Tag: ESPN

Misc., Music/Movies, Sports

The Jock Jams Compilations, Ranked (Y’all Ready For This?)

by Matt Drufke2 Comments on The Jock Jams Compilations, Ranked (Y’all Ready For This?)
The Jock Jams Compilations, Ranked (Y’all Ready For This?)

As someone who grew up in the 1990’s, the Jock Jams series of songs were everywhere in my life. I heard them at sporting events- like, all sporting events. I heard them at junior high and high school dances. I heard wedding parties use them to as introduction music. They were everywhere.

And even though some of the songs weren’t great, or even very good, there is something about these massive ESPN-produced mixtapes (all released under the Tommy Boy Music label) that just feels fun. That being said, why just enjoy nostalgia when you can, instead, over-analyze and use math to suck out all the fun of these songs so you can rank which Jock Jams album is the best one?

Hey, everyone… let’s get ready to rumble.

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Sports, television

Four Questions About The Last Dance

by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment on Four Questions About The Last Dance
Four Questions About The Last Dance

The Last Dance, ESPN’s brilliant ten-part documentary about the Jordan era of the Chicago Bulls and their last championship season, ended last night and it has a lot of people feeling a lot of things. Personally, I’m pretty bummed that I don’t get to throw myself into any more of this amazing series about my favorite team in my favorite sport. I imagine my wife is relieved that she no longer has to watch this with the additional “Drufke commentary”, which is me telling her stories she does not want to hear during commercial breaks while also trying to justify how I only got one of the trivia questions correct. For Bryon Russell, I’m sure he’s trying to find a cave to hide in for a few weeks after being reminded that after telling a retired Jordan in 1993 that he would have been able to guard him, he unwittingly gave Jordan the fuel he would need to straight out embarrass Russell by scoring on him to win back-to-back finals.

Director Jason Hehir gave us everything we could have possibly asked for, and then some. This is a marvel in not just sports films, but as a documentary. Even I, a die-hard Bulls fan (I can, for example, spell Jud Buechler’s name correctly without looking), learned a whole lot of new things about this era of Chicago basketball. For example, I learned that John Paxson is now bald and kinda looks like Lex Luthor, which is apropos if you have paid attention to the decisions he has made since entering the Bulls’ front office.

However, as much as The Last Dance gave me, when it ended, I found myself asking four big questions. I present those to you here, so we may ponder them together.

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