ESPN's Worst Highlight

Over the past two weeks, ESPN has been doing it's "greatest highlight" schpeel. A segment of every Sportscenter is devoted to seeing which highlight fans voted greater than another.

But right there is your fatal flaw! Today's fans know squat!

The fans decided the final 16 clips through voting over the past couple of months and they turned out to be these http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/highlights/index?lpos=spotlight&lid=tab7pos1.

Then every day the fans decide between two highlights to see who moves on. But if the fans were too stupid to pick the right contenders, how could they pick the winners?

I mean the very first matchup pitted Flutie's game-winning Hail Mary against a Tiger Woods' chip in. A chip in!??? Every golf tournament these days has a chip in. Tiger has probably lost count of all the chip ins that he has made through his stellar career. How could you pick that as one of the 16 greatest highlights of sports history!?

Thankfully Flutie's gift from Above soundly defeated that atrocious excuse for a highlight (let it be known that if the shot was a hole-in-one and that shot gave Tiger the tournament win, then, and only then, would this highlight be suitable).


This kind of terrible matchup, continues through the competition. But the kicker is that there are occassional good matchups and one highlight that deserves to be in the competition has to go home early. As much as I hate Duke, how can you pit Christian Laettner's turn-around winner against California's "The Band Is On the Field" return??? Are you telling me Bill Buckner's error deserves to be in this competition as much as "The Immaculate Reception"???

And now to the good part...... my revised plan for the Greatest Highlight.

There will be 3 rules and the number of rules shall be three. "Four thou shall not count, nor should thou count two unless of course you continue on to three" (for all Holy Grail fans out there).

1) A team of 9 writers and columnists (so there can be the one guy persuading all the others not to rush their judgment) from at least the last 30 years will decide the Sweet Sixteen highlights. These journalists should also have to apply for the positions with good cover letters describing why they deserve to choose the greatest highlights.

2) No highlight, unless it clearly and greatly affected the outcome of the game should be under consideration (this way plays like Woods' chip or Hammerin' Hank passing the Babe's homerun record will not take up valuable spots. P.S. I have nothing against either of these moments but I don't think they deserve spots.)

3)Any fan who wants to vote has to pass a sports IQ test to vote on ESPN.com, this would consists of basic questions like who played third base for Pittsburgh in 1960? "See he's saying 'Hellooooooooo'."

If we adhere by these rules, then I think we can truly decide what is the greatest highlight.