IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2023: The complete rankings

Welcome to the grand finale of Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities. Here’s hoping 2024 will be better. It probably won’t.

Olivia Dunne is set up such that she can do basically nothing for the rest of her time at LSU and graduate with millions of dollars in the bank. Why would she accept a sponsorship in March from a company that sells AI-generated homework help and risk pissing off her school? Not her brightest moment.

Jewish volleyball standout George Santos found himself on this list back in May, after he was finally indicted on charges including fraud and money laundering.

What’s that saying? “If someone shows you they’re an irredeemable piece of sh*t, believe them”? Case in point, alleged sex criminal Jackson Mahomes.

Riverboat Ron took a gamble in the Washington Commanders 2022 season Waterloo when he opted to promote Carson Wentz back to his original station as the Commanders’ starting quarterback. That trust backfired in his face when Wentz imploded against the Cleveland Browns.

It turns out, Rivera thought he was playing with house money. While on the podium for his postgame press conference in January, Rivera was genuinely shocked during his exchange with a reporter to discover that the Commanders would be eliminated that day if Green Bay defeated Minnesota in the afternoon game.

For a strategist and two-time Coach of the Year who once prided himself on being Analytical Ron, this was a devastating oversight. I still dream that I show up to class I haven’t been to all semester and the final exam is being presented. Rivera lived it.

Between the $787 million settlement in Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit hinging on the content of his and other colleague’s embarrassing text messages, the impending $2 billion civil suit being pursued by Smartmatic, and the civil suit filed by a former Fox News producer that specifically names Carlson, chairman Rupert Murdoch had enough of Carlson, and unexpectedly canned him on April 24.

Carlson’s text messages which were made public exposed him as a charlatan who’ll take any disingenuous position that would advance his career. As opposed to being a serious member of an adversarial press, Carlson was publicly a Trump lickspittle while privately texting colleagues, “I hate him passionately,” and that “We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights, I truly can’t wait,” only to do a complete 180 on air. Carlson was one of many Fox News entertainers posing as journalists who privately espoused thoughts that ran counter to their public positions.

The final straw may have been texts from Carlson that described a Fox News exec as the other C-word. Carlson’s reputation still hasn’t recovered from Jon Stewart bodying him for pretending to be CNN Crossfire’s Stephen A. Smith nearly two decades ago. Now, Carlson will be relegated to the graveyard of former Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck. Like most dark spirits, Carlson will rise again on OAN, Blaze, or whichever stupid outlet emerges as the television version of Truth Social.

She’s the porn star who exposed Zion Williamson in June. Mills revealed Williamson’s infidelity in a series of explicit tweets.

For almost the entire month of June, Mills inundated all of Twitter (now X) with all the personal information we never needed about Williamson’s sex life and has been on a month-long rampage bordering on corrosive obsession. What started out as an instance of a woman scorned reached its boiling point when Mills threatened to release an explicit video of herself and Williamson if the Pelicans didn’t trade him before the NBA Draft. Ironically, in doing so, she may have tanked his trade value while rumors swirled he would be shopped for a top-3 pick.

In June, news of Zion Williamson’s unfaithfulness to his long-time girlfriend was unveiled after he shared they were expecting a child. Despite being with the same women since high school, Williamson has been recklessly chasing women in these social media streets. After all, this is the same guy who was getting his business put on front street while asking UNC  coeds  out on Snapchat while he was at Duke. Williamson hasn’t learned much since then and appears to be enjoying the trappings of superstardom too much.

We’d like to be more descriptive in identifying the idiot behind the shooter at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago during a White Sox game back in August that injured three people, but we have no idea who did it. So we, as observers, can only make this deduction: Because guns can neither transport nor fire themselves, there must ultimately be a person at fault. And that person is, at best, criminally stupid.

Circumstances surrounding the apparently unintentional gunfire were only made more confusing earlier that week, when a small crop of too-wacky-to-be-true details began to emerge, including a claim that the suspect was a woman who snuck a firearm into Guaranteed Rate Field by “ hiding it in the folds of her belly fat” before shooting herself and two others in the stands a short time later. Another outlet, Sports Mockery (which covers Chicago teams and, despite its name, is not satirical) claimed the woman repeatedly set off the stadium’s metal detectors but was waved through anyway by security guards, who “ did not want to overstep their boundaries” by making physical contact with an armed Rubenesque lunatic.

Marcus Freeman better be careful. The Notre Dame head coach brought a defensive acumen and youthful exuberance to a vintage program that’s fallen behind the times. Unfortunately, that experience cost the Fighting Irish in the waning moment of their 17-14 loss to Ohio State back in September.

Lining up on the 1-yard-line with one fewer defensive lineman ultimately allowed the Buckeyes to scoot in for the game-winning touchdown. Too many men on the field is a common mistake discombobulated teams make amid the fast-paced substitutions that happen at pit crew speeds from time to time. Better safe than sorry. However, undercounting is an egregious error that can’t be explained. Yet, Freeman tried and actually made it worse.

When Freeman was asked in his postgame presser why he didn’t take a penalty to get the extra defensive lineman on the field, Freeman explained that they were out of timeouts, and didn’t couldn’t afford to take the penalty. That reasoning would fly if Notre Dame were at the 10 or 20-yard line. However, from the 1, the most yardage that could be tacked on was half the distance to the goal. Even in the moment, Freeman didn’t seem to understand he was implying that having one fewer defensive lineman on the final play from scrimmage wasn’t worth half a yard.

The mercurial Golden State Warriors star stomped on a guy in April. Then, he recently punched Jusuf Nurkić in the face, leading to an indefinite suspension from the NBA.

We don’t take enough people’s passports away.

That can be the only conclusion when seeing how Trevor Bauer, our most recent export of sludge that no one asked for, right up there with Fords, has landed with a splat in Japan back in May. You could argue that Japan is the one that welcomed him, so they’re getting what they deserve. And boy are they getting it.

Bauer showed up with at best an ill-conceived and at worst insulting — and it’s Bauer so always assume the worst — strikeout celebration before he’d ever thrown a pitch. His teammates were already on alert after seeing it, which in a shocking bit of actual awareness he shelved. Perhaps the language barrier prevented him from invoking the usual “it’s your fault if you’re insulted” excuse.

Then again, Bauer didn’t have much excuse to be pulling out any celebrations, seeing as how he spent his first three starts getting his ass kicked up to his ears by NPB hitters, to the tune of an 8.40 ERA. If you’re going to be a galactic asshole who can’t change his ways, the least you could do is pitch well.

Maybe he’ll blame it on the lack of sticky stuff, or the fact that Japanese baseballs are pre-tacked, or maybe he’ll come up with something new to absolve himself. It’s always been his best skill.

Everything this man does is stupid, but this one was especially so. The man inexplicably elected by Alabama voters to the United States Senate went on record to defend white nationalists in July, claiming that it was merely “some people’s opinion” that racism was innately tied to the ideology. He quickly retreated from that position, but, jeez, what a moron. Great job, Alabama.

Christopher Michael Russo, aka Mad Dog, recently caught flack for going back on a verbal “ promise” he made on air in October concerning his career.

Russo pledged that if the Diamondbacks came back from down 3-2 against the Phillies to win the series in seven games and advance to the World Series, he would retire on the spot. Indeed, Russo is a dope, and should apologize, but not for picking against the D-Backs.

Mad Dog should apologize to all the other dopes who actually believed someone would give up their livelihood over something they spewed on air for ratings. Russo may be an idiot, but he’s no dummy. He knows people eat up stuff like this and would be compelled to tune in to hear him on Sirius XM or watch on ESPN.

It was a win-win for this fool and a disappointment for those he grifted. Russo never had any intention of retiring. Stop believing these buffoons, especially those named Russo or Stephen A. Smith. They continue to show us time and time again who they are. It’s time we start believing them.

Stephen A. Smith took up his vacation home on Idiot Of The Month in November for once again treating a female coworker as something of his property, or at least his ward. For no reason whatsoever, Smith decided to admonish people, real or imagined, texting him about Kimberley A. Martin, and decreeing that none of them could “have her.” Somehow, in SAS’s mind, he’s become the protector of Martin, who you’ll never believe is an actual adult woman trying to do her job that has nothing to do with her social life, of which she can make her own choices.

In January, influencer Maicol Quinonez appeared on video with “Messi” tattooed across his forehead. He has since said he regretted his decision.

As if he couldn’t lean any further into the muck, Brett Favre sank deeper into the mud in May by calling for a Fox News boycott over the right-wing propaganda network firing host Tucker Carlson. It’s not entirely surprising that Favre is a loyal viewer of Carlson’s, though. What a boycott of Fox News is supposed to accomplish is still up for debate, but it’s still not the most worthless thing Favre has been involved with lately.

When you’re one play away from Zach Wilson being your starting quarterback, and the man keeping the worst No. 2 overall draft pick since Ryan Leaf off the field is 39 years old, it was always hard to understand why Jets fans hyped themselves up so much this offseason. The team was good, but clearly not good enough to make a serious push for a Super Bowl. And the team’s savior, Aaron Rodgers, didn’t complete a pass in his first season with the Jets. He only lasted four plays before suffering a season-ending Achilles injury back in September. What did Jets fans get excited for again?

Now, the Jets have missed the playoffs after losing 30-0 against Miami in Week 15, effectively ending the hope that Rodgers might be able to play for them down the stretch (and because it seems highly unlikely to recover from an Achilles injury that quickly).

The Buffalo Bills attempted to steal a page from the Seattle Seahawks book in their Week 10 loss to Denver back in November. Buffalo utilized the 12th man play only they implemented the extra player on the field instead of in the stands. This inexcusable extra man on the field penalty helped keep the Broncos alive, which subsequently led to them kicking the game-winning field goal as time expired.

The lengths climate change deniers go to now include blaming space lasers for catastrophic wildfires. The blaze in Hawaii during mid-August was one of the deadliest natural disasters in United States history, yet former NBA player, and current BIG3 open gym participant Royce White wants to “Investigate Maui.” So much so that he wrote it on the side of his head during a BIG3 game in the same month.

Armstrong has repeatedly poked his head out of his ass since getting canceled before the term even entered the American vernacular, and it’s usually to promote a podcast like every other person who thinks their vocal cords are a gift to humanity. In June, he decided to tackle the issue of fairness in sports as it relates to transgender women. Yes, that’s right, the guy who’s synonymous with blood doping, has some thoughts on what’s fair. Judging by his moral compass, I’m surprised he didn’t don a wig and stuff a bra in an attempt to enter the women’s Tour de France after being exiled from the men’s side. The only good to come of this is fodder for slideshows about morons — which, hey, that’s what this is.

Another inexplicable member of the United States Senate was an idiot of the month back in July, when Paul had NIL legislation in his crosshairs recently when he mused that college athletes would soon end up more closely resembling rappers than students, what with their newfound ability to be paid for their work. Apparently, this second-generation dumbf*ck is all about laissez-faire government policy until it puts money in the pockets of young people, specifically those of color.

The budding NBA superstar spent a large portion of March seeking a better way to relieve stress after he took to Instagram Live from the Denver gentleman’s club to show off his rapping acumen and a handgun.

The Grizzlies were almost as quick to react as the internet and sat him down for an indefinite period of time. The strip club incident — that was gradually leaked online after the initial IG Live story — looked like a helluva time, and had it not punctuated a week of Morant being in the news cycle for all the wrong reasons, Ja might have been able to skate.

You’d think Rudy Gobert would have learned his lesson about boundaries after triggering an entire league shutdown three years ago. And yet, there he was using that extended wingspan to take a jab at teammate Kyle Anderson in April during the 82nd game on Minnesota’s schedule His tenure in Utah was buffeted by his fractured working relationship with Donovan Mitchell, and his only year in Minnesota has been an unmitigated disaster.

Brad Bohannon was axed from Alabama’s baseball program on May 4 for “among other things, violating the standards, duties, and responsibilities expected of University employees,” per a statement from Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne. While how heavily Bohannon was involved in the sports betting that led to him getting the pink slip isn’t publicly known, and may never be, but his quick ouster does all the talking for both sides. Maybe Bohannon thought he could get away with it, or it wouldn’t be a fireable offense ( the most idiotic option), or he was looking for a quick way out of coaching forever. Having no moral compass or external reference point to think this was a bad idea shows Bohannon isn’t fit to run a Division-I athletic program. It’s actually twisted to think this was going on for a while before he was caught. How many results were influenced by slimy tactics that somehow didn’t derail the Southeastern Conference baseball season?

The person making the wagers that flagged questions was identified as Bert Eugene Neff Jr., of Mooresville, Ind., by Sports Illustrated, the parent of a current University of Cincinnati baseball player. His relation to Bohannon is unclear, other than through the baseball world, as Bohannon never coached in the state of Ohio. Either way, congratulations on being a huge dumbass, and thinking helping someone make money off your kids through sports betting was a good idea.

There are a lot of reasons why the Bears could be on this year’s Idiots list. The perpetual terrible head-coaching choices. The systematic takedowns of their own promising young quarterbacks. That fact that the owners can’t make a decent decision to save their lives. But, in September, the Bears truly outdid themselves in the way they completely fumbled whatever the hell happened with Defensive Coordinator Alan Williams’ resignation.

Williams, who had been away from the team since Week 1 for undisclosed reasons, stepped down before Week 3 for undisclosed reasons that he claimed were related to his health, and family. This, of course, is after the Bears told beat reporters that Williams’ absence was not due to his health or family. Bears head coach Matt Eberflus fanned the flames of the conspiracies that were already running wild online by refusing to answer questions about Williams’ absence. And, even after rumors began swirling on social media that both Williams’ home and Halas Hall had been raided by the FBI, the Bears issued a perfunctory statement, saying only, “Alan Williams submitted his resignation as the team’s defensive coordinator this afternoon.” And that was it! No “best of luck,” nothing about Williams’ future. Nothing. Just “he quit.”

John Angelos should’ve been, or could’ve been at least, one of the most popular people in Maryland back in August. He’s got the American League’s best team — the Orioles — on the field, after years of being utterly irrelevant, playing in what is still the gold standard of the new age of ballparks. They’re young, they’re exciting, they hit the shit out of the ball. All Angelos has to do is not talk, and be shown smiling in his box or whatever.

And yet none of them can help it. Even amongst the best stretch of Os baseball in what, at least a decade, with the promise of so much more, Angelos is threatening fans with higher ticket prices or needed tax breaks and state handouts or a full-out move, simply so he can have more of what he already has. All these guys, especially the failsons, have a disposition of having needed to take a dump since they were 11.

It takes a severe lack of brain cells to throw up the Sieg Heil salute in public. Add in that the offending party did it in drive-by fashion toward a pro-Israel demonstration, with cellphones handy, and that’s how former NWSL player Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel ended up on November’s list.

Talking about the Israel-Palestine war takes a deft hand, but you don’t have to be Susan Sarandon to know that saluting Hitler to a crown of Jewish people is not nuanced, or thoughtful. Ferrer Van Ginkel’s former club, Angel FC, made sure to distance themselves from the incident, reiterating that the two are no longer affiliated.

The lesson is simple: Don’t be a Nazi.

Contrary to popular belief, the definition of insanity isn’t actually “doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.” Merriam-Webster defines it as:

“a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder”

“unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents someone from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases someone from criminal, or civil responsibility”

“extreme folly or unreasonableness”

“something utterly foolish or unreasonable”

Miami head football coach Mario Cristobal fits perfectly with the fourth explanation.

Cristobal is on the list because in October, his then-No. 17 ranked Hurricanes, who were 4-0, lost to (2-3) Georgia Tech. They were leading 20-17 with 33 seconds left on the clock when Cristobal decided against taking a knee and running the clock out for the guaranteed win. Instead, Miami ran it, and fumbled. Georgia Tech recovered, eventually scored, and won in the final seconds.

It’s hard to fathom exactly what the Toronto Raptors were thinking when they came up with this jaunty bit of content for Women’s History Month.

Time of Death for Women’s History Month? Whatever time this was published on March 1.

Teams love to trot out their female employees once a year, usually on International Women’s Day, which is galling enough (we don’t want women in sports to be visible once a year, we want it all year round!), but not being able to find a single guy on your team to express anything women do well outside of “they birth everybody,” is really the pièce de resistance here. The video wasn’t up long; the Raptors took the piece down right quick after it started making the rounds on social media. But I was easily able to come up with something women do well outside of being “the only ones who can procreate.” For example, women can tell you when your idea for video content is going to make everyone laugh at you for being sexist jerkfaces during Women’s History Month.

AB bought an arena football team in the month of May and it went to sh*t pretty much immediately. Who could have seen this coming, except everyone?

Antonio Brown kicked off January 2023 the same way he left 2022, as an idiot. And if you tried to predict what Brown would be in the news for as a New Year’s resolution, and you got it right, please tell us what numbers to pick in the lottery. Also, you might be a psychopath.

A few weeks back, Brown looked like he was having a normal day, with his family and kids, constantly updating his Snapchat story to show us a pretty normal life by his standards. And then there’s a photo of him getting fellated by a woman with no censor and we can see everything.

And it’s disgusting and more of Brown than anyone wanted to see. Also, who shares it after a roll of content involving your family? That’s not normal. And should never be normalized. It’s sick. It’s truly a shame for such a great athlete to be outwardly dumb and ruin what could’ve been a Hall of Fame career. And there seems to be no low or blow he won’t take.

Keith Olbermann was wrong back in April, when he thought Angel Reese was in the wrong for taunting Caitlin Clark as her LSU Tigers defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes for the National Championship. Reese was actually just giving Clark a taste of her own medicine. And even if Clark hadn’t been hitting previous opponents with the “You can’t see me,” children’s eyes would not begin to bleed because Reese decided to rub in the victory.

Who was out of line, though, was Olbermann — for tweeting out that Reese “is a f—ing idiot.” Barstool’s Dave Portnoy called her a “classless piece of s—t,” and both deserve those vulgar insults thrown back at them. Olbermann later apologized for being “uninformed” that Clark also engages in trash talk, and said that both were wrong. He also said that he doesn’t follow basketball in any way.

So, the real reasons why White has been selected are because of his response to slapping his wife across the face in January, and the debut of perhaps the most tone-deaf “sports” league of all time: Ultimate Face Slapping. It’s not actually called that, but that’s exactly what it is — concussions not only included but required.

In his apology for slapping his wife, he said the real punishment was that he’d have to live with the shame for the rest of his life. While he said “real” he really meant “only” as the UFC prez deemed his actions didn’t merit a suspension. He even had to tell UFC fans to stop defending him. Little does he realize that he validated his behavior by skipping the much–needed timeout.

There are some disgusting human beings on planet Earth. Truly vile creatures who commit acts of unspeakable horror. The people who physically violate and/or extinguish the humanity of others are the worst of us. If that is the bottom of the human totem pole, just above those folks are people like Alex Stein.

This wretched creature approached Brittney Griner in June — who spent almost a year detained in Russia — at an airport and harassed her as content for his far-right YouTube page. He approached her and got within arms reach, which security should never have allowed. Stein then repeatedly made derogatory comments to Griner about being traded for Viktor Bout and having sex with Vladimir Putin.

How bold of him to approach a person at an airport who is still likely deeply scarred from the year she spent behind bars in a foreign land, and insult her. Big tough guy who claims on his YouTube page to be a person who “takes on the liberal world order with courage and humor.”

Stein is the antithesis of courage. He is scum. A contemptible coward taking up resources on this planet and providing no value in return. A true stain on the human species. A person not interested in doing any good, and instead finds pleasure in bulldozing decency.

He is pollution that is far worse than fossil fuels or plastic. At least those are capable of powering cars and holding water. Stein provides no beneficial service to the planet in any way. He takes pleasure in degrading society.

A truly pathetic, vomit-inducing pile of feces.

In July, Victor Wembanyama was wrong because he made something out of nothing when he embellished a story to the press. But, we’ll give him a semi-pass because he’s a 19-year-old kid from France who was just days into his new job in America — and boy did America welcome him in the “American way.”

Britney Spears was wrong because she knew she could make something into a bigger something because of who she is. And as a 41-year-old grown woman who fully understands how the media can work — for the bad — she used all of her white woman privilege to play the victim.

Just because you want to meet someone, it doesn’t give you the right to feel you deserve to be acknowledged by them, let alone touch them. Black people aren’t animals. This isn’t a petting zoo.

Jenner shared the November IOTM second-place spot with Chris Broussard after tweeting the r-word, and spelling it wrong.

Chris Broussard’s ability to shriek about the NBA isn’t quite as obnoxious as Stephen A.’s, but it makes FS1’s First Things First a fascinating watch. As long as he doesn’t quote inaccurate sources on the show or brag about his dozens of DM exchanges with NBA All-Stars. Back in November, during a discussion about James Harden’s acquisition by the Los Angeles Clippers, the show nearly derailed after Broussard redundantly asked if the Clippers point guard was r—d. It’s been years since Broussard was the NBA’s Shams Charania and off-handed comments like that are a reminder of how he fell from that perch.

Racist fans in sports are nothing new — just ask Hank Aaron or Serena Wiliams. But one good thing about technology advancing to the point where everyone has a cell phone on them at all times is that their cruelty (and, yes…idiocy) is captured for posterity, where we can mock, and expose them in perpetuity.

In October, it was Broncos defensive back Kareem Jackson, who shared a racist message he received following getting ejected against the Packers. “Stop behaving like a f***ing n** 🤡,” a “fan” sent him via private message. Back in September, it was Vikings’ running back Alexander Mattison sharing screenshots of racist messages he was sent, and that was also the month we saw Alabama fans screaming racist and homophobic slurs at Texas players.

So let’s be clear for those whose parents did raise them right: Despite what certain corners of the internet may tell you, there is no place this is acceptable in the United States of America in 2023. If you are so triggered by your team losing at sports that you revert to your basest and most unseemly urges, you need to seek therapy. You certainly don’t get to watch games where most of the players putting their bodies on the line are Black men (and women), and then resort to racist slurs and taunts when things don’t go your way. Grow up and find a way to stop wasting so much skin.

Dillon Brooks’ metric for success is supposed to be his aggressive defense and ability to knock down open threes. However, for the last few years in Memphis, their supposed 3-and-D wing was a 0-level scorer who resorted to buffoonish antics to keep pace on defense. In his preseason debut against the Indiana Pacers, Brooks showcased the depths of his idiocy by going back to the familiar role of nut tapping.

After initially getting called for a defensive foul seconds earlier in the Rockets preseason opener in October, Brooks was whistled a second time for a flagrant 2 tech after violently slapping Daniel Theis in the groin while trying to run through his screen. It’s a move Brooks has tried before. Somehow most NBA players and professional boxers are able to go their entire career without needlessly punching opponents below the midsection. Worse, he still refused to take responsibility for his clownish behavior.

“I might have tapped him below the waist, but he got right back up. I don’t know. It’s weird that every time it happens to me, I get picked on. I guess it’s part of reputation.” Brooks told the media afterwards.

Brooks had much to say about the Lakers and LeBron James in April, most notably before falling behind 3-1 in their opening-round playoff series, where they went on to lose to James 4-2. Like many people in the age of social media, Brooks feels like he can talk crap, and that validates him because he’s playing on the biggest hoops stage in the world.

“I don’t care. He’s old. … I poke bears. I don’t respect someone until he gives me 40,” Brooks said.

No one thinks Brooks or the Grizzlies, in general, should fear any player, or team, but when you fix your lips in preparation to go at a guy like LeBron, you’d better be ready to back it up. Not that James is above reproach, but you can’t talk the way Brooks has and perform in the manner he has on the court in this series. If you’re going to run your mouth non-stop, the least you can do is shoot better than 22 percent from three-point range.

Curt Schilling was roundly blasted in September for putting former teammate Tim Wakefield’s brain cancer diagnosis out there— and not just by fans who already disliked him. Former teammates and their families jumped in as well, punctuating the sad reality that the zero-time Cy Young winner’s occasional on-field heroics have become, at this point, fully overshadowed by his status as an irredeemably weird jerk.

While Schilling’s decision to dox Wakefield’s illness was surely his most idiotic act this month, the fallout led to many perusing his tweets, and realizing, perhaps far too late, that he’s got some pretty weird ideas about the Third Reich and politics in general. This was not a new development — he’s always been known for his collection of German World War II “memorabilia” and fondness for ridiculous words like “libtard” and “demokkkrat” — but, if anything, he’s become even more unhinged as he continues his second act as a right-wing gasbag for second-tier conservative publications.

There is nothing like when racism is spread on one bun and sexism on the other to make a scrumptious offensive sandwich. That is what Chris Curtis managed to pull off in a silly radio segment that resulted in him getting suspended from WEEI back in March.

In a conversation about liquor on The Greg Hill Show, the crew delved into a conversation about the best “nips.” They decided to cobble together — live — a list of alcohols that provide the best sip a.k.a “nip.” Again, this entire conversation is about booze, not people. For those who like to nip other people, your pleasure is your business as long as it’s consensual.

Curtis decided this conversation was a great opportunity to make a joke about Mina Kimes. While the best nips were being discussed, he lightly dropped her name into the microphone. The word that was the subject of their conversation can also function as a slur towards Japanese people. Curtis took a deep dive into his racism files to hurl that one at a Korean person.

That is of course if his goal was to slur Kimes. Curtis defended himself by saying that when he brought her name into the conversation, he was talking about Mila Kunis’ nipples and had a slip of the tongue. If that explanation is true, in his mind the radio airwaves are a comfortable place to insert a woman’s body part into a conversation. A conversation that had nothing to do with human beings. Also, who among you casually abbreviates the word nipple in conversation?

Take a bow, Chris. You invented a sandwich that is perfect to be served on Yawkey Way.

For as long as we can remember, Skip Bayless has been pissing people off. But, in recent years, his terribleness has reached new heights. We could talk about his long history of being a jerk to his coworkers, and how it feels like Shannon Sharpe is going to jump across that debate table on FS1’s Undisputed at any moment to take a swing at Skip. But all that fails in comparison to what he said in response to Damar Hamlin collapsing on the field in January due to cardiac arrest.

Football and America go together like Republicans and voter suppression, as they’re entities that have proven that they can’t live without the other. So when the world watched as Hamlin fought for his life on national television playing a child’s game that this country has committed itself to — despite understanding how violent of a sport it is — you know it’s a pivotal moment when we’ve all been stopped in our tracks by what we’ve seen.

Well, everyone except Skip Bayless.

At a time in which America was just hoping that we hadn’t watched Hamlin die on the field, Bayless was busy tweeting about playoff standings. And while his previous and following tweets were “more compassionate,” it was clear that he had chosen violence in a moment of united humanity.

John Edward Bayless II is an idiot. He’s earned his place on this list.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin in November, not only did Betts say that he hopes an MLB team will sign Bauer this offseason, but also “I love him. I think he’s an awesome guy.”

In regards to the violation of MLB’s domestic violence and sexual assault policy for which an independent arbitrator ruled that Bauer deserved a 194-game suspension — the longest in league history for such an offense — “The personal things? I have no control,” Betts said to Shaikin. “I have no say. Obviously, nothing came from it.”

Nothing came from it except for a historic 194-game suspension, which the arbitrator reduced from the 324 games that Commissioner Rob Manfred had originally issued.

Glen Kuiper got himself fired after saying the N-word when discussing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum on air in May.

“I could not be more sorry and horrified by what I said. I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies,” said the Oakland A’s longtime announcer. It’s kinda like the only word white people can’t say, and Kuiper still found a way to mess it up. And because of it, he lost his job.

“Monday morning, I was informed by an NBC executive that after a 20-year broadcasting career with the Oakland Athletics, my contract was terminated, effective immediately,” Kuiper wrote in a statement. “The termination was due to the unintentional use of an offensive word on the air during the May 5 pregame show.”

And if you were one of those people who think he made a simple mistake and didn’t mean anything by it, well, you fell for it.

“Please know racism is in no way a part of me; it never has been, and it never will be. I appreciate the Negro League Museum president Bob Kendrick and Oakland A’s great Dave Stewart’s public support of me in light of this. I am an honest, caring, kind, honorable, respectful husband, and father who would never utter a disparaging word about anybody. Those who know me best know this about me.

“I wish the Oakland A’s and NBC Sports would have taken into consideration my 20-year career, my solid reputation, integrity, and character, but in this current environment traits like integrity, and character are no longer considered. I will always have a hard time understanding how one mistake in a 20-year broadcasting career is cause for termination but I know something better is in my future.”

When you have to tell us you’re not a racist, you’ve probably been one for a long time.

Phil Jackson had some things to say, and it put him on this list.

“It was trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience to the game,” he said about the NBA having Black Lives Matter on the court in the bubble, and how it’s the reason he hasn’t watched the NBA since. “And they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political. Politics stays out of the game; it doesn’t need to be there,” he whined on the Tetragrammaton podcast.

It feels like Jackson wants Black people to be quiet and Black athletes to shut up and dribble, despite the fact that his entire claim to fame as an NBA player and the greatest coach in league history is all due to the talents, and intellect of Black people.

And then some had the audacity to be “shocked” by his words as if he hadn’t been showing us who he was for decades.

Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales is obviously an idiot. Simply by getting fired back in August because he couldn’t control himself after the women’s national team he oversaw reached its pinnacle is a sign of brain worms. However, his form of idiocy is a symptom of a much larger problem. Sexism flows throughout the Royal Spanish Football Federation. Forward Jenni Hermoso labeled Rubiales’ action as an “impulse-driven, sexist out of place act without any consent.

If there was ever anyone who perfectly fits the description of what it takes to make this list, Mel Tucker is it.

Because back in September, not only did he admit to making “sexual comments” about Brenda Tracy — a rape survivor — while “masturbating” during a “late-night intimate conversation” that lasted 36 minutes, he’s married and is in the process of blowing the 10-year, $95 million extension he signed in 2021, all because he chose to unzip his pants after answering/making a call that night.

Life is all about choices. And at every turn, Mel Tucker made the wrong one.

The narrative following Bronny James’ cardiac arrest during a USC basketball practice in late July was as predictable as it was mind-numbing. Anti-vaxxers came out in full throat, quick to blame the seemingly healthy young adult’s misfortune on the vaccine. It’s easy to find a COVID conspiracy for all of society’s ills, and it’s gotten so lazy that one can readily identify, and then avoid, wading into conversation with Dr. Mantis Stockton.

However, there are performance artists among us who just see things so idiotically, so completely wrong that engaging with them is unavoidable. Out of the most morbid bit of curiosity, you have to look, knowing full well that it will not only leave you speechless, but also severely dumber.

“I don’t believe LeBron or his family took the vaccine,” wrote a silly man with a funny hat on X. “I believe most elite athletes faked taking the vaxx. No way men in prime physical health injected a rushed vaccine into their bodies. I refuse to believe that. That’s my conspiracy. I don’t know what happened to Bronny.”

So, to paraphrase, the silly man doesn’t know what happened to Bronny because he believes elite athletes faked the vaccine. Look at the big galaxy brain on this guy. Not only are anti-vaxxers wrong, but so is everybody else.

If you ignore a crying spoiled brat long enough, they will eventually shut up. So, please, ignore him and stop retweeting him.

His crime? The usual. Saying something dumb, racist, misogynist, or all three back in March.

“Raise your hand if you knew ’Nip’ was an ethnic slur? I did not. Tell me how Mina Kimes’ life was impacted by this? Other than nailing herself to a cross, I don’t see the damage. She will dance to rap music calling black people N-words repeatedly without uttering a complaint.”

“Nailing myself to a cross?” ESPN’s Mina Kimes wrote in a quote tweet. “I made one joke and went back to work…because unlike you, I still talk about sports for a living. Have a great day.”

The response was perfect, as Kimes’ handling of this entire situation has been.

While he may not have been in the program long enough to worship at the altar of Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald, Mike Bajakian has been at Northwestern since 2020. Early in August, after the news broke of hazing in the NU locker room, Bajakian and several other staff members wore shirts that read “Cats against the world,” with Fitzgerald’s playing number between the words.

That means important people in the Northwestern football program have no remorse for what happened. They do not care that young people in their care were harmed by people who are supposed to be their “brothers.” Coaches in that program believe reporting that resulted in the ouster of Fitzgerald is a far greater wrong than former players being sexually abused.

Getting rid of the most visible eyesore of the rot does not fix the problem. When rotten to the core, everything must be disposed of and the structure built anew.

The Daily Northwestern broke the news on July 8 of the rampant hazing going on inside the football program, it came as a complete shock and dominated news coverage during the part of the sports calendar where anything tantalizing that isn’t Major League Baseball is obsessed over.

Let’s be clear: This is a major scandal where an unknown amount of people were hazed and/or subjected to negative activities outside the norm in college football. And one of the “good guys” in the sport, Pat Fitzgerald, a Northwestern alumnus with more than a quarter-century of Wildcats affiliation as a player, assistant coach, and most recently 17 years as the program’s head coach, was given a pink slip faster than a two-dollar hooker. Or a Lamborghini, whatever fits your mojo better. Fitzgerald was fired with cause, meaning Northwestern didn’t owe him his buyout, which is believed to be more than $40 million dollars. Fitzgerald’s representatives have said they’d sue to recoup that amount. Fitzgerald and other Northwestern dignitaries have also been named as defendants in lawsuits in the program’s hazing scandal.

Turns out Fitzgerald wasn’t the only Northwestern coach being reviewed by the school’s legal and human resources departments, as Jim Foster was removed as the Wildcats’ head baseball coach on July 13 for allegations of bullying and a toxic team environment. ESPN reported Foster would’ve been fired earlier if it wasn’t for a shift from Northwestern’s legal and human resources team to focus on Fitzgerald. So what was the school’s excuse for the previous several weeks? Safe to say things are going smoothly in Evanston, Illinois.

A DUI arrest in June finally led to Bob Huggins being ousted from his post atop West Virginia men’s basketball. The Mountaineers’ brass docked the 69-year-old Huggins’ pay, suspended him, and changed some terms of his contract for the anti-gay language, but didn’t completely remove him. And Huggins left at least partly on his own terms because of his most recent arrest.

The alleged incident occurred when Huggins’ car was in the middle of the road with a door open and a shredded tire. After asking Huggins to get his car off the road, his sobriety came into play. According to a police report, Huggins blew a 0.21 on a breathalyzer, more than twice Pennsylvania’s legal limit. Huggins stepped down from his post the day after his June 16 arrest, with several key players entering the transfer portal after his exit. Huggins’ daughter, Jacque, then claimed part of the police report was fabricated with beer cans all over the car because her dad loves to recycle. This wasn’t even Huggins’ first arrest for a DUI as a D-I head basketball coach, as it happened 18 years ago when he was at the helm of Cincinnati. In what city was the radio spot conducted when Huggins said homophobic language? Cincinnati.

This time around, the West Virginia basketball coach jumped on a radio show in May and called Xavier fans the F-word that went out of circulation once empathetic human beings dropped casual homophobia from their vocabulary. And Ol’ Bobby said it not once, but twice when talking about the “Catholic f — s” from Xavier, The back-and-forth featured a tasteless transgender joke from Bill Cunningham, and the hosts of the show, who tried to stifle laughter — either at Huggins’ comment or his lack of decorum — throughout the Huggy Bear story hour.

And if you’re wondering how quickly Huggins got fired for this, he didn’t. Instead, the 69-year-old walking scandal received a $1 million reduction in salary (he now makes $3.15 million as opposed to $4.15 million), and has to go to sensitivity training. Lord help the counselor trying to teach old bigots new societal norms.

Not content to have spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the therapeutic effects of the sounds of dolphin sex, and “the softening” of society, Rodgers, a man who took courses in “American Studies” at Cal Berkeley, where he did not graduate with a degree in anything relating to science or medicine (and in fact, did not graduate at all), liked a tweet on X in November extolling the evil effects of sunscreen.

The OG Idiot of the Month was spouting nonsense on The Pat McAfee Show before it was sponsored by ESPN, and his recent run of interviews is just as unhinged as pre-Achilles tear Rodgers. In October, almost on cue — as if prompted by an inner voice telling him to “Dance, monkey, dance!” — A-Rodg looks into the camera mischievously and calls Travis Kelce “Mr. Pfizer.”.

After going on a darkness retreat earlier this year, Aaron Rodgers emerged from his fortress of solitude hell-bent on making his way to New York, and becoming the NFL’s spokesman on psychedelic drugs. Rodgers got his wish and was shipped to New York. In June, he was a part of a panel at a conference in Denver on psychedelics. The conference was hosted by a psychedelic advocacy group, and Rodgers participated, giving his testimonial on how these drugs have impacted his life.