NCAA Football Media Watch:
It's Official! Notre Dame's Starting Quarterback for 2007 is... ...a secret! According to Charlie Weis, the successor to Brady Quinn has already been picked, but he'll be damned if he's going to tell anybody who is suiting up before September 1.
Life's A Hustle When You're an Iowa Hawkeye:
Oy. "Life's a hustle." This seems like a very bad idea when you are any sort of collegiate athlete, let alone one that plans to buy THOUSANDS OF HATS with an illegal credit card. Keep that on the DL, son.
Ohioans Turning to Satellite as BTN-Cable Impasse Continues: Another indication that the Big Ten Network may have enough traction to force cable companies to do their bidding: The Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio DirectTV installers are swamped as all git out with Big Ten Network Armageddon approaching.
NFL:
Roy Jones on Michael Vick: 'Let's Move On': On an ESPN Radio interview this morning, Jones reiterated his previous comments that he doesn't see what the big deal is with Vick.
Rex Grossman Gets Advice From Fifth-Graders: Ten-year-old quarterback Brian Barry keeps it simple: "I'd tell Rex to try and not have so many turnovers and to get lower - he's high a little bit - and to practice more."
Golf:
Bill Murray, Driving a Golf Cart Drunk: A police spokesman said, "There were no obvious signs" of Murray's drunkenness, but I think taking a golf cart that doesn't belong to you, and cruised through downtown Stockholm is an obvious sign.
MLB:Jonathan Papelbon's New Pitch: The "Slutter": You know, Jonathan -- you sly dog you -- you could have just named this pitch the "clider" and this would be but a blip. But hey, it's more fun this way.
Ex-Phillies GM Ed Wade Got Stuck in a Tree: So there you have it -- just a run-of-the-mill "former big league GM suffers skydiving mishap" story. There's not much else to it, since we're still awaiting confirmation as to whether he brought his pet pug along for the ride.
UFC:
Chuck Liddell As 10-Year-Old Actor: It turns out that his role on Entourage was not the first acting gig for former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell. Here he is, via Sports Rumblings, as a Cub Scout in the film The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Kyle Maynard, Born Without Arms or Legs, Wants to Try Mixed Martial Arts: It's a tough call. Maynard is an intelligent adult and a good athlete, and he understands the risks involved in mixed martial arts and his own limitations. Why should he be stopped from fighting?
NBA:
The Debriefing: There's More Basketball Ability in Kobe Bryant Than in All of Venezuela: The play-by-play guy notes that LeBron James has "two bronze medals to his credit." "Credit" is an interesting word to use there. That's kind of like saying, "In two innings last night, Paul Shuey had 9 earned runs to his credit," or, "This off-season, Carson Palmer has one homoerotic hot dog advertisement to his credit."
Random YouTube Magic: The Lost 1986 Dunk Contest: From Magic's Midsummer's Night Charity Game, here's Nique, Spud, Barkley, and Michael Cooper bringing their best in a relaxed environment. Warning: the soundtrack is NSFW, so consider muting it.
Random YouTube Magic: That Smooth Eighties Zeitgeist: I'm not sure what I miss most about 1980's NBA: the peerless play, the glut of all-timers, the yacht rock grooves, or the silken white people who once flocked to it all. If only the league could bring back that era's Commissioner.
Random YouTube Magic: Shaq, Live in Concert: One absolute gem from the Big Guy's verse, which starts about 2:18 in: "I be like pop, pop, pop, pop/And you can't do [expletive] cause I'm a [expletive] cop."
Anschutz and Harrah's to Build Vegas Arena: For months now we've heard about how both the NBA and the NHL have been looking at Las Vegas as a potential city for an expansion franchise, and today we moved one step closer to that happening when the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) -- the folks who own the Staples Center, the LA Kings, the LA Galaxy, the Home Depot Center and another arena in Kansas City -- announced a deal to build a privately financed arena in the city conjunction with Harrah's Entertainment.
Hey, ESPN: Kobe's Not Getting Traded: ESPN's Chris Sheridan is (still) not convinced, however. He wrote after the Nichols interview he's not certain Kobe will show up to the Lakers training camp. Maybe this will help explain it to Chris.
