Tuesday Links (2/23)

I need some input from you guys on an issue that's been bothering me a bit the past few weeks.

My goal for this year has been to make it to the gym a bit more routinely, which I'm happy to say I've done a fairly good job at accomplishing. But my increased presence at the gym has given rise to another problem, and I'm curious if it's just me being easily annoyed or whether I'm fairly reacting to this.

Now, I want to preface this question by noting that I played my share of sports, so I'm not unaware of how the locker room operates. But there's a difference between a team atmosphere and what happens at the gym, and frankly, I'm concerned that there is simply too much nudity going on in the gym locker room.

In just the past two weeks, the following things have all occurred:

- A guy sitting on the couch in the locker room, legs propped up, wearing nothing but a loose-fitting towel while watching TV, in no rush to put clothes on.

- A guy standing on his towel in the dead center of the locker room while combing his hair, otherwise completely naked.

- A guy standing in the locker room fully nude with his cell phone ear piece in, having a full conversation.

- A guy having a conversation in the locker room with a towel wrapped around his head, but none wrapped around his waist.

Again, I'm aware that people are going to shower at the gym and these are the realities of the locker room, but am I wrong in thinking there should be some level of social decorum upon which you try to minimize being naked in front of complete strangers? I mean, practical nudity is one thing, but this seems like celebrating it. Am I wrong here?

OK, with that, let's get to some links that involve virtually no male nudity whatsoever...

-- Georgia finished 2009 with the sixth highest average attendance in the nation in college football, second only to Tennessee in the SEC. (BTW, that's an awful lot of disappointed Michigan fans.)

-- Chris Low has a good synopsis of the key issues surrounding each SEC East and SEC West team this spring.

-- Low also held an SEC chat over at ESPN.com yesterday, and while there weren't many UGA-related questions, he did say this about the 2010 Dawgs:

"To me, South Carolina and Georgia have the best chance to knock off Florida in the East this year. But doing it with a first-year player at QB is always tough. The good thing is that everybody else is back on offense. Grantham is a solid coach, but it may take some time to adjust to the 3-4 and the Bulldogs also need to recruit to that defense. Georgia will be more equipped to make a run in 2011, but Florida should also be a lot better that season once its young talent has a chance to develop and mature."

-- Some early primer on 2011 recruiting: Chip Towers has his top 10 players on Georgia's radar for the coming year.

-- Dean Legge looks deeper at Georgia's running back situation in 2010 ($$$).

-- The Senator has some interesting comments from the Texas AD about scheduling more conference games and fewer cupcakes. It's even more interesting since Texas is one of those schools that schedules an awful lot of cupcakes.

-- I linked to this story from The Senator's site, but I found it interesting -- not just because Texas is the key to a very tenuous situation with the Big 12, but because it's fascinating to me how much different "socialist" economic theories are perceived by the public within the landscape of sports as opposed to the real world.

-- And speaking of fascinating reads I stole from The Senator, here's another one -- a study on what the roadblocks are for black coaches hoping to advance their careers.

-- Keith Arnold's Notre Dame blog brings up something interesting: The Irish seem to have just about as much recruiting talent as Florida does at this point.

-- Clemson self reported 17 NCAA violations, all of the secondary variety.

-- The Red & Black talks about the new home-court advantage for Georgia at Stegeman Coliseum.

-- Of course, the Dawgs' next game is on the road, where they haven't enjoyed much success in recent years. (But note David Paschall's lead -- UGA has passed North Carolina in the latest RPI numbers. Who woulda thunk that back in early November?)

-- Bleacher Report has a story about the rising draft stocks of two of Georgia's top hoopsters.

-- If you've been too busy watching the Olympics for the past week or so, T Kyle King gets you updated on everything you've missed that didn't involve snow. (And the best part? I'm linking to Kyle's links, which linked to my links from the other day, which also included a link to Kyle. And, with that, we have now reached the nexus of the universe.)

-- David Spade talks to the New York Times about selling out and the negative reaction to his DirecTV commercial with Chris Farley.

-- The LA Times has a great interview with one of my all-time favorite comedians, Bob Newhart. His "Saturday Night Live" monologue when he joked about being the security guard at the Empire State Building when King Kong attacked remains one of the show's best.

-- And finally, speaking of SNL, it sounds like Betty White will get her shot to host, and Pearl Jam will be the musical guest in a couple of weeks.