(CR Photo/Owen Sweeney III) Sis Carnes and Little Sister of the Poor Lawrence Pocock share a conversation.

Thom Loverro of The Washington Examiner has a nice column about how the phrase "playing the Little Sisters of the Poor" has become one of the ultimate sports insults. 

I've visited St. Martin's Home for the Aged in Catonsville many times, where I've seen the Little Sisters of the Poor care for the sick and dying.  I can testify that these heroic women definitely ain't no patsies.  

Here's an article in The Catholic Review that describes their work in much detail.

A snip from Loverro's column:

(AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Ohio State president Elwood Gordon Gee caught some heat last week for insulting the quality of opponents Boise State and TCU face on their football schedules in the continuing debate about the BCS and the crowning of a national champion.

"Well, I don't know enough about the Xs and Os of college football," Gee told the Associated Press. "I do know, having been both an SEC president and a Big Ten president, that it's like a murderer's row every week for those schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day."

What is it about the Little Sisters of the Poor? Why, in every sports debate that comes up about quality of opponents, does somebody like Gee feel the need to disparage the Little Sisters of the Poor?

They don't even have a football team.

The fact is the Little Sisters of the Poor is a fine Roman Catholic religious order for women that helps the elderly poor in 31 countries around the world.

They deserve better than to be defined as schedule patsies.

"We've heard that before," said Amelia Arnold, who works in the development department in the Baltimore office. "We think it is funny. Most people don't realize we are an organization and the work that we do ... but we have had some Ravens players here for programs."