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Sports Mailbag—February 3, 2012

February 6, 2012
By Ryan Stern

As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I am also a big fan of defensive end Brett Keisel’s beard. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on his beard, especially as it stacks up against other famous facial hair in sports?

—Joel Mackler, Political Science I

 

On Super Bowl weekend you are asking about Brett Keisel’s beard? I guess this is the life of a lonely Steelers fan, but I digress.

Brett Keisel does have quite the beard, but would I call it the best beard in sports, past or present? No. The simple reason for this is that it is not overly prominent in his on field persona. Due to the fact that football players wear helmets they are at an inherent disadvantage in this so call ‘beardocracy.’

The best current beard in sports has to belong to San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson. With great power comes great responsibility and Wilson has the zany personality to match his wild facial hair. Intimidation is key to being a successful closer and Wilson’s beard only adds to his on-mound persona.

As for beards of the past decade, the beard of former Kansas State point guard Jacob Pullen always intrigued me. During his magical runs through March Madness, Pullen was able to bring the crowd to his feet through facial hair alone. When Pullen was on the court, he made opponents fear the beard.

 

Who do you think will win the Super Bowl, Giants or Patriots?

—Noam Buckman, MIT I

 

Yes, Super Bowl XLII is still fresh in everyone’s minds, but this Super Bowl will surely be different. Fool Bill Belichick, once shame on you, fool him twice, shame on Bill.

The Giants simply do not have the depth in the defensive backfield to keep up with the Patriots array of offensive weapons, specifically Hernandez and Gronkowski. Expect the Patriots to run lots of quick seam routes exposing the Giants’ secondary issues.

If I were to take a guess at the score it would be 28-15.

 

The NBA was rocked with two massive dunks this week. Whose dunk was more impressive, Lebron James or Blake Griffin?

—Jacob Stein Kinesiology IV

 

To call these dunks impressive is an understatement because these were some of the best dunks the NBA has seen in a while. Through thoughtful deliberation, I would have to give the title to Blake Griffin. Not to say that Lebron’s dunk was lackluster, but Griffin’s dunk was Earth shattering.

This dunk may be the most impressive power dunk since Michael Jordan dunking over the MonStars.

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