TOP 25 UGLIEST PEOPLE IN SPORTS

by Dan Raspatello, draspatello@rivalfish.com

Let me just start off by saying I can’t believe how serious some of you people take your ugliness. My Top 5 Ugliest last week was not all-inclusive or accurate. People were seriously upset with me for not researching ugly people well enough for this article. Yet my favorite accusation I got for this article was that I intentionally only chose white people for my list. So essentially I was accused of being too un-racist. I would like to apologize to all of our Caucasian readers. I by no means was trying to say that only white people are ugly. I know how hard Caucasian males have had it throughout history, and to have one of your own make an ugly list and only include Caucasians is a huge slap in the face. I probably set back our people 75 years. Well, the truth is I just sat down and thought of 5 funny looking athletes and then wrote stuff about them. I would like all of our white male readers (which are probably our only readers) to formally accept my apology by reading this following list of the top 25 ugly people (most of which were suggested by the readers) in televised sports.

25. Jorge Cantu, Tampa Bay Devil Rays – This Latin lover doesn’t appear to be too ugly, but multiple people suggested him so I threw him on the list. Besides, if I didn’t put a Mexican-American man on I would probably be accused of being antiracist again. Maybe our white readers can complain about how he took the starting job of some hard working white 2^nd basemen.

24. Tyronn Lue, Atlanta Hawks – Yes, even light skinned black basketball players who look 12 can be ugly.

23. Bartolo Colon, Anaheim Angels – No, this isn’t Fat Joe with Jerri Curls. This guy pitches for the Anaheim Angels.

22. Popeye Jones, Retired Basketball Player – In case having a name like Popeye was punishment enough God gave him ears that trump an Italian/Jewish nose. And he is a dead on look like for #21 on the list, and a certain somebody who loves his Baby Ruth candy bar.

21. Sam Cassell, Los Angles Clippers - The saddest part of E.T. is when his family has to leave him behind at the beginning in order to avoid capture. Luckily, he phoned home to his big brother, Sam, every Thursday.

20. John Chaney, Temple University Basketball Coach – Not even the black Joe Paterno is safe on this list. Sorry, John, but not even the elderly hall of famers are safe on this list.

19. Shannon Sharpe, Retired Football Player and CBS Broadcaster - Both the Denver Broncos and Baltimore Ravens rode this horse all the way to the Super Bowl… look at his picture… get the horse line now.

18. Adam Morrison, Charlotte Bobcats – I don’t get it… does taking insulin for your diabetes make you grow a 7^th grade mustache?

17. Joakim Noah, University of Florida Basketball – In case you ever wanted to know what Adam Morrison’s baby would look like if he married an African-American woman…

16. Wayne Rooney, Manchester United – Sorry ladies but sometimes English accents and professional soccer doesn’t turn out as cute as predicted. According to the fans of his old English Premiership Club, Everton, he looks like an overgrown fat baby. Which leads to the question, why can’t American fans/hecklers be as funny as the English soccer variety? Wayne, I don’t think you are ugly because you are the only professional footballer that I am afraid of, and you kick a soccer ball hard enough to kill a grown man. You played the World Cup with a broken foot which is like a shortstop playing with a dislocated shoulder.

15. Ivan Calderon, ex-Chicago White Sox (and a few other MLB teams) – This 1980’s pro baseball player died in 2003 in a cocaine deal gone wrong. Is anyone surprised that Ivan the Terrible, as he was known in his pro baseball years (and probably in his drug dealing years as well), was a former White Sox player. How fitting that an ex-White Sox player turns into a yak dealer… now Sox fans have something besides a World Series to be proud of. In all seriousness if you were this ugly wouldn’t you do coke for the boost in confidence? What… too soon?

14. Vicente Padilla, Texas Rangers – After signing a deal that pays Padilla $11 million a year he can afford to be ugly. Padilla has only won 15 games once which leads me to believe the Padilla told the GM of the Rangers that he wouldn’t stop staring at him until he paid him an overpaid Chicago Cub worthy salary.

13. Patrick Ewing, Retired Basketball Player that leads the world in getting posterized most by Michael Jordan: This former NY Knicks player might be ugly, but at least he has his NBA Championship Trophy/Ring to make up for it… wait… no, he is just ugly.

12. Scottie Pippen, Retired God and only person to “D” up Magic Johnson – Scottie, I did not want to put the second greatest basketball player ever (behind Jordan) on this list, but the readers only see beauty as skin deep. Thanks for assisting Michael Jordan in making one of my childhood dresser drawers completely full of NBA Championship t-shirts.

11. Charlie Villanueva, Milwaukee Bucks – This young man has a disease that makes him hairless and ugly, so I will let the scumbags on the comment board make fun of him. Although, I do wonder how many people in high school thought he was on the swim team.

10. Randy Johnson, NY Yankees – Mullet + Bird Killer + Ogre 6’11” figure + “Wish they wouldn’t have made Hi-Def TV” skin = Ugly

9. Julian Tavarez, Boston Red Sox – In case you had any doubt on how ugly this journeyman was he erases that doubt by bathing his hat in pine tar… and from the looks of it his skin as well.

8. Greg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs Head Coach – Greg, I loved your work in A Bronx Tale as the "too-ugly-to-look-at" character Frankie Coffeecake. The best way I have ever heard Popovich described was in A Bronx Tale when a 9 year old child was explaining how to impersonate Coffeecake, “put a screen over your face and throw shit at it.”

7. Sheldon Williams, Atlanta Hawks – Everyone wanted to know why this ex-Duke star didn’t make my original five, and they had just cause. This man is not attractive. His eyes are farther apart than the religion of Scientology is from reality. I received multiple remarks about young Shelden (“could land a airplane between his eyes,” “he looks like an alien,” etc.), but I am going to go with my own name that popped in my head, “shovel face,” because it looks like he got hit in the face with a shovel that spread/flattened everything out.

6. Kevin Pittsnogle, ex-West Virginia University Basketball Star (currently in the CBA) – Pittsnogle was born, raised, and went to college in West Virginia which is like living on the movie set of Deliverance. When growing up in WV, the mere fact that Kevin had never slept with a relative made him the biggest stud in, according to his old high school friend, “done near two counties.” Well, Kevin, now that you are out of WV and into the big time (the CBA is big time for him) it is time that you find out that outside of WV you are one ugly bastard.

AND STILL THE TOP FIVE UGLIEST PEOPLE IN SPORTS..........

5. Kirk Hinrich, Chicago Bulls: Although the Captain Kirk Hinrich is my favorite NBA player you have to admit the Bulls team leader does look like the love child of Harry Potter and Star Trek alum Dr. Spock. Kirk may drop 20/game in the NBA, but if you saw him walking down the street you would think that he plays Dungeons and Dragons or Magic: The Gathering with the foreign exchange students in the library. Ashton Kutcher should have had a Punk’d episode asking him if he wanted to join the cast of Beauty and the Geek. So all you geeks out there keep taking jump shots and keep track of your shooting percentage on your TI-83s because one day you might be the next Kirk Hinrich.

4. The Entire NHL: Any pro league that includes checking, fighting, rock-hard ice, pucks, sticks, and blades, (despite these features, you're still considered a pussy if you wear a facemask) is obviously going to have some ugly bastards. The longer the mullet, the fewer the teeth, the more the scars, and the more Canadian one sounds, the cooler they are. This sport essentially encourages and breeds ugliness. The sport is so ugly that the face of the NHL is Jeremy Roenick and his nose turns more way than Ashlee Simpson’s old nose.

3. Charlie Weiss, Head Coach of Notre Dame: Charlie Weiss rocks the male FUPA like Jim Tressel rocks the sweater vest. Charlie Weiss tucks half his belly into his pants like it is going to be camouflaged into his khakis. I also like to refer to Charlie Weiss’s face as "the place that chins go to die." His face turns into his neck with not even a hint… next thing you know you are at the shoulders and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle back together.

2. Chris Kamen, LA Clippers and Jeff Samardzija, Notre Dame (and minor leaguer for the Chicago Cubs): I grouped these two athletes together because they both fall into the same category of ugly; neither of them have fully evolved like the rest of the human race. These two look like they should be carving pictures of Woolly Mammouths into a cave, and inventing the wheel. It isn’t that big of a wonder that these two are great athletes, as they are genetically formulated to out-run sabertooth tigers in order to survive. So before we get all happy that these two Cro-Magnons can catch a football and dunk a basketball, let’s remember that both of them have the genetic capability to hunt with their bare hands.

1. Hedo Turkoglu, Orlando Magic: Do I even have to explain this one? I’ve already pointed out in a previous article that he looks like an animated handicap child, Timmy from Southpark. For this one I will just let the picture do the talking. I mean his eyes can’t even agree upon the same part of his face to be parallel on.