Running On the Other Side*

Greetings from the other side of the world!

I am going to make this REALLY quick because I'm paying by the half hour but I had a few thoughts to drop:

1. Is the Miami Heat trying to get kicked down to the D-League? 54 points in a whole game? You're not even trying. Shame on you, Pat Riley. No excuse.

2. Today, the NCAA tournament kicks off. I'm not making any predictions, but I am making a request, and that is that I don't have to see Psycho T tearing down any nets. Please.

3. Right before I left, I heard Bob Knight complain about how some good teams don't make it into the tournament in favor of lesser teams that prevail in their confrence tournaments and how much of a travesty this is. I disagree. That's the beauty of the tournament. Smaller programs would never see the light of day much less get the opportunity to take down the nation's best teams if they did it any other way. We loved the New York Giants, we love Cinderellas. That's why people watch. But while an upset or two is nice, we don't want to see the Cinderella necessarily win the whole thing . . . at least I don't. It's fun for a little while but let's not get too carried away.

4. Andrew Bynum might return to the L.A. Lakers lineup just in time for the Lakers run through the playoffs. Man, this is going to be an interesting Western Conference finals. Over on the East, snooze city. I read an article in Time magazine in which readers got to ask questions of NBA Commissioner David Stern. One reader asked about the sorry state of the NY Knicks and whether he was concerned at all. Stern replied with the usual party line about this being a time to build and they'll be back. Ok, well when he gets over the shock of the poor ratings between East and West, I think he just might change his tune.

5. So top-ranked high school QB recruit Terrelle Pryor went with Ohio State as his college of choice. Michigan must be quite upset, but Pryor went with the possibility of sitting a year over coming in and starting in a program that I must admit is pretty darn good. And yes, it's no Michigan in terms of academics (although not shabby as one of the smartest lawyers - not an oxymoron - I know went there) but somehow I don't think that figured into the equation . . . All the best for a great career there, though, kid. Believe the hype, but not too much of it.

*Ode to an all-time fave by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The song is much darker than I meant the title here to be, but it fit.

5, 4, 3, 2 . . .

The deal:

1. ESPN.com did a great piece on a fallen firefighter/assistant coach who died in a fire but whose lasting effect on his team propelled them to the state finals. Great job, ESPN. And good luck, Summerville!

2. If you hear some old guy cursing during the NCAA telecasts, it might just be Bob Knight. Yes, that Bob Knight of chair-throwing fame. Said Knight, "I think ESPN has been real good for college basketball and I look forward to working with some of their people who I have known a long time." Real good, Bobby, real good. I hope they're still using that five second delay.

3. Congress wants to talk about passing federal legislation banning the use of performance-enhancing drugs in all professional sports leagues. Naturally, the commissioners of the various leagues do not want the practices of their league members being legislated by the feds. I can't imagine why adding one more way for their players get arrested would not be appealing.

4. Title this under "Riiiight." Earlier, the Green Bay Packers official website ran an article stating that Brett Favre had indeed decided to retire. The Packers party line:

"There's nothing to it," Packers spokesman Jeff Blumb told The Associated Press.
"People who handle our Web site had set up a dummy page in the event he was to
retire. They were asked to take down that page."

Yeah, ok. Favre's decision is expected to come soon. Let's see if it differs at all from what was posted. You know where my money is.

5. This article is upsetting, if for no other reason than it contains information about 2 players that I find it tough to root for (see, I'm getting nicer ). According to Mary Sims, the MVP comes down to, among others, Kobe, LeBron, or . . . Kevin Garnett? Sims had him as leading the race back in December, and now still has him on the list at #3. I guess he felt like he could drop him down a notch but removing him from the top five would hurt his credibility. Too late. I'm not sure KG's the MVP of his own team much less of the entire league. Sims must have gotten dunked on by him in high school and he's just trying to make himself feel better.

Some Good News

So much to do, so little time. If we could add about 4 or 5 hours to each day, that'd be perfect. Until then:

1. Michael Vick scored a legal victory. A federal judge known to be athlete-friendly overturned the arbitrator's decision that Vick had to return most of his signing bonus, finding that he only had to return about $3.75 million of the nearly $20 million he received. That's the first good news he's had in nearly a year. Hopefully they gave him an extra pudding cup or something to celebrate.

2. Bye bye, Bob Knight. I'm not 100% sure if this one will be official retirement or if he just quit at Texas Tech. He says he's done. And now son Pat Knight is taking over. Reports are that his team was a bit emotional. I'll let this marinate for a while and then give my ruminations later this week. " . . . but that would be an insult to Mickey Mouse." Ah, I'm going to miss him.

3. They're saying 97.5 million people watched the Super Bowl. That's enough for the most watched Super Bowl ever and the second most watched TV program ever. Ever. Wow. The media hype fuel is a powerful thing. Let's just hope the ads don't cost an arm, leg, and both ears next year because of these numbers. That's pretty amazing, though. And there were at least 50 people around each TV at the house where I watched the game, so that number may not be quite accurate.

4. Speaking of which, thoughts on the funniest commercial? Apparently, I missed Naomi Campbell and some lizards performing Thriller but it looked semi-humorous. My favorites were Shaq as a jockey, the guy with the spark plugs attached to his nipples, and the dog lapping up the Gatorade. The latter was mostly funny because everyone else was grossed out and trying to figure out what was going on, and that made me laugh. But maybe I'm weird.

5. It has been a pretty good year for the Cleveland Brown's Derek Anderson. First, he comes from the bench to start for the Browns and does a darn good job, leading them to 10-5 record, keeping media star Brady Quinn on the bench, and throwing 5 TD's in his first start and messing up my first week of fantasy football. And now, since Tom Brady is too beat up to attend the Pro Bowl (why go to Hawaii when you can go home to Brazil with Gisele?), Anderson will be replacing Brady at the Pro Bowl. Heck of a first season as a starter.