Message boards good for laughs
Brian Welch

Associate Sports Editor

It has been said that West Virginia is the most southern of the Northern states, the most northern of the Southern states, the most western of the Eastern states and the most eastern of the Western states.
By the same vein, it is increasingly obvious that serial Internet sports message board posters, while representing the most enlightened breed of clueless sports fan, are the least informed consistent observers of American sports culture.
Of the myriad college sports message board networks, Rivals.com and Scout.com boast the most subscribers to the exclusive content they post on their Web sites. Both companies hire competent journalists to cover each major American college and university. The dueling domains tend to focus on recruiting, but also offer excellent game-by-game coverage of their respective programs.
The professional content on these Web sites is informative and worth reading. But for real entertainment, delve into the bizarro world of the message boards on these sites.
Take, for instance, a thread that appeared on a WVU message board this week.
Apparently to aid the Mountaineer coaching staff in its preparation for Louisville, one poster spent an entire night watching WVU game tapes to determine the exact percentage of running plays West Virginia has called on first down.
Picture a grown man secluded in his basement late at night, scanning through tapes o f WVU games and recording first down tendencies on a spreadsheet.
This mental image could pass as an alternate definition of "pathetic" in Webster's Dictionary.
Other forum frequenters provide real-time, play-by-play analysis during games. These individuals evolved from an older breed of catatonic critics to form a new species: the computer chair quarterback.
For the past month, Athlon has held an online poll to see which D-I school has the most attractive cheerleader.
I'll admit I voted for WVU's candidate, Lara Benninger. I went to high school with her and am comfortable saying she's a nice person and a worthy candidate.
But my show of support did not measure up to the efforts of the online oglers in question.
On the hour, posts appeared imploring fellow shut-ins to keep voting for Benninger. They even discovered that by deleting the cookies on your Web browser, you can vote as many times as you want on Athlon's Web site.
When one halfway-sane board visitor expressed his lack of interest in the contest, he was called "worthless," "out of touch" and "a disgrace to the University" by his peers.
Every now and then, casual, reasonable, lighthearted posts can be found on these Web sites.
But more often than not, message boards are a haven for those who enjoy the life of a sports writer, sans a few important details:
A salary, an audience, credibility and most importantly, a life.