Just when you thought that the world of college football recruiting couldn’t get any more creepy, the CHICAGO TRIBUNE has a story that will practically make your skin crawl. Apparently, there is a new Web site ready to be launched that will evaluate the performance of junior high football players and promote the best players for notice by college recruiters.
(Todd Marinovich, age 18 months, ready for his first college recruiting trip.)
That’s right, for all the Marv Marinovich wannabes who can’t want until high school to drive their child into a downward spiral of unrealistic expectations and the relentless pursuit, you can now get a jump start on the competition and start putting the pressure on your 11-year-old to get that football scholarship…or else.
She produces children with no visible physical side effects, and as we see in the photo below, even controls the beasts of the forest. I, for one, am ready to welcome my new Layla Kiffin overlord. But the wife of Tennessee Volunteers football coach Lane Kiffin is crafty and wise — she’s not taking over the world all at once.
The Los Angeles Clippers won the most favored martyr award last night in the NBA Draft Lottery and, with it, the top pick in the 2009 NBA Draft next month (likely to be Blake Griffin). The Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder now follow, leaving the Grizzlies to pretend Mike Conley, Jr. is the answer to anything but “Name one theoretically famous Junior” and draft Hasheem Thabeet.
Oklahoma City, your Ricky Rubio awaits. (Ricky will love the fried bologna sammich at Toby Keith’s I Love This Restaurant a block away from the arena.) A staff containing Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, Rubio, and your dear departed grandmother should be capable of 50 wins in two years. If you find it less ghoulish, we’ll refer to your passed loved one as Nenad Krstic. Same mobility, anyway.
(By the way, please send your love to Sacramento tonight as they had the league’s worst record and washed out with the fourth pick. And you thought living in Sacramento was punishment enough.)
Your intrepid correspondent pulled into a local sports bar in the Phoenix area just thirty minutes before the NBA Draft Lottery truly started (which was, of course, thirty minutes after it officially kicked off). That will be the best way to take the pulse of the community regarding the first lottery draft pick for the Phoenix Suns likely to play for the team since Amare Stoudemire, your correspondent said to himself rather self-consciously.
It can be officially reported that the patient is dead; there was no pulse in the greater Phoenix community regarding the draft lottery. The normally-popular bar was half-empty and the televisions kept being turned from the NBA lottery to practically any other sport. In fact, the only person to keep half an eye on the proceedings was Dan Majerle’s brother.
Surely, much of the passivity came from having such a slim chance at a top-three pick, but the collected crowd seemed much more interested in the Western Conference Finals for the NBA and NHL. They chose wisely as the Denver Nuggets couldn’t hold their late lead against the Los Angeles Lakers and therefore provided another thrilling finish, a 105-103 Lakers victory to kick off the NBA edition of the Western Conference Finals.
Also, game 2 of the NHL edition ended in the first overtime with a 3-2 Detroit Red Wings victory over the Chicago Blackhawks to extend the series lead to 2-0. The ‘Hawks could not stop giving up the puck in the most exposed fashion possible, leading to two breakaway goals, including the three-on-one clincher. You’d think a battle between a dinosaur and a human would turn out differently.
(The bar didn’t care for that result; Arizonans are either transplanted Colorado residents or former Illinoisans. No love lost for Detroit from either quarter.)
On the other hand, the true locals were left to stew yesterday over news that a federal bankruptcy judge couldn’t bring the NHL or the former and future owners of the Phoenix Coyotes together on a deal regarding the sale of the team and a possible move back to Canada. Instead, he sent both sides into mediation and told them to hash it out themselves.
The relocation hearing in late June won’t answer the question, either; multiple rounds of appeals will surely follow if all sides can’t talk it out. It all adds up to at least a month of indecision, misdirection, and public proclamations. It’s not unlike the buildup to the NBA Draft, really.
When Arizonans aren’t paying attention to hockey mirages or 14th picks or UFOs in 2009, they might be taking in this hail of bullet points:
College athletics are tax-exempt (even basketball and football) and the NCAA may have muddled the waters enough to make it incredibly difficult to change that.
Seriously, Lane Kiffin has multiple personal assistants and we can’t find a way to tax that program?
DeAngelo Hall has no ill will toward the Oakland Raiders; they did, after all, pay him $8 million last season even though he only played eight games. But Hall, now with the Redskins, isn’t above telling a humorous Al Davis story when prompted.
Hall was on WJFK radio in Washington, D.C. where, among other things, he told of the infamous press conference last year in which Davis outlined his grievances against fired head coach Lane Kiffin, and introduced Kiffin’s replacement, Tom Cable. One rather hilarious problem, however: Davis didn’t seem to know exactly who Cable was.Read more…
What makes the perfect football recruit for the Tennessee Volunteers? Apparently its a combination of speed, strength and a criminal rap sheet. Which is why it makes complete sense that Lane Kiffin offered star Ohio high school cornerback Dwayne “Deejay” Hunter a scholarship for next year. With his lockdown ability on defense and history of legal problems, he was the perfect candidate to suit up in Tennessee orange.
Hunter didn’t sign with Kiffin earlier this year, but based on his recent run of incidents, even the home of The Fulmer Cup might think twice about welcoming him on campus. The MIDDLETOWN JOURNAL says that after a court hearing for allegedly assaulting his 17-year-old girlfriend after their prom, Hunter was arrested for violating the terms of his bond from an incident involving a BB gun in January.
There’s been a veritable avalanche of head-slapping, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring headlines generated by Lane Kiffin and the Tennessee Volunteers this year - and it’s still four months before his first season even starts at UT.
Yesterday afternoon, Lane Kiffin and the Tennessee Volunteers awarded a football scholarship to Daniel Hood, a 6-5, 255 lb defensive lineman and tight end who was Class 3A Mr. Football in Tennessee this past season. Normally, the only really newsworthy thing would be that he signed months after the National Letter of Intent Day. But in this case, it’s why he signed so late that makes this an interesting story.
This week’s Kiffin calamity? The Vols coach kicked Demetrice Morley off the team for missing practice. And why did the senior safety skip out on some scheduled spring drills? Because he was off witnessing the birth of his child.
So, a player misses out on one little practice to welcome his new bundle of joy into the world, and Kiffin cuts him? How typically lame of Lane. Well, it might appear that way, but there’s much more to Morley’s story.
Sense: Al Davis makes none. This is no longer up for debate; as the Raiders continue to redefine the word “backslide,” Davis has made increasingly peculiar personnel decisions, including jettisoning coaches at will and releasing an $8 million corneback… eight games into his career with the team. But it’s his decision to not pay the remainder of Lane Kiffin’s contract that’s finally bringing the Raiders’ institutional insanity into the light.
(”Coaching here was a very bad idea.”)
Kiffin, who’s a total loon in his own right, is understandably unimpressed with Oakland’s refusal to pay him and has filed a lawsuit to claim the last two months of salary from a 3-year contract he signed in 2007. Not only is Oakland fighting it–they’re holding a deposition on Monday in San Francisco–but Jeff Birren, a lawyer from the team actually sent a threatening letter to the University of Tennessee, claiming that Kiffin, among other things, may have been “actively supplying information about the team to opponents.” Honest to God, that’s what it says.
