• Danica Patrick could be removing her racing suit to pose for an all-nude (yet tastefully done) pictorial for ESPN The Magazine.

(Well, it’s a start)

• And the Rick Pitino sex-tortion scandal gets more & more pitiful.

• This FIBA Americas basketball tournament is getting quite rough. If it isn’t Mexico & Uruguay throwing punches & chairs, it’s security hassling Charlie Villanueva & his mother.

• College football players could lose their hotel privileges - for home games. But keeping the kids out of the local Motel 6 could actually be a bad idea.

• Are fantasy sports bad for your relationships? Well, in Texas, it can certainly be bad for your health.

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It’s hard to get too misty-eyed about the integrity of college sports when coaches are dealing with sex scandals, players are getting arrested on a daily basis and Yahoo! Sports is ready to let loose with the blockbuster news that a USC football player might have received an extra large slice of apple pie at the cafeteria because he’s on the team. But then you hear about things like the following story and you remember why you cry like a girl every time “Rudy” is on.

Vanderbilt head basketball coach Kevin Stallings had been planning a 10-day trip for his basketball team to Australia for well over a year when he learned that school wide budget cuts threatened to nix the trip. So what did Stallings do? He decided to decline the $100,000 raise he was owed by the school in order to pay for the journey. The team played OK - going 3-2 in five games - but I would imagine that the benefits go much further than that. Plus, how do you not play hard for a guy who gave up $100,000 so you could go to Australia?

“Jermaine, remember when you got to feed that kangaroo straight from your hand? Then how about screening out your man?”

This comes on the heels of Mississippi State’s star basketball player Jarvis Varnado giving up his scholarship so the team could sign more players. That’s two totally selfless acts involving SEC basketball in the space of less than a week, which is probably more than we saw all of last season. Sometimes its good to be reminded that sports are supposed to be, you know, uplifting.

Meanwhile, just to cut the legs out from under you as you’re actually starting to feel good about sports again: look, British football hooligans are back! I guess if The Specials are touring again, then it really is like 1982 in London, which apparently means it’s time for pitch invasions, fights in the stands and undoing 25 years of progress toward making soccer in England respectable again.

The trouble came in a Carling Cup match between rivals West Ham and Millwall. West Ham won the game in extra time, 3-1, but the story was the “fans” of the two teams. One man was stabbed and at least 10 people were arrested in what appeared to be planned brawls outside of the stadium before and after the game. Plus, West Ham fans staged a “pitch invasion,” storming the field after West Ham scored the go-ahead goal early in extra time, forcing the match to be delayed for several minutes and riot squads to escort the visiting Millwall players off the field for their own safety.

I’m guessing this isn’t exactly what ESPN was hoping for when they paid for the partial rights to cover EPL games this season. Although I’d like to see the “ESPN Axis” technology be used to highlight some hooligan taking a dart to the eye - let’s see Tommy Smyth put that one in the old onion bag. (Also, it should be noted that the Carling Cup is about as important as winning the Cactus League title - I shudder to think what things will be like by the end of the season.)

Speaking of awful people, we have a Floyd Landis sighting. Even though he’s was stripped of his Tour de France title for doping offenses, he’s got at least one cycling team who would consider hiring him. And of course it’s with Lance Armstrong’s new team. Really, were you expecting anything else? Armstrong had been out of the headlines for a whole three or four weeks, and we can’t have that. P.S.: Have fun with that sponsorship, Radio Shack.

• As you probably know, Senator Ted Kennedy died late last night at the age of 77. Regardless of where you stand in the political spectrum, it’s hard not to think that an era in American politics died along with him. But did you know that he was also a fair football player in his day? In fact, he was good enough to be the starting end on the Harvard Crimson football team and be offered a shot at the NFL by the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.



• The head football coach at Ogden High in Utah has been suspended after allegedly getting into a confrontation with the band director over the use of the field for practice. Sounds like someone wound up getting a piccolo stuck somewhere it shouldn’t be.
• Apparently in Canada, stomping on a goalie and breaking his neck during a soccer match can get you arrested, but only earn you a yellow card on the field. I think that using hockey refs as soccer officials might not be working out.
• Jerry Stone, one of California’s top high school running backs, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder for his alleged role in a drive-by shooting on Friday in Compton.
• The half-brother of former Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Leonardo Carson rolls on him during a federal drug trafficking trial, saying that Carson supplied him with cocaine and other drugs to sell.
• A drunk city official in Snohomish, WA offers to show a female employee of the group sponsoring a golf tournament “the size of his tee” and whips off his…ahem…head cover. That’s one way to lose your job.
• The woman who was accused by Michael Vick of ripping him off of more than $2 million has been charged in a Ponzi scheme involving an investment firm co-founded by NFL players Demorrio Williams and brothers Josh and Daniel Bullocks.
• The attorney for Mark Becker, the former Aplington-Parkersburg High School player accused of shooting and killing legendary coach Ed Thomas, claims that his client “has difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy” and is therefore not competent to stand trial.
• Martina Hingis has been named to the cast of the British version of “Dancing with the Stars.” No word on if she’ll be allowed to perform an intricate dance routine while Hoovering a suspicious white powder up her nose.
• Finally, to repeat our top story for the deaf and hard of hearing: Brad Lidge is still bad at saving games.

It’s easy to get cynical here at SbB headquarters, what with all the golfers robbing banks, soccer moms assaulting wheelchair kids and Alonzo Mourning-Janet Reno death matches. And now the candy machine is busted! I want a Clark Bar! Thankfully, I can cure my cravings for sweets in other ways: Like with this sugary, sappy story.

Meet Mississippi State hoops center Jarvis Varnado, who has led the nation in blocks for two years straight, and propelled the Bulldogs to an SEC title and NCAA Tournament appearance last season. Despite this, he’s suddenly playing as a walk-on. What happened to his scholarship? Here comes the feel-good part I was telling you about.

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• The career route of Troy O’Leary’s ex-wife Annette: From elementary school assistant principal to escort-for-hire?

• Maurice Clarett decides he needs to spend more time in prison.

• A Rays fan takes a 40-foot drop at the Trop from an escalator.

• Hey, you Ole Miss Rebels - Mississippi State’s got two words for ya.

• The Titans will wear a special helmet decal in honor of the late Steve McNair. But some Tennessee fans aren’t so touched by the tribute.

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On Tuesday, we brought you the story of Tennessee’s shirtless “Wild Boyz,” which sounds like the name of an “alternative” adult movie - and which looks like one, too. But despite the overwhelming shirtlessness of it all, it was still a bit, well, passive. It’s not an orgy if everyone’s just standing around; you need some action.

(But what if I don’t want to suck it?)

Fortunately, as you can see above, Mississippi State is upping the ante in the SEC. Sure, most people would balk at encouraging your rival to perform oral sex on you, especially since said rival has won 7 of the last 9 games and just got done ending your season with a 45-0 ass-kicking, but you know what? Mississippi State’s just going for it, man.

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For those of you who didn’t watch “The T.O. Show” on VH1 last night, consider yourselves the lucky few: like the residents of Johnstown who weren’t washed away by the giant flood, you somehow missed out on being carried away in a torrent of filth, muck and debris. For those of us contractually obligated to watch the show (this is why you should read contracts before agreeing to become a blogger), there’s no Red Cross volunteers coming to our rescue. We’re left shaking on the banks of the river as we try to comprehend what we just saw.

Maybe I’m being a bit over the top. But man, it wasn’t good.

To recap: Terrell Owens has a great body (honed by only the finest rubber bands your $19.95 can buy), and enjoys spending time showing it off. A lot of time showing it off. As in, going shirtless for about three-quarters of the show.  But, as you would hear any good pitchman say, that’s not all.

No VH1 “Celeb Reality” show can just be about following a celebrity around, so there has to be some sort of convoluted plot, and here the one for “The T.O. Show”: his “best friends” and “publicists” Kita Williams and Monique Jackson have convinced him to move to Los Angeles during the off-season to “find himself.” Which - according to the first episode - means the following things:

• Spending more than $100,000 on new diamond earrings.
• Hooking up with the trashy real estate agent who rents him the mansion he’s staying in during the show.  (I know that the market is tough, but this seems like excessively aggressive sales tactics, although maybe now is the right time to buy.)
• Going out to a club with said earrings, meeting a bunch of trashy women and inviting them home to “party” with him.
• His half-assed attempt to get back together with his ex-fiancee, who seems like the only semi-intelligent person on the show by getting the hell out of Dodge.

Somehow T.O. has managed to create a show with less likable characters than “Rock of Love” and even fewer morally redeeming qualities as “I Love Money.” It’s an exercise in egotistical wish fulfillment - T.O. is famous and wants a show, so someone had to give it to him - and the early reviews have been particularly brutal:

Terrell Owens is one beautiful man and he knows it, oh, Lord, he knows it, and so do his publicists, Kita Williams and Monique Jackson, the forces behind “The T.O. Show,” which premieres tonight on VH1. Why else would the publicity art include a nude portrait of the football star, why else would Owens spend at least 60% of his time in front of the camera shirtless?

Good thing too, because the sculpted pecs, mighty shoulders and perfect abs are just about the only thing the show has going for it. No, wait, I take that back; he has a lovely smile as well.  - LOS ANGELES TIMES

Your mama never warned you to watch out for reality TV, but it can be poison. You sense its brain destructiveness when you get up in the morning, thinking, “I can’t wait to see if T.O. makes it with the real estate agent.”

The T.O. Show is so shallow mosquitoes couldn’t breed in it, though it appears some of the humans are trying to, as Terrell Owens joins up with two publicists, who are also supposed to be his best friends. -PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

What VH1 gets out of the deal, frankly, is less clear, other than a strange amalgam of soap-opera pathos and jock-like bravado, with Owens taking marching orders from his ubiquitous “publicists,” who, given their time commitment to the athlete, surely must have no other clients. - VARIETY

…and don’t even get me started on T.O.’s bodyguard Pablo. Just…no.

Meanwhile, while”The T.O. Show” was premiering, another type of muck was being dredged up in Pittsburgh. PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that Ben Roethlisberger is the subject of a civil suit filed by a hotel employee in Washoe County, NV who says that in July 2008, the Super Bowl MVP called her into his room to fix her TV, and then “forced her to have sex with him.”

Using a little bit of local knowledge, based on the locations given and the date, I’m going to assume this allegedly happened when Roethlisberger was in South Lake Tahoe last year for the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. And if this sounds a lot to you like the allegations made against Kobe Bryant in Colorado a couple of years ago…you’re not the only one. Of course, the big difference here is that these are civil allegations - no criminal charges have ever been filed by Roethlisberger’s accuser.

Finally, former North Carolina wide receiver and point guard Jason Holley was revealed as the winner of Michael Irvin’s “4th and Long” reality TV show on Spike, and with it has earned a shot with the Dallas Cowboys during their training camp. Is it possible to do a reality show about football and not have the Cowboys involved? So help me, if Alvin Harper gets a show, I’m never watching TV again.

Other sports stories from last night:

• ESPN’s Jayson Stark has the details of Pedro Martinez’s contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, and as expected it’s heavily incentive-laden. He is only guaranteed $1 million for the rest of the season, but could make more than double that if he meets certain longevity and performance-based milestones.



(Can Pedro keep his midget well-cared for on $1 million a year?)

• Anyone who questions whether or not Jeremy Mayfield is hooked on crystal meth - as NASCAR and his stepmother claims - should check out this video from a few years ago of him giddily blowing up watermelons and full gas cans. Nope, that doesn’t sound like something a meth head would do at all.
  

• Maybe John Smoltz should have retired last season so he could go into the Hall of Fame with former Braves teammates Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine instead of trying a comeback with the Red Sox, if last night is any indication: he gave up three home runs as the Rangers (and another former Braves pitcher in Kevin Millwood) beat Boston, 6-3.
• A few weeks ago, Quinten Richardson was traded by the Memphis Grizzlies to the Los Angeles Clippers, which pretty much defines “sideways movement.” Last night the Clippers turned around and shipped him to the Minnesota Timberwolves, somehow going from bad to worse. On the plus side, Mark Madsen’s back in Lipstick City. Watch out on the dance floor.
• I guess it’s a job: former big league manager Terry Collins lands a new gig - leading the Duluth Huskies of the Northwoods League. Is this a step up or a step down from managing Team China?
• What to do if you’re eight months pregnant but want to hang out at the sports bar watching your favorite team play. Get a Maternity Jersey, of course. Or as they are otherwise known, “Rich Garces Style.”
• To commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, the Houston Astros wore special patches and caps. In addition, they also went out and got loaded on Tang and vodka.
• Mississippi State might have a first-year coach in Dan Mullen, but they’re already in midseason form in terms of arrests. Leading running back Anthony Dixon has been arrested on a DUI charge, the fifth Bulldog to be nabbed by police this off-season.
• Police have arrested a man who shot and paralyzed former NFL player Michael Woods 27 years ago and charged him with aggravated murder after Woods died from a related kidney infection six weeks ago,
• Tom Watson might have lost out on his bid to win the British Open at age 59, but his equipment sponsor Adams Golf might be a big winner, as their stock price has risen 18 percent since Watson took the tournament lead on Friday.

USC and UCLA, two college basketball powerhouses and two bitter rivals were chomping at the bit to sign Renardo Sidney, one of the top prep talents in the nation. Then, all of a sudden — nothing. Both schools withdrew their interest. What could be so damning about a prospect that schools would back away so quickly, and in the case of USC, after he had already committed?

As always seems the case in the NCAA, the problem was money. More specifically, lots of it and no clear source for it. Both schools aborted their recruiting of Sidney, the number two power foward in the country, due to questions over his family’s finances and an insinuation that they expected to be paid for signing with a school.

If you’ve ever wondered how many potential NCAA violations are too many, even for USC, now you’ve got your answer.

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So when I first saw the headline “Head Football Coach at Mississippi State Up For Bid” on FRIENDS OF THE PROGRAM, I assumed that this was just a logical extension of the recruiting process in the SEC. Why bother fooling around with “supporting” the players when you can just go ahead and purchase the coach outright? Kudos to the Bulldogs for finally being upfront about it.

(This could be you. Unless you are Sylvester Croom.)

But it turns out that isn’t the case. Instead, the school is offering one lucky (and rich) fan the opportunity to be the “head coach” of the White team in the Maroon-White Spring Game later this month. Which is a dream come true for…someone? People must be interested, since the top bid so far is $1,500, and there are still 12 days to go until bidding closes.

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You don’t need me to tell you that practically every state is dealing with massive problems in their jail systems, including severe overcrowding. Because of this issue, prisons are releasing criminals after they have served only a fraction of their time. (And I’m not just talking about Charles Barkley.)

(That’s snow flying around Dontay Walker, not loose cocaine.)

Mississippi is no exception, but this story from the STARKVILLE DAILY NEWS is still pretty appalling. It seems that Dontay Walker, a former starting running back for the Mississippi State Bulldogs, is being let out of jail after serving just four years out of a 25-year sentence given in 2003 for possession of more than an ounce each of marijuana and crack cocaine. A lot more than one ounce.

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This Saturday night, #1 Alabama is expected to roll over Mississippi State when the 3-6 Bulldogs come a-callin’ to Bryant-Denny Stadium. Should be a cake walk, right? Well, Sylvester Croom’s boys have beaten ‘Bama the past two seasons. But that’s in the past, and it’s the Crimson Tide’s destiny to reach the BCS championship. So no need to get all worked up over MSU.

Just don’t tell that to Nick Saban. During the coach’s call-in show Thursday night, Nick got a bit fired up when discussing this weekend’s game. No matter who the opponent, he swears the Crimson Tide crowd better be out there in full force.

Really, he swears. (Video after the jump)

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