Welcome to Minnesota Coach Childress

Let me be the 1st, 2nd or 3rd to write that I am very thrilled to hear that the Vikings have hired Brad Childress as their new Head Coach. This is the coach we, the Vikings fans of Minnesota have been waiting for since Bud Grant.

Coach Childress sounds very authoritative and his demeanor commands a level of respect. I am very happy with his resume, and the background of this guy. He has mapped out game plans for this planet's biggest games including the Rose Bowl twice, and the Super Bowl.

After hearing him speak, and talking to Philly fans who know him, I have the impression that he is a damn good football coach. I am impressed that we have FINALLY got a real Head Coach, someone who is not a dolt, or clown, or puppet. He sounds like the real deal, with Midwestern roots (Chicago and Wisconsin) and I can't wait to see what a team in purple can do with a REAL coach.

In his Press conference he was saying that last year the Eagles were worried about the Vikings when they had to face them on Monday Night Football, and again in the playoffs. The Eagles knew Randy Moss was dangerous, and the rest of the purple was on par with them personnel wise. For his new team, he stated that the Vikings are not "lacking talent" and he is confident that this team is not too "far off." It sounded like he expects that they can win soon. Without really saying it, he confirmed that our most recent coach was a lughead-strategist (like we all knew).

It also sounds like he is no-nonsense straight to the point guy. My Philly connection actually told me that he was the coach who first confronted T.O.'s disciplinary slack of resepct. As quoted in a Yahoo AP Press Release:

"Childress didn't shy from confronting mercurial Eagles receiver Terrell Owens. In the preseason, a reported shouting match between the two earned Owens a one-week exile from training camp, which was the precursor to the Eagles shelving their star for most of the season."

This could be the beginning of a great new Vikings Era.

Texas Cheerleaders Hot or Not?

How about them Texas Longhorn Cheerleaders? In the National Championship, the Longhorn gals were caught "jiggling their booties" in what seemed to be hooters shorts wrapped in leather cowboyn chaps. Can you say wowsie? In the 2nd Quarter, the ABC cameraman struck gold, when he panned in on the cheerleaders in the end zone. One of the blondes was swaying that back side, and was quickly alerted to her flirtations by her linemates. The cheerleaders all turned around and started smiling with that "Oops we did it again" sort of guilty taunt. "Let's Go Texas...Longhorns...Hook em Horns..."

I am guessing that the National Champs will have no trouble recruiting for their football program. All they have to do is show that clip to the "Horny" incoming freshman, and the prospective ball players will be hooked.


But the Texas Legislature, in May 2005 seemed to want to stop that sort of activity by it's cheerleaders:

(AP) Texas, May 2005
TEXAS, famed for its Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, has voted to crack down on 'sexually suggestive' performances by their high school understudies.

The law is designed to ban dance routines by school cheerleaders and drill teams at sports events that one politician said was "like something out of a strip club".
Exposed midriffs and ever shorter shorts and skirts have particularly outraged some politicians.

Cheerleaders - and civil rights activists - are just as outraged at the politicians.

One opponent said the law reminded him of the Taliban. Other politicians simply called it "stupid".

The Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders were groundbreakers in the introduction of booty-shaking sideline entertainment for American football crowds. They were even the inspiration for a pornographic movie, Debbie Does Dallas.

"Some of them are just downright vulgar, something you would see at an adult club or something," said Joe Deshotel, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives. "The problem is in the eye of the beholder, I guess."

One of the co-authors of the bill, Republican Corbin Van Arsdale, said many parents want restrictions because they go to Friday night games to see young men clashing on the football field, not girls shaking their behinds on the sidelines.

"You've got children seeing things that their parents would rather them not see," said Mr Van Arsdale.

The bill would allow the Texas Education Agency to police routines deemed vulgar or excessive, and force schools to take "appropriate action" to stop it. Harsher language, including a provision denying funding to schools that allow the practice to continue, was stripped from the bill.

But the proposed restrictions are not popular with the National Cheerleaders Association or the American Civil Liberties Union.

"This broad, morally restrictive legislation reminds me of the Taliban," said Will Harrell, director of the ACLU of Texas. "Why not go all the way? Why not require them all to wear a burqa?"

The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders began captivating audiences with their sexy drill team routines, knee-high white boots and low-cut tops, in the 1970s. Cheerleaders have since become a fixture of football games across the United States from high school to professional teams.

In Texas, the obsession came into violent focus in 1991, when Wanda Holloway, nicknamed the "pompom mom", was accused of trying to murder the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival.

Supporters of the legislation say those kinds of excesses show why change is necessary. They want to take Texas back to simpler days, when drill teams performed traditional routines, wore patriotic clothing and longer skirts.

"There is a lack of old fashioned morality, the morality you and I grew up with," said state Representative Carl Isett. "If I take my five-year-old son to a high school football game, I don't want to cover his eyes when the cheerleaders are on the field."

Critics said the biggest problems is that the bill doesn't define what "sexually suggestive" means.

Bill sponsor Al Edwards, a Houston Democrat, said there's only one way to determine that: by watching the routine.

"Any adult that's been involved with sex in their lives, they know it when they see it," he said.

The bill would still have to clear the state Senate and be approved by Governor Rick Perry before becoming law.