Not that there's ever a good time to be a coot, but

Apr 14, 2015, 11:00 PM

(sorry if Germans)

The 5 Sinkingest Ships In Sports
Connor Tapp - 4 hours ago 0

At approximately 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg off the coast of the United States on her maiden voyage from Southampton. The ship sank and the lives of more than 1,500 passengers were tragically lost.

103 years later, the sinking of the Titanic remains a subject of fascination in America (and the UK too, if I had to guess). James Cameron won an Academy Award in 1998 for his fictionalized portrayal of the disaster, and it's the inciting incident in the first season of Downton Abbey. Not to mention the numerous idioms the disaster has contributed to the English language.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at which sports teams are currently rearranging the deck chairs on their sinking ships.

1) South Carolina Gamecocks
It was smooth sailing for the Gamecocks from 2010 to 2013. An SEC Championship game appearance and three straight 11-win seasons announced Carolina as a perennial top-15 program. But the Gamecocks ran bow-first into an ice formation known to geologists as Totally Forgetting to Recruit Defensive Linemen, and USC sank to a 7-6 finish in 2014.

Even as the icy grip of blowing two-touchdown leads to Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky began purpling the lips of Gamecock Nation, fans sank to the depths of the Atlantic secure in the knowledge that their top-five recruiting class would pull them to the surface and breathe new life into the program.

But just as the rescue ship was approaching, Steve Spurrier canceled the distress signal – perhaps confusing the “Save Our Ship” abbreviation with his own initials – by announcing that he only intended to continue coaching for 2-3 more seasons. No fewer than nine 2015 commitments jumped ship, preferring to take their chances with whatever piece of driftwood happened to be floating by rather than spend another minute with the Gamecocks.

2) San Francisco 49ers
Just a under a year ago, the 49ers were coming off their third straight appearance in the NFC championship game and were earning plaudits from across the NFL media for their 2014 draft class.

But by the midpoint of the 2014 season, the front office already had made up its mind that it would be forcing out the only guy who knows how to drive the dadgum boat at the end of the season. Then, Chris Borland and Patrick Willis decided to backstroke into the sweet hereafter, effectively gutting one of the 49ers few positions of strength.

Making matters worse, the 49ers hired the cabin boy to oversee the evacuation of women and children.

3) Iowa Hawkeyes
2010 was the last year the Hawkeyes won 10 or more games. Since then, it’s been all they can do to break even in conference play and in 2012 they couldn’t even manage that, stumbling to a 4-8 record and missing out on a bowl appearance for the first time since 2000.

The 2014 iteration of the Iowa Hawkeyes wasn’t especially talented, but an extremely favorable draw from the Big Ten East made a 4-4 record in conference play difficult to stomach.

Unlike the other names on this list, the Hawkeyes have been adrift at sea for years. But instead of throwing Iowa fans a life raft, athletics director Gary Barta is circling the survivors in his yacht while cackling like a cartoon villain and dumping piles of cash on top of Kirk Ferentz.

4) Brooklyn Nets
The Nets lost consecutive finals from 2002-03, cruised along at mediocrity, then sunk in 2010, winning 12 games. The move to Brooklyn in 2012 was supposed to usher in a new era — new owner, new uniforms, new expectations, new pocketbooks — but it’s been mostly a nightmare; the Nets are on coach No. 4 in four seasons, Mikhail Prokhorov is said to be exploring a sale of a franchise that lost $144 million last season and the big-ticket player acquisitions have either been shipped or are playing in a state of purgatory where they’re just good enough to get the Nets bounced in the first round of the playoffs.

The future is equally bleak. The Nets need to tank to get a primo lottery pick, but they have little capital with which to work — overpriced and aging players and no full control of a first-round pick until 2019 (!!). That’s what sets them apart from their neighbor Knicks.

5) Atlanta Braves
The 2015 Atlanta Braves are the equivalent of the dumb, boring media organization that owned the Titanic trying to sell pieces of the boat as it sank into the briny depths of the Atlantic. (Pointing out that the Braves have gotten out to a 6-1 start is sorta like saying, "Well yeah, but that one end of the ship went up really high before it broke in half or whatever.")

Author
Connor Tapp @MeetMeAtTapps

http://247sports.com/Bolt/The-5-Sinkingest-Ships-In-Sports-36788375

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- H. L. Mencken

Not that there's ever a good time to be a coot, but

Re: Not that there's ever a good time to be a coot, but

Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, they're all ...

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