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• Along with sister Ashley, Courtney has hit the drag strip as another hot hot-rodding Force to be reckoned with.
• High school cheerleaders in Texas can sure pull off some crappy pranks.
• Broncos WR Brandon Marshall appears to enjoy beating up women.
• This soccer celebration on top of a Brazilian bus could have gone better.
• Danica Patrick signs some boobs in her latest TV commercial for Boost Mobile. Sounds sexy, right? Well…
You were awful in Little League as a kid, which prematurely ended your dreams of being a professional athlete. Throughout high school you harbored hatred for the jocks, and as a grown man you reached a breaking point one lonely morning watching “SportsCenter”. So you took it upon yourself to target a group of athletes who have no business being where they are, even if their fame is based in pity. So, wanting to take out your aggression on a differently-abled, “slow” group of youngsters, and seeing the Nationals weren’t visiting your town, you assault a bunch of Special Olympic kids.
That’s my expert psychoanalysis of David Schwartz, who could cure cancer next week and would still be forever known as “The douchebag who threw a chunk of metal at disabled children during the Special Olympic Torch Run.” I hope they print it on your tombstone, f**ker.
As Richard mentioned in this morning’s Speed Read, President Obama was on Leno last night, and he unexpectedly made an off-handed quip about the Special Olympics. When discussing his bowling game with The Big Chinned One, the commander in chief commented on his low-ball score of 129, adding that “It was like Special Olympics or something.”
Even before he got back to Washington, while flying on Air Force One, Obama phoned up Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver and apologized for his comments. And Shriver seemed ready to accept the Prez’s apology:
“He was very sincere, expressed an interest and an openness in being more engaged in the movement and said he was a fan of the movement and I think importantly he said he was ready to have some of our athletes over to the White House to bowl or play basketball or help him improve his score.”
Well, one Special Olympics bowler glady accepts Obama’s challenge!
If the early games in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday were kind of a bust (except for the Memphis vs. Cal State Northridge game; sorry, no love for the “scrappy underdogs” - way to blow it, Matadors!), then the late games were … marginally more exciting. There was an actual upset, with No. 12 Western Kentucky taking down No. 5 Illinois, 76-72.
But then again, most experts were predicting that Western Kentucky would win this game ahead of time, due to the loss of the Illini’s starting point guard Chester Frazier with a broken hand, and the return of Hilltopper’s mascot from a broken right … orange blobby thing.
No, the late games were more notable for the near misses than the upsets. Take No. 6 UCLA, which almost fell apart completely against Virginia Commonwealth, nearly blowing a 10-point halftime lead and having the ball in the hands of Rams star Eric Maynor with time expiring and a chance to win the game. (Not the person you want with the ball if you’re UCLA - just ask Duke) Fortunately for the Bruins, Darren Collison came to the rescue, forcing a hurried, off-balance miss from Maynor to hold on to a 65-64 win.
Speaking of blowing a lead … poor American. Just like their namesake economy, their 14-point second half lead against Villanova went into a deep recession, and there was no bailout package coming from the government. Playing in front of a partisan Philadelphia crowd (thanks, seeding committee!), the No. 3 Wildcats rallied later to survive a scare from the No. 14 Eagles, 80-67.
(Note to American University: nice try in attempting to gain our sympathy with your name: the American Eagles. Why don’t you just call yourself the American Heroes Who Died On 9/11 Who Will Weep In Heaven If You Root Against Us? It’s about as subtle.)
Not having trouble advancing was No. 2 Oklahoma, who trounced No. 15 Morgan State 82-57 behind 28 points and 13 rebounds from star Blake Griffin. However, Griffin did have one moment of problems: specifically, when the Bears’ back-up center Ameer Ali decided to practice his armbar takedown on Griffin after they got tangled up together:
It should go without saying that Ali was ejected, and then immediately escorted to St. Louis for the NCAA Wrestling Championships. Ali says the whole incident was unintentional and “a misunderstanding,” which I would only believe if I was Billy Packer and he was a Duke player who just shattered Tyler Hansbrough’s face.
(Not only has Griffin had to deal with this and sustaining a concussion a few weeks ago, but remember the cheap shot he received from USC’s Leonard Washington at the start of the year as well. Either Griffin in such a pacifist than he makes Gahndi look like Genghis Khan or he’s going to snap and pummel someone to death with his sneaker by the end of the tournament. Maybe this explains why he feels the need to lash out at society by peeing in bushes.)
For those of you who are part of the 80 percent of American males who managed to come down with a 48-hour bug starting yesterday morning, your slate of games today look good enough to help you cope with your “debilitating illness”. There are several games that have “Upset Special” written all over them, which probably means that the games will go chalk all day.
In other sports news from last night you might have missed as you polished up your…ahem…resume for a Rhode Island strip club’s job fair:
The headline pretty much says it all. And, suffice it to say, it’s not exactly the feel-good story of the weekend: A man has been accused of raping a mentally handicapped woman during a Special Olympics basketball practice.
According to THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT, Michael Allen Miller, 36, confessed “to twice having sexual intercourse with the woman, who suffers from Down syndrome and has the mental capacity of a 6-year-old.”
Yeesh.
Seems like the Jets trading for quatrogenarian mad bomber Brett Favre and dispatching weak-armed Chad Pennington was a home run for Eric Mangini’s charges, eh? If you listened to NFL TV domepieces since the deal, you’d think the move means the Jets now will do a better job throwing the ball deeper down field.
One small detail though, the Elias Sports Bureau reports that over the past four years, Pennington has been much, MUCH more effective than Favre on passing attempts of 20 yards or more.
Tim Graham of ESPN.com yesterday highlighted the figures in his blog, which I heard about today on Dan Le Batard’s WAXY-AM show in Miami. As you might expect, those statz has South Florida a little more excited about Pennington, with equal parts bemusement.
Great find by A.J. Daulerio over at DEADSPIN:
(Someone might consider upping the wattage on those softboxes)
Sean “The Brand” Salisbury has been unearthed doing commentary for a new site called OpenSports.com. Salisbury will apparently be on the Mike Florio schedule (seven days per week). We’ll see how long that lasts.
Honest to god, the first thing I thought of when I saw the URL “OpenSports.com” was it was somehow related to the gay sports site OutSports.com. But alas, Tim Hardaway is apparently not among the new site’s early wave of hires (though he’s available).
It’s a little amusing to see Cris Collinsworth covering the Olympics, but he’s no less qualified than half the reporters on-site. NBC Universal employees right now must feel a little like the National Guard. You can be 50-years-old and hopelessly underqualified for the job, but that doesn’t mean you won’t soon be in a funny looking uniform, halfway ’round the world on 48 hours notice.
Sports TV execs are enjoying a brief respite from Jim Gray, as the mostly-unemployed broadcaster has called off the stalking for now, after landing the prestigious role of “boxing reporter,” on NBC’s Olympic coverage. I wonder if a monitoring anklet was part of the arrangement - and Dick Ebersol checking into his hotel as “Charles Bronson.”
