Post by MCIGuy on Jan 7, 2005 18:02:30 GMT -5
The January 17th ESPN The Magazine that just hit the stands, the one with Patriots wide receiver Corey Dillon on the cover, has a GREAT Iverson article in it that I highly recommend.
But the real treat is the lengthy article on Chris Taft. Man, this guy is either an egomaniac or just pumping himself up to hide all the self doubt. Check out these excerpts:
His brother Anthony has borrowed and broken his portable DVD player, so Taft and road roommate Antonio Graves won’t be able to chill to late-night movies. When someone suggests there might be a college game on cable to occupy their time instead, the Panther star [Taft] cocks his head and bugs his eyes. “College players? I’m not gonna look at no college players. I don’t respect no college player like that. I think I’m nice and that’s it.”<br>
Say what? Hasn’t anyone told Taft that college players are supposed to string together words about the competition as carefully as he mixes and matches his gear? Well, if so, he wasn’t listening. Reach Taft’s voice mail, and you’ll hear the following: “You know who this is: the franchise, the big ticket, the superstar –whatever you want to call me.” After Pitt’s destruction of Duquesne in December, Taft said his best move wasn’t the baseline spin that paralyzed his defender, it was making the defender question his matriculation afterward. “ “I told him, ‘Dude, what are you in college for? You’re really trash’.” He has this to say about his trademark jump hook: “Do they know its coming? Yes. Can they stop it? No.”
And later in the article….
The magnanimity stops at the locker room door. After the Panthers disposed of Memphis at the Garden, Oklahoma State took the floor for its end of a doubleheader. As the two teams crossed paths, Taft flashed back to last season’s Tourney, when the Cowboys gave his team the boot. “They were trying to say what’s up, trying to be cool,” he says. I mean-mugged every one of them. I hate them.” Same goes for Syracuse, which ended Pitt’s 40-game home winning streak: “They get extra hate”. And pity the person who suggests UConn’s frontline is the best in the Big East. “Come January, we’ll see who’s got the better guards and the better frontline.”