National Signing Day

Today is National Signing Day. If you don't know what that means, that's probably a good thing. First off, no, it's not a day to promote American Sign Language, though that would be a good thing as being able to communicate with those who sign is a good thing.

Instead, it's a day when high school athletes are allowed to sign their national letter of intent to play football at the college of their choice. Sure, it's framed as perusing their education at this school or that, but fans of teams don't obsessively follow the decisions of these high school kids because they actually care about their education.

Schools aren't sending the Chair of the chemistry department or the best history professor to recruit these soon-to-be college students. Coaches of the teams are going, and in the case of Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, actually sleeping over at the kid's house, which if you even stop and think for a second about that, is just creepy and weird.

"Jim, honey, were are you going tonight?"

"Sweetheart, love you and we've been married for 23 years, but there's this kid who runs a 4.3 40 and has excellent athleticism, so I'm going to spend the night at his house."

"Ok babe, just get some milk on your way home."

I understand fans obsession with the next recruiting class and finding out about who they'll be cheering for in the Fall, but I don't get it. But if that's your thing, you do you.

And now the most interesting articles I've read since my last post:

Dead Certanity: How 'Making a Murderer' Goes Wrong - Spoilers included, but a look at the case from outside the lens of the filmmakers and where it goes wrong.

Meet One of the 12 People Who Voted For Jim Gilmore - Sure, Trump, Cruz, Rubio and the others got the attention, but Jim Gilmore had 12 people show up to vote for him Monday night. Twelve. In the entire state of Iowa.

The Electability Spin Machine - The news media need a story, and election results last for a night, but meeting or not meeting expectations - expectations set by the same news media - is a story that can be debated for days.

Owners Are Worried About Tanking - MLB owners appear to be worried that teams are acting based on the incentives they themselves set up.

L. Jon Wertheim - Former Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman does a weekly Q&A with people from all walks of life. They're usually pretty good, but I found this one with current Sports Illustrated editor Jon Wertheim to be really well done.