Every year countless people put together an impossible list of New Year’s resolutions, only to fail on most by the second week of January. Athletes and other sports figures are no different. Here’s a list of resolutions from the best and brightest in the Chicago sports world and elsewhere.
Bears
Brian Urlacher and Jay Cutler: Play well enough in the playoffs so we don’t have to blame the Bears second-round blame loss on the poor conditions of Soldier Field’s playing surface
Lovie Smith: Finally take those anger management courses
Johnny Knox: Go over the middle just once without winding up in the fetal position
Blackhawks
John Scott: Learn how to skate backward. Forward too, actually.
Cristobal Huet: Become a top 10 goalie in the Swiss league
Patrick Kane: Get out and live a little
Antti Niemi: Beat team other than Blackhawks
Patrick Sharp: Wink more. Be 15 percent more charming.
Cubs & White Sox
Jim Hendry: Stay on a budget and still find a way to extend Fukudome
Tom Ricketts: Say please and thank you when asking the state for $200 million
Crane Kenney: Limit ticket price increases to 20 percent
Alfonso Soriano: Outperform expectations just enough to become only the second worst contract in the game
Oney Guillen: Hold a job for longer than three weeks
Steve Stone: Make it through another year without calling Hawk an idiot on the air
Carlos Pena: Strike out less than Dunn
Adam Dunn: Strike out less than Pena
Kerry Wood: Punch Grabow and Jeff Samardzija every time they remind me that they make more than me
Carlos Zambrano: Either pitch a perfect game on opening day or spend the entire rest of the season freaking out about it
Bulls
Derrick Rose: Take the SAT for myself this time and get into Harvard
Carlos Boozer: Only punch soft things … like Eddy Curry
Tom Thibodeau: Stop thinking about basketball for five minutes sometime in August
The rest of the sports world
Jay Mariotti: Next time — even if she wants to turn off “Days of our Lives” when I’m watching — just let the bitch have the remote
Aaron Rodgers: Stop getting so many concuss … what was the question again?
John Calipari: Enter a recruit’s home without bags of money
NU Men’s Basketball team: Finally make the NCAA tournament. Kidding, NIT. Kidding. Just keep having the highest team GPA in the Big Ten.
Bud Selig: Get frumpier and more old-man like
Michael Vick: Enter the Iditarod
By Rich Fruin, Patrick Olson, Dan Bradley and Brad Zibung
