Parity

Parody has been the operative word in NASCAR for a long time, coinciding with a five-year championship run by Jimmie Johnson. Competition? It was a joke. Fast forward to this season, when another P-word dominates the headlines: Parity. Ryan Newman's victory in New Hampshire gave the Sprint Cup circuit 13 winners in 19 races — equaling the total from the entire 2010 season. The modern NASCAR record is 19 winners, set in 2001. Although that will be tough to break, there's no question that the rumble of stock cars brings all sorts of unique and intriguing possibilities every weekend.

There has been talk about parity in college lacrosse for years, but finally there is evidence in the NCAA Division I tournament, a place where some thought it might not be on display for another decade. As the tournament moves into the quarterfinal round there will be no representative from the state of Maryland for the first time. UMBC, Johns Hopkins and Mount St. Mary's didn't make the initial 16 team-field and Maryland, Loyola and Towson each got bumped over the weekend in the first round.

This weekend's Division I women's lacrosse tournament in Towson features a lot of familiar faces. That's the way it usually is at the women's lacrosse final four. Three of last year's semifinalists return: five-time defending champion Northwestern, Maryland and North Carolina. The "newcomer" is Syracuse, but the Orange isn't all that new. It was a semifinalist once before, in 2008. In a sport that is growing rapidly at the college level — nearly tripling the number of Division I programs in 20 years — and is getting more competitive all the time, that parity has not shown up at the top very quickly.

Analyst Paul Carcaterra was part of the ESPN team that provided coverage of the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore last Saturday. The former Syracuse All-American midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter via @paulcarcaterra, will be part of the crew covering No. 14 Brown at No. 10 North Carolina on Wednesday night and No. 1 Maryland at No. 13 Virginia on Saturday. Carcaterra discussed parity in the sport, the new No. 1 team in some polls, and the team with the most wins in Division I. What was the lasting impression of this past weekend's results?

There was very little movement in this week's Top 15 boys lacrosse poll , largely due to the parity in the MIAA A Conference and some dominant public teams taking care of business in their respective counties. Calvert Hall stayed at the top, but needed a 5-4 overtime win against No. 8 Severn on Friday to do so. The next three slots were the only ones to have changes with No. 2 Gilman dropping to fourth after a 1-1 week that included a 10-5 loss to No. 3 Loyola on Tuesday.

In the beginning, clickers were a man thing.Surveys in the early 1990s found that in about two-thirds of American households, men basically had seized the remotes."

From the beginning, we're hooked by the Darwinian nature of sports. We trust that at the final buzzer, the best team will be the one left standing. It's this simple and unalienable truth that keeps us coming back for more, that encourages us to wave foam fingers and build our entire week around three hours of weekend couch time. I love that the best competitor reaps the rewards, and I like that after the season the soil is tilled and every team has the chance to start anew. But I should probably make a confession: While I love the idea of parity in sports, too often, the practice of it puts me to sleep.

UMBC's Don Zimmerman has been a head coach for 22 years, and he can't remember the last time there were so many one-goal or overtime games. Neither can Virginia coach Dom Starsia. In regards to college lacrosse, the word "parity" has been repeated so many times that it has become a cliche more than reality. Not anymore. Not when No. 8 Johns Hopkins loses two overtime games in a row, one of them to Hofstra. Not when No. 7 Syracuse plays three overtime games in a row. And then there is No. 18 UMBC (3-3)

The Orioles are asking the state for millions of dollars in rent credits, stadium loans and improvements to Oriole Park as part of what the team claims is its legal right to parity with the Ravens.By triggering the "parity clause" of the team's lease, Orioles officials have begun what is sure to be a long and complicated process of comparing the terms of the deals the Maryland Stadium Authority has bestowed on its two major-league tenants.The matter will ultimately be resolved through negotiations or binding arbitration.

Players who make the U.S. women's national soccer team will have parity -- financially and from a marketing standpoint -- with the men's team for the first time under a new contract outlined in New York City yesterday. The five-year contract, agreed to Friday, but made public at a U.S. Soccer Federation news conference yesterday, ended the two-month-old boycott by players who won last summer's third Women's World Cup, by all measures the most successful women's sports event ever. U.S. captain Carla Overbeck, a national-team player for 12 years and one of the negotiators, called the contract "a huge step" because it "assures that the younger players can pursue the sport full-time, on a professional basis, without having to get other jobs to support themselves, like we've had to."

There was very little movement in this week's Top 15 boys lacrosse poll , largely due to the parity in the MIAA A Conference and some dominant public teams taking care of business in their respective counties. Calvert Hall stayed at the top, but needed a 5-4 overtime win against No. 8 Severn on Friday to do so. The next three slots were the only ones to have changes with No. 2 Gilman dropping to fourth after a 1-1 week that included a 10-5 loss to No. 3 Loyola on Tuesday.

In the aftermath of the Ravens' latest loss to another seemingly unworthy opponent, coach John Harbaugh was asked whether there might be a psychological component to the team's apparent inability to make the most of their most winnable games. "I'm not a psychologist," he replied. "I think what you do is look at football. You look at what you can do better as a football team. So, we're moving forward. " That was the right answer … after the Ravens followed up their blowout win over the Steelers with a deflating loss to the Tennessee Titans in Week 2. It might still have flown after the Monday Night loss to the struggling Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 7. But the third time definitely is cause to wonder just what's going on inside all those helmets.

Parody has been the operative word in NASCAR for a long time, coinciding with a five-year championship run by Jimmie Johnson. Competition? It was a joke. Fast forward to this season, when another P-word dominates the headlines: Parity. Ryan Newman's victory in New Hampshire gave the Sprint Cup circuit 13 winners in 19 races — equaling the total from the entire 2010 season. The modern NASCAR record is 19 winners, set in 2001. Although that will be tough to break, there's no question that the rumble of stock cars brings all sorts of unique and intriguing possibilities every weekend.

Jets-Falcons Dan Pompei Chicago Tribune This isn't one of those years when there are clear favorites to make it to the Super Bowl. Instead there is a pack of strong teams in each conference. In the AFC, it's the Patriots, Jets, Steelers, Chiefs and Ravens, and you have to throw in the Chargers too because of the way they have been playing lately. In the NFC, it's the Falcons, Saints, Bears, Eagles, Giants and Packers. The closest thing the league has to a runaway train is the Falcons, so they should be the NFC favorite at this point.

This weekend's Division I women's lacrosse tournament in Towson features a lot of familiar faces. That's the way it usually is at the women's lacrosse final four. Three of last year's semifinalists return: five-time defending champion Northwestern, Maryland and North Carolina. The "newcomer" is Syracuse, but the Orange isn't all that new. It was a semifinalist once before, in 2008. In a sport that is growing rapidly at the college level — nearly tripling the number of Division I programs in 20 years — and is getting more competitive all the time, that parity has not shown up at the top very quickly.

COLLEGE PARK - - It's popular among pundits this season to note the Atlantic Coast Conference's balance - how the mighty have fallen back to the pack in basketball. The thinking goes that all this parity has created opportunities for teams other than North Carolina and Duke - Maryland, perhaps? - to make moves. "It definitely opens it up for the middle-of-the-pack schools to make a real push for a top-three finish, and Maryland can be one of those teams," said Van Coleman, national recruiting analyst for Hoopmasters.

The beauty of the NFL can't be found in Tom Brady's smile, the dressing room of the Carolina Panthers' cheerleaders or John Madden's RV. It's simpler than that, and you'll see exactly what I mean before the 2006 season is barely a few weeks old. More than any other sport, pro football is ruled by parity, which makes accurate predictions nearly impossible and makes reckless ones absolutely essential. With that in mind, it's pretty easy to see that nearly every scenario this season is realistic for the Ravens, including the dream sequence - spending next offseason snuggling each and every night with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Parity is no longer in vogue in the NFL. There can be no parity as long as the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts are playing like All-Star teams from another league, hammering everyone they face. Or when the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams are both 0-8, staring at a season when the best they might do is win three games if they get really lucky. The Patriots flogged the Washington Redskins, 52-7, yesterday while the Colts crushed the Carolina Panthers, 31-7. Next week, they renew their AFC hostilities in Indianapolis in the closest thing to Armageddon the NFL has. There appears to be no stopping the Patriots.

Baltimore's police union wants to jettison a decades-old contract provision that requires the city to give firefighters the same pay raises that police officers receive, hoping the move will clear the way for larger pay increases. The police union leadership filed a lawsuit against the city last week on grounds that the parity or "me too" provisions of the fire unions' contract puts the police in the position of "indirectly" negotiating for fire wages, according to the complaint filed in Baltimore Circuit Court.

I couldn't help but notice those empty seats in Tampa, Fla., last weekend during the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. Here's the thing about the ACC. All this parity (mediocrity?) is great for the individual campuses because each school can imagine it has a shot at the title. And most do have a shot. But having no dominant teams - no heavyweights - doesn't play as well on the national stage because there's no compelling story line. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/terpsblog)