SB Interviews: JWho? JLew!

Brethren: Yes, it's Interview Week here at the Sports Brethren. The charming photo stage left is of the former Clemson soccer star* who goes by the name Jarrett Ramos Lewis. People who like to make him believe they are his friends call him "JLew." JLew played goalie (in fairyworld, they call them "keepers") and he arrived on campus a much-ballyhooed recruit. He accomplishments at the high school level included being named to the All-State team his sophomore year only to not sniff the honorary team ever again. While at Clemson, JLew often was on the proverbial IR, but he ended up totaling four years on the team. He recently left the squad this past summer when he couldn't get through yet another injury rehabilitation and the political world began calling his name. While on the sockher team, JLew's Tigers always had a winning record, and in the 2005-2006 season, they even made the NCAA Final Four. This year, their first without JLew since 2003, they are 6-8-1 and 1-5 in ACC play. 'Nuff said.

Neither Brethren nor Nacho came even remotely close to playing collegiate athletics. The "amateurs" that play the games (even if they are soccer games) fascinate us a bit, and we got to thinking about what that would be like to have it ripped away. So we caught up with JLew to get inside the mind of a former college athlete who has tasted the hilltops, seen the glory, and is now just satisfied getting drunk and watching his football team underperform like the rest of us.

(* = as much as a guy who started maybe two games in his career be a star)

The interview, if you follow us through

SB: Since you left the Clemson mens soccer team, how have you been dealing with life away from the limelight? Doing lots of cocaine off stripper's tits? Putting on a few lbs from that Keystone Light? Crying like a girl?

JLew: The stripper thing mostly. I do however like to write down my thoughts and emotions from time to time, which I will use for my auto-biography "JLEW: Confessions of a Serial Gun User".

SB: Take me through your emotions on a Clemson soccer game day. What's it like as a has-been as opposed when you were an injury-ridden player?

JLew: I would say it's similar to that guy who always talks about winning the baseball state championship in high school though he played one inning all year. You of course remember that guy, right? (Ed. Note: That'd be Brethren; fuck yea I was a sophomore and we won that shit. Nacho was there in attendance, drunk.)

As for my gameday routine I can get drunk during the game and yell now. I especially loved the mom who told a group of us former players that we had ruined soccer for their son after a game a few weeks ago (to which one of my former drunk irish teammates who had coached the kid responded with "well maybe you shouldn't have married such an unathletic deuche"...true story)

SB: What was your favorite injury that you sustained?

JLew: Jeez, there have been so many to choose from. I would go with the hernia junior year of high school. Simply because the surgeon was a baller. Too bad his third child didn't turn out like they had hoped. (Ed. Note:The surgeon was none other than Cap'n Pappy. Brethren's his third child.)

SB: Is it weird that you're no longer a student athlete and yet you were named the Touchstone Energy Teammate of the Week this week? Are they implying the team is better off without you on it? That you help the team by not being a part of it? (Check out minute 12:22 of this week's Tommy Bowden Show)

JLew: Actually the guys look to me for advice on a day to day basis with issues both on and off the field. Such as what is the best way to look at girls in the stands without getting caught by the coaches or cameras. Or what is the best method to toss a player on the field a water bottle at a stoppage of play (you need more of a line drive throw...too much arc and you run the risk of the player losing it under the lights).

SB: How much box did you slay using the line, "Yea, I play soccer for Clemson."?

JLew: Let's just say during my career I would have given Wilt a run for his money.

SB: Do your "friends" who are still on the soccer team treat you like just another one of those fags who aren't athletes?

JLew: This coming from the guy who still lives in his frat boy glory days. Grow up, Peter Pan, Count Chocula.

SB: Isn't soccer for queers?

JLew: Proabably. But Dee wouldn't let me play anything else.

SB: You're goofy. I mean look at you! -->

JLew: (Silence).

SB: How did David Beckham coming to the US to play soccer help out the sport's popularity in this country where we live?

JLew: It didn't at all. If we want to draw the average American sports-viewer attention we need to do something better than bring over a fairy from across the pond. Really MLS? Really? Make the goals bigger, shorten the field, add cheerleaders, do away with red cards...no, the league pays an over the hill poster face 250 million to revive the league. (sorry, this one still has me fuming).

SB: Considering his hobbled, crippled state, is Beckham still capable of bending anything? Victoria?

JLew: Well since soccer is not for those of the heterosexual type as you so kindly suggested earlier, my theory is that David does not ride the skin bus to Posh's tuna town. (Ed Note: Good point.)

SB: In feet, what's the total length of cock you've seen as part of a college athletic team in the showers? Best estimate.

JLew:I can only imagine the Cap'n and Mammy's faces when they read this question. But in all fairness I would say roughly 30 feet. Oh wait I guess I should count myself too...make that 30 feet 9 inches.

SB: Could you help Greg Ryan out with some change?

JLew: I only would have liked the move if we could have seen Solo and Briana Scurry battle it out with Blue KY Style....meanwhile, I am thinking reality show for the next coach they hire.

SB: Hope Solo: future ex-wife of Nacho Friendly, or future ex-wife of Brethren?

JLew: Ex Nacho Friendly. She would break the Brethren. Plus she's a left coaster. Advantage: Mullet-less Nacho.

SB: Have you achieved a level of ninjadom that allows you to play shaolin soccer?

JLew:Not quite there, but with the Olympics in China next summer, I hope to achieve that level as can be provided by the one and only Mr. Miyagi.


SB: Would it help or hurt the MLS to find out Freddie Adu spreads his seed better than Travis Henry?

JLew: You guys must not be up to speed on your MLS. Freddy is playing in Europe now. Look, I gotta go pee, but I'd really like to continue talking about this conversation when I come back.

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Where We Stand on The Great Debate: NFL or NCAA Football

Brethren: I have often spent many a minute, hour, day, and moon wondering where I stand exactly on the great debate: Which is better: The NFL or NCAA football? Nacho and my's increasingly favorite writer on these here interwebs expressed both sides in exquisite prose on his Debriefing this week: one showing how the great App State win captured our hearts and imaginations and the other reminding just how much better of a pro product the NFL is than all the other leagues.


So where do we stand? Well, not unlike how I go back and forth on whether Jessica Alba or Scarlett Johansson gets to be my first ex-wife, I often pledge alliagance to the NFL one day -- only to give my heart to NCAA the next.



We try to break our love down for the NFL and College once and for all. At least until tomorrow. Follow us, thru:



Brethren (cont'd): So first I reckon I should rightly explain my College and NFL allegiances, so we all can follow along with the proverbial bouncing ball.

Now, in college, I claim two teams, the Florida Gators and the Virginia Cavaliers -- and I ran that by the irreverant, underground fellers at Page 2, and I'm a-ok because I qualify under College Football Fan Rules 1a(a) and 1a(c). I qualify for Rule 1a(a) because I grew up in a Gator household, my grandparents have been regulars at the Swamp for nearly 40 plus years, I've documented the Mecca pilgrimage, and the Gators are 8-0 lifetime when I go to games.
I qualify for UVa because I just dun graduamacated from dat dere second-best Sckewl of Bidness in the whole States of the United.

And as glorious as the past weekend was for college football as a whole -- the one weekend a year where it completely dominates the weekend without the NFL around -- I just am a little disgusted by one of my schools right now -- and (gasp!) it's not the defending national champs. Yes, I am estatic about how dominant Tebow was, how ridiculous Pearcy Harvin is, and how I'm very much okay with the fact that the Gators will have to win every game 56-52 -- which they can.

But UVA? Seriously, what a disappointing, frustrating Era we're in. And right now, two ex-New-York-NFL guys are disgusting me. The first one: our coach, the expontentially less-likeable-especially-when-he-doesn't-win Al Groh. I'm just glad Michigan got whupped so bad; otherwise, everyone would have noticed just how embarrassingly UVA got beat this weekend. Oh wait; they did (from the Forde Yard Dash to the random Commenters over at our sugar momma's site).

Then there's Tiki. Yea, you and I have a degree from the same school within UVA. And yes, you donated over a $1 million to said school. But dude, you're making our stomachs turn right now. Stop making excuses and throwing people under the bus just to help your new career. I always did like Ronde more (and yes, that started because on College Football USA '96 Ronde was just dirty.)

The thing is, neither Groh nor Tiki's going away. Groh, because for some reason our Athletic Department gave him a (Dr. Cox it wih me now) haaa-uu-uu-uu-uuuuge extension two years ago when he didn't deserve it and Tiki, because he sells Cadillacs and has a pretty face. But the thing is, the Tiki thing doesn't really do much besides make me a little uncomfortable he's representing The University. The Groh-staying-around thing makes me downright angry that he's making me apathetic: as long as he's there and we keep underachieving and the home losses to Western Michigan keep happening and he keeps up the "I'm better than you; don't question me" attitude he has towards the media, I lose a little more interest. And I don't want to lose interest -- I really don't. But right now, I'd just rather focus on the Gators.

So while I channel my college spirits on the Gators and all of their glory, I still just am too apathetic towards UVA for the NCAA to take over the NFL for chief sport/love of my heart. The Panthers have no losses on their record right now. Possibilities are endless. Dreams are boundless.

But at the end of the day, if for some reason the Big Man upstairs is angry at me this weekend and the Panthers lose in St. Louis, I'll be a terrible drunk to be around on Sunday. And Monday. And all the way until we play Houston the following Sunday. The UVA loss to Wyoming didn't nearly elicit such a depressing emotion from me (and the Gators haven't lost in a while, so I can't accurately judge that sort of pain right now).

And that's how I judge the great debate: My depression, pain, and bitterness at the world is just a good bit better when the Panthers lose -- and the elation that much higher when they win -- and that's how I know.

Verdict (for today): NFL.

Nacho: 1998-2003.

That was my Blue Period. Those were my Howard-Hughes-in-a-penthouse-with-the-creepy-fingernails period. Movies had stolen my heart. It was all because of 1997. Most will remember that as the year of the Titanic, I remember it for the glorious fall, leading up till the end of the year. There was such a multitude of good cinema out that fall, I plumb forgot about the Panthers. By this point I was so enamored nothing, not even sports, could hold my attention.

Then it happened.

My senior year of college started out like any other. The film school convened in a theater and we were given a rousing, inspiring speech to fill our hearts and minds with the swollen potential for the coming year. As we rose from our seats my buddy Irish looked over excited and asked, "You gonna join us?" My answer would change the course of my life.

I joined them.

We went to the Metal Rebel which, I found out through their MySpace page, has since closed down. Metal Rebel was a bar attached to a biker shop and it had a lot of room and showed Monday Night Football on big projection screens. They served 25 cent baskets of wings and 2 dollar pitchers. We would regularly run up tabs of over 150 dollars. Our group would swell to over 20, or it'd be just the boys, but every week on Monday we'd waddle through the doors, announce our return and get blind, stinking drunk. We would drink every time they cut to SkyCam, we'd drink for every score, we'd drink every time Lisa Guerrero came on tv and we'd have to yell "NO BUSINESS BEING IN FOOTBALL!"

even Namath wouldn't kiss you, you saucy harlot.

As the days got shorter and the weeks got longer, the Panthers had this Cajun feller leading them on fourth quarter comebacks the likes of which you've never seen.

That February I hosted a Super Bowl party at my childhood home 'cuz mammy and the Cap'n were in Houston, attending the game. With one friend's bloody, bionic leg dripping everywhere we watched in awe as the Pats fell behind for the first time in months, Janet flashed some titty (thanks TiVo!) and Vinatieri became one the Hugh Jackman to my Dr. Cox (two Scrubs references in one post; lucky you.)

This is all a roundabout way of saying that having grown up in an ACC Hoops/SEC Football house my entire life, I can't seem to muster up as much fervor for the college boys as I once could. Only college can provide us with something like last years Fiesta Bowl, but there's only one reason a bar called Big Wangs replaces the Methodist church, and that's football. Most people look at me like a dog that's been showed a card trick (ht: BOC) when I tell them I willingly wake up at 8:30am every Sunday during the fall out here in Los Angeles, but I know I've got a good reason, maybe the best reason of all:

My Panthers are on.

Johnn Drama shouts VICTORY for: NFL


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