Morons

I am a big fan of the Running Utes. My wife graduated from the University of Utah and she is rightly proud of her school and their excellent football team.  It's some of their mindlessly stupid fans that have me shaking my head in both disbelief and anger. They could have cost us a very important game. Ute fans stormed the field three times at the end of the Ute-Cougars game Saturday night and they nearly changed the outcome of the game from their seats, after the punter did his best to undo all his team mates good work (but that's a story for another day).

The drama started on what appeared to be the final play of the game at Rice-Eccles Stadium when a pass by BYU quarterback Riley Nelson hit the turf as time expired. Fans rushed onto the field for the first time, but the game was not over. Officials put one second back on the clock. BYU was given had a chance to tie the score with a field goal attempt, but was blocked by star Lotule Lei. However, the ball was still live when fans ran back onto the field, making it a 15-yard penalty against the Utes and giving the Cougars another attempt at a field goal to tie the game after clearing the fans off the field for a second time.

The game finally came to an end when Riley Stephenson’s kick hit the upright making it no good for the Cougars. Given the few chances for BYU to score after they were brought on by rowdy Ute fans, their conduct should lead to some changes at the U. Arrest and lifetime bans for those who charge field. Drunkenness, stupidity, boorishness and simply not caring past your own loutish fantasies are no excuse for that kind of behavior. The football team (and any other varsity team) work very hard to get their results, and frankly, this one was an upset. Time to get real serious with these losers.

Andy Roddick - One Last Roar

One of my all-time favorite tennis players is calling it quits after both a long, illustrious career and this year's U.S.Open. Andy Roddick has endeared himself to millions of fans worldwide, not just Americans, but everybody. He has been the embodiment of commitment, fearlessness, hard work, sportsmanship and a wonderfully self-deprecatory sense of humor for well over a decade.

Andy is equally well known for his patriotism and desire to play for his country in the David Cup and mentor those younger players the United States has recently blooded. This commitment to American tennis is far deeper than many of his contemporaries who put self above nation. I have high hopes that Andy will continue his march through the later rounds of the 2012 U.S. Open and I would be very happy if he was to win the trophy in his last tournament. It would be only fair for someone who has given so much to the game.

Myopic Deans bashers reveal the ugly head of xenophobia

This week a xenophobic antagonism towards Robbie Deans has emerged in mainstream media. It is being asserted publicly that a New Zealander - and an All Black to boot - can't be trusted to coach the Wallabies to victories over the All Blacks. This is Australian rugby's equivalent of a Barack Obama Birther controversy. Deans has never been accepted as a legitimate Wallabies coach by an unholy alliance of recalcitrant former coaches, players, rugby power brokers and commentators who want to take over the ARU from the establishment. He was given the disgraceful nickname "Dingo" on being appointed. Now, following the losses to the All Blacks at Sydney and Auckland, the nasty implication behind the nickname (''untrustworthy'') has been laundered into the argument that the national coach can only be an Australian.

The proof of this contention, so the dingo line of argument runs, lies in the number of defeats suffered by the Wallabies against the All Blacks on the Deans watch. After the Wallabies went down to the All Blacks 22-0 at Eden Park last weekend, a shaken Deans told journalists that his side had been given a "masterclass in rugby" by the best team in the world. This comment was seized on by the Birthers as a capitulation and an excuse by a coach whose heart wasn't in the contest.

Anyone who knows anything about Deans will understand that the personal attacks on him as a sort of All Blacks stalking horse are nonsense. There is no team in the world with a winning record against the All Blacks. Colleague Josh Rakic has produced statistics in the Herald that show that since 2008 the All Blacks have won 84 per cent of their Tests. Only South Africa (45 per cent winning record), France (20 per cent) and Australia (18 per cent) have won Tests against them during this time. Deans's Wallabies account for almost a third of the 10 All Blacks defeats since 2008. The Wallabies won the Tri Nations last year for the first time in a decade. And two years ago they defeated the Springboks at altitude for the first time in 47 years. This year the Wallabies defeated Six Nations champions Wales in three successive Tests. And they are ranked No.2 in the world. This is not the record of a stalking horse.

To read the rest of this excellent Sydney Morning Herald article by Spiro Zavos, click here.

In our opinion: Former cycling champion Lance Armstrong's fall from fame disappointing

We're not sure which is more disappointing: the hard evidence the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says it has against cyclist Lance Armstrong and his decision not to contest those charges, or the way so few people seem surprised by the prospects of another athletic hero being tarnished.

The disappointment stems not so much from the need for genuine heroes in the athletic world, but from the need for genuine heroes in all walks of life who place integrity and fair play above other considerations, especially money and fame. The young people of the world — themselves vulnerable in a world dominated by people older and more powerful than they — need such examples. They need assurances that success in life hinges on things within their grasp — honest effort and hard work — and not on their ability to secure unfair advantages.

The athletic world has seen its share of heroes fall in recent years. Baseball has been riddled by accusations and admissions of steroid use. Former Olympic runner Marion Jones had to give up her medals and serve time in jail. The unfortunate result has been that virtually any major athletic achievement immediately is tainted by suspicion.

Armstrong's case is particularly compelling because he overcame cancer to become a world-class athlete. His victories were seen as inspirational for people undergoing physical challenges. If he tarnished that record through dangerous drugs that might harm his health, the tragedy becomes doubly distressing.

Armstrong still professes his innocence. His decision not to contest the charges against him in arbitration, however, casts doubt on his claims. The USADA says it has strong evidence he used illegal substances and encouraged teammates to do the same. Ten former teammates reportedly were ready to testify against him.

Armstrong may well have decided that contesting the charges would have posed a never-ending battle against his relentless critics. The reason that seems unlikely, however, is that his decision now costs him his record seven Tour de France titles and his legacy as one of the greatest athletes of his era.

To read the remainder of this Deseret News Editorial, click here.

Mario Balotelli: The Crown Prince of Football

KIEV, Ukraine -- The sweetest moment of Euro 2012 didn't fit the script. In the celebration after Italy's 2-1 semifinal win over favored Germany on Thursday, Azzurri striker Mario Balotelli made a pilgrimage to the stands of the National Stadium in Warsaw and embraced a small, aging Italian woman in the front row. So fearsome on the field, so ready to project anger and strength, the 21-year-old Balotelli melted in her arms like a gentle giant.

It was the kind of warmth you see between a mother and son. Silvia Balotelli, Mario's adoptive mother, had come to Warsaw to support him, and he had done something transcendent, scoring both Italian goals in a breathtaking display of power, speed and skill. But for the polarizing wunderkind of Italian soccer, the one who's on the verge of holding the English Premier League and European titles, the importance of those goals paled in comparison to the emotion he felt afterward.

"The best moment of the night was when I saw my mother after the game," Balotelli would say. "Those goals were for her."

To say that Balotelli is larger than life would be accurate these days, even in a literal sense, thanks to the gigantic piece of crop art showing the back of his Mohawked head in a field near Verona. Balotelli has become a symbol in the world of European soccer, one that has produced its share of ugly moments from others during Euro 2012.

It may be hard to fathom for U.S. sports fans, but racism is still common in stadiums here, and Balotelli has been the lightning rod for much of it. The Croatian federation was fined $101,000 in part for racist chants by its fans that included a banana thrown at Balotelli. On Friday, the Spanish federation was fined $25,000 for its own racist fan chants at the towering Italian. A Ukrainian TV commentator suggested that racist taunts might be useful in throwing Balotelli off his game, as though it were just one more tactic on the field. And then Italy's sports bible Gazzetta dello Sport got into the act before the Italy-England game, publishing a cartoon in which Balotelli was shown swatting soccer balls from the top of Big Ben like King Kong atop the Empire State Building. (The paper later apologized.)

Born to Ghanaian immigrants in Sicily and adopted by a white Italian family, Balotelli has chosen (perhaps not surprisingly) to flash scowls, angry poses and provocative T-shirts (WHY ALWAYS ME?) whenever he scores, whether it's for England's Manchester City or the Italian national team. In England, he has earned a reputation as a prodigiously talented but reckless player who's always in danger of earning a red card, as he did in a late-season Premier League game at Arsenal, drawing a three-game suspension. More than a few observers thought it was foolhardy for Italian coach Cesare Prandelli to choose Balotelli for his Euro 2012 team.

Instead, Balotelli has flipped the script. There has been plenty of poor behavior by players in this tournament -- French midfielder Samir Nasri's profane tirades at journalists, tales of ego-driven meltdowns inside the Dutch camp -- but Balotelli hasn't produced any of it. Refusing to complain publicly when he lost his place in the starting lineup, Balotelli did his job and scored three terrific goals to tie for the tournament lead. (Not coincidentally, he's starting again.) Rather than clash with his teammates, as is so common in these high-pressure tournaments, he has developed a respectful working relationship with frontline partner Antonio Cassano and Italian playmaker Andrea Pirlo. Instead of spewing profanities at the media a la Nasri, Balotelli requested to appear at a podium press conference and came off as mature and even funny, saying he's both a man and Peter Pan.

Balotelli's Italian teammates appear to have genuine affection for him, and in perhaps the biggest stunner of Thursday's win, they managed to draw a smile out of him after his goals.

The closest comparison in U.S. sports that you could probably make to Balotelli would be Dennis Rodman and Terrell Owens in the prime of their careers. Like them, Balotelli has the ability to take over games with his surpassing talent and cleverness. Like them, Balotelli has the tendency to take things too far at times, provoking opponents and becoming his own worst enemy. And like them, Balotelli has acquired a kind of folk-hero status, spawning outlandish tales that resonate because, well, it's Super Mario, and even the ones that aren't totally true carry a kernel of truth.

Did you hear the one about how Balotelli set his Manchester house on fire by lighting a bunch of fireworks indoors? Or the one when he tried a full pirouette on a breakaway against the L.A. Galaxy in a friendly -- and missed? Or the one when he had a traffic accident, got stopped by the cops and responded to their question of why he was carrying 5,000 pounds with: "Because I am rich"? Or the one when he drove around Manchester wearing a Father Christmas outfit and giving out cash to the poor? (The first two are definitely true; the second two perhaps not so much.)

Balotelli has won plenty of fans (and a fair number of critics) during his club career at Inter and Manchester City. But a funny thing happens when a player puts on his country's jersey and scores big goals at a major tournament. You become not just a player but a national hero. It's as though Balotelli, already larger than life, has somehow increased his stature here.

He brought it to a new level in Thursday's game, and then he added a new layer after that. In a tournament that needed a message of racial healing, the photograph of an exultant black player hugging his beaming white mother is a powerful image that needs no explanation.
The sweetest moment of Euro 2012 came from, of all people, Mario Balotelli. Imagine that.

Read more at: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/grant_wahl/06/29/Mario-Balotelli-Euro-2012/index.html#ixzz22XzAljfl

Tennis at the Olympics Must Become a Major

I was watching a stunning 2012 London Olympic match this morning between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, with commentary by the great grand slam champion John McEnroe. McEnroe, in his usual inimitable style remarked that he thought it incredible that the upcoming Rogers Cup competition in Toronto, Canada, carried more points in the world tour for both men and women than playing at the Olympics did. McEnroe went further, suggesting that every four years, the Olympic tennis competition should be treated as a fifth grand slam and that the winners should receive points similar to any other of the regular four majors. 

Tom Chivers, the assistant comments editor of the U.K. Telegraph newspaper, believes that tennis should be dropped from the Olympics altogether. Why? Because, Chivers says, "No one wants to see bored superstars competing in the Olympics as an afterthought. Being an Olympic gold medal winner should, really, be the crowning glory of a sportsperson's career." He is totally right in his assessment but equally wrong in his solution. Having the professional associations, the ATP and WTA, wake up and give the Olympic Games the respect they deserve is the answer.  Give the Olympics Grand Slam status each year held and you will get the appropriate reaction from the players and the fans. Time for the latte drinking jet-setters in charge of world tennis to pull their fingers out and get real, and listen to SuperBrat.

Penn State shouldn't play football

I have spent the last few months talking to people about how youth or high school athletic experiences built their confidence, taught them discipline and basically, just enriched their lives. These successful people talk about how coaches became key figures in their lives, how athletics showed them they were capable of much more than they believed and how much they cherished just being a part of something.

But in the last few days I have been haunted by the Freeh report, which not only confirmed what many people knew, it revealed legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno wasn't the only powerful man covering for a now convicted child rapist. I got a few emails on the subject because last November I wrote a column about how the university should handle the remainder of the 2011 football season. And while I acknowledged there were reasons to keep playing, I suggested the reasons to cancel the remainder of the season were more important. 

I wrote: For me, it came down to one question: Are we our brother's keeper? If we are, then the Nittany Lions shouldn't play any more football games this season. They shouldn't play until an investigation by the university rids them of anyone who knew something and did nothing.

Over time, inaction becomes action. By doing nothing, those who knew chose to allow an alleged child rapist to not only roam free, but to maintain office space in the very same building where they are trying to teach young men how to look out for one and other.

For Penn State to rise from this devastation, they must be what Joe Paterno was not in this instance — courageous, bold and unequivocal.

And, I concluded with this: That coaching staff shouldn't coach another practice or game until university officials finish their investigation. Then, and only then, will it be time to play again. Let's just say I didn't get a lot of support back then.

But in the wake of the Freeh report, there is renewed talk of cancelling football. Some have suggested that if the NCAA doesn't punish the program, the university should (finally) do the right thing and cancel the program for at least a year.

To read the remainder of this article by Amy Donaldson in the Deseret News, please click here.

The BCS is Dead!

Or at least on its last legs, hooked up to a heart-lung machine, just waiting to fade away into oblivion. In a truly important and long overview decision, a select committee of university presidents on Tuesday approved the BCS commissioners' plan for a four-team playoff to start in the 2014 season. This means that the very unfair and very much despised Bowl Championship Series will disappear at the end of next year. This will please just about everyone that doesn't have a vested interest in the status quo. It will also tap into the huge amount of genuine goodwill generated by basketball's March Madness, which is partially replicated.

The move completes a six-month process in which the commissioners have been working on a new way to determine a college football champion. Instead of simply matching the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in a championship game after the regular season, the way the Bowl Championship Series has done since 1998, the new format will create a pair of national semifinals. No. 1 will play No. 4, No. 2 will play No. 3. The teams will be selected by a committee, similar to the way the NCAA basketball tournament field is set, with the winners advancing to the national championship game. Much better than the biased and exclusionary mess we have now.

Armstrong gone from America's best rider to hider

So, now what are we supposed to do with this latest bit of news about Lance Armstrong? That the United States Anti-Doping Agency thinks he’s a drug cheat and that it could strip him of his seven Tour de France titles? And that he’s been barred from competing in triathlons, a pursuit he took up after retiring from cycling last year?

It’s one thing when some French newspaper or some foreign event officials or some disgraced racer claims over the past few years that Armstrong used performance-enhancers and that he should be viewed in a whole different light on account of that, but it’s all together another when the organization charged with the responsibility of heading the anti-doping effort for Olympic sports in the United States, a powerful agency that almost never loses cases, jumps aboard that claim.

Armstrong, who was on a mountain in France when he found out about the charges and declined to meet with USADA inside the required week’s time, thought he’d already beaten the rap against him when the feds dropped a two-year investigation into doping-related crimes four months ago.

This time, he was the only one of a number of U.S. cyclists who refused to meet with the agency upon notification. On Twitter, he referred to the inquiry as a "witch hunt," and added in a statement that the charges were "baseless" and "motivated by spite."

"I have never doped," he said. He has never doped. Man, oh man. Lance, we want to believe you, brother.

It occurs that Armstrong is either the most falsely accused, picked on great athlete ever or he’s harboring a huge secret that, bit by bit, is having its cover blown. He’s gone from the greatest American rider of all time to the greatest American hider.

He has meant so much to so many people in this country for so many reasons far beyond his athletic prowess. After these latest charges broke, I talked with a friend, a cancer survivor, who was inspired to fight his own fight, in part, by Armstrong’s story. If the great racer could battle through and come back from testicular cancer, my friend said, then maybe he also could somehow do likewise against the monster that had settled in the form of a grapefruit-sized tumor on his brain. My friend is nine years clean now.

What, then, does he — or any of us who have been moved by Armstrong — do with this kind of information about the great inspirer?

The read the full article by Gordon Monson in the Salt Lake Tribune, please click here.

The Wonder That Tennis Forgot

He is the unfrozen phenom. Brian Baker was going to be a tennis star. That's where this was headed. A decade ago, Baker was one of the best junior tennis players in the world, the wiry kid from Nashville, Tenn., with the punishing game, so good he would later reach the boys' final of the French Open in 2003. His early résumé contained wins over characters you may know. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tomas Berdych. Novak Djokovic. That's right. The Djoker, the relentless No. 1 in the world, winner of four of the last five Grand Slams. That guy. Baker passed on college scholarships and pushed right into the pros. He had a clothing deal and a racket deal and a future. Life was good.

Ten years ago, Brian Baker was one of the best junior tennis players in the world. But then Baker's body disobeyed him. Maybe "abandoned" is a better word. First Baker hurt his wrist, and missed 10 weeks. Then, in a qualifying match at Wimbledon versus Djokovic, Baker tore his MCL. This actually wasn't so bad. Baker rehabbed his knee and resumed playing, but began feeling pain in his left hip. Hip surgery followed. Then, surgery for a sports hernia. All the while Baker's elbow was nagging at him, especially on his serve. That led to Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Then more hip surgery—another procedure for the left hip, and the right hip as well. It was a spectacular run of medical intervention. Baker won a Grand Slam in the OR.

At this point Baker was 23. Recovery from these latest surgeries was going to take a while. He enrolled in college, back home in Nashville, at Belmont University, the geezer freshman in class. He worked as an assistant coach with the school's tennis team, keeping a foot dangled in the game. He wasn't totally out of tennis, but he wasn't totally in it, either. Meanwhile, players he once handled were ascending to the top of the sport. Baker said he doesn't "like to play the guessing game too much," but he couldn't help but notice.
"You do think about it, especially for the first couple of years," Baker said. He is 27 years old now. He was sitting at a table not far from the tennis courts at Saddlebrook Resort outside Tampa. He looked tan and fit. "You see all these guys having success. Could that have been me?"

For the complete article by Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal, please click here.

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

I'm a Roman, and to me, the expanse between Waveland and Addison on Chicago's North Side is Carthage. The struts and concessions, the catwalk where the late broadcaster Harry Caray once greeted me with all the fluid liquidity of an animatronic Disneyland pirate—Hello, Cubs fan!—the ramps that ascend like a ziggurat to heaven—it's a false heaven—the bases, trestles, ivy, wooden seats and bleachers, the towering center-field scoreboard—all of it must be ripped out and carried away like the holy artifacts were carried out of the temple in Jerusalem, heaped in a pile and burned. Then the ground itself must be salted, made barren, covered with a housing project, say, a Stalinist monolith, so never again will a shrine arise on that haunted block. As it was with Moses, the followers and fans, though they search, shall never find its bones.

The Cubs moved into Wrigley in 1916, when it was known as Weegham Park. Before that, it was the home of the Whales of the Federal League. The Cubs, founded in 1876, had been wanderers, playing on fields scattered across the breadth of booming iron-plated Chicago. The grandest was West Side Park, an opera house for the proletariat, with its velvet curtained boxes, at the intersection of Taylor and Wood on the West Side.

Most importantly, the Cubs won there. The glory years before Wrigley are like the age before the flood, when exotic species thrived on the earth, among them the feared Chicago Cub.

The team was a powerhouse. Performing as the White Stockings (1876-1889), the Colts (1890-1897), the Orphans (1898–1902) and finally the Cubs, they won with regularity. In 1906 they went 116-36, a .763 winning percentage that remains the greatest season in major-league history. In 1907 they won their first World Series; in 1908, with the unhittable Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown and the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combo that was death to nascent rallies, they won it again.

The Cubs then made the fatal mistake of taking up in Wrigley, where the evening sun streams through the cross-hatching above home plate and the creeping shadows form a web that has ensnared the club for a century, where sometimes the wind blows in and sometimes it blows out, and the only constant is disappointment.

To read this wonderful article by Rich Cohen in the Wall Street Journal, please click here.

Why College Football Should Be Banned

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.
That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.

Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.

Who truly benefits from college football? Alumni who absurdly judge the quality of their alma mater based on the quality of the football team. Coaches such as Nick Saban of the University of Alabama and Bob Stoops of Oklahoma University who make obscene millions. The players themselves don't benefit, exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn't benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone.

If the vast majority of major college football programs made money, the argument to ban football might be a more precarious one. But too many of them don't—to the detriment of academic budgets at all too many schools. According to the NCAA, 43% of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision lost money on their programs. This is the tier of schools that includes such examples as that great titan of football excellence, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers, who went 3-and-9 last season. The athletic department in 2008-2009 took in over $13 million in university funds and student fees, largely because the football program cost so much, The Wall Street Journal reported. New Mexico State University's athletic department needed a 70% subsidy in 2009-2010, largely because Aggie football hasn't gotten to a bowl game in 51 years. Outside of Las Cruces, where New Mexico State is located, how many people even know that the school has a football program? None, except maybe for some savvy contestants on "Jeopardy." What purpose does it serve on a university campus? None.

To read the complete article by Buzz Bissinger in the Wall Street Journal, click here.

Soccer ball swept to sea during 2011 Japanese tsunami washes up on Alaskan island 5000 kilometres away

A battered soccer ball that was swept up on the shores of an Alaskan island may be the first piece of debris from the Japanese tsunami last March. The soccer ball, which is covered in Japanese writing, was spotted on the coast of Middleton Island by radar technician David Baxter, the Anchorage Daily News reported. He realized the significance of his find after his wife, who is originally from Hachioji, in western Tokyo, translated the writing and traced it to the name of a school.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration confirmed that the school named on the ball was in a tsunami-hit area. "There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it," the NOAA's Doug Helton said.

According to The Japan Times, the ball belongs to Misaki Murakami, a 16-year-old high school student in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, who lost his home in the disaster. Murakami said the ball, which is covered in messages of encouragement, was given to him by his third-grade classmates before he moved to a new school in March 2005.

"I have no doubt that it is mine," Murakami said. "To be honest, I'm surprised. I want to thank the person who found it, as none of my sentimental items have been found."

The Baxters hope to return the ball personally to Murakami this summer when they take a vacation in Japan, The Japan Times reported. "We're very happy that the owner of the ball is safe. We want to return the ball as soon as possible," Baxter said. "When I first saw the ball, I knew that it had a special meaning to its owner."

The Duke of Hazards

I have to admit that I was completely engrossed in the final round of the 84th U.S. Masters golf tournament yesterday. Everything I did, and I admit it was not a tiring day, centered around that finish. Yes... golf! The sport often compared to watching concrete set or grass grow was mesmerizing!The day started with Swede Peter Hanson with a one-shot lead who then faltered from the git-go while Phil Mickelson made a charge.But Phil threw it all away with a nightmare on the 67th hole when he hit into the trees on a par 3 and then tried to get a reverse swat going to get him out of trouble. Mickelson took a triple-bogey and could never catch up, but at least was in contention, unlike Tiger Woods who never showed up.

Behind this carnage stalked two calm and collected young men, Gerry (Bubba) Watson and Lodewicus Theodorus (Louis) Oosthuisen. Slowly but surely these two drew away from the rest of the field and soon it was a two-horse race. The first hole of the playoff was a normal and almost subdued affair, both obtaining par and setting up for the next hole. The second, played on the 10th hole, was anything but ordinary. Both players hit tee shots into the trees with Oosthuizen blowing a chance to march up the fairway while his partner was looking for his wayward ball in the pine needles. Watson then uncorked an absolute gem of a shot, bending his ball around trees and onto the green, about 15 yards from the cup. Oosthuizen then two-putted while Watson needed only one to win his first major and the coveted Maters green jacket.

Bubba Watson apparently has the longest consistent drive on the PGA Tour, no doubt helped by a whiplash 6' 3" frame. He lost his father to cancer two years ago and the emotion of that lost coupled with the win his father could not be there to see was etched in his face and tears. Watson also drives his "dream car" the general Lee from the Dukes of Hazard fame, but this just seems to fit his personality. However, Bubba my final comment is, after winning the Masters you can now afford to get a decent haircut. May your luck and your obvious nerve hold.

Justice is Done

I have talked enough about this topic, but I am truly relieved that the NFL has stuck to its guns over the bounty scheme issue. National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the one-year suspension he gave New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton for trying to cover up a bounty program that paid players bonuses for injuring their opponents. Payton, 48, appealed the suspension, set to begin on April 16, last week. Goodell handed down the decision -- the stiffest punishment ever imposed on an NFL team and its leadership -- on March 21 after he said Payton lied to the NFL about the program. The commissioner also upheld a $500,000 fine on the Saints, the loss of two draft picks, a half-season suspension for General Manager Mickey Loomis and a six-game ban for assistant Joe Vitt. To do less than this would have been capitulation and cowardly. All credit to you Roger.

Kain-Tuck-Ee!!!

Last night I split my evening between watching River Monsters with my daughter Keziah, and sneaking glimpses of the NCAA Championship game between the two K's, Kansas and Kentucky. My interest was twofold. One, I picked Kentucky to win (with a little help from my friend Jamison who knows more about college basketball than one individual should); and two, March Madness is absolutely brilliant, the perfect end to the basketball season. Despite 1 from 10 in the field shooting on the night freshman MVP Anthony Davis, the Wildcats defeated Kansas 67-59 to win their eighth national title, their first since 1998. Coach John Calipari finally got to add that coveted yet elusive championship to his trophy case.

Snitchgate

I meant to write about this BS when I first heard about it but unfortunately time did not permit. Apparently current Carolina Panthers tight end Jeremy Shockey was outed by former Buccaneers and Raiders defensive end as the "snitch" in the sordid "Bounty Affair" currently embroiling the New Orleans Saints. I say apparently because I didn't see the original tweet where Shockey was blamed. I don't know if Shockey did tell the NFL or not, and frankly it doesn't matter who did. The whole point of the matter is that whoever did so, did exactly the right thing, and deserves a medal for courage and conviction.

Bounties offered by the New Orleans Saints, and if I hear correctly, by other teams as well, are simply despicable. Completely against the mores and norms of society and what should be totally illegal in the microcosm that is professional sport. So to brand someone a snitch Mr Sapp, and I use the term loosely, is just asinine. Warren you should be ashamed of yourself. You obviously think that the bounty program is a legitimate part of the NFL. WRONG. You should be admitting that a bounty on an opponent is sadly pathetic and out of step with what you supposedly stand for, sportsmanship. Time to change your tune.

Following on from this story the Commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, stated in rebuttal that, he didn't just classify Sapp's naming of Shockey as "inaccurate," he also said it was inaccurate to name a single "snitch" and that it was several sources who provided the information to the league office. Goodell didn't fire Sapp from the NFL Network, which would have been just, so maybe Warren will have more time to think before opening his mouth again without engaging his brain. Not that Warren is the only human ever to do that.

Goodell also handed out some very appropriate punishment for some of the officials at the center of "Bountygate", Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely and I admit I would not be unhappy if he never coached in the NFL again. Sean Payton, the heretofore well-respected coach of the Saints, has been suspended for a year. How the Saints are going to cope with that is beyond me right now. For me personally, my respect for Payton and soft-spot for the Saints has well and truly disappeared.

Tebow's brother says QB back at 'square 1' on deal

Robby Tebow was all set to root for his brother, the newest member of the New York Jets. Now, he's not so sure where Tim Tebow will end up. And, he's not alone. Playing at a pro-am golf tournament at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando, Fla., Robby Tebow said Wednesday that he and the Denver Broncos quarterback thought a trade to the Jets was a done deal. "Like he was signed, sealed and delivered," he said. "Apparently, they didn't read the fine print."

The Jets announced early Wednesday that they had agreed in principle to acquire Tebow for draft pick as a complement to starter Mark Sanchez. Denver general manager Brian Xanders said the Broncos would receive fourth- and sixth-round draft picks, while New York would get a seventh-rounder - all in 2012. But then Robby Tebow's phone started buzzing. Tebow Time on Broadway? Well, not quite yet. "They're working on it," Robby Tebow said. "I think the Jags are back in play. We're almost back to square one."

"We want to go where somebody wants him - that's where he wants to be," Robby Tebow said. "We'll figure it out. They're working on the contract; all those guys doing what they're paid to do." ESPN first reported that provisions in the quarterback's contract are causing complications in the completion of the trade. The hang-up came hours after the Jets declared they were bringing the polarizing quarterback to New York. It's just another bizarre moment for the Jets, a team that has had its share of them over the years, conjuring memories of Bill Belichick's hiring as coach and his resignation one day later.

Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, who led the Jets to their only Super Bowl title in 1969, was among those unhappy with the possible deal. "I'm just sorry that I can't agree with this situation. I think it's just a publicity stunt. I can't go with it. I think it's wrong," Namath told 1050 ESPN Radio. "I don't think they know what they're doing over there." The Jets will have lots of explaining to do - no matter whether the deal goes through or falls apart.

To read the full Sports Illustrated article, click here.

Good Luck

Roman philosopher Seneca once prophetically wrote that "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity".  The preparation has been all too obvious over the last two years for Stanford's Andrew Luck as he made himself into the presumptive No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft. He was runner up in both 2010 and 2011 in Heisman Trophy voting... no mean feat. He was named the Offensive Player of the Year in the Pac-12 Conference in both 2010 and 2011. In 2011 alone, he was rewarded with the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Award as college football's player of the year. He was also named a 2011 First Team All American. On top of these feats, he led Stanford to its highest rankings in decades.

Opportunity has also been highly visible this week. In one swift move, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay cleared all obstacles to Luck's seemingly  inevitable rise in the Hoosier State by discarding the Colts favorite son, Peyton Manning. Couple this with the Colts having the worst record in the league in 2011 and therefore secure in the right to first choice from this years crop of recruits. Almost everyone expects Irsay to follow his first maneuver with the selection of Andrew Luck as his new rookie and starting quarterback.

Heated debate will surely continue to follow, and has indeed already flown around the NFL, as to the wisdom of Jim Irsay's line of reasoning. In a purely business sense his thoughts are clear; Manning was too much of a guess, too old and too potentially fragile to take the chance. And despite, love and loyalty, Indianapolis is still a business concern, no more - no less. Coach Andy Reid had to make the same difficult decision with his protegee Donovan McNabb at Philadelphia, and it was the right one then. Time will only tell if the Colts have been as astute.

Bounty Hunting

Having played and watched many different kinds of football (rugby union, rugby league, Australian Rules and American), all can be equally hard hitting, But I still cannot come to terms with professional teams, not only advocating, but paying players to injure and maim opponents. I am floored that in this day and age such gladiatorial pursuits are being allowed to occur, but to find that such practices are widespread is appalling.We are not in Rome, two thousand years ago, with bear baiting and  thumbs turned down by some mediocre aristocrat with the arbitrary ability to decide life or death. Football at its best is tough enough anyway, without some head hunter, trying to rip your limbs off. I am touched that Brett Favre is willing to forgive, but bounty incentives have no place in modern sport, PERIOD. End of discussion. Gregg Williams and all other coaches like him, in whatever sport, should be not only fired, but completely banned from ever coaching again.

Here are some links to the better coverage of this appalling issue:

• "Pay for Pain: Why the Bounty Scandal Looks Terrible for the NFL", Sean Gregory, TIME.
• "Saints looking at severe punishment for bounty system", Peter King, Sports Illustrated.
• "Payton, Loomis remain silent as Saints bounty investigation widens", Dob Banks, Sports Illustrated.
• "Breaking down the potential legal fallout of Saints' bounty system", Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated. 
• "Evasiveness of Saints GM, coach detailed in league summary", Steve Wyche, NFL.com.

Listen, Peyton: It's time to quit

The NFL never has had it so good. With record attendance numbers, monster TV ratings, and both labor peace and mega broadcast deals locked up for the next 10 years, it’s all rainbows and lollipops in commissioner Roger Goodell’s world.

Super Bowl XLVI was the most-watched sporting event ever in the US, Giants receivers Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham had the best seats in the house at the Grammys on Sunday night, and the NFL draft will cause twice as much buzz on Twitter as any presidential debate in 2012.

And that’s why Peyton Manning needs to retire.

As the quarterback and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay continue to maneuver in a strategic chess game of public relations and misdirection, my thoughts are on the league, the NFL shield, and the future of the game’s greatest ambassador.

Whether Manning has been medically cleared by doctors or not — Manning was cleared by two different doctors last week, but Irsay insists he hasn’t been officially cleared by the Colts organization just yet — the fact the longtime face of the NFL had three very serious neck surgeries in 19 months should cause widespread concern and caution. For whatever reason, it hasn’t.

As my fellow members of the media scramble to photoshop images of number 18 in Redskins and Dolphins jerseys this week, I can’t help but side with TNT’s Charles Barkley, amazingly the one clear-minded, rational thinker on the subject with a national platform. Last week, Barkley told reporters: “My first opinion is that I don’t think Peyton Manning should play football again. You’re talking about a neck. I know he’s got a couple of young twins. I don’t think he should play football at all.”

The four-time league MVP had spinal fusion on Sept. 8. That surgery, the last of the three, was, by far, the most serious.

Reports of Manning’s return to the field were breathlessly covered by an adoring NFL media last week. Agent Tom Condon got the word out to his cohorts in the press that the workout went well and the reviews were rather positive, across the board. With the exception of NFL Network’s Mike Lombardi, who said Manning struggled throwing the ball to his left, the response was overwhelmingly rose-colored.

"He threw it accurately, he threw it with a good, tight spiral and he threw it with velocity,'' said former Colts GM Bill Polian, now serving as a media talking head, himself. “Marked progress” was the term Polian used on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption.”

But this isn’t Joe Namath playing on two bad knees for the Rams. This isn’t Joe Montana slinging it for the Chiefs with a surgically repaired elbow. It’s not Bo Jackson fielding fly balls with a new hip in Comiskey Park. This is, arguably, the most recognizable face in NFL history coming off major neck surgery.

Call me a coward, call me a worrywart, call me a Debbie Downer — but that still worries me.

Click here to read the full Fox Sports article by Peter Schrager.

Under Siege - Wilson Ramos

In crime-ridden Venezuela, every celebrity is a potential target and baseball stars have become an inviting mark. Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos is one of the lucky ones—he survived his kidnapping. But he knows that escaping poverty and fulfilling major league dreams can land you in a different kind of prison.

To the many levelheaded conspiracy theorists of Venezuela, at least this part of the story rings true: There was a kidnapping on Nov. 9 in a concrete slum of Valencia, a major city near the coast of a socialist republic whose 29 million citizens currently are as likely to be kidnapped or murdered as any population in the Western Hemisphere. Which is not to say that they don't enjoy themselves. At the moment of his abduction Wilson Ramos, the starting catcher for the Washington Nationals, sat in front of his childhood home with his father and brothers, drinking a Polar beer and reminiscing about his day at the beach by the Caribbean Sea. His mother was inside, thinking about dinner, which would have featured thick corn fritters, called arepas, with sausage and eggs, when a Chevrolet Captiva SUV pulled up and two strange men got out. They had guns.

The kidnappers had chosen a rare and dangerous target. It would not be unusual to snatch a Portuguese shopkeeper near Caracas and get away with it, because his friends would take up a collection for the ransom and no one would tell the police. You might even take the relative of a Venezuelan ballplayer, as other kidnappers had done at least five times in the past seven years. But to take the player himself in a nation that loves baseball even more than America does? You would have to be one crazy band of malandros.
 
But they recognized a narrow window of opportunity. They had found Ramos in the vulnerable space between making the major leagues and buying the security that his fame had suddenly necessitated. This is the devil's bargain of the Venezuelan major leaguer: Success comes with a terrible price. He has two main options. He can stay away from his country altogether, or he can build a fortress. High walls, razor wire, prisonlike security doors, private guards in watchtowers—these things signify realism, not paranoia. Ramos, who was getting ready to spend the off-season playing for the Tigres de Aragua of the Venezuelan winter league, earned $415,000 with the Nationals last season, but he still lived with his mother and five siblings in a small concrete box of a house with a corrugated metal roof and no sink in the bathroom.

A few days earlier he'd bought a new house in a safer neighborhood with seven bedrooms and a garden. But there was no hurry to leave the old place. Here young Wilson and his brothers had played baseball in the street with a broomstick bat and a ball of crumpled tape. Here Wilson had gone from the pudgy kid his family called Pipo to the man of the house after his parents' divorce. Long before he signed his first baseball contract, as a 16-year-old scooped up by the Minnesota Twins, he put food on his family's table. He found a horse wandering in the street and collected money from neighborhood children for rides. He caught tropical birds in a homemade trap baited with honey and sold them to a local pet store. A part of you dies when you start a new life. Wilson had not yet scheduled a moving day.

"Nobody move," one of the gunmen said, according to Wilson's younger brother David. "If anyone moves, they'll get shot."

At first Wilson thought the men were garden-variety thieves who wanted his jewelry and cellphone. He took off his gold chain and offered it up. That didn't help. One of the gunmen shoved him into the Captiva. From the kitchen his mother heard screaming.

"They took Pipo! They took Pipo!"

It happened that a family friend named Reinaldo was holding the keys to Wilson's Chevy Tahoe. Reinaldo and David and two other young men jumped in the Tahoe and sped off to chase the kidnappers. They had no gun and no plan, other than a vague notion of ramming the vehicle, and so it was probably best that they never caught up with the Captiva. Wilson was gone. And now his relatives had little choice but to put their faith in the Venezuelan authorities.

There's a joke in Caracas that goes something like this: "If you get robbed, don't shout. The police might come." The federal government, never known for its timely or reliable statistics, recently estimated that as many as one fifth of all crimes in Venezuela are committed by the police. The line between cops and criminals is further blurred by vigilantes who wear black ski masks and carry out summary executions with tacit approval from the authorities. This duality reaches the upper levels of government. A general might be supplying arms to Colombian drug smugglers. A prosecutor could be running an extortion racket, and the journalist who blows the whistle on him could be accused of plotting his murder. Conspiracy theories run wild, propagated by President Hugo Chávez himself: He has implied that American operatives somehow gave him cancer, and he once exhumed the 179-year-old skeleton of his hero, 19th-century Venezuelan liberator Simón Bolívar, in a fruitless search for evidence of assassination.

Click here to read the rest of this compelling Sport Illustrated article by Thomas Lake and Melissa Segura.

Stripped Alberto

Alberto Contador, the exceptional Spanish cyclist, is now not just synonymous with endurance and speed. Unfortunately for him and the sport of cycling, which for years has struggled to rid itself of a tainted image, he is now known as a cheat.I had hoped against hope that Contador would find a way to prove that he was clean, but his was not to be.So now there is a new winner of the 2010 running of the Tour de France, Andy Schleck. Schelck himself has stated that he does not want to win the race this way, and I understand his desire to prove himself on the road, having also been runner-up to Cadel Evans in 2011. However, all good intentions aside, if Contador is indeed guilty, then Schleck should have and could have won it had Alberto not cheated.

Here are links to further articles related to this story:

• Alberto Contador found guilty of doping, stripped of 2010 Tour title, Sports Illustrated.
• I have not won the Tour de France: Andy Schleck feels sad for Alberto Contador, Sydney Morning Herald.
• Contador's Tour dreams shattered by two-year ban, Reuters Canada.
• Why the Wheels Came of the Lance Armstrong case, Time.

Tell the Hungry Tiger Not to Bite

Telling a giant running back in full stride, inches from the line, not to score a touchdown is like pleading with a hungry tiger not to bite. Instinct, training and a huge hole opening in front of him put Ahmad Bradshaw on the horns of a dilemma, 'to score or not to score' as Shakespeare might say. Maybe it was the fact that he only had a second or two to decide what to do after Eli Manning requested the impossible. Ahmad slowed down, fighting with himself, pirouetting none to gracefully, and then backed into the end zone, buttocks-first. It was almost comical. Like a slow motion elephant ballet. I guess the bottom line is that if you are in the position to score, that's what you should do - every time. Then trust in your team mates to protect that hard-won lead.

Canadian wins Jackson to Park City sled dog race

Blayne "Bud" Streeper, of Fort Nelson, British Columbia, has won the International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race for the fourth time. Streeper finished with an overall time of 19 hours, 52 minutes, 42 seconds. He also won the race in 2004, 2010 and 2011.

Aaron Peck, of Grand Prairie, Alberta, took second with a cumulative time of 20:09.27. John Stewart, of Scotland, was third with a final time of 20:23.40. The race began Jan. 27 in Jackson and ended Feb. 4 in Park City, Utah. Besides Jackson and Park City, the race went through nine Wyoming communities.

The International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race was founded in 1996 by Frank Teasley to make sled dog racing more accessible to the public. This is the kind of race and effort of endurance from which epics emerge. I can't ski or skate to save my life so people that can come through this kind of ordeal are superhuman to me. Amazing!

Elfstedentocht!!!

Sports events across Europe are falling victim to the continent's deep freeze, but the Dutch are ecstatic, hoping that the revered "Eleven Cities" speedskating race can be staged later this month for the first time in 15 years.

The race, held along a 125-mile (200-kilometer) network of canals connecting 11 towns and cities in northern Friesland province, would cause a national frenzy, drawing thousands of participants and more than a million spectators. It was last held in 1997.

Wiebe Wieling, chairman of the Frisian Eleven Cities Association, told a nationally televised news conference on Monday that organizers hope to hold the event, known by its Dutch name "Elfstedentocht," but added: "The weather will determine what happens next."

He said ice is still too thin along southern parts of the route over which some 16,000 participants will skate if the race goes ahead.

But the national weather service forecasts freezing temperatures at least through Friday, fueling hopes. "We want nothing more than to organize the 'Elfstedentocht,'" Wieling told reporters. "We have been waiting 15 years and we're doing all we can."

As nations across Eastern Europe have been gripped by cold weather and heavy snow for more than a week, the Netherlands has had temperatures of -14 Fahrenheit (-10 Celsius) or lower and little snow.

The grueling race is one of the most deeply cherished Dutch traditions. Though people have skated along frozen Friesian canals for centuries in cold winters, the race — first officially organized in 1909 — has only been staged 15 times.

It is open only to members of the Frisian Eleven Cities Association, which holds a draw each year to establish who is allowed to take part. The invitation-only nature and its rarity only adds to the allure.

Winners become overnight celebrities in this country where speedskating is one of the most popular winter sports and the thousands of others who finish forever cherish the small enameled cross they are awarded. Participants are given a card at the start that they have to get stamped at stations along the route to prove they have covered the entire course.

The last man to win the race, farmer Henk Angenent, completed the 1997 event in six hours, 49 minutes. The winner of the 1963 race — which was held in extremely cold and windy conditions — took just under 11 hours.

I Found a Leopard who Changed his Spots

I have never liked Tom Coughlin, never been able to warm to him. For a number of reasons really, some selfish and some valid. My team is the Eagles and they are in the same division, and personally I think that although we both (Giants and Eagles) didn't have best of regular seasons, that the Eagles would have done just as well if they had made it into the post season. We were on a roll too.

Then there were the many times I have watched him openly berate a player for a mistake while coaching the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Giants too. I just thought that this behavior was disgusting, and I didn't see any of the really good coaches replicating that rubbish. But this season Coughlin's sixty-fifth year seems to have mellowed him. Not any less passionate, just better able to reach out to and react to players and their foibles. All of us make mistakes.

Maybe I now have to change my opinion, be a better man, and recognize that like me, Tom can change his spots too. By many accounts the new Tom was largely responsible to keeping his team together this year in the face of adversity. Good for him, his team needed it, and the proof is in yesterday's Superbowl victory over the New England Patriots. It's good for all us to know that our spots can be changed, as we all need hope.

Here are some excerpts from an Associated Press article written by Tom Canavan:

• “What I was concerned with was these guys making their own history,” Coughlin said. “This is such a wonderful thing, these guys carving their own history.”
• “Each one is very unique, and this one is just as exciting, probably more so because of the kind of year we had,” Coughlin said. “What a wonderful experience it was to see the team come together like they did. Our defense started to play very well, we gained some confidence, and as they say the rest is history.” 
• That history will show was that it was Coughlin who kept this team together through early season injuries, a four-game midseason losing streak and a depressing loss to Washington in game 14 when they lost a share of first place with a no-show performance.
• His final topic was family and love, not what one would expect from a man who is known as a disciplinarian. Coughlin, however, has learned how to reach young players lately and this message sunk in.

Unforgiven!!!

Got a glimpse of Derek Fisher during the Jazz's big 96-87 thumping of hated rivals the Los Angeles Lakers the other night. Not only did he shoot poorly which pleased me no end, but I have to admit my lip curled into a snarl when I spotted him. I still haven't forgiven him or the players association for their pathetic behavior during the lockout. If Mr. Fisher thinks the fan's have forgotten he's got another think coming, because we certainly haven't.

The players who were so adamant in pursuing this course (millionaires squabbling with billionaires) in this financial climate when everyone else is struggling to make ends meet still have a long way to go to win back the hearts of the fans. I do not include those players who were content with their lot and give so much back to their communities, I am talking about the Kobe's, the Fisher's, the LeBron's and so on. So there are big crowds, big deal, they aren't there for the players, they are there for their TEAM! You have a long, long way to go Derek Fisher. But I did enjoy you and your Lakers buddies getting whooped by a small-market team with real heart!

Federer and Nadal on Opposite Sides

I had to repost this from Greg Couch on Fox Sports. Great story on two semi-opposing viewpoints and their impact on those around the two "rivals", yet good friends. Such things can happy to us all in families and this about a family...

You might have heard that Federer and Nadal — the greatest, nicest individual rivalry in sports — are having a tiff. Nadal complains that the tour has too many mandatory events, is too grueling, has almost no offseason and is beating up the players. Federer, as the president of the player council, doesn't seem to notice.

"For him, it's good to say nothing," Nadal said. "Everything positive. 'It's all well and good for me. I look like a gentleman,' and the rest can burn themselves."

Nadal is right. Federer is oblivious. But this is a much bigger problem than two superstars bickering. The players are in serious need of a union. So many of them know it, but they just can't seem to figure out how to get it done. At the US Open in September, Nadal, Andy Murray and Andy Roddick went in unity to tournament officials to complain about being forced to play on slippery, rained-on courts just to make TV networks happy.

"It's the same old story," Nadal said. "All you think about is money."

That seemed to be the beginnings of a union. Now, Federer suddenly is an obstacle. And Nadal is example No. 1 of why the union is needed. So the rivalry takes on a different tone.

What makes Nadal an example? The thing is, at just 25, he is starting to get old. He can feel it. He can see it.
On the court at the Australian Open Wednesday, the year's first major, he had a knee brace on his right leg. His shoulder was hurting. He was using a heavier racquet in an attempt to drive through serves and get points over with quicker.

Also, he isn't running as fast as he used to.

The other day, his knee popped so loudly and painfully while sitting on a chair, that he had to have tests done, and considered withdrawing from the tournament. Instead, he did beat Tommy Haas, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, to advance to the third round.

"I love the game and there's a lot of things I'm grateful for," said Nadal, who is VP of the player council. "The game has allowed me to lead a fantastic lifestyle. But to finish your career with pain all over your body? Is that a positive? No.

Click on the link because there is much more.

Aussie eyes on Bernard Tomic to break the drought

Teenager Bernard Tomic will be carrying the hopes of a nation on his young shoulders. It has been a long time since the heyday of Australian tennis with champions like Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Lew Hoad, Yvonne Goolagong and Margaret Court. Aussies ruled the courts during a twenty year span from the early fifties through the early seventies. The last of this group was Mark Edmondson who stills remains one of the lowest ranked players to ever win a major. Sadly, Eddo was the last local to win the Australian Open whose 2012 version begins tomorrow in Melbourne. Sure, we have had Pat Cash and Lleyton Hewitt on the men's side since then, however, although great champions, they were the exception, not the rule.

Tomic yesterday won his first major tournament in the Kooyong Classic against American Mardy Fish who was a revelation in 2011. This was no mean feat as Fish is currently sitting at No. 8 in the ATP Tour rankings. Tomic has shown great promise for a number of years and looks like making good on this showing. For Australia, it just might herald a new era in tennis if Tomic can do well in the Open. With gutsy Samanatha Stosur breaking through to win the U.S.pen last year, Australians may finally have something to cheer about with an Australian winner of their homegrown championship. With Ashleigh Barty, the number 2 ranked female junior in the world, maybe Australia is poised for a return to some of their glory years! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi.

Freestyle skiers hit the halfpipe despite Sarah Burke’s still-critical injury

Sarah Burke, a 29-year-old who now calls Whistler home, remained in critical condition at University Hospital in Salt Lake City after a successful operation Wednesday to repair a tear to a vertebral artery that caused bleeding in her brain.

Burke remains at the University of Utah Hospital in critical condition. She is under close monitoring by a multidisciplinary team coordinated by neurointensivist Safdar Ansari.

"Sarah remains in critical condition in the Neuro Critical Care Unit,” said Ansari. "With traumatic brain injury, our care is focused on addressing the primary injury and preventing secondary brain damage, as well as managing other injuries sustained at the time of the accident; all of which requires close monitoring and intensive care. At this moment, Sarah needs more time before any prognosis can be determined."

Medical experts say such a tear can cause bleeding that disrupts blood flow to the brain, which in serious cases can lead to brain damage or death.

Doctors are monitoring her brain function before making definitive pronouncements about her chances of recovery.

Because of her situation, members of the French team training at the Park City superpipe didn't want to talk about the accident.

"We know her and love her and hope she's going to be better," Guenet said. "We send our best to her family and her husband, too. We know him, too."

Burke, a four-time Winter X Games champion in halfpipe skiing, has been one of the leading pioneers to have it included in the Olympics.

She was considered a favourite for the Sochi Games and was gearing up to defend her latest X Games gold medal this month in Aspen, Colo., when she suffered a devastating injury Tuesday afternoon.

Six-pack Serena is cut and set to run

WHEN everyone is talking about a body part in the build-up to a grand slam tournament, it usually means that one of the key players is struggling to pass a fitness test.

 

But in the case of this year's Australian Open, it is not Serena Williams's dicky ankle that has grabbed the nation's attention, but her finely honed six-pack, which was caught on camera when she went out to practise on Rod Laver Arena in a crop top.

It was a revealing moment, in every sense, and you had to wonder whether Williams was sending a signal to her rivals. Could those sharp-edged abdominals mean that she is readying herself for a tilt at the big prizes this year?

Williams likes to act the part of the couch potato. She told reporters that ''I've actually never liked sports and I never understood how I became an athlete. I don't like working out; I don't like anything that has to do with working physically.'' The physical evidence tells a different story. There can be little doubt that Williams, who has declined to appear in any tournaments since the US Open last September, has been putting in the hours.

If she can improve her speed around the court then Williams still has a strong enough game to destroy any of her younger challengers. When she made her comeback last year, Williams had spent a year out of the game and undergone surgery, not just for her wounded foot but for a life-threatening blood clot as well. It was hardly surprising that she was a little slow. Yet even then, she was good enough to reach the final of the US Open, where it took a career-best performance from Sam Stosur to stop her.

Stosur should be a challenger here. There are several other strong contenders: not only Kim Clijsters - who has been drawn in the same quarter as world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki - but Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and China's Li Na, last year's runner-up at Melbourne Park.

Telegraph, London
Simon Briggs

Canadian skier Sarah Burke critical day after accident

Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke was in critical condition Wednesday, a day after she was airlifted from the mountains of Utah to a Salt Lake City hospital with injuries after a training accident in the superpipe. The nature of Burke's injuries has not been disclosed.

In a statement released by Burke's publicist, a doctor at University of Utah hospital says Burke "sustained serious injuries and remains intubated and sedated in critical condition."

Chris Nelson, assistant vice president for public affairs at the hospital, said Burke was having surgery Wednesday afternoon.

The 29-year-old Burke is widely considered the foremost pioneer for her main sport of freestyle halfpipe. She lobbied aggressively to have it included in the Olympics, where it will debut in 2014.

"She not only gave the sport legitimacy but opened the door into a much broader spectrum," said Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle skiing program.

She is a four-time Winter X Games champion and had been scheduled to defend her 2011 title later this month in Aspen, Colo.

Burke fell while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort, an accident that witnesses said didn't look as bad as it turned out to be, Judge said. She was on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered traumatic brain injury after a near-fatal fall on Dec. 31, 2009.

Burke's husband, freestyle skier Rory Bushfield, was with other family members at the hospital.
"Sarah is a very strong young woman, and she will most certainly fight to recover," Bushfield said in a statement.

The whole of Utah wishes her all the best for a speedy and complete recovery!

FIFA Ballon D'Or 2011

Argentina’s Lionel Messi collected the FIFA Ballon d’Or, his third consecutive title while Japan’s Homare Sawa claimed her first FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award at the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala held at the Zurich Kongresshaus this evening.

Pep Guardiola, the Spanish coach of FC Barcelona, and Japan’s women’s national team coach Norio Sasaki were the respective winners of the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football.

Messi’s and Guardiola’s FC Barcelona side concluded 2011 with victory in the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan, sealing another fine year which also included the UEFA Champions League, La Liga, Spanish Super Cup and UEFA Super Cup titles.

Japan’s women’s team, known as the Nadeshiko, memorably claimed their maiden FIFA Women’s World Cup with a thrilling performance, twice coming back from behind to eventually defeat the USA on penalties after extra time.

These awards were decided after a poll in which the captains and head coaches of the men’s (for the two men’s football awards) and women’s (for the two women’s football awards) national teams, as well as international media representatives selected by French football magazine France Football, voted for candidates in each of the four categories. Each group’s votes represented one third of the final result.

It was an unforgettable night, with many former and current football stars on the stage and on the red carpet. The international audience were entertained by Swiss music group TinkaBelle and British singer/songwriter James Blunt.

The FIFA Ballon d’Or was awarded for the second time tonight, following the amalgamation of the FIFA World Player of the Year award with the France Football Ballon d’Or in 2010.

Lionel Messi won the FIFA Ballon d’Or after polling 47.88 of the votes, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo (21.6)%) and Xavi (9.23%).

Sawa, winner of the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award, led Japan to the title at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in Germany, where she also won the adidas Golden Ball as the best player of the competition and the adidas Golden Boot for her five goals. She collected 28.51% of the votes, ahead of Brazil’s Marta and Abby Wambach from the USA, who received 17.28% and 13.26% respectively.

Pep Guardiola secured the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award with 41.92% of the votes, ahead of Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson, who received 15.61%, and Jose Mourinho, the Portuguese coach of Real Madrid (12.43%).

Meanwhile, Norio Sasaki led the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football category with 45.57% of the votes, ahead of Pia Sundhage, the Swedish coach of the USA women’s national team (15.83%), and France’s women’s team coach Bruno Bini (10.28%).

FIFPro, the world players’ union, had invited 50,000 professional players from all over the world to select their best team of 2011, the FIFA/FIFPro WORLD XI. The honours went to the following all-star squad: Iker Casillas (Spain) in goal; Dani Alves (Brazil), Gerard Piqué (Spain), Sergio Ramos (Spain) and Nemanja Vidic (Serbia) in defence; Xabi Alonso (Spain), Andrés Iniesta (Spain) and Xavi (Spain) in midfield; and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Wayne Rooney (England) up front.

The FIFA Puskás Award for the “most beautiful goal” of the year as voted for on FIFA.com and francefootball.fr by more than 1.5 million fans was also handed out. This prize, created in honour and in memory of Ferenc Puskás, the captain and star of the Hungarian national team during the 1950s, went to Brazil’s Neymar for his fantastic goal in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A match between Santos FC and Flamengo in São Paulo on 27 July 2011.

Sir Alex Ferguson received the FIFA Presidential Award from President Joseph S. Blatter for his outstanding dedication, commitment and service to football. On 6 November 2011 Sir Alex Ferguson completed 25 years as manager of Manchester United. During that period the club have won over 30 different trophies, including 12 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, two UEFA Champions Leagues and the FIFA Club World Cup.

The FIFA Fair Play Award was given to the Japan women’s team, who had to endure many hardships following the earthquake which struck their country in March 2011, and during which many people lost their lives. The team showed great courage to make it to the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011, ultimately lifting the trophy for the first time. The award was collected by the President of the Japan FA, Junji Ogura, and by the captain of the team, Homare Sawa.

Simone Farina was recognised on stage for his courage in denouncing an attempt to get him to fix a match. The player of Serie B club AS Gubbio in Italy was complimented by the FIFA President for his action and applauded by the audience.