Sports Illustrated - Curse or Coincidence?

The way I see it...the Celtics are just one more victim of the Sports Illustrated curse. Now, I'm not usually one to be superstitious - the Best Actress Oscar curse, for example, is a bunch of hooey. But, there just may be something to this SI jinx.

It seems that whenever someone(s) grace the cover of the magazine, something terrible happens to them shortly thereafter. They get injured. They lose. They die. Or, as is the case with the most recent incident, they go from leading the NBA Eastern Conference finals 3-0 and off a resounding 23 point victory, to barely hanging onto the series at 3-2. Both of those Celtic losses were immediately after Rajon Rondo appeared on the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated.

If the Celts can win tonight, they will break the curse. And to be fair, they've broken it before, like in 2008 when the Big Three appeared on the cover, only to later that year win their 17th championship.

But, still...this curse does seem to have some backing to it. I did some research, courtesy of Wikipedia, my favorite always-reliable reference, and I found some really interesting anecdotes. Here are just a few:

1954 - The first instance of the curse occurred with the first person to ever appear on the cover: Milwaukee Braves 3rd baseman Eddie Mathews. After his appearance in SI, the Braves ended a nine-game winning streak and Mathews later missed 7 games with a broken hand.

1958 - One of the saddest examples. Four days after appearing on the cover, race car driver Pat O'Connor died on the first lap of the Indianapolis 500.

1961 - Just three years later, the same thing happened to 16 year old Laurence Owen, the 1961 U.S. National and North American Figure Skating Champion dubbed "America's Most Exciting Girl Skater." Two days after her cover was released, she was killed in a plane crash en route to the World Figure Skating Championships.

1978 - Pete Rose appeared on the cover the same week that his 44-game hitting streak ended.

2003 - The University of Oregon appeared on the cover cover after starting 4-0 and upsetting Michigan. They lost their next four games.

2008 - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady appeared on the cover of the NFL season preview issue. Brady tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee minutes into the season opening game to the Kansas City Chiefs.

2009 - Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning appeared on the cover "Inside the Helmet of the League's Most Cerebral Quarterback" - the Colts lost 31-17 in SB XLIV. (This one proves the curse is true - because there can obviously be no other explanation for this loss.)

2010 - Kentucky point guard John Wall was featured in January. The next week, 19-0 Kentucky would suffer their first loss to 11-8 South Carolina.

2010 - The "Core Four" of the Yankees (Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada)appeared on the cover. By the next week, all but Jeter were injured.

And I could go on. So, I'm not saying there IS a curse; I'm just not saying their isn't. Depending on how this series plays out for the Celtics, I may be swayed one way or the other. Time will tell.

What do you think?

(Thanks, wikipedia, for your helpful information.)