Oh, So This Was Why Rich Rodriguez Was Crying

I was wondering what possibly could have been in the water supply yesterday as first Bill Belichick, and then Rich Rodriguez began crying during their respective press conferences. Could the Michigan coach really be that broken up over allegations that he’s violating NCAA practice rules?

Rich Rodriguez

Then comes news that our maize-and-blue man in charge is being sued for a condominium deal gone sour in Blacksburg, Virginia. And not only that, Rich was recently served a summons right in the Wolverine football offices. Yeah, that always makes me cry.

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The “Runaway Beer Truck” Gets Popped For DUI

College football fans will likely recall Matt Vasgersian’s epic call of Owen Schmitt’s touchdown in West Virginia’s upset win over Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. As the burly Schmitt barreled down the sideline en route to a long touchdown, Vasgersian yelled, “Like a runaway beer truck!”

Owen Schmitt
(This isn’t a mugshot, but whatever his mugshot looked like is undoubtedly inferior to this.)

It was an iconic nickname in an era where so few are spontaneous and evocative, and one that stuck with him as he joined the NFL. Spontaneous and evocative, yes, but now, extremely unfortunate.

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Week In Review: No Steroids in MLB, Why Watch?

• Major League Baseball without steroids is like porn without the silicone.

Monster Implants In Porn Like Steroids In Baseball

Just don’t blog about the subject with Raul Ibanez.

Rodney Harrison doesn’t like how the NFL has become “soft and pansy“.

• A Fox News morning show lambasts MTV for Bruno’s ass-ault on Eminem - then does a segment with a Fox reporter doing basically the same thing to a lingerie football player.

Tim Floyd takes off from the Trojans. What, and leave the Song Girls?

• Soon-to-be newlyweds Kendra Wilkinson & Eagles WR Hank Baskett are expecting a baby. On the other side of the spectrum, Barry Bonds’ wife demands a divorce.

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Did Someone Beat The Hell Out Of Bob Huggins?

All right kids, it’s time to take out your WTFmeters. This is not a drill. I think we’re about to hit Ludicrous WTF.

Bob Huggins Black Eye
(Can’t you put some, um, foundation on that?)

Yes, that’s West Virginia (via KSU and, most notably, Cincinnati) head coach Bob Huggins. He’s traded in his gold suit for two black eyes, it seems, which hardly seems like suitable attire for the banquet he’s attending.

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Speed Read: Cubs Riding Hard Liquor Bandwagon

It wasn’t enough for Diageo, the makers of Smirnoff vodka, to invite the good folks of Phoenix out to see their hockey team free with the purchase of a bottle of booze.  Now they’re plastering their name across The World’s Largest Beer Garden in an attempt to make further inroads into the sports scene. That’s one way to pay for stadium upgrades if you won’t pony up to the governor.

Drunk Boozer Wrigley Field Cubs fans

Wrigley Field will now host the Captain Morgan Club (a restaurant) and the Smirnoff Patio and provide lovely mixed drinks to the fans that like to do a little drinking around 10 am at home and then ride the El to Addison and start downing car bombs around 11:30 am for a 1:20 pm start.

If Cubs fans aren’t careful, they might even put Toronto Blue Jays fans to shame.  That’s not easy to do, either; they can’t be stopped even if Daddy takes the alcohol away for a game.  (Not to mention the gratuitous nudity.)

Also gratuitous: the entire 2008-2009 NCAA women’s basketball season. The University of Connecticut Huskies won their 39th straight game by double-digits to complete their undefeated season and claim the nation’s crown.

Connecticut Huskies

Stanford University of Louisville kept this game competitive for about as long as you’ve been reading this article thus far, which still might be the best effort of the year for a UConn opponent.  This could be the point for a snide joke about going pro in a little something we call life, but these young women are already professional assassins.  Yikes.

We know the short-lived hole in the media filter (and the filter on media members themselves) caused by Twitter will soon close and leave us with more canned responses and layers of personal marketing protection.  As we speak, there are businesses springing up around the management of social spaces and new media integration and other phrases that dampen the soul.

For now, though, we live in truly awesome times.  Example: Bill Stewart (West Virginia’s head football coach and the antithesis of R-Rod) has been carrying on like a blessed fool on Twitter, including how he threw all the kickers out of a meeting or how he gets so fired up by Chubby Checker that he sprints into practice at 4:15 am.

West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart

Go like this, Coach Stewart.  Go like this all morning long.

And now the twisting hail of bullets that Carl Landry could heal up from in only three weeks

Francis Buxton

  • Stan Kasten, president of the Washington Nationals, went on Philly radio and told Phillies fans just how much they were welcome to fill those increasingly empty seats at Nationals Park, having apparently forgotten that D.C. sports fans survive the surprisingly harsh winters by burning compressed carbon logs of their own hate for other teams.  You’d think Stan Kasten had bigger fish to fry, frankly.  For example, Dmitri Young just called Stan Kasten’s house because he heard Kasten’s hosting a fish fry.
  • Your NBA Draft early departure update: Blake Griffin (as mentioned late yesterday), Jodie Meeks, and everyone in the city of Tucson.  They’re gonna need a bigger green room.
  • Senator Ted Kennedy threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park on Opening Day.  Senator Bill Frist saw this video and declared Kennedy alive and well, raising his batting average to .500.
  • The San Diego Padres have one chance at a title: Miss California Carrie Prejean (a former “Deal or No Deal” model) will be competing for the Miss USA title in Vegas on April 19th and she’s a former member of the Padres’ “Pad Squad”.  It’s good that she’s no longer with the organization or Becky Moores might demand weekend visitation rights.

Carrie Prejean, Miss California 2009

How many majors for Tiger Woods this year?

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Speed Read: Buzzer Beaters Punch NCAA Tickets

If you are only going to hit one basket in a game, hitting the shot that sends your team to the NCAA Tournament is good time to do it. And that’s just what Robert Morris University guard Dallas Green did (not the former big league manager), picking up a loose ball and draining a baseline jumper with 2.5 seconds left to give the Colonials a dramatic 48-46 victory over Mount St. Mary’s to win the Northeast Conference Championship.

Dallas Green

But as exciting as the final three seconds or so were, the first 39 minutes and 57 seconds were just as ugly. As in, “hey, look, ‘Sports Soup’ is on!” bad. The second half was pretty rough to watch, and that was a huge upgrade over the first half: the halftime score was 19-19, and the leading scorer for the game was RMU’s Jeremy Chappell (seen below celebrating) with 15 points.

Jeremy Chapell

But in the end, it was Green who provided the heroics. Which rubbed his opponents the wrong way:

Mount St. Mary’s guard Jeremy Goode was particularly stung that Green — a player who even Robert Morris coach Mike Rice admitted was the fifth option on the play — was the player who hit the decisive shot.

“It hurts more,” Goode said. “You’d rather see a guy who makes shots the whole time he has been here make the game-winner. Not [Green] though.”

I’m sure that Green is going to be very upset about those comments…as he and his teammates prepare for the NCAA Tournament, while the Mount St. Mary’s team prepares for a long off-season. But based on the game last night, I doubt that Green or that rest of the Robert Morris team should be game planning for more than one game.

(And in case you were curious, Robert Morris guard Mezie Nwigwe played despite being arrested on assault charges after a fight this past weekend, scoring a whopping three points in 18 minutes.)

Portland State clinches Big Sky

There was another ticket punched to the Big Dance last night which also ended in dramatic fashion. Portland State squeaked past huge underdog Montana State team (who finished the season 14-17) to win the Big Sky Championship. The Vikings also used a last-second shot to clinch their spot, as Julius Thomas dunked with 3.5 seconds left for the winning points in their 79-77 victory. Hopefully they can avoid being a No. 16 seed again, like they were last year before getting thumped by Kansas.

Quinton Rampage Jackson pickup truck

Meanwhile, coming on the heels of the death of TapouT clothing co-founder Charles “Mask” Lewis being killed in a gruesome car crash, there was more bad news from the MMA world. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson broke his jaw in his UFC 98 victory over Keith Jardine on Saturday, which will force him out of his light heavyweight title match against Rashad Evans. Unbeaten Lyoto Machida is taking his place. Let’s hope that Rampage finds a healthier way to deal with his disappointment than before.

(And about the crash that killed “Mask” Lewis: the police are now looking into street racing as a cause of the accident, and it turns out that Lewis had at least eight traffic violations since 2001, including a DUI.)

Other sports stories floating around as you pondered who will make Bristol Palin an honest woman:

Which of these four bubble teams has the best case for an NCAA bid?

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U Of M Paid $6.6M For Rich Rod To Win 3 Games

Here’s something that will make your day, Michigan fans. With an unemployment rate of over 10% in your state, you might not have job, but your football coach is doing pretty well for himself. Michigan paid $6.6 million to compensate Rich Rodriguez for winning three games in 2008.

Rich Rodriguez point

In addition to the $2.5 million he made in salary and other compensation, the university kicked in an additional $4.1 million to cover part of the buyout Rodriguez owed his former employer in West Virginia.  The athletic department is separate from the rest of the school financially, but that’s still a lot of dough for not much return.

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Speed Read: Kings Turn Back Clock, Beat Lakers

Suddenly it was 2002 all over again for the Lakers vs. Kings rivalry last night in Sacramento. The Arco Arena crowd was hooting and hollering and the Maloofs were acting like giant cheeseballs, high-fiving, bear-hugging and giving lap dances to anyone within reach. Sacramento temporarily forgot how lousy they are in delivering a 113-101 beatdown of Los Angeles that really wasn’t that close. Wake up the echoes of Vlade and C-Webb, indeed.

John Salmons and Kobe Bryant

What the game came down to was defense, specifically the Lakers’ total lack of it. They were unable to stop the high pick and roll, leaving the Kings with huge lanes to the basket to score or dish for threes. This is not a good sign for the Lakers going into tonight’s game against Steve Nash and the Suns, even if Shaq isn’t playing.

That’s three bad performances in their last four road games against average to awful teams (Indiana, Washington, Sacramento), which should be enough to silence any talk about 70 wins. But before Lakers fans go calling their therapist for a new prescription of Zoloft, they should remember that the team is still 17-3.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Mo Williams

Meanwhile in Cleveland, a legendary Cavaliers superstar reached a huge career milestone. Congratulations to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who had set the franchise record for career rebounds in the team’s 114-94 rout of the Toronto Raptors. And oh yeah, some guy named LeBron James tried to horn in on the Big Z’s big night by setting the team’s career mark for steals and chipping in with 31 points.

Other sports news to read while you consider calling in gay to work today:

    Wayne Rooney and accused killer Anthony Corsi

  • Apparently, about the worst thing you can do in England is tell someone they look like Manchester United star Wayne Rooney. THE SUN reports that drunken slur in a taxi line led to one man’s death while the Rooney lookalike is currently facing manslaughter charges.
  • The DETROIT NEWS has word that big-mouth former Michigan QB and mediocre MLB player Rick Leach thinks that former Wolverines coach Lloyd Carr should “support” the guy who replaced him, Rich Rodriguez.
  • An Australian politician rues to the HERALD SUN that having soccer players overstay their visas and apply for asylum is one of the risks of hosting the Homeless World Cup.
  • The WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL notes that Ted Turner and TBS have been found guilty of a breach of contract in the sale of the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers and ordered to pay $316 million in damages. Turner immediately protests that this “was nothing like an episode of Law & Order.”
  • Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller is cross that a ref swore at him during Monday’s game against Pittsburgh, says the BUFFALO NEWS. Reg Dunlop does not approve.
  • A good hint for coaches: don’t tell the press that it’s impossible for your team to win a game against your No. 1 rival, and Real Madrid’s Bernd Schuster said ahead of his team’s game against Barcelona. Not surprisingly, the NEW YORK TIMES reports Schuster’s been sacked. Also, don’t believe any rumors that Stephon Marbury is heading there to be the next coach.
  • 20 years later, Billy Ripken talks to CNBC’s Darren Rovell about his infamous baseball card. He still gets recognized “a couple of times a week” because of it - three guesses what people call him. Hint: it rhymes with “duck race.”
  • Stephen Curry: he’s streaky, but he’s also really good, as anyone who saw his second-half performance against West Virginia can attest to. The NEW YORK TIMES has all the details.
  • The latest name to enter the CC Sabathia Sweepstakes? The San Francisco Giants, who apparently weren’t burnt badly enough by Barry Zito to swear off big money pitchers. But Giants’ GM Brian Sabean tells the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS his team is just a “fallback” option if Sabathia doesn’t sign with the Yankees.
  • Remember when Texas Tech QB Graham Harrell said there was a “great chance” that Mike Leach wouldn’t be back coaching the Red Raiders next season. Turns out he’s changed his mind, says the AP (via the SEATTLE TIMES).

Which high-priced free-agent is some team going to most regret signing this off-season?

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You Can Exhale Now, Longhorn Fans: 28-24

Oklahoma State played like the second-best team in the nation this afternoon. There was one tiny problem, however, with Oklahoma State’s virtuoso performance, and that is that they were facing the best team, Texas. The Cowboys’ feisty resistance kept them in the game all day long, and Texas was only able to escape, 28-24, after a last-second Hail Mary fell harmlessly to the turf, batted down at the 10-yard line. Sure, superman WR Dez Bryant had gotten past the Texas secondary, but that’s mainly because the secondary was playing the ball, which was nowhere near Bryant when it came back down to earth. It was a gritty, gutty fight on both sides, though, certainly a better fight than (ahem) Oklahoma put up, and only the most careless of pollsters will drop Oklahoma State more than a spot or two for this loss.

Texas Happy

Elsewhere in college football this afternoon… Read more…

Speed Read: Phillies Not Fanatical About Hitting

Deciding to listen to Tim McCarver blather his way through World Series commentary on TV or turning the sound down and listening to the dulcet, confused tones of Joe Morgan on the radio is like choosing between swallowing broken glass or sliding down a razor blade hill - both choices hurt. But I went with the radio guys for Game 2, mainly because of Jon Miller. And as usual, Morgan got stuck on a mantra he kept repeating over and over throughout the game, this time about the Phillies’ not being able to hit with runners in scoring position.

Rays fan with Joe Maddon sign

Unlike many of his obsessions, he actually was right about this. But it doesn’t take a Hall of Famer to know that hitting 1-for-15 in a game (and 1-for-28 for the Series) is bad. And while they were able to find a way past the Rays in Game 1, they couldn’t on Thursday, as Tampa Bay held on for a, frankly, uninspiring 4-2 win to tie the Series at one game each.

Phillies bench during Game 2 of the World Series

Anyone who kept claiming that this was going to be the most entertaining Series possible can shut up now - of course Red Sox vs. Dodgers would have been more fun, and it couldn’t have been played at a more average level. This Series is less sizzling through two games as it is melting. At least we have things headed over to Philadelphia, where I’m sure the fans will be in fine spirits. Enjoy the trips, Rays!

West Virginia running back Noel Devine

Meanwhile, Auburn was busy just plain fizzling against West Virginia, as Noel Devine made “SEC speed” seem like a stoner going 20 miles per hour on his way to Taco Bell for some munchies. It was big run after big run, as Devine wound up with 207 yards rushing as the Mountaineers throttled the Tigers 34-17.

Think the fact that a supposedly “quality” SEC team just got waxed by an underachieving Big East squad will lead anyone to start questioning the conference’s credentials? Nah, didn’t think so either.

Here’s what else was happening while you were checking out The Flintstones’ kitchen:

Which Tampa Bay Ray is going to get the most heat from Phillies fans during Game 3?

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