Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

We need heroes; an age is poorer without them. Real heroes do not trumpet their heroics to every NEWS HACK. But in the absence of truly honorable public figures all this age has are manufactured heroes, people who've grown popular with NEWS HACKS for no better reason than the itch of mutual backscratching, and they're always calling them CLASS ACTS as a kind of carny-mirror image of their own classlessness. How many times did they make vile odors proclaiming LEGENDARY WELCH a CLASS ACT? One imagines them calling MR. MEAN BUSINESS a CLASS ACT. Bad writers, bad musicians, bad doctors, bad politicans, bad CEOs (that's redundant), anyone can become a CLASS ACT if he's done something SEXY, once.

In no realm of society do we have more CLASS ACTS that in the ATTITUDE BIZ of SPORTS. The wizards of scribbling can take an essential nothing like MJ and make him irreplaceable as the universe. For years JOHN CHANEY was such an immortal; he had thousands of flacks proclaiming forever he was a CLASS ACT in professional college basketball, perhaps not the flattery the hacks intended it to be. While still a coach he had the FLOOR of his home court named for him -- a foolish presumption he was as good as the gift, but then foolishness and college reside in unholy matrimony. What this CLASS ACT did the other night was not very worthy of a CLASS ACT, but it fit in quite well in the fantasy world of Vitaledom, where jerks can do anything to win and have a human foghorn yell AWWWWWWWWWESOME, BABY, and soon after feign shock at the corruption. The only solace to this story is that it is highly unlikely anyone will ever call JOHN CHANEY a CLASS ACT again, but let us never underestimate the venality of SPORTS TYPISTS.

I have amended THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY.