Tis the season to compile lists. As I contemplate the past year, I have to wonder if sports, especially pro sports, aren't becoming more noteworthy for what they are doing wrong than for what they are doing right. It's debatable, but I've got to tell you, whittling a list of 2003 Sports Boneheads was not easy. So, here goes:

10. The cast of the Portland Trail Blazers: In a way, these guys have become victims of their own success. Today, hearing that a Blazer did something stupid is like hearing that the sky is blue. It begs the traditional, "Yeah. And ....?" First we had Damon Stoudamire, trying to smuggle pot wrapped in tin foil through airport security. That alone wasn't enough to make the list, however. Trail Blazer, stupidity and drugs. (Yawn). But, Portland's go-to guy, Rasheed Wallace wasn't about to let his team down. He forged into new territory and receives high marks for creativity with his rendition of, "We're being exploited!" Fortunately for the NBA, Wallace has 17 million reasons per season to endure this treachery, so he'll stick.

9. Ricky Davis, Cleveland Cavaliers: But really, Davis is representing and accepting the award on behalf of self-absorbed athletes everywhere. Late in a game against Utah, Davis found himself with ball in hand, just one rebound short of a triple-double. That he was thinking of his own stats at that point is commentary enough. But then Davis took the ball down and shot at his own basket in order to secure the needed rebound. Unfortunately for Davis, such a rebound doesn't count. So, while he lost the statistics battle, he did win the "I'm a tremendous idiot!" war. Way to go, Ricky.

Ahhh ... the NBA is fertile ground for bone-headedness among athletes. More on that later. But next we have a couple of cases where entire leagues have collaborated in their stupidity. You know, where some complain that athletics has become dominated by selfishness, it's nice to see folks pitching in to reach a common goal.

8. The NFL: While the NFL normally relies on numerous stand-out individuals for its share of stupidity, the league as a whole made a strong case this year. First we have the famed Minority Hiring Policy. Note to a contentious world: I'm not racist. I'm all for a level playing field and everyone getting the same chance regardless of ethnic origin. Unfortunately this policy has been inconsistently and unreasonably executed. It's setting the cause back if it's accomplishing anything. This year's evidence: Detroit was obviously after Steve Mariucci to fill their coaching vacancy - a choice clearly based on merit, not race. Seeing the writing on the wall, several black candidates declined interviews for the position. Yet the Lions were punished. Have mercy, guys! Just being the Lions is punishment enough.

That alone was probably sufficient to make the list. But the league cemented its standing with its reaction to the ESPN's, "The Playmakers." This series offered a fictional behind-the-scenes look at drug use, performance-enhancing drug use, sex, homosexuality, domestic abuse, and rampant hypocrisy in the world of pro football. Oh the uproar! But never once did I read a "That's not how it is," quote. Instead the complaint was, "You're making us look bad." Life is tough when the truth makes you look bad. Granted, ESPN was biting the hand that feeds it, but that's their choice. If you don't want to look bad, don't do things that look bad.

7. Major League Baseball: While the NBA has a monopoly on individual stupidity, MLB has become synonymous will collective ignorance. First we had the "this time it means something" All-Star game ploy. Under this plan, the league that won the game (the American League) got home-field advantage for the World Series. What a riveting sub-plot this added to the festivities! I hadn't been so excited since my last trip to the dentist. Props to the MLB establishment. They had everyone remotely associated with the game on message. Unfortunately, they forgot to send out reminders at World Series time. Missing were the Marlin players bemoaning the fateful die that had been cast in July. "Curse the luck! If only we'd won the %#&! All-Star game!" Nor were the Yankees gloating over their tremendous fortune. Somehow Florida was able to overcome this setback.

Once again, this alone wasn't enough. We've seen it before. MLB, stupidity, and All-Star Game. (Yawn). Little did we know, the Major Leaguers were just getting started. Actually, the players' act of stupidity had occurred earlier in the year, though we didn't hear of it until this fall. MLB "addressed" the drug issue in the latest collective bargaining agreement by mandating a one-time test for all players. A specific date wasn't given, but it clearly was going to be right around the opening of camp this past spring.. If less than 5% percent of the players had popped positive, MLB would have been impotent to do anything about steroids until the next agreement. In short, as a player you know when you'll be tested and for what. You further know that if you can pass this one test you're free to go nuts with the 'roids for several years. Bottom Line: they failed.

6. Maurice Clarette ... formerly of THE Ohio State University: Actually it appears that Clarette's initial stupidity occurred last year, and didn't come to light until this year. However the way Clarette is handling the situation marks a continuation of stupidity. And what puts him on the list is how much he loses vs. how much he gains from the stupid behavior. In what he did last year, Clarette already lost a bunch. He gave up the opportunity to enter the NFL draft from a football factory like OSU. All he had to do was pretend to be a student for a while, show he can stay healthy for an entire season and continue to make noise at a high-profile institution and he would have easily gone top 5, probably 1st. But alas, as 2003 dawned, that dream had already suffered its fatal blow.

Once the fit hit the shan however, it's not like Clarette was out of options. He could have enrolled at a Division II school, pretended to be a student for a while, made a ton of noise (you know he would still have been heavily covered by the media) and still been a top NFL prospect. Instead he chose to sue the NFL. Never mind that he'll be eligible for the draft by the time this case is done working its way through the legal system. Here's what teams are now looking at when they consider Clarette: Performed well over a small number of games, missed a few games due to injury, hasn't played competitive football in a year and counting, on-field success is matched by off-field unwillingness to play by the rules, would rather fight than attempt constructive solutions to problems, etc., etc. Hmmm. A talented but contentious young man whose potential over the long haul is unknown. You don't find too many of those entering the NFL each year!

5. Dusty Baker, Manager, Chicago Cubs: In case you forgot, here's the quote:

"Personally, I like to play in the heat. Most Latin people and minority people do. You don't find too many brothers from New Hampshire or Maine, right? We were brought over here because we could work in the heat. Isn't that history? Your skin color is more conducive to heat than it is to the lighter-skinned people. I don't see brothers running around burnt. That's a fact. I'm not making this up. I'm not seeing some brothers walking around with some white stuff on their ears and noses.''

When this, for some strange reason, stirred up quite the outcry, Baker made no retraction, but did offer this wisdom as part of his defense:

"As a black manager, I can say things about blacks that a white manager can't say, and whites can say things about whites that blacks can't say."

Yeah, you know how white people are always going around calling each other "cracker" and stuff like that.

Anyway. Baker is correct. He can and did get away with this stupidity. His ideas on the scope of who can say what about whom are a little muddled, though. And he's missing the bigger picture: Just because you can get away with doing something, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do it.

4. The Baylor University Men's Basketball Program: Unfortunately this is tragic stupidity. One player is dead, probably at the hands of another. And as time goes on, we find layer after layer of corruption and lack of control. We'll probably never know what really happened in this sad and twisted episode. What is clear is that this program is a mess, and the consequences of that mess remind us that basketball is just a game, and in the grand scheme of things, only a minor slice of life itself.

3. Sammy Sosa, Chicago Cubs: Does he get the award for using a corked bat, or for the monumentally stupid explanation(s) he offered? There was the initial, "I didn't know that I had grabbed the wrong bat." And this makes sense unless you spend more than a second thinking about it. The whole point of corking is to make the bat feel different: specifically, less weight = greater bat speed. If a corked bat felt the same as a normal bat, there would be no point to it. Later this explanation morphed into, "I accidentally grabbed the bat that I use to entertaint the fans during batting practice." Ohhh! He was just doing it for us. Well, now I almost feel guilty over the price that Sammy paid for my happiness.

Granted this was just one act of individual stupidity. Because it was Sammy Sosa however, it is bigger. He was one of MLB's heroes. And, he had a good thing going with his whole, "Beisbol, been bery, bery good to me," shtick. Personally I never bought in. It all seemed fake. But a lot of people went for it. And, knowing human nature, people will forgive, or more likely, simply forget. That's OK I guess. I don't want to see the guy tortured or anything. But let's recognize what this symbolizes. MLB has a big problem with players who don't care what they do to the quality or integrity of the sport so long as they advance their own cause. Despite carefully manufactured appearances to the contrary, we now find that Sosa is no different.

Before moving on to our top two, let me mention how hard it was to rank these things. After thinking about Baylor, I had trouble not making it number one. After all, someone is dead there. But really, though it is exceedingly tragic, Baylor's stupidity was not uncommon for a Div. I Athletic Program. In terms of magnitude and quantity their stupidity might be a bit greater than most cases in recent memory. But, when looking at sheer stupidity, Baylor, and even Sammy Sosa, pale in comparison to these last two. I mean, the idiocy we are about to recount is mind-numbing.

2. Larry Eustachy / Mike Price: Two big time college coaches who were canned for monstrously poor judgment.

Eustachy, the former Iowa State head basketball coach, liked to party with the kids after games. Not the kids at his own school mind you. No, they were on the plane back to Iowa. Eustachy stayed behind to tilt a few with students at the opposing teams' school on at least two occasions (not that this would have been any less appalling had he been with Cyclone students, but that detail does seem to be the icing on the cake here). And lest this be written off as wild rumor, there were pictures on the Internet, in USA Today, and all points beyond. I should add that the lame, lounge lizard-esque banter that Eustachy reportedly used on his co-ed targets was, by itself, grounds for harsh punishment.

Then there was Mike Price, head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. There are few, and some would say not any jobs in College Football more desirable than this post. Price never actually got to coach a game for the Tide, though. After a night at a Pensacola, FL strip club, Price invited his new friend Destiny back to his hotel. The next morning, Destiny ordered "one of everything, to go" and charged it to the room. Granted, this was kind of stupid, but what do you care when you're a dancer named Destiny in Pensacola, FL. She goes from local skank to national skank. It's a step up. Price will never again have a job as good as the one he lost that night.

1. Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers: Has anyone given up more for less in the past few years? What is clear, is that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as what one night of sex is going to cost him. She says it was rape. He says it was consensual. Either way it was incredibly stupid. We're just waiting to see if it was also criminal.

This one goes far beyond dollars and cents. It's already obvious that this has changed Kobe. Certainly things might get better once the trial is over if he is acquitted. But some of this is permanent. If you want to talk money, Kobe took a big endorsement hit. Beyond that, however, in a few brief moments, Kobe cast aside so much that he had been building over many years. And right now it seems like a coin toss whether or not he threw away absolutely everything. No joking here. This was tragic for all concerned.

Who's not on the list and Why?

Joe Namath: Super Bowl III's hero, in a drunken state, made a pass, actually two passes - both incomplete, at ESPN interviewer Suzy Kolber during a live interview at a recent Jets game. But, is this stupid or is it just sad. I'm not convinced Namath was of sound mind or he might well have made the list. To get credit for stupidity you've got to do the work - you've got to consciously decide to do something dumb.

Warren Sapp: Yes, once again this year he has done and said many stupid things. But there was no originality. No new ground was broken. 2003 was simply "same old, same old," Warren Sapp-style.

Detroit Tigers: Once again, we look at intent. Had the Tigers set out to only win 40 games, that would have been stupid. But if you look closely, it does appear that they were trying to do better. Unsuccessful is not the same thing as stupid.

Chris Rix: The Florida State QB seems to have a little parking problem. First he parked in a spot reserved for the handicapped. I guess at a quick glance that little guy kind of does look like a football player - an offensive lineman, or a punt returner perhaps. Shortly after that, Rix parked in a spot designated for hospital patients. Granted, this stuff is prety stupid, but nothing new from that neck of the woods. FSU quarterbacks thinking that the rules don't apply to them is nothing new.

Randall Simon: Then with the Pirates, Simon bopped a sausage (actually a human being in a giant sausage costume) with his bat during a break in the MLB action at Milwaukee's County Stadium last summer. Simon claimed that he was just playing, and I have to admit that that is the way it appeared to me when I saw the replay. OK, it isn't setting a very good example for the kids in the crowd, playing or not. And, the sausage did suffer some minor scrapes. But relax everyone! This was not the egregious act everyone made it out to be.

Martha Burke: In my mind, she's more annoying than stupid. Also, to me, respectable stupidity involves doing something that brings about consequences that you didn't expect or desire, but should have expected. Burke's actions didn't bring about any consequences at all.

Steve Bartman: The Cubs fan who interfered with a foul ball, possibly costing the Cubs an out. Please! If you want to make one guy a scapegoat for decades of frustration and ineptitude, and a monumental post-season collapse, don't look to me for help. Do your own list - make Bartman #1, and in the #2 slot put "everyone in MLB except the Cubs," because clearly you aren't ready to accept your team's responsiblity for their own futility.

Rick Neuheisel or Washington University: The former head football coach was canned for his participation in an NCAA Tournament pool. OK, sure, sure. Neuheisel should have known better. But this is also the height of hypocrisy. If the NCAA and its members don't openly promote gambling on the Tournament, they sure do a lot to accomodate it. In this case, however, I think it might have been a matter of convenience as much as anything. Neuheisel was likely to be shown the door in the near future anyway.

Joe Horn: Saints receiver who made a cell phone call from the end zone after scoring a touchdown. Stupid, no doubt. But more than that it was just lame. I didn't want to build it up any further by adding it to the list.