we're watching 1 of them, it's because THAT's the game we want to see.  if we wanted to watch the other one, we'd switch over to it.  unless of course we dont have that station, in which case we're not really missing anything, since we couldnt see it anyway. 

also eliminate the little sportscenter updates telling us news about the baseball hall of fame inductees (or should i say, who DIDNT get inducted), since we've already seen it 100 times.  i cant tell you how much it annoys me when espn comes back from 3 minutes of commercials about nothing, the game clock starts, and we're forced to watch an update on the latest person to admit why they didnt vote mark mcgwire into the HOF.  we already know.  again, if i wanted to see that crap, i'd switch to the station devoting it's entire schedule to breaking it down.  if i'm watching the game, i want to watch the f*cking game dammit.  if nothing else, at least drop the split screen garbage.  let me watch my game while you blab on about the steroid cloud hanging over mcgwire....at least then i could still see the game and not have to listen to the endless ranting of d!ck vitale, jay bilas or billy packer (to name a few).

 RULE #8:  kick the 7 guys out of the club who voted for jose canseco.  honestly, the ones that didnt vote for mcgwire did so mostly due to the assumption that he used performance enhancing drugs (which is a BIG reach considering he had bottles of andro in his goddam locker), so why would anyone vote for canseco?  we KNOW he did it.  i wonder if they would have even remembered to put his name on the ballot if not for the fact he crawls out of a hole every couple months to rat out another former teammate, or guy who looks bigger now than he used to.