Face It

Like most people, I eventually figured out that what other people thought about me was not even a tiny bit important, right up there alongside whether they even thought about me at all.  I was a self-conscious kid, but I got over it.

Which is why I'd like to say a big hello to Jackson Blankenship as he rounds second base and finishes his sophomore year at the University of Alabama.  You've seen him, if you've ever seen the Crimson Tide basketball team on TV.  And no, he wasn't on the court playing basketball.  

He was in the stands, playing with basketball players' heads.  Jackson is the guy who began the trend of casting an exophthalmic (medical term for bulging-eyed) look at players on the other team at critical moments in the game.

Oh, you're saying!  Spectators have been giving the stink-eye to the other team since Betty White was in third grade!  True, but Jack Blankenship came up with the Mega Stink-Eye:

He got this giant picture of his mug and he takes it to the games, which led to imitation...

Remember  during the National Championship football game, when the cameras couldn't get enough of the lovely Katherine Webb, girlfriend of 'Bama quarterback AJ McCarron? And the announcer Brent Musburger, with the game's outcome no longer in doubt after the first ten minutes or so, was so taken that he burbled on for a long embarrassing time about her?  Well, now there are Big Heads of Brent and Katherine on display at games.

And the Alabama basketball team is here represented by people much shorter than they!  

I think the key to this is that young Blankenship felt so at ease that he was able to start this trend by displaying his immense face.  He says he's been embarrassing himself since 1992.

That being the case, he's six years ahead of Paul Ryan, elected to Congress in 1998!