America Loves Countdowns

Countdown #5: Biggest Sore Losers

Richard Nixon, who was no stranger to losing, once made the following statement: "You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates." Well, Tricky Dick would have had some issues with the people and teams on this list who all used losing as an excuse to cry and blame others.

Ron Hextall (1989)
In game 5 of the 1989 Patrick Division Finals, the Penguins scored a flurry of goals on the Philadelphia netminder to take a huge lead. Penguins winger Rob Brown scored one of those goals, and then started to do his famous arm-windup celebration when he saw something terrifying out of the corner of his eye. It was an insane man in a goalie's mask chasing after him with a stick! Brown could probably never watch a Friday the 13th movie after that.

Chris Dishman / Darryll Lewis (1989-96)
When you played the Houston Oilers, you never wanted to take too large of a lead because that is when the cheap shots would come in full force. Head coach Jerry Glanville actually encouraged this. Dishman hit people out of bounds and cried about calls. Lewis once picked a fight with a Steelers punter because his team was getting blown out. Former Bengals coach Sam Wyche was right when he called them "the dumbest, most stupid, undisciplined football team we've ever played".

The Democratic Party (2004-present)
America definitely has some pressing issues right now, but I've never once seen the Democratic Party offer up a solution. They are so distraught over losing the last election that they can't even function anymore. If the president said that the sky were blue, they would instincitvely respond by saying that Bush is misleading the American people again, and that the sky is actually green. By the way, just so no one accuses me of being partisan, you could probably have made this same claim about the Republicans when Clinton was in office.

Jim Schoenfield (1987-96)
Former Devils/Capitals coach Jim Schoenfield was so upset about losing a playoff game once that he shoved referee Don Koharski to the ground, then held out a doughnut and called him a "fat pig". On another occasion, he got kicked out of a playoff game in the Civic Arena, and as he was being escorted off the ice, he stopped and made a "you want some too?" gesture to the crowd. That dude did not take losing well.

The Computer in "Champion Baseball" (1983-1986)
This old arcade game was by far the most unfair video game ever created. Here was the way it worked: the human player bats in the top of every inning, and then the computer bats in the bottom of the inning. When the computer outscores you, it's game over. The problem was that anytime you got a lead, the computer gave you until maybe the 3rd or 4th inning before they just become invincible. It didn't matter how many runs you are ahead by or how you pitch to them, because they will just get hit after hit after hit until they take the lead and end the game.

Jim Calhoun (1998)
Get this scenario: your #1 ranked college basketball team goes on the road and is down by one as the final seconds tick away. The opposing team has just made a series of horrible mistakes to luckily give you a chance to win. Your fat piece-of-crap point guard hits the game-winning shot at the buzzer, then proceeds to jump up on the scorer's table to taunt the fans whose hearts have just been sunk. So what do you do if you are the coach? Apparently if you are UConn coach Jim Calhoun, you cry about how the visitors locker rooms at Pitt's Fitzgerald Field House weren't properly heated for your team, and how future games should be moved to a better venue to accomodate a man of your stature! Calhoun managed to be sore in a game his team won!

The Cincinnati Bengals (2005-06)
Do you know why the open audition episodes of American Idol are so fascinating to watch each year? It's because these poor saps come in to audition for the show thinking that they are God's gift to singing. Then when they are hit with the realization that they weren't even worthy of advancing past round 1, they completely crack, blaming everyone but themselves for their pitiful performance. The 2005 Bengals did the same thing. They went into the playoffs thinking they were so great because they finally had a winning record for the first time in ages, but when they were hit with the realization that they didn't have the talent/experience/heart to compete with a championship caliber team like the Steelers, they lost it. They even got into a locker room fight at halftime - while they were still ahead on the scoreboard! It was a complete emotional breakdown, but just like on American Idol, it made for some great viewing.

The Oakland Raiders (1972-77)
"Wah! Frenchy touched the ball! Wah!! The Steelers iced the field down!!!! Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah!!!!"

The South (1865-present)
I just don't get it. Usually when you lose a war and actually surrender to the other army, you don't continue to fly your flag and proclaim it as your true "heritage". You don't see swastikas proudly displayed all over Germany, right? England doesn't celebrate losing the colonies. I know I'm just a dumb yankee, but what am I missing here? You lost - get over it! That being said, the car on Dukes of Hazzard wouldn't have looked nearly as cool without that orange flag on the roof.

The Seattle Seahawks (2006)
The Seahawks and their 23 fans couldn't handle losing the Super Bowl. Their tight end couldn't catch, they mangled the clock management, they choked every time they crossed midfield, they allowed FWP to run for 75 yards on a play that EVERYONE in the country knew was going to be a run, they fell for a trick play that the Steelers had run before, their punter couldn't control the field position, their quarterback threw a costly interception in the 4th quarter, and their kicker missed two field goals. But it was all the ref's fault! In their defense, they had never even been in a huge game before, so like a little child who deals with adversity for the first time, they just didn't know how to handle it. Hopefully they will grow up as time goes on.

Honorable Mentions:

• Barry Bonds takes steroids because he is upset about losing popularity to Mark McGwire (1998-present)
• Matt Leinart pulls out the "we were still the better team" nonsense after losing the Rose Bowl to Texas (2006)
• Dale Hunter levels Pierre Turgeon on his way out of the NHL playoffs (1993)
• Buffalo Bills fans complain that the Music City Miracle was a forward lateral (1999)
• Tom Coughlin steps on an NFL sideline (1995-present)