Peter King, Scoop Machine

I'm not entirely sure why, but Peter King devoted most of his Tuesday column to a conversation with Jake Plummer. I know he played for the Cardinals years ago, but.... Plummer? Really?

Plummer did not watch the NFC championship game. He didn't see the team that made him its poster child a decade ago make the first Super Bowl in its history. "I caught the highlights,'' he said, "but I had a handball tournament in Seattle."

[Here's how my "Things I Bet Jake Plummer Is Doing With His Retirement" list looked prior to today:

1. Spending time with family.
2. Staying in shape for eventual comeback.
3. Grooming beard.
4. Grooming mustache.
.
.
.
.
.
.
847. Playing in handball tournaments.]

Aren't there a hundred questions you'd like to ask Jake Plummer?

[At least that many just about handball tournaments, right?]

Plummer knows what he wants to do for the rest of his life -- something in coaching, but not at any level higher than high school.

[OK.]

"I really don't know what I'll do exactly," [Plummer] said.

[No, Jake, you *do* know. You want to coach. King just said so. C'mon dude.]

Handball, he said, is a way to keep his competitive juices flowing. He has bonded with a lot of western handball players, who play the game for the love of the game instead of money.

[SO refreshing to hear. Personally, I'd about had it with all of the prima donna handball players.]

"It's the purest sport in the world," Plummer said. "Even the president [the President's Council on Physical Fitness] says it's a great sport to stay physically fit.

[Things that make this quote hilarious:

(1) The "purest" sport in the world? Per Wikipedia: "Contact is only allowed when the defensive player is completely in front of the offensive player, i.e. between the offensive player and the goal, this is referred to as a player sandwich." Mmmmmm, player sandwich. Pure.

(2) The fact that King had to include the bracketed portion. This means that coming off of the most publicized and hype-filled Presidential election in recent American history, Jake Plummer refers to the guy who heads the President's Council on Physical Fitness as "the president."

(3) I Googled the President's Council on Physical Fitness to determine the name of "the president" (so as to make an Obama joke), and found the following on the Council Members bio page:

PCPFS Chairman - Vacant
PCPFS Vice Chair - Vacant
PCPFS Council Members - Vacant

Acting Executive Director - RADM Penelope Slade-Sawyer, P.T., M.S.W.

How to become a Council member:
All Council members are appointed by the President of the United States. Please contact:
Director, Office of Presidential Personnel
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1414

If a person who was appointed on the basis of asking-for-the-job-when-apparently-no-one-else-wanted-it says that handball is a great sport to stay physically fit, consider me officially convinced.]

"I TiVoed the game last year, but the last three minutes got cut off. I was a novice TiVo-er, and I recorded the game, but I guess it ran long, so there I was, watching the game and it just stopped. I was a little mad. The game was getting good. This year I'll make sure to TiVo the program after the Super Bowl."

[Best. Interview. Ever.]