Brownlow's Twitter Mailbag: Baby Gronk, the latest on the ACC and more

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan contributor

Another week, another day closer to the return of college football! But until it's back, the Mailbag lives and thrives. This week, we'll get into Baby Gronk (against my better judgment), the latest on the ACC, which sport I would cover that I don't already cover and sneaky-annoying parenting activities.

So let's get to the questions, shall we?

Is baby gronk the new drip king?

Upon reading this, I initially understood about 40% of it. I wish that I understood zero percent of it. I read this explainer article about it and I actually think I understand it less, but knock yourselves out because it explains it pretty well. Baby Gronk is a young athlete who is being billed as the next big thing, which is yet another piece of rapidly-growing evidence that as a society, we never learn. I mean, I know it's been awhile, but has everyone forgotten about Todd Marinovich? Whatever. But there is something fundamentally uncomfortable about crowning a 10-year-old the next great athlete, right? Even if his body keeps developing the way that it has, which isn't a given, it's like his life is already mapped out for him. It just feels wrong.

As for the drip king part, well, that's also in the explainer article (evidently he's a real person on TikTok) and I do know what drip means, although drip king sounds kind of redundant or like a sentence ("Drip, king!") Although I guess you have the drip rather than ... actually drip. But the drip is like swag. Baby Gronk is 10. I think I'd feel slightly more comfortable dubbing him the drip king than I would the next great athlete, but frankly I don't feel right dubbing him either. Still, drip comes from the inside. You either have it or you don't. So if Baby Gronk has been judged to drip, or have drip, or whatever the word is, then yes.

Which sport would you like to cover (that you don't already)?

This is pretty easy for me: tennis. And it's easy because it's the sport I was the most into growing up. I played a few USTA events, but the furthest I got was No. 1 on my high school tennis team. Still, I understand tennis and the ins and outs (pun absolutely intended) more than I do most of the other sports. I'm not very up to date on the current goings-on in tennis the way I used to be, but I can turn on tennis at any time and not only enjoy it, but also feel like I can (at least somewhat) put myself in the player's shoes in terms of what shot I might have hit or where. Basketball is probably the sport I'm closest to being that way with besides tennis, but try as I might (and boy did I), I was just ... never very good at it. I'm not a believer in the whole you have to have played a sport or played it well to cover it well, or to understand it. But there is something cool about being able to understand the game at a higher level just because you lived it.

Where do we stand with the ACC Grant of Rights and revenue sharing talks?

Lawyers are never done when there are available hours to bill! But seriously, I don't think they're done. What the choices are, I honestly don't know. But the ACC is not going to sit idly while the rest of the college sports world passes them by. And maybe that can be a legal justification somehow to get out of the grant of rights? They've probably already thought of that. They may still do the revenue-sharing thing, but it's only going to be a Band-Aid. I've written in this space before that really, the only thing that can save the ACC right now is ESPN. But make no mistake: schools are going to do literally everything in their power to fix this if the ACC or the ESPN won't or can't. But the schools can't do anything if they can't get out of the grant of rights. We could all be upset about schools wanting to look out for themselves, or we could understand the reality that they all face right now. And that reality is that their college football programs especially will be done and dusted after a few years because of the revenue disparity. That is the reality. They're not going to just accept that without a fight, and it's probably going to be a good one.

What are the most annoying parenting activities that are actually supposed to be fun?

The playground is honestly probably the best choice for sneaky-annoying parenting activities. Half the time, my kid wants me to play too. I'm about to turn 40. My knees were not built for playgrounds. They're great for getting energy out, but when they're young especially, you have to watch them every second and then they don't want to leave and it's a fight. You could have been there 20 minutes or two hours. Maybe somewhere like Marbles is more your speed? My kid is 6 now so it's pretty good for him, but when he was younger, I hated it more than the playground. I would literally walk him out of the way to avoid him catching sight of the water room. The one time he played there, he was completely soaked and I didn't have a change of clothes. At both places, you have to worry about how your kid interacts with other kids too.

I don't want you all to think there aren't things I love doing with my son. There are! In fact, my favorite thing to do with him actually is go to the movies. It's not always the easiest thing as he can get a bit antsy, but it's always a movie he likes (obviously) and so he's engrossed for two hours. And we usually eat a meal at the movies so that's one less meal I have to worry about that day. I also really like doing crafts with him or helping him learn to draw, two things that I kind of had to start doing to spend time with him when I got long COVID. But it's wild how even in seemingly innocuous activities like going to the playground, as a parent, you can always see the drawbacks. You just kind of have to weigh the pros and cons.