Don't call it a comeback: Pixbox champ crowned

Finally the day has come‑I am the Pixbox champion. It took a tiebreaker over Thanksgiving break for me to overtake Jelani Johnson for the first time in weeks to earn the title, but in the words of the great LL Cool J, “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.”

As a beat writer for the football team for the past three years, it wasn’t a matter of if I would win the fall edition of Pixbox—it was a matter of when. I fell short in my first attempt as a sophomore, defeated not for lack of ability to pick games, but rather my inability to win a tiebreaker against the two columnists I was tied with. Last year, Lisa Lewis ran away with the title by recording what may be the best Pixbox record of all time, which left me with really no chance to win.

But this year has been a great year for yours truly. I secured tickets to the World Cup in South Africa next summer, I appeared on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (check your local listings for the time of the show on Jan. 6 to 7), and after sticking close to Jelani throughout the Pixbox season, I captured my first crown. Now in the White House lives the first non‑white president in American history and on this page you’re reading the victory column of the first non‑white Pixbox winner—or at least to my knowledge, the first Latino—in Spectator history. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

As is customary, I now get to gloat about my championship and bash the lesser sports columnists who lost to me. Before I get into that, I wanted to let my guest picker and fellow Sports Editor emeritus, JTay, say a few words. I told him he would be able to say whatever he wanted to in my victory column should I win, and I even reminded him of this after I won on Thursday, but he “forgot” and then was “too lazy” to write a paragraph for me. In honor of JTay’s well‑documented and apparently ongoing drinking problem, I’ll write what I think he would have written.

“The Yankees are a bunch of cocksuckers. Fuck both the Mannings—the funny one and the retarded‑looking one. The dude abides. Kobe’s a rapist. There is nothing greater than Roaree on a bicycle. Auggie Doggie. Tim Tebow is Lord. Go Sox.”

Now that that’s settled, it’s time to mock each and every one of the sports columnists. I’m going give each their due in the order they finished behind me, starting with second place because, as the saying goes, second place is the first loser.

• Jelani Johnson: Unfortunately for you, the string of luck you got from using the unoriginal, debatably douchey phrase, “I’m Goin’ In…” as your shout‑out every week wore off (see Jelani’s Oct. 14 column for background). You made Pixbox interesting for me this year, which in turn made it more fun. You generally made good, understandable picks, which is why it was so odd that you picked the Giants on the final week and on Thanksgiving. Didn’t it ever occur to you that that team sucks harder than an industrial‑sized Shop‑vac? Consider the hustle knocked.

• Bart Lopez: Who the hell died and gave YOU a column? Oh wait, you did. I guess that’s one of the perks of being sports editor, but for heaven’s sake, step your game up! Right now your columns read like amalgamations of other people’s columns. They’re part Jelani in that you write about the NBA and no one actually cares what you think about it, part Mike Shannon in that you think you have a fan club, and part Max Puro because they’re inarticulate gibberish. I trained you better than this—stop making me look bad.

• Lucas Shaw: We had high hopes for you when you started writing for the section, but you went astray. You took inefficient smoking breaks with the sports editor that shall remain nameless when you were an associate, you’ve slowed down the publishing of almost every supplement you’ve come into contact with, and you’re going abroad next semester so you can’t cover your beat. What a letdown, just like the Dodgers.

• Tom Di Benedetto: I didn’t know you until this semester, but I honestly expected more out of you than a .500 record in Pixbox. I guess it’s true what they say, you people at WKCR just aren’t as knowledgeable as us here at Spec when it comes to sports.

• Jacob Levenfeld: I want to make fun of you, I really, really do, but you’ve never given me any ammo. Best of luck in your world travels next semester and you had better pick up the football beat next year.

• Lisa Lewis: Admit it, your victory last year was a fluke. You somehow ended up with what might have been the best Pixbox record in history by doing things like picking the winners based on mascots. Mascots! This year, though, your mascot challenge week failed, and your season with it, as you sunk into seventh place where you belong. I’m not saying that you don’t know anything about football, but you just tend to have more fun with Pixbox than the rest of us with your witty nicknames for picks and what-not. Despite having won Pixbox once, I don’t think you understand that Pixbox is a business and it’s only fun if you win. Bitch, please.

• Kunal Gupta: What’s the deal with your column name? “Moving the Chains”?!? Don’t you cover tennis? What chains are there on a tennis court? Where are you moving them? Your column name obviously can’t allude to anything about football considering you proved to everyone that you know nothing about the game with your abysmal finish in Pixbox. Maybe you should change you column name to “I <3 Rafa,” “Andy Roddick is my Hero,” “Double Fault,” or “What the Deuce.” (Actually, that last one is pretty clever if I should say so myself.) Also, Phuck the Fillies.

• Holly MacDonald: Almost every Wednesday at our meeting with Coach Wilson we would talk about your faults and how you have come to accept them. Since you’ve accepted them, I guess I’ll share them. Holly is selfish, vain, impatient, judgmental, and manipulative. She also doesn’t like chocolate, and what kind of person doesn’t like chocolate? The worst kind, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t know if this is a fault, but she also has been known to root for a college football team from Norman, Okla.

• Jacob Shapiro: How can your column name be “Put it on the Board”? Don’t all White Sox fans hate Hawk Harrelson? I’ve tried to listen to that hillbilly before and I just can’t do it. If you can put up with him, you’re either deaf or certifiably insane.
That may have been the most fun I’ve ever had writing a column. I can’t wait to win this thing again in the spring.

Matt Velazquez is a Columbia College senior majoring in history.
sports@columbiaspectator.com