If there is one thing young journalists are told, it is to not let emotions infiltrate your coverage or writing.

Today, I am breaking the cardinal (no pun intended) rule of journalism.

I am currently sitting in Denver International Airport waiting for an offensively delayed flight back to the Stanford area, and I am pissed off. In my rage, I have found inspiration for my column: the things in sports that I hate, and I’m not just looking at you, Cal.

I’ll start with the NBA, because it is a very easy target.

I hate the NBA playoffs. I hate them not because I dislike basketball or because I don’t think there are great players on the court and drama in every series. I hate the NBA playoffs because they take FOREVER.

The NBA playoffs are a multi-faceted problem. As I’ve previously written, there are too many teams (more than half the league in fact) in the playoffs, and every series is seven games.

It is no coincidence that the leagues (NFL and MLB) that have fewer teams and fewer games in the playoffs get higher ratings for those games. Nor is it hard to believe that the NBA was more popular back in the 1990s prior to the lockout, when the first round was a five-game series, not seven.

To make things worse, the teams are afforded far too many days off. Take the Milwaukee Bucks-Atlanta Hawks first-round series. Yesterday they played Game 7, 15 days after playing Game 1. That is more than two days per game. That is more days off than NHL players get between playoff games, and I think you would have to really stretch to find an argument that basketball takes a more physical toll on the body than hockey.

While I’m on the topic of the NBA, how about teams run an offense for once, or teams play actual team defense?

With all the athletes in the NBA, I’m not saying that the prevalent one-on-one game isn’t entertaining, because oftentimes it is, but it isn’t good basketball. Too often, players loaf back on defense, never show up on help-side defense and rely on teammates to beat defenders off the dribble. NBA basketball, in a sense, is a shell of the game played in college, which is full of intricate offenses (John Calipari-coached teams aside) and defensive-minded teams. Plus, there isn’t a need to play music during game play to get the crowd involved.

Ok, enough ragging on the NBA; it isn’t all I hate.

I also hate lukewarm fans. Yes, I’m looking at you, USC football fans. Remember when the Coliseum was half empty for home games before Pete Carroll? Me too. I also remember vividly how quickly you all cleared out of the stadium when Stanford pounded you 55-21 this year.

Not only are those fans of the fair-weather variety, I’m not even sure they root for USC elsewhere. I am not from Los Angeles, but I have been told that there are a fair amount of fans of USC football that also root for UCLA basketball. If that isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.

Now I’m not saying Stanford is any better. I remember the 1-11 season, and I also remember the 12 other fans at the games. Not to say this season’s attendance, despite the team’s success, was that much better. Stanford still couldn’t fill its 50,000 seat stadium, which is very sad.

I’ll close this column out with the one sport that I really can’t understand, nor bring myself to watch – NASCAR.

I am well aware that it is more than just driving in an oval over and over and over again. That said, I don’t understand the appeal, especially on TV.

Furthermore, I am no environmentalist, but 50 cars driving 500 miles at 10 miles a gallon every race seems like an awful waste of a non-renewable resource. But maybe that is the Stanford student in me coming out.

Well, it’s almost time to board (finally), so that will be all. Sorry for the venom.

After spending the entire layover fuming and heatedly typing, Daniel Bohm was deemed a threat by security and turned away at the gate. Get Daniel on the next flight home at [email protected].