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The Daily Digest for Monday, 7 January 2008 |
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January 07, 2008 |
≡ The Daily Digest ≡
 I don't want the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi! |
= To Our Readers =
We signed an agreement last August to place a daily audio show on a new Internet site to be called TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv. It was supposed to launch September 4, then September 24, but the site is still not live. Maybe some day it will launch, but we’re not optimistic.
We are delighted to say that our readership has never been stronger and our Web statistics program shows that TheSportsExaminer.com had more than 1,000,000 page views in December. Since you seem to like what we’re doing, we’ll continue for now, posting a weekday note and sending out the Tip Sheet to keep you informed. Thanks so much for your support.
= Tonight’s Menu =
>> The college football season finally ends tonight with 11-2 LSU essentially at home in the Superdome to face 11-1 Ohio State. The Tigers are a 3 1/2-point favorite with an over-under of 48, so the final is supposed to be 26-22 for Les Miles. The Buckeyes are 0-1-1 all-time against LSU and 0-8 against SEC teams in bowl games. One major question is whether LSU can move the ball against the Ohio State defense: the Tigers average 448 yards a game and 38.7 points; the OSU defense allows 228 yards a game and 10.7 points. And LSU gave up 93 points in its two defeats – both in overtime – to Kentucky and Arkansas.
>> On the ice, 20-18-2 Nashville comes to Anaheim to face the 21-17-6 Ducks. The Quack Attack is 6-3 against the Predators in their last nine meetings and so they’re favored on the money line: it takes $175 to try to win $100 on the home team while $115 could return the same $100 on the Music City boys.
>> If you’re looking ahead to next week’s NFL playoffs, the early lines have the Packers by eight over the Seahawks and the Patriots 13 over the Jaguars on Saturday, with the Colts an eight-point pick over the Chargers on Sunday and Dallas a 7 1/2-point favorite over the Giants.
= L.A. Stories =
>> What’s Bruin: See our daily blog on UCLA sports at LATimes.com!
>> Talk of Troy: Reggie Bush is used to be stalked by agents, hangers-on, shoe clerks and others, and the New York Post reported Friday that he’s now being used as a launching pad for publicity by his reported girlfriend:
WANNABE “It Girl” Kim Kardashian is still cashing in on all the tips on how to get press that she learned from former friend Paris Hilton. Kardashian has her publicity team working overtime to squelch rumors that she’s engaged to her beau, football star Reggie Bush, who was spotted massaging her feet at Mansion in Miami at 3 a.m. New Year’s Eve. But the buzz-busters face a major challenge: Kim’s friends keep insisting the two are getting hitched. “Kim is trying to create attention in her life because nothing else is really going on with her,” said our source. “The whole debate over her engagement is buzz, and that’s what she wants. She’s not engaged, but her friends are telling all their celeb weekly contacts that she is.”
At least Bush is in the news; he disappeared off the football field as the Saints missed the playoffs.
= Panorama =
>> College Coaching Carousel: June Jones upped his annual salary from $800,016 to more than $1.8 million by moving from Hawaii to SMU today, but his agent said it wasn’t about the money.
“It’s never been about [money],” said Leigh Steinberg, in comments to the Honolulu Advertiser. “It was about commitment.”
In specific, Jones was tired of a second-class budget for Hawaii football, including what he considered threadbare offices and a now-famous $50,000 recruiting budget. Star quarterback Colt Brennan complained in mid-season about having to bring his own soap to the Hawaii locker rooms.
For its part, Hawaii reportedly offered to increase his salary to $1.3 million annually over a five-year term plus a $1 million bonus if he stayed for all five years. At SMU, he will receive $1.8-2 million annually to work the same magic he did at Hawaii. When he took over the Warriors job in December of 1998, the football team was coming off of an 0-12 season. He had seven winning seasons in nine years there and was 11-3 and 12-1 in the past two season, culminating in a Sugar Bowl appearance on New Year’s Day.
SMU, once a power, has never recovered from the “Death Penalty” imposed by the NCAA over multiple rules violations (ending in 1989) and now plays in Conference USA. The Mustangs were 1-11 last season and 0-8 in the conference.
>> More Carousel: Although the hiring of Jones at SMU leaves only the Hawaii job open at present, Purdue’s Joe Tiller is rumored to be unhappy about the school looking ahead to his successor.
Tiller is 65 and has a nice 83-54 record at Purdue in 11 seasons there. He’s had the Boilermakers in 10 bowl games and is under contract through the 2010 season. But Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke placed Matt Painter on Gene Keady’s basketball staff before Painter took over and now the Indianapolis Star reports that Wisconsin offensive coordinator Gene Chryst could be on his way to West Lafayette to be the coach-in-waiting.
The Star also reported that Tiller may be so unhappy about the move that he might leave now. Hey Joe, been to the islands recently?
>> Hog Calling: Mike Conley has an Olympic gold medal for his victory in the 1992 triple jump competition in Barcelona and has a promising start as a sports agent, representing Greg Oden and his son, Mike Conley, Jr. in the NBA. He’s also well remembered in the sport for wearing an Arkansas hat almost anywhere he goes, as he’s a devoted Razorback, having won an astonishing 16 NCAA long jump and triple jump titles in his four years in Fayetteville.
But he’s mortified about the publicity surrounding his purported purchase of a car that was given to Arkansas running back Darren McFadden prior to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on January 1. “It will hurt me for the rest of my career,” he said, after saying that the report was false.
“On the national level, people associate my name with this incident and that’s all they know about Mike Conley and that’s all they will ever know,” he told the Northwest Arkansas Morning News last week. He said he hadn’t thought about whether to file suit against KARK-TV of Little Rock, which first reported the story. After a heated denial from Conley, McFadden’s family and an investigation by the Arkansas athletic department about whether any NCAA rules were broken, KARK issued an apology for “any distress he has experienced.”
Conley is right that the incident will hurt him . . . right up until he scores a significant endorsement contract for a new client and is seen flashing his famous smile next to a corporate executive!
>> London Calling: The newest spectre of disaster over the 2012 London Games is a simmering labor dispute between the government and the UCATT building union over pay scales for the upcoming stadium construction. The union wants a “single pay structure” in which all works on Olympic projects are paid the same, but the Olympic Delivery Authority has not agreed to this.
History shows that construction unions can seriously damage a Games. The worst example came in 1976, when the Montreal Games ran more than $1 billion (Canadian) over budget and the Stade Olympique was barely finished in time for the Opening Ceremonies. The financial fiasco was one of the signatures of that Games and the debt was only retired last year, a stunning 31 years after the Games took place.
>> Baiting the Bear: The newest Games to be threatened by local disharmony is the 2014 Olympic Winter Games site, Sochi, Russia. The Greenpeace group in Russia is considering suing the International Olympic Committee with the idea of having the IOC take the Games from Sochi and place them elsewhere, something which has never happened in the history of the Olympic Movement. According to a report on the Interfax Russian wire service, the activist group is unhappy about the place of the bobsleigh and luge track, an Olympic Village and biathlon course in the Grushevy Ridge area, in what it says is the migration path of “many animals.”
~ Rich Perelman
>> Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below!
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