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What: “Toi’s Cook Book, the Cyberspace Journal of a Professional Football Player”

Internet address:

https://www.bltpro.com/cookbook

In the latest episode of Toi Cook’s excellent adventure, the Carolina Panther defensive back uses the Internet as a crying towel. Cook has his own web site and he fills it with much moaning and wailing over his team’s recent loss to Green Bay in the NFC championship game.

“I wanted to paint my web page with a black background because I’m in mourning and straight-up denial,” Cook writes. “After such a great season, a Cinderella season, it’s really hard to believe it’s all over.”

Fortunately, one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure.

“Toi’s Cook Book, the Cyberspace Journal of a Professional Football Player” offers an often-amusing diary of the Panthers’ journey through a 12-4 season and into the playoffs.

This is not the place to look for edgy analysis. Nor does Cook hit as hard with his commentary as he does on the field--he simply can’t bring himself to dish dirt on fellow players. But after 10 years in the NFL, he retains a boyish enthusiasm that translates into plenty of comical tidbits.

On football players and former presidential candidate Bob Dole: “None of us wanted a 70-year-old man who didn’t like rap music running the country.”

On big-league perks: “One of the coolest things about playing for the Panthers, in the new Ericsson Stadium, is that each member of the team gets a complimentary cell phone from Ericsson. . . . There’s no ‘half-steppin’ here.”

The same can be said for his web site, which is chock full of color photos, video highlights and recorded sound bites. Browsers can actually hear his children squealing in the background as he jokes: “People always think that being a football player you just come home from practice and you lay up in your big crib watching TV and drinking brews.”

This week, Cook visits New Orleans to chronicle Super Bowl goings-on and, it is hoped, to drown his sorrows. He writes: “I think we’re going to be OK.”