8:00 PMJeRome Wilkins, a former University of New Hampshire football player accused of sexually assaulting a woman outside a house, said in court Friday that he did have sex with the woman but that it was consensual.
7:30 PMRafael Nadal says he was given a surprise drug test Saturday a few days after a French TV show lampooned doping allegations against Spanish athletes.
Wednesday night I posted video of new Michigan football coach Brady Hoke referring to UM’s Buckeye rivals as “Ohio” over and over and over again.
At the time I posted the footage, I wasn’t completely sure that Hoke had deliberately enacted an abbreviation-based embargo on Michigan’s interstate neighbors.
Now I am.
Today I was sent a photo of a rather unique clock currently on prominent display in the Michigan football team’s weight room that rules out Hoke’s halfway characterization of the Buckeyes as anything other than gamesmanship. The Wolverines coach has installed a reverse countdown clock in the UM conditioning facility that tracks the exact time ’til Michigan takes the field against Ohio State on Nov. 26, 2011. Under the clock’s display is a Buckeye football helmet and the words, “BEAT OHIO.”
But “Ohio” isn’t the only UM rival assigned such in-house hokum by the Wolverines coach.
Hoke also has a backwards-running clock for Michigan’s Oct. 15, 2011, East Lansing engagement with Michigan State.
A supposed quote by Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio - apparently uttered at a recent gathering of Ohio high school football coaches in Columbus - is also noted by a sign erected in the same UM training area: Read more…
So far during his young tenure, new Michigan coach Brady Hoke has repeatedly taken to calling UM’s Columbus-based arch rival “Ohio” instead of the more customary “Ohio State.”
Having covered Ohio State football as a local, credentialed media member myself for several years, I can assure you that Hoke’s insistence on abbreviating The Ohio State University during press conferences and interviews, whether deliberate or not, is not going over well in Columbus.
And though his “State” embargo doesn’t extend to East Lansing, what else is Hoke supposed to call the Spartans?
UPDATE: It’s official. I talked to a UM athletic department staff member Thursday morning and was told that Hoke is indeed engaging in some gamesmanship with the Ohio “State” embargo.
There are many ways for a coach to deal with a tough loss. Most involve profanity, raised voices, and a hair-trigger temper, ready to unload a fusillade of invective at that miserable fat piece of f*cksh*t who missed on that block in the third quarter and let the defensive end decapitate the star QB. That’s usually how a loss goes. But longtime Ohio State coach and opponent-puncherWoody Hayes had his own way of dealing with the stress of a loss: conducting post-game interviews naked.
That got us to wondering, though: Seeing Woody Hayes give an interview while buck naked would be repulsive. But it could probably get worse, yes? Of course it could; Hayes is hardly the worst-physiqued man in college football history. So after the break, we present the 5 worst coaches to see naked in college football today. Buckle up, bulimics; today’s your lucky day.
In 2007, students at the Ohio State University voted in favor of erecting an on-campus statue to salute legendary Buckeyes football coach Woody Hayes. A year later, it appears that idea has been sacked.
(Woody enjoying spring practice in Columbus)
THE WIZARD OF ODDS punches up news that no further progress has been made in honoring Hayes. No artisan contracted, no location determined, not even the type of material for the statue has been decided.
Pryor & his Jeannette High School teammates scuffled with players from North Catholic after the Jayhawks’ playoff victory on Saturday. Catholic coach Dave Long said the Jeannette players went after his squad outside the locker rooms. But Pryor claims the Catholic kids started it with verbal attacks of their own: Read more…
With the presidential race in full swing, THE WIZARD OF ODDS digs up this little political gem from Woody Hayes, as the ex-Ohio State coach endorses one of his former Buckeyes running for Columbus City Council:
Even though Hayes was a staunch Republican, he apparently had no trouble doing an ad for Democrat Ben Espy. Good to see that for Woody, party lines don’t matter when punching up political support for ex-players.
TRESSEL NOT BUCKEYEING CLEVELAND FOR FUTURE VISITS: It’s not bee a good year for the fine folks of Cleveland. First, the Cavs fail to win the NBA championship, let alone one game in the Finals. Then Browns fans had to endure a Brady Quinn holdout.
Now, Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel will no longer be making yearly stops to their fair city.The CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER reports that the Ohio State Alumni Club of Greater Cleveland was told by Tressel and the OSU Alumni Association that this would be the last year the Buckeyes leader would make a guaranteed appearance.
The turn of events will end a continuous streak of head coach visits to the Cleveland club that began back in 1952, starting in the second season of Buckeye legend and unsuccessful boxerWoody Hayes.
The Alumni Association says they want to offer more groups better chances of getting Tressel to speak at their locales, claiming there are about 80 OSU alumni clubs in Ohio and another 117 outside the Buckeye borders.So, it wouldn’t be fair to deprive the good folks of Zanesville, Ashtabula and East Liverpool their Tressel trips. And it’s not like Cleveland’s a big city with thousands of Buckeyes fans or anything.
The LOS ANGELES TIMES reports the rock band Dead Schembechlers will headline tomorrow’s “Hate Michigan” pep rally in Columbus, Ohio.
Some of the band’s setlist includes: “Bomb Ann Arbor Now,” “I Don’t Wanna Be A Wolverine,” “Schembechler Kicked My Crippled Dog” and “Bo for 24,” a reference to former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler’s “failing to win a national championship in his 24 years” as UM head coach.
