Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Rankonia: The Triangle's Power Rankings
By Chris Ryan
Welcome to the first edition of Rankonia, The Triangle's power rankings. Usually these kinds of things celebrate team or individual excellence. We're going another route here — we're celebrating athletes, teams, and coaches whose performances, on or off the field, speak to us in a deep, profound way that we can only articulate through the format of ranking. If you have any nominations for next week, by all means, take it to that start-up site, Facebook, or shoot us an e-mail. To the rankings!
2. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State As Everyday Should Be Saturday's mad-genius Spencer Hall put it, "Mark Dantonio rides with the motherfucking devil on a motorcycle made of dynamite and tears." Last year, the Michigan State coach had a heart attack following a nail-biting victory over Notre Dame. So what does he do in the last seconds of a tie game against Wisconsin on Saturday? He orders up a Hail Mary! I'm not having a heart attack! You're having a heart attack!
3. Tony La Russa, St. Louis Cardinals In my best narrator voice: "What if I told you that putting a pitcher in simply to intentionally walk a batter wasn't a sign of a manager losing his grip on reality, but rather a highly complex, totally elegant way of communicating with alien civilizations that would only be understood decades into the future, after first contact?"
5. Evan Turner, Philadelphia 76ers Nobody is having a more whimsical lockout than the Sixers forward. While his peers are touring the nation, putting on exhibitions and showing off their extrasensory abilities (ONIONS!), Turner is having a far more contemplative vacation. He's been sharing his thoughts, via Twitter, on everything from the impact Paranormal Activityis having on his family planningto his new dog.
6. Pusha T, rapper Note to rappers: If you want to make the Rankonia list, putting Ric Flair samples in your songs is a good start. Had we been doing these back when Killer Mike dropped "Ric Flair" he would have made the list, easy. So it's only right that we applaud Pusha's use of The Nature Boy in his new song, "What Dreams Are Made Of." Bonus points for Pusha posting the entire Flair-o-logue on his site, which we will dutifully repost here:
7. Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints There is something kind of sublimely sinister about Payton, post-leg injury, sitting in the booth high above the field and conjuring up the air raid that led to a 62-7 victory over the Colts.
8. Jaromir Jagr, Philadelphia Flyers As suggested by Grantland's Katie Bakes, the veteran Flyers forward scored his first regular-season NHL goal since 2008 with this defense-splitting breakaway. The Czech legend then added his patented "salute" celebration, so we have to salute him back.
