Still One of the Greatest College Football Players, Ever

This is what heartbreak looks like, and Tim Tebow wanted a win badly:

When Tim Tebow’s bid for a third national championship ended, the tears of disappointment streamed down his face for all to see.

The high definition video boards at the Georgia Dome showed the Florida quarterback breaking down. Tebow stood helplessly watching the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrate as the final seconds counted down in the Crimson Tide’s 32-13 victory in Saturday night’s Southeastern Conference championship game.

As bad as this loss will make Tebow feel, the pros await. This year, according to the article, Tebow had only 4 interceptions out of 244 attempts. This is a young man who knows how to make decisions on the football field. He'll be fine.

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Duke Gets Hammered

Early season rankings don't really mean anything, do they?

Even after the game, Trevon Hughes had all the answers.

Hughes had 19 of his career-high 26 points in the second half and Wisconsin's 73-69 win over No. 6 Duke on Wednesday night snapped the Blue Devils ' perfect mark in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

''The Big Ten's never won, and I think we won it?'' teammate Keaton Nankivil asked postgame.

There was Hughes, right on cue: ''Yeah, and the first time Duke lost.''

With Illinois' 76-74 rally over Clemson and Ohio State's 77-64 victory over Florida State in the final game, the Big Ten won the 11-year series for the first time, 6-5.

''I'm proud to be a part of the conference when they win something,'' Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. ''We're in it to try to win it.''

It was especially sweet for the Badgers (5-1), who never trailed and got a measure of payback against Duke (6-1) after being routed 82-58 two years ago in a challenge game in Durham, N.C. Wisconsin's win ended the Blue Devils ' 10-0 streak in the annual event and helped end the ACC's perfect 10-0 record as well.

The Big Ten/ACC challenge has always been a chance for Duke to show the basketball world what they're made of.

Apparently, the answer is, not that much this season.

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Tiger angers Jesper Parnevik

Put this in the category of, "tell us how you really feel:"

In the most critical comment from a player, Jesper Parnevik said he owed Elin Nordegren an apology for introducing her to Tiger Woods. She once worked as a nanny for the Parnevik family.

“We probably thought he was a better guy than he is,” Parnevik told The Golf Channel from West Palm Beach, Fla., where he is in the final stage of PGA Tour qualifying.

Police said Woods’ wife told them she smashed out the back window of his Cadillac Escalade SUV with a golf club to help get him out after he struck a fire hydrant and tree early last Friday.

“I would probably need to apologize to her and hope she uses a driver next time instead of a 3-iron,” Parnevik said, adding that he has not spoken to Woods since the accident.

“It’s a private thing, of course,” the Swede said. “But when you are the guy he is — the world’s best athlete — you should think more before you do stuff ... and maybe not ‘Just do it,’ like Nike says.”

Notice how Parnevik goes directly at Tiger's money with that "Just do it" remark? That's some serious smack talking. Do you think that went too far? I don't. I think Parnevik has gotten some heat from his own people for putting the former Mrs. Nordegren in a world where she can now walk away with quite a bit of Tiger's money--what a terrible thing to do to a woman.

As for the mental aspect, and the intimidation aspect, as it relates to golf, do you think Tiger is now finished as far as being able to break other players down? Do you think Tiger isn't going to go out there next year and run like a scared titty baby from Parnevik? What backs up your skills as a golfer is certitude, and I don't know how much of that Tiger has left. I really don't.

I have to believe that Parnevik lives in Tiger's head now.

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The Stupidest Thing I've Seen in My Life

 

Barry Melrose says that about the accidental slashing of Tomas Volkun, and you can't help but agree with him. I've never seen anything like this, either:

Florida Panthers goaltender Tomas Vokoun was taken off the ice on a stretcher after being accidentally hit in the head by the stick of teammate Keith Ballard in the opening period of Monday night's game against the Atlanta Thrashers.

 

Vokoun had a cut on his ear but was alert when he was placed in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital, a Panthers spokesman said.

"Vakoun is going to be fine," Florida coach Peter DeBoer said after a 4-3 loss to the Thrashers.

"There was no internal ear damage, just a laceration," Panthers general manager Randy Sexton said. Vokoun will meet the team at the airport and fly home with them, he said.

It will be determined Tuesday whether Vakoun will be available for Florida's next game, at home against Colorado on Wednesday, Sexton said.

The injury occurred after Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal at 8:54 of the first period, knocking in his own rebound. In apparent frustration, Ballard swung his stick at the net, inadvertently striking Vokoun in the head.

That's right--he did that to his own teammate. What the hell is wrong with Ballard? Does he need to even bother suiting up for any more games this year? This is not what hockey is about, and this is a young man who needs to be evaluated. Accidental or not, this was one of the worst examples of poor judgement and mental presence on the ice I've ever seen.

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Tiger Woods is Screwed

This is my prediction for what the jokes are going to sound like--this is not what I actually think, it's just an idea:

Tiger Woods is about to find out what it's like to live like a black man in America.

The law is closing in on him, his wife just tried to kill him, and now the crazy bitch he was screwing just got a lawyer.

Granted, that's racist as hell, and I'm sorry I wrote it, but I had to write it, because it will be coming out of the mouths of every black comic in America who has had it up to here with how Tiger Woods has gotten a pass. He's gotten away with it, and now, the walls are closing in:

The Florida Highway Patrol is seeking a search warrant for hospital records that would document the treatment Tiger Woods received after an auto accident early Friday morning, TMZ.com has reported, citing unnamed sources.

The Florida state police, according to the Web site's report, want to determine if the injuries Woods sustained resembled those from an auto accident or domestic violence.

Woods, who was scheduled to compete at his Chevron World Challenge that starts Thursday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will not attend or play because of injuries sustained in the incident, he announced Monday on his Web site.

Headaches and soreness will keep Woods from traveling to attend the tournament, The Golf Channel reported.

"I am extremely disappointed that I will not be at my tournament this week," Woods said on TigerWoods.com. "I am certain it will be an outstanding event and I'm very sorry that I can't be there."

When contacted Monday by ESPN, Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Kim Miller said the FHP has made no statements to anyone regarding Woods and warrants.

But according to the TMZ.com report, the state police think they can show probable cause of a crime committed during the events that unfolded Friday.

There may not have been a crime committed, but there was a whole lot of favoritism granted on account of where Woods lived (the rich part of town) and what he got away with (imagine someone being able to turn away the police, three days in a row, from their home).

I think that the African-American community has a chance to speak to this double standard in how Woods has been treated better than anyone in America. My point is that, sometimes, not even money can keep certain African-Americans from being treated unfairly by the police. Sometimes, you also have to live in the right part of town and be Tiger Woods in order to get away with having the same troubles all of us have.

Whatever the truth is here, we haven't gotten the truth out of Tiger yet. This is the worst possible example of mishandling public relations I have ever witnessed.

Here's what I've had to say on my main blog, here, here, and here.

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Will Notre Dame Pull the Trigger?

The New York Daily News says that Notre Dame has already fired Charlie Weis. Well, what does that mean, exactly?

Former Indianapolis attorney Jack Swarbrick knows the next 48 hours could well define his 29-year career in athletics. The Notre Dame athletic director is pondering what to do about football coach Charlie Weis. All reports indicate Swarbrick will sack Weis by tomorrow.

The decision may be easy after this season, which ended with six wins and six losses. But it won’t be cheap, even by Notre Dame standards.

It will cost approximately $18 million to buy out Weis’ contract, and another $2 million to buy out Weis’ assistants. Recall, Weis started so brilliantly at Notre Dame, that his first contract was shredded seven games into his tenure in South Bend and replaced with a 10-year deal. That genius move pre-dated Swarbrick's arrival in South Bend.

And sources have said a high-level replacement (like Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops) will cost Notre Dame at least $25 million in guaranteed money. Sources have confirmed that Swarbrick talked with Stoops over the weekend.

Weis can basically walk away with a retirement fund of his very own. He can take a few years off and then go be a coordinator. He can give speeches. He can write some more books. He can do whatever he want. Maybe, in five years, he'll even come out and talk about how Notre Dame's firing of his successor was because of the ridiculous idea that the Fighting Irish should even try to have a football program in this modern era. Who knows?

Notre Dame Ends the Charlie Weis era:


See you around, Charlie. You were a good guy. You just couldn't win in South Bend. You can probably win somewhere else, but you couldn't do it in South Bend. I suspect it wasn't you, it was them.

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Now THAT'S Talking Smack

Is there anyone more candid than Rasheed Wallace?

The way Rasheed Wallace sees it, his latest technical foul call was a flop.

The Boston Celtics big man said Friday night that Raptors forward Hedo Turkoglu duped the referees into giving Wallace his fifth technical of the season by flopping.

“They’ve got to know that he’s a (darn) flopper. That’s all Turkododo do,” Wallace said after the Celtics beat the Raptors 116-103. “Flopping shouldn’t get you nowhere. He acts like I shot him.

“That’s not basketball, man. That’s not defense. That’s garbage, what it is. I’m glad I don’t have too much of it left.”

Commissioner David Stern has complained about flopping because it’s a way to fool the officials, but the league has been unable to find a way to punish or prevent it.

Wallace is the NBA’s career leader with 296 technicals and 29 ejections, according to STATS LLC. But he said some of it is because of his reputation and lack of status in the league.

“Let the Golden Child (LeBron James) do that, or one of the NBA Without Border kids do that, it’s all fine and dandy,” he said.

“This game is watered down, watered down with all that flopping. They’re setting rules on us to the point where you’re taunting if you dunk on somebody. Paul dunked it and then he didn’t say nothing, but it’s a tech.”

Cue the phony outrage of a thousand bad sports writers who will write about how Wallace is a cancer and a bad, bad player.

Actually, Rasheed Wallace has just spoken more truth about the National Basketball Association than any player has in ten years. The game is watered down. The game is corporate-oriented towards international players at the expense of the roots of the game. And it is not worth watching. I haven't watched more than a handful of games, and the bad shooting and dogging it on defense made me abandon several games, none of which even involved the Knicks.

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Didn't I Tell You Michigan State Wasn't a Number Two?

When I saw Michigan State play earlier this season, I said to myself, there's no way this is a number two team right now:

Erving Walker hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:56 left and Florida hung on to upset No. 2 Michigan State 77-74 on Friday night in the Legends Classic.

Walker finished with 12 points to help the Gators (5-0) remain undefeated.

Durrell Summers missed two last-gasp 3-point attempts in the final minute.

The Spartans (4-1) missed their chance to give coach Tom Izzo a record 341 victories at the school. Izzo will get another chance Saturday.

Chandler Parsons scored 14 points to lead the Gators. Walker hit his 3 from beyond NBA range in front of Florida's bench for a 72-71 lead.

Kalin Lucas scored 20 points for the Spartans.

The Gators will play Rutgers in the championship game.

Michigan State was knocked off because of some incredibly sloppy play. They hacked the Gators with bad fouls down the stretch and committed a whopping 23 turnovers. The Spartans also missed eight of 10 3-point attempts.

That's not to say that Florida is automatically that great, either. I hate early season rankings. It's nice to get some attention and give the players something to defend, but it seems unrealistic to say that Michigan State is now going to have something of a letdown of a season if they don't climb back up in the rankings. Wait until they have a half dozen Big Ten games under their belt.

What I'd really like to see are games with teams from all the big conferences in the next few weeks before I sit down and start thinking about who's good and who isn't.

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What Happened Here?

The Buick Enclave, which was NOT the vehicle the Tiger Woods was driving when he crashed

Negligent, impaired, or just plain confused?

Tiger Woods was seriously injured early Friday when he hit a fire hydrant and a tree near his Florida home, authorities said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said the PGA star hit the fire hydrant and tree as he pulled out of his driveway in his 2009 Cadillac sport utility vehicle.

Mr. Woods was taken to Health Central Hospital. Officials there didn't have record of him as a patient, though the news release said Mr. Woods' injuries were serious.

The highway patrol said the crash is still under investigation, and charges are pending. However, the highway patrol said the crash was not alcohol-related.

Mr. Woods, 33 years old, owns a home in the exclusive subdivision of Isleworth near Orlando. Orange County property records indicate his home is valued at $2.4 million.

Woods was driving a Cadillac--and yet, he's the spokesperson for the Buick Enclave, pictured above. I would say that the pending charges are for negligent driving or driving while impaired in some way.

Pain killers? Is it wrong to suggest that Woods may have been under the influence of a pain killer of some type? Given his history of being injured, is that outside of the realm of possibility?

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Frat Boy Pot Luck Rampage

I'm surprised there aren't more stories like this:

According to a report by the Michigan State student newspaper, 15-20 males entered a campus dormitory and assaulted an injured male and female students.

Among the assailants, the State News reported, were unnamed football players according to witnesses.

Brent Mitchell, a communication junior who said he was sent to Lansing's Sparrow Hospital after being punched in the face, said some of the men wore ski masks, but others were recognized as football team members.

"I walked up and said, 'It isn't worth it.' A guy with dreadlocks hit me and in the scuffle slapped, hit females to get them out of the way," Mitchell said.

...

Mitchell said members of his fraternity, Iota Phi Theta, had just finished a potluck event and were folding chairs in the lounge when the men entered. The men said they were looking for a man who had been involved in a spat with one of them the night before during an Iota Phi Theta event at The Small Planet, 16800 Chandler Road, Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he was struck after the men realized the person they sought wasn't there. He said the altercation lasted for about a minute before the men left.

Neither university officials nor campus police would comment on the specifics of the incident.

Of course not--no one's going to comment on a Frat Boy rampage. The problem here is not athletics, although the involvement of football players will probably lead the simple-minded BACK to that conclusion. The problem here is not even alcohol or fraternity life. The problem here rests with the dubious idea of having a potluck.

A potluck?

No one--and I mean, no one--in this H1N1, cootie-sharing, hepatitis B-saturated nation should be going to a potluck. No one.

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Missing the Glory Days of Golf

Warwick Hills, 17th Hole

Tough times for the economy mean tough times for golf courses:

The recession has dealt a mean bogey to golf. Hundreds of courses have closed in the last two years and many formerly exclusive country clubs have slashed fees or opened their greens to the public.

Sales of golf balls, clubs and apparel -- a multibillion-dollar industry -- have dipped 10% this year as players trim spending, according to golf researcher Pellucid Corp.

But perhaps the most dramatic examples of golf's woes can be seen in the string of barren fairways and locked gates. Through September of this year, at least 114 of the nation's 16,000 or so golf courses had closed, according to the National Golf Foundation, a number that was offset only partly by the opening of 44 new courses.

"People are cutting golf out of their diets because they've got to cut something," said Jeff Woolson, a real estate broker with Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis who specializes in buying and selling golf courses.

Woolson and other real estate experts say most golf courses have lost 30% to 50% of their worth in the last two years. Several courses have been forced into bankruptcy. Among them is Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale, which dates to 1925 and was designed by noted golf architect William P. Bell, who also designed the Bel Air Country Club and the Newport Beach Country Club.

The owners tried to sell it for $6.5 million, but couldn't find a buyer before the bankruptcy court decided to turn it over to the lender. The asking price, which would have included a Spanish-style clubhouse and Olympic-sized pool on 35 acres, might sound like a bargain -- there are homes in the Los Angeles area that sell for more -- but golf courses are businesses, not typical real estate investments, because they must remain golf courses. And business has been bad lately.

It's a big comedown from the glory days.

Golf thrived so in the 1980s that it was widely believed that a new U.S. course could open every day and there still wouldn't be enough links to satisfy demand. In the 1990s came Tiger Woods, who made the world pay attention to golf as he grew to dominate the sport. The "Tiger effect," many investors assumed, would launch a youth wave of interest in the sport.

The Tiger effect really didn't happen. Just because a lot of people began to pay attention to golf, that didn't necessarily translate into people taking up the sport. I'm sure that a few tried it, but rarely did you see anyone stick with the sport once they figured out just how difficult it was.

The glory days happened because people had money and leisure time. Working for the Man nowadays means no time off, screaming brats on the weekend, and barely enough money to not pay the mortgage. The increase in the number of people wearing nametags and working for peanuts has meant that there are fewer and fewer bankers and financial services people to play golf.

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This is the kind of thing that could get you fired

This is what got a couple of announcers suspended from calling NBA games for the Los Angeles Clippers:

Smith: “Look who’s in.”

Lawler: “Hamed Haddadi. Where’s he from?”

Smith: “He’s the first Iranian to play in the NBA.” (Smith pronounced Iranian as “Eye-ranian,” a pronunciation that offended the viewer who complained.)

Lawler: “There aren’t any Iranian players in the NBA,” repeating Smith’s mispronunciation.

Smith: “He’s the only one.”

Lawler: “He’s from Iran?”

Smith: “I guess so.”

Lawler: “That Iran?”

Smith: Yes.

Lawler: “The real Iran?”

Smith: “Yes.”

Lawler: “Wow. Haddadi – that’s H-A-D-D-A-D-I.”

Smith: “You’re sure it’s not Borat’s older brother?”

Smith: “If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I’m going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part.”

Lawler: “Here’s Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball.”

Smith: “Especially the post players.

Lawler: “I don’t know about their guards.”

I think that suspending them for being boring and trite would be enough, but here are the real details:

Ralph Lawler and Mike SmithVeteran play-by-play man Ralph Lawler and analyst Mike Smith were suspended for tonight's Clippers telecast on Fox Sports Prime Ticket for comments made during Wednesday's telecast, according to sources with knowledge of the decision but not authorized to speak publicly.

Fox issued this statement at 5:03 p.m. today: "We regret the remarks made by Clippers announcers Michael Smith and Ralph Lawler during Wednesday's telecast. While we believe that Michael and Ralph did not intend their exchange to be offensive, the comments were inappropriate. We extend our apologies to Hamed Haddadi of the Memphis Grizzlies and to anyone who was offended. We have addressed the situation with Michael and Ralph and have taken appropriate action."

Wednesday's comments came near the end of a dreary Clippers loss, 106-91, in Memphis as rookie Haddadi, a 7-foot-2 center and the first Iranian player in the NBA, came into the game.

In a 40-second exchange Lawler and Smith began talking about Haddadi. A Clippers fan who watched Wednesday’s telecast complained about the verbal exchange and said he received an apology today from Fox Sports.

Can you complain if they're boring and make no sense? Can you complain, for example, about how Tim McCarver, when he calls baseball games, is almost always wrong and never offers any insight as to what is going on? I mean, let's face it--McCarver trades on the fact that no one has the sound up anyway. Can you complain when Chris Collinsworth is unnecessarily critical of a position player who plays a position Collinsworth knows nothing about? Am I just being nitpicky when I say, thank God I can turn the sound down.

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Ricky Williams Really Is a Football Player

Given his strange odyssey, games like this one are worth noting:

Ricky Williams showed he's still got it.

The 32-year-old Williams rushed for 119 yards and scored three touchdowns, and the Dolphins beat the Carolina Panthers 24-17 on Thursday night for their fourth win in six games to get into the AFC playoff picture.

A day after learning Brown is lost for the season to a foot injury, the Dolphins (5-5) continued their surge after an 0-3 start behind Williams. The 2002 NFL rushing champion had a receiving and rushing touchdown in the same game for the first time in his career that included a couple of lost seasons.

"Coach always talks about finishing," Williams said. "Sometimes in this league, in a physical game, it's difficult to finish. I think in the past we've prided ourselves on finishing games and we did a good job tonight."

There aren't many 32 year-old running backs who could do half of what Williams did against Carolina (yes, the photo above shows Ricky running against Jacksonville; Jacksonville and Carolina occupy the same space in my head).

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Disciplinarian or Just a Nasty Human Being

I have to admit that, until this morning, I knew nothing about Kansas Football Coach Mark Mangino. Now that I do, I wish I was still in my happy, ignorant bubble:

Former Kansas football players are speaking out about an investigation into allegations coach Mark Mangino has verbally abused or had inappropriate physical contact with players.

Former Jayhawks linebacker Mike Rivera, who plays for the Tennessee Titans, said Wednesday night he could not speak about the allegations. He plans to have a formal interview on the matter with representatives from Kansas in the next few days.

But five of Rivera's former teammates said they were not surprised by the investigation launched by athletic director Lew Perkins. And some relayed personal experiences with Mangino.

Former Kansas wide receiver Raymond Brown, who was a senior last season, said Mangino would often "say personal, hurtful, embarrassing things in front of people."

Brown cited two examples. He said that once, his younger brother had been shot in the arm in St. Louis. Then came a game.

"I dropped a pass and [Mangino] was mad," Brown said. "And I said, 'Yes, sir. Yes, sir.' The yelling didn't bother me. But then he said, 'Shut up!' He said, 'If you don't shut up, I'm going to send you back to St. Louis so you can get shot with your homies.' I was irate. I wanted to hurt him to be honest with you."

Now, is that intended to motivate players? Yes. Is it appropriate? No. It should have been done differently. I think Coach Mangino would do well to change his approach. His approach has taken on a kind of Bobby Knight feeding frenzy situation, and that tends to go downhill fast.

Being hard on players is necessary. That added extra dose of personal nastiness is what is unacceptable. Constantly telling a player that he will go back to being on the block with his homeys is a tad bit racist, when you think about it. Mangino needs to motivate his players in a more positive way, such as, making them wear pink dresses or walk around with baby bottles stuck in the face guard of their helmets. Humiliate without using personal issues, in other words. Losing has begun to shine a light on Mangino and his methods, and few coaches can stand up to scrutiny when they're losing. Hell, Mangino looks like he's about to explode and go down with a massive coronary anyway.

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Michigan State Doesn't Look like a Number Two

I know what the score was at the end of the game, and winning is what matters. But I watched this game:

Michigan State’s winning streak at home against nonconference teams was in jeopardy.

The second-ranked Spartans — and their fans — refused to let it end against Gonzaga.

Durrell Summers hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with a few minutes left, made two at the line in the final seconds and finished with 21 points and a career-high 11 rebounds to help No. 2 Michigan State rally for a 75-71 win over the Bulldogs on Tuesday night.

Kudos to Michigan State for getting the win, but, please. Please.

Michigan State and Gonzaga were awful last night. The refs didn't help. The quality of play was really not very high, even for the beginning of the season. It seemed like an off night to me, and I was disappointed in this particular game--I hope the other games that were played yesterday were better.

Even Tom Izzo said that his team didn't play very well. There were a lot of missed shots that should have been no-brainers. One handed dunks that clanged off the rim, fouls that were called by the refs that weren't even fouls, and what really tells the story of the game are the missed threes by Gonzaga.

No way is Michigan State a number two. This is why early-season rankings mean nothing.

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