It's Like Tonya Harding, But Less Manly

It must be frustrating to be a backup punter. Most football players don't even consider the starting punter a real part of the team; the backup punter might as well be the waterboy. It must cause all kinds of anger and frustration, but you're a punter, so you can't express it. Lots of repressed rage in a backup punter, we'd bet.

Apparently, it all bubbled up to the surface at Northern Colorado on Monday, when backup Bears punter Mitch Cozad stabbed starting punter Rafael Mendoza in the back of his right thigh. Cozad, showing the wisdom of the backup punter, sped off in his car with personalized plates; he was arrested, kicked off the team and expelled from the university.

We'll let others — which is to say, everyone — make the "shank" jokes, and simply point that this has to be something backup punters have wanted to do for a long time; he even hit the correct thigh! Mock if you will, but until you've felt the heartache of watching another man reap the glories of being the starting punter at a subpar Division I-AA school in Colorado, you really can't understand what the man has been through.

Punter Makes Worst Shank Of His Life [Greeley Tribune]