Spin Zones

Moore isn't the only sports figure in these parts to suffer bouts of disingenuousness.

Carl Peterson's official Chiefs bio notes that he went to West Point — even though the Man of Many Titles resigned his commission at the academy after just one year and spent the Vietnam era attending college in sunny Southern California.

Retired Kansas State University football coach Bill Snyder told Sports Illustrated in 1998 that his "priorities have always been family, faith and football, in that order." Yet in the same story, Snyder's son from his first marriage said he and his sisters never saw the coach, who was legendary for working himself — and his assistants — like galley slaves.

It's easier for me to respect someone like Bill Parcells, who coached the New York Giants to Super Bowl wins. Parcells is manipulative, despotic and occasionally cruel. He belittles reporters. Once, he thought a receiver was malingering and called him "she."

But Parcells' appeal is that he does not claim to be anything other than a football obsessive. Speaking to author Michael Lewis in 2006, Parcells copped to being an incomplete human being. "It's a cloistered, narrow existence that I'm not proud of.... All I think about is football and winning," he said.

This sports fan will take shallow over insincere any day.

A decent playoff showing would be nice, too.