There’s going to be a nightmare on a pirate ship. Nigerian, that is.
    “Arrrrgh?” you say.
    I don’t blame you. If I were you, I’d “Arrrgh” this one, too.

    Okay, there is to be a new reality show called “Pirate Masters” by Mark Burnett (who else?) where 16 contestants (pirates, if you may) dress up in puffy shirts, big belt buckles and sail around the Caribbean looking for booty. Whoever survives all the swashbuckling intrigue, talking parrots and pirate-type backstabbing will win $ 1 million in doubloons. If I knew what avast was, I’d say it right here, followed by ye landlubbers but I have no idea what that is or why I’m writing this, so I won’t. No, I’ll continue writing. I just won’t say avast.

    “Sports angle,” you ask, followed by “Arrrrgghh?” It’s the Nightmare. One of the “pirates” is Christian Okoye, former Kansas City Chief running back nicknamed appropriately “The Nigerian Nightmare,” because that’s what you experienced after a day of trying to tackle the 245 # running back.

    What has Okoye been doing since he retired from the NFL in the early nineties, you ask?
Excuse me. What has Okoye been doing since he retired, arrrrggghh, you ask? He’s been living in Rancho Cucamonga (Pirate for “big gigantic cuca”) for many years, running the Christian Okoye Foundation, a charity organization that helps underprivileged youth use sport to enhance their educational and personal goals. He also has a health and fitness business selling protein powders and multivitamins. Piratey enough for ya? Puffy shirt filling enough for ya? At 45, Okoye is the oldest of the Pirate Master cast, thus being the most likely to wear an eyepatch.

    We’ve checked out the balance of the cast, ranging from age 21 to 43, and they all are athletic, many of them scuba divers and diving instructors, fishermen, outdoorsmen, with two of the cast from Alaska. Many of these people qualified to be on some of the Survivor shows but for one reason or the other didn’t go on. One of the cast members was in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.” They have all volunteered to be buccaneers and live aboard a 179-foot, square rigged barque. And they’ll be looking for treasure. Double arrrgghh.     

    Now we have to ask: why all this fascination with Pirates? Anybody? Johnny Depp? Sports teams naming themselves after pirates… like Pittsburg, and Tampa Bay, and Oakland?
Casinos staging a pirate’s sea battle nightly at the Treasure Island with huge crowds every night?
Blackbeard? William Kidd? Barbary Wars? Naming almost every one of our antique shopping malls after some type of pirate enterprise? Can you help me, here? We’re glorifying thievery. You can trace our current conflicts with Middle Eastern and North African countries back to pirate activities from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco during the 16th Century. We’re glorifying guys who rob at sea, take hostages, plunder villages on the coastlines, and the guys who prevented the Spaniards from taking their South American treasures back home. Okay, maybe that was a good thing. But still, I don’t get it.

    But I will watch a show or two because I liked Okoye as a player and the way he carried himself. Being from Nigeria and not too far from the original Mediterranean pirates might give him an advantage. Being 250 pounds and loaded with vitamins may also help. Being the only one in the cast who might be able to lift a chest full of doubloons might also help. That’s the way I see the final show. It’s down to the final two, they’ve found the treasure chest and Alexis Shubin, a former All-American water polo player who happens to be a really good swimmer finds the chest and starts yanking it out. Okoye lets her pull on it, lets her try to lift it, lets her wear herself out and then he dives in, uses his saber to cut the rope, stuffs his parrot in Shubin’s mouth and then swims up with the loot. Please don’t argue that because of Okoye’s race his swimming will be lack. That’s why he’s a nightmare. Besides everything else, he can swim. Arrrgghh!