In your face, Winooski, Vt., with your pathetic No. 383 ranking. Keep on sucking down that maple syrup and maybe you’ll fall out of the rankings altogether. Quad Cities, it took all four of you — Moline, Rock Island, Bettendorf and Davenport — to rank a lousy 262nd. Here’s a new civic slogan for you, 234th-ranked Itta Bena, Miss.: “Welcome to Itta Bena. At least we’re not 235th-ranked Conway, Ark.” That will look real good on the city limit signs. Better yet, why not just rename your town Loserville and get it over with.

Excuse my puffiness, but I’ve just learned that the Sporting News magazine has declared Columbia the 60th-best sports town in the United States and/or Canada. Not sure if Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands were eligible, but I have little doubt that we could crush them in terms of our general sportiness regardless. If those islands were to put forth a city to challenge us, we would paint our bodies black-and-gold, instigate a massive citywide version of “the Wave” and blare Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2” over our emergency broadcast system until the interloper retreated in terror. In short, don’t even think about messing with us.

According to the magazine — which cranks out these lists nonstop so people remember there is a Sporting News magazine — the rankings were based on point values calculated from October 2007 to October 2008. The categories included won-loss records, postseason appearances, applicable power ratings, number of teams and attendance.

“Columbia means the Tigers, and right now the Tigers mean football. The team is back on the national stage, and its players are national award contenders,” said Sporting News Chief of Correspondents Bob Hille, who has compiled the rankings for the last 12 years. “It’s just a great atmosphere, which is what we’re looking for in our best sports cities. That’s why, if you do the math, you see that Columbia scores a very solid ‘B’ in our rankings.”

How ya like us now, 376th-ranked Wappingers Falls, N.Y.?

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