The foot cream was an inappropriate gift

Reggie Bush's feelings of guilt aren't anything new.

The glut of steroid and drug use, irresponsible gunplay and overarching violence that festered in big-time sports for the past several years has also brought about a great deal of apologies -- usually after a many years of lying about the indiscretions in question.

This week Bush, a former Heisman Trophy-winning running back at USC, reportedly called the school's new athletic director to express how bad he feels about his purported illegal acceptance of money leading to USC's extensive sanctions from the NCAA. He even said he would give back the Heisman Trophy if he could. Still, the AD said Bush said technically admitted his mistakes during their conversation.

He will. Someday, maybe 10 years now, he'll spill the beans to a reporter -- once the dust has settled and his conscience can no longer be held back. He'll do exactly what Mark McGwire. And Alex Rodriguez. And Andy Pettite. And Pete Rose. And Chris Webber.

Others undoubtedly will join Bush in their half-hearted apologies. Here are a few to look for in the next decade.

• Jimmy Johnson, ex-coach, Dallas Cowboys and Miami Hurricanes -- Someday he'll finally admit to using performance-enhancing hair products for the duration of his career. If his upcoming stint on "Survivor" ends up being his low point, the press conference will come sooner rather than later.
• John Stockton, ex-point guard, Utah Jazz -- This all-time great distributor owes everyone an apology for the obscene rump-hugging shorts he in which he displayed himself throughout 19 NBA seasons. Disturbing.
• Old people, shuffleboard -- Don't act shocked when a rash of elderly southern-state inhabitants/amateur shuffleboard competitors come forward to say they accepted  under-the-table funds from rogue marketing reps for Ensure, Tommy Bahama and various foot-cream giants.
• Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova -- These well-known tennis stars took in-match grunting to new heights. Now, unfortunately, their guttural screams have been copied by more and more newcomers. One day Seles and Sharapova will say sorry for starting this trend that has greatly injured the watchability of women's tennis.
• Tim Lincecum, pitcher, San Francisco Giants -- Someone has to take responsibility for that long, greasy, stringy mane. It might as well be the guy who grew it.I

I have just one request: When Bush comes clean, probably after his retirement from the NFL, don't forget the years and years of bald-faced lies.

Puke in the car, not on the plane

What good are life experiences if you don't learn from them?

Here are some helpful nuggets I gleaned from my first flight/weekend trip with my Crazy Toddler and without my Less Crazy Wife.

• Getting the puking out of the way on the ride to the airport is a good way to stave off puking on the plane. (Sample size of this study: 1.)
• Arriving at the airport a bit later than expected when you have a small lad in tow is quite helpful. 15 fewer minutes in the gate waiting area was 15 fewer minutes of apologizing to people whose hair had just been pulled.
• Coffee is good.
• Fatigue is bad.
• It's easier to feel like a man when you, your dad and your son are getting dusty, riding tractors and ATVs, discussing machinery, surveying a wood mill, and eating barbecued elk and salmon.
• It's more difficult to feel like a man when you come home to an increasingly yellow lawn, an iPod and wireless throughout the house.
• Grandpas, even tough guys, don't mind a go on the swing set when a grandson's affection is at stake. Digital cameras exist to prove it.
• Tray tables were made to be overturned — especially when stuff resides on them. 
• Bags of chips were made to be overturned — especially when a father's sanity is hanging by a thread.
• Airports are made for business travelers, not dad/son tandems. (POP QUIZ: Out of ChilisToo, a gourmet pizza joint and Quiznos, which one is most suited to a toddler's needs? Answer: If forced to pick one, I guess Quiznos, even though a simple meal is $11.46. Shameful selection, if you ask me.)
• The ability to double-team a toddler is vastly underrated. Kudos to those who have to play man-to-man.

'Retiring Minds Want to Know'

How is that Brett Favre hasn't yet landed his own reality TV show?

Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't watch "Retiring Minds Want to Know," a weekly hour-long ESPN drama pitting Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress against Favre's wife, Deanna, with the eventual winner either retaining the 40-year-old quarterback's services or bringing him back home to Hattiesburg, Miss., for some peaceful retirement years.

Considering the prolonged uncertainty that Favre puts his employers through year after year, it's no stretch to put him in the category of "Overly Dramatic Narcissist Who Secretly Craves a Reality Show to Showcase Said Narcissism."

The weekly challenges practically write themselves. In Week 1 the contestants would race up the top of Mount Ego and pin a pair of cool yet comfortable Wrangler jeans to a flagpole at the summit.

I don't want to give everything away (I probably need to keep some leverage for when the TV execs come calling), but let's just say Week 2 would involve jousts, a large pool of Gatorade and the Oak Grove High School football team from Hattiesburg singing Salt N Peppa's "Whatta Man" amid the ruckus.

By Week 3, the game of football would start to be incorporated into the challenges. Maybe Childress and Deanna would battle to intercept the most errant passes from the strong-armed, bravado-ridden QB in a span of 30 seconds.

My money's on the better half. She's been receiving his wishy-washy decisions for years.

Other challenge ideas:

— A mock press conference, evaluated by the show's foursome of celebrity judges: hyper-snoopy ESPN reporters Ed Werder and Rachel Nichols; former pro-wrestler and hyper-emotional Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura; and hyper-moussed NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.

This challenge wouldn't be about deftly answering a barrage of questions, but instead about tearfully supporting Favre while sitting by his side while HE answers a barrage of questions. Natural-looking waterworks earn the contestants extra points.

— A 14-hour nonstop flight, to simulate several trips back and forth between Minneapolis and Mississippi as Favre changes his mind over and over. The pair would receive scores in four areas: stamina, conversation skills, tractor knowledge and unconditional support.

— A playbook quiz. The twist? It's not a book of football diagrams, but of acceptable apologies to Brett for insubordinance and lack of understanding when he leaves hanging.

If Favre hasn't considered a reality show like this, he really doesn't understand the marketability of his complete lack of respect for his employer and wife.

Pretzel mix ... or else

Can you carry a snake-bite kit onto a plane?

This is the paranoid type of questions I've been asking myself since I first planned my three-day-weekend trip to Grandpa Alger's house. No, I'm not that stupid or that paranoid. My fear stems from the fact that my nearly 2-year-old Crazy Toddler (CT) will accompany me on this trip —without his Mamma.

Not only must I face the pressure of caring for CT without any adult supervision, but I must do so at an airport — the place where my happy thoughts go to die.

Can you get arrested if your baby's in-flight crying surpasses a predetermined level? 

It's difficult enough putting oneself through the rigors of an airport. First there's the pressure to get the little info tags filled out while the luggage loader's patience wanes by the second. Then you have to practically strip so the security workers will let you through. There's even more pressure at this juncture. Loading all of one's belongings into a half-dozen of those gray bins isn't unlike fleeing a fire scene: "Leave it behind! Just go! We can't go back now!"

By the time you're spit out onto the other side of the security gateway, you've just praying you didn't leave anything important behind.

Will a soiled cloth count as one of my carry-on items? 

Now add a toddler to the mix — a potentially screaming pile of slobber and mischief. You can imagine why I'm planning to make the trek completely naked and without paraphernalia of any kind. The fewer belts, shoes, hats, watches, laptops and portable DVD players to contend with, the better.

Traveling with CT isn't too bad when we double-team him. But what am I supposed to do without backup? How can I be expected to keep track of him, carry a diaper bag, listen to my iPod, appease his hunger and mood swings, change his diaper in the ridiculously unsuitable men's bathroom AND utilize the free airport WiFi on my laptop? Perhaps I need to cut one of those action items out. I guess he won't get changed.

Even if I can get all the way through to the plane, other issues frighten me like John Edwards at a marriage-counseling session.

Will CT rifle the pretzel mix at an unsuspecting attendant's head upon realizing assorted nuts was a pipe dream?

Will a kind-hearted grandmother take pity on a dim-witted young father and watch the lad while said father drowns his frustrations in a Dr. Pepper?


Will CT's mother ever let CT's father have any responsibility of any kind after this trip?


This dearth of uncertainty is why I'm going to start packing three days early.

Living the dream — at 2:31 a.m.

Why am I typing this sentence at 2:31 a.m. local time?


I think the impetus is a combination of nostalgia and pride. I'm 27 years old and married, with an early-rising Crazy Toddler (CT), and the last thing I want to do is admit that staying up all night while watching reruns of "SportsCenter" and making fun of local newscasts is getting more and more difficult.


Part of me desperately clings to the Dr. Pepper-aided all-nighters of yesteryear. The other part of me yearns for early-bird dinners and a 9 p.m. bedtime. Maybe even a baked apple for dessert, washed down with a can on Ensure.


Is it inappropriate to blame CT for the rapid decline of my inner night owl? Regardless of whether I fall asleep watching a "Murder She Wrote" rerun at 7:30 p.m. or listening to podcasts at 3 a.m., wake-up time doesn't change. CT gets me up around 6:30 a.m. every day — a schedule that fails to account for my sleepiness.


That said, it's 2:53 a.m. and I'm still typing away. The countdown continues. 3 hours and 37 minutes until I have to get up again. For those of you scoring at home, that's roughly one Yankees-Red Sox game, one half of a Keith Olbermann diatribe and a little more than one viewing of "Titanic." 


Yet I continue to tap, tap, tap. I'm living the dream — if the dream can be defined as drinking five full glasses of Dr. Pepper at a big family function, then returning home to a fresh and empty blog page and the second half of "Father of the Bride II" on TBS. (It's not a good movie, which makes it a great source of 3:04 a.m. background noise/light.)


In a few hours I'll once again be fetching CT's breakfast and addressing the poop issue, but for now, just allow me this one slice of my collegiate glory — Dr. Pepper stupor and all.

Tough actin'

"Is it weird that John Madden retired from announcing football but still does Tinactin commercials?"


My friend Ross posed this question today, and it's got my mind humming like a souped-up lawnmower. The question is valid, but to me the bigger issue at hand surrounds his prospective replacement.


A lot is at stake in this decision. For someone who watches the glut of football that I do, the amount of "Tough actin' Tinactin" commercials that I'll see during a season is no less than 7,389. I mean, rest assured that if you marry a pigskin enthusiast, he/she has the most uninflamed feet you've ever seen — like two beacons of pristine lower-leg status.


Given the prevalence of the Tinactin brand in my life and probably yours, choosing Madden's replacement takes on a great deal of importance. The company can look at this from a few angles.


One option is finding a spokesperson who can lean heavily on personal experience. It's tough to surmise who could fill this role, because athletes don't often reveal their athlete's foot, jock itch or ringworm difficulties during postgame interviews. You don't hear Peyton Manning say, "Yeah, we were laboring midway through the third quarter, on account of Reggie Wayne's severe itching and burning south of the Equator, but we pulled through in the end, after he applied liberal amounts of Tough actin' Tinactin to his undercarriage."


Still, maybe an athlete could parlay general foot problems into a successful campaign. LaDainian Tomlinson might not be an athlete's foot sufferer, but football fans are very familiar with his turf-toe travails. Although his days as a top-flight NFL running back appear numbered, he might just have sufficient name recognition and self-deprecating humor for the role of Tinactin legend.


Perhaps the best candidate isn't even someone who has experienced the pain, but instead a person who espouses the core Tinactin principles. This top-flight company's Web site is littered with references to words such as relieve, fight and absorb — traits befitting a rookie backup quarterback. This year Colt McCoy, formerly of the Texas Longhorns and currently of the Cleveland Browns, could be known for relieving Jake Delhomme and jock itch, fighting for playing time and groin comfort, and absorbing the playbook along with excessive moisture.


Tinactin also could go with the heart-strings approach — appealing to viewers' sensitive sides. Putting something sad front and center — maybe Matt Leinart's footwork or Roy Williams', uh, career — on the commercials might elicit some pity purchases of the company's powders and sprays.


It will be awfully difficult to replace Madden as the face of the Tinactin empire. But if anyone can successfully pull of the image of pain and suffering in the souls of football fans, it's Roy Williams.


I think a new spokesman is afoot.

Gumption junction

My Crazy Toddler faced a pivotal moment in his young life today.

He was punched in the gut.

Or was it in the face? I heard two different reports, and I'm not sure anyone at the big family/friend gathering really saw it. But here's what I do know: My son took a shot from another kid and kept on ticking.

I whirled around when I heard the screaming, and I sprinted into action. CT was reeling but walking. Though staggering like a Jay Leno monologue, he was keeping it together. Loose, but together.

Once I realized he was fine, my concern turned to pride. This type of resiliency bodes well for his sports future — and for life. Like Rocky Balboa (about 107 times), Dave Dravecky, Willis Reed and Michael Jordan before him, CT bounced back with some gumption. It's the type of extreme will that Alex Rodriguez fakes, LeBron James doesn't have and JaMarcus Russell can't even comprehend.

It's the sort of human spirit that should get him through the rough times that will — yes, inevitably will — befall him in life.

Perhaps I'm reading a little too much into the aftermath of one punch. Still, I'm 99 percent certain CT has enough competitiveness in one toe to knock the purple drank right out of Russell's lazy fingers.