{"id":1276,"date":"2007-03-23T09:14:16","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T09:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/03\/23\/lighten-up-already\/"},"modified":"2007-03-23T09:14:16","modified_gmt":"2007-03-23T09:14:16","slug":"lighten-up-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/03\/23\/lighten-up-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Lighten Up, Already"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the unfortunate elements about the NCAA basketball tournament is that in addition to some great basketball, it brings around a few reminders of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/03\/23\/sports\/ncaabasketball\/23mascots.html?ex=1332302400&#038;en=c178e4ad8263c259&#038;ei=5088&#038;partner=rssnyt&#038;emc=rss\">what an unpleasant organization the NCAA can be<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>During the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament last weekend, John Goodman &#8212; a freshman who wears a steer costume to cheer for the Texas Longhorns &#8212; did what comes naturally to mascots: He patted a referee on the back.<\/p>\n<p>This usually brings applause, laughter or good-natured booing from fans. But in the postseason tournament, when rules are stricter, N.C.A.A. supervisors &#8220;actually kind of reprimanded me,&#8221; Goodman said, &#8220;and they also told me I stood up too often.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Now, I realize there have been past instances of fights between mascots, and the like, but really. Lighten the hell up, will you? <\/p>\n<p>On a vaguely related note, here&#8217;s a list of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drivl.com\/posts\/view\/738\">25 Worst Mascots<\/a> in Division I (via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.offthekuff.com\/mt\/archives\/009035.html\">Off the Kuff<\/a>). I don&#8217;t agree with all the choices, but it&#8217;s mostly pretty funny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the unfortunate elements about the NCAA basketball tournament is that in addition to some great basketball, it brings around a few reminders of what an unpleasant organization the NCAA can be: During the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament last weekend, John Goodman &#8212; a freshman who wears a steer costume to cheer&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/03\/23\/lighten-up-already\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lighten Up, Already<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}