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Weekly briefing for Monday, July 7, 2008 |
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July 07, 2008 |
≡ 7 Days ≡
 Uga: will always be present at Sanford Stadium |
= To Our Readers =
You can now find us in two different places on the Web: in addition to The Sports Examiner, we now write three times a week on Olympic sports for the World Championship Sports Network site, WCSN.com in a column called “Inside the Rings.”
Here at The Sports Examiner, we have changed our format to include a weekly intelligence briefing, with commentary, for the astute sports fan called “7 Days” on Mondays and a bonus posting called “Fun & Games” during the week.. Thanks again for your continued support; please ask your friends to sign up for the Tip Sheet and the free newsletter.
= The Top Story =
>> Norbury, England: Beyond the hype and the billions of dollars, maybe what’s closest to a real Olympics may be taking place in some tiny villages near the England/Scotland border.
The village of Norbury, along with nine other surrounding villages will form four teams on July 13 and compete in some running and cycling races, including one in fancy dress, and finish with a tug-of-war over the village stream in Norbury.
The total population of all the competing villages is about 1,000, according to news reports. No television rights have been sold and the event has no sponsors, other than that it is being organized by the area churches. The competition will be a lot friendlier than that in Beijing in August.
Doesn’t this seem closer to the mark than even the ancient Games?
= The National Pastime =
>> Milwaukee, Wi.: Miller Brewing announced a new contest in which any fan of legal-to-drink age who catches a grand-slam home run during the remainder of this season will get free Miller Lite for an entire year! Of course, the offer is only good in those states where such a giveaway is legal, which may be none, other than Wisconsin, of course! Also, Miller didn’t say if it was covering the cost of medical treatment for fans who get crushed in the rush to retrieve a grand-slam home-run ball!
>> New York, N.Y.: The Miami Herald reported that Cynthia Rodriguez is planning to file for divorce from Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, citing his extra-marital activities. The two were married in 2002 and have two small children, three-year-old Natasha and two-month-old Ella.
Comment: The big winner is neither Rodriguez; it’s the paparazzi! With A-Rod soon to be go where he pleases, when he pleases, photographers will be hanging out at every strip club in every town the Yankees play.
>> Arlington, Tx.: It’s harder to know which was more unlikely: that Texas’s Milton Bradley stormed out of his dugout in mid-June and ran for the press box to “introduce” himself to the Kansas City broadcaster who just called Texas’ Josh Hamilton a “good role model for Milton Bradley, who clearly has no control over himself,” or that Bradley (.320, 17 HR, 54 RBI) will be the Designated Hitter for the American League (replacing Boston’s David Ortiz) in this year’s All-Star Game in New York. OK, it was being named an All-Star.
>> Omaha, Nb.: The best news from an entertaining 2008 College World Series: ESPN’s nine-game ratings averaged a 1.1 rating, up 22% from last season. The final game of the Fresno State-Georgia series drew a 2.0, ESPN’s second-highest college baseball rating ever.
= The NBA =
>> Seattle, Wa.: This hysteria courtesy of columnist Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times after the city of Seattle made a deal that allows the movement of the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City immediately:
Basketball died in Seattle Wednesday afternoon. It died because too many people who should have cared didn’t. It died of neglect. It died because all of the powers-that-be stopped paying attention.
It’s no secret that the sport has been sick in this city for a long time. There have been so many bad front-office decisions for so many years, basketball has been on life support since president Wally Walker let coach Nate McMillan fly south to rebuild the Portland Trail Blazers.
. . .
Basketball is dead and don’t look for any miracle resurrections. Chances are good that an entire generation will grow up in this town without the NBA to watch.
Comment: What a bunch of hooey. Living in Los Angeles, I’m old enough to remember when we had two NFL teams here – the Raiders playing at the Coliseum and the Rams in Anaheim – and they’re both gone. We get along just fine, and in fact, get more access to the NFL on television than ever before because neither of our “local” teams sold their games out that often. Grow up.
= On Campus =
>> Knoxville, Tn.: The University of Tennessee announced that it has extended the coaching agreements for both basketball coach Bruce Pearl and football coach Phil Fulmer into 2014. The biggest cheer came from the operators of one of the best sites covering Southeastern Conference football: FulmersBelly.com!
>> Los Angeles, Ca.: UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero isn’t going to allow Ben Howland to even think about leaving, so Howland agreed to a new, seven-year contract that increases his pay to at least $1.97 million per year and increases it to $2.3 million in future years. Now Howland has to keep producing Final Four teams; that’s going to be difficult this coming season as the Bruins lost underclassmen Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah A Moute to the NBA!
>> Tucson, Az.: Brandon Jennings, the top-ranked high school basketball prospect in the nation from Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy, is either going to go to Arizona, with whom he has signed, or be the first high school star that turns pro by playing in Europe or Israel until he can be drafted by the NBA. But to hear his Oak Hill coach, Steve Smith, tell it, there’s no choice. “To be totally honest,” Smith told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, “Brandon doesn’t like school all that much. He’s kinda tired of school. He’s a gym rat. He likes to play basketball and he wants to get paid to do it.” Score one for honesty. One word of caution, though: if you’re going to go overseas to play, you’d better know what your new country of residence expects from you!
>> Athens, Ga.: In case you missed it, the beloved (?) Georgia mascot, Uga VI, passed away on June 27. Like his predecessors, he was buried in the marble vault built into the south grandstands at Sanford Stadium in Athens. Georgia is reportedly the only school that buries its mascots inside its football stadium. Then again, bulldogs are small. Can you imagine the size that a mausoleum for Texas’s Bevo would require? Colorado’s Ralphie the Buffalo?
= Track & Field =
>> Tupelo, Ms.: In one of the best examples ever of the limits of technology, American sprint champion Tyson Gay’s name was changed on a culturally-conservative Web site to “Tyson Homosexual”! Seems the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow.com site was programmed to change the word “gay” to “homosexual” automatically, thus changing Tyson Gay to Tyson Homosexual, Rudy Gay to Rudy Homosexual, the old PGA golf legend Gay Brewer to Homosexual Brewer and so on. At least it’s one more way for track & field to get some publicity in this Olympic year!
Follow-up: once the gaffe was reported, the name was changed on the site . . . manually. Said one commenter on the Deadspin.com site of ex-Texas sprinter Marshevet Hooker in the women’s 100 meters: “What’d they say for that Hooker chick? ‘Professional businesswoman wins 100 m?’” Hooker will be taking her business to Beijing as she qualified in the 200 meters.
= The Five-Ring Circus =
>> San Antonio, Tx.: Manu Ginobili has plenty pain in his left ankle and has had his left foot in a walking boot for the past two weeks. He’s in San Antonio for more treatment and although he has been selected to carry the Argentine flag in the Opening Ceremonies of the Games in Beijing, he told an Argentine newspaper, “If my ankle hurts in the middle of July, I will not go.” Kobe Bryant and the rest of the U.S. team heartily agree!
>> Cleveland, Oh.: LeBron James, who will be a free agent in 2010, was asked about this year’s star-studded U.S. Olympic team. He called it the “Redeem Team” as in redemption for the bronze medal-performance in Athens in 2004; good idea because this could be the best U.S. team in a long time!
Thinking ahead to free agency, James was asked by Newsday to name his favorite cities. James replied, “New York; Washington, D.C.; Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, California and Akron, Ohio.” Asked to name his favorite borough in New York, he replied “Brooklyn” That’s good news for the Nets, but not so much for the Knicks, who think they can lure LeBron to the Garden in free agency. Olympic assistant coach Mike D’Antoni, now head coach of the Knicks, will be accused of doing just that whether he does or not!
>> New York, N.Y.: There are times when the three-out-of-four-year irrelevance of Olympic sports becomes painfully clear. Take NBC’s broadcasts of the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials:
Track & field is likely the only sport in the country in which the television announcers never change, no matter what network they are on! The play-by-play announcer may be different, but former UCLA sprinter Ato Boldon and former Olympic longer jumper Carol Lewis will be analyzing the sprints and Dwight Stones will be handling the field events. Within three weeks, the same trio worked the NCAA championships for CBS and then the Olympic Trials for NBC; all three helped on cable telecasts of track earlier in the season. They’ll all be in Beijing, joined by NBC-employed announcers Tom Hammond (play-by-play), Lewis Johnson (middle distance analyst) and Bob Neumeier on interviews.
Although NBC has decided that swimming will be its most important sport in Beijing, with finals in the morning – Beijing time – so they can be seen in prime time in the U.S., you’d think track was more important given all the commentators. Besides Hammond on the call and Neumeier on interviews, there are five analysts: Boldon, Lewis, Johnson, Ed Eyestone on distance races and Stones! Swimming has just Rowdy Gaines, who is clearly underpaid.
As the athletes get ready for their final training push for the Games, here’s hoping Hammond has an opportunity to call some more races in Europe before heading to China. He’s a good announcer with a fine voice, but he’s just not used to calling track races with 8-12 competitors or more. His once-per-four-years work in track is quite obvious as he missed numerous calls during the first four days of the Trials and his lack of understanding over what is a good mark and what is not was sometimes inexplicable. He was better over the final four days; here’s hoping he’s better in Beijing. Like the coaches say: practice, practice, practice.
One of the truly unsung heroes of both the track and swimming telecasts didn’t get paid so much as a compliment by NBC: the in-stadium public address announcers. If you listened closely, you heard the public address announcer at the swimming trials in Omaha call out American records to the delight of the crowd, well before NBC’s Dan Hicks figured it out, although he got better as the events went on. In Eugene, announcers Scott Davis and Garry Hill tipped you off to what was happening well before Hammond said much, but he, too, caught on as the meet progressed.
>> New Delhi, India: Had to happen: the secretary-general of the India Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has been accused of taking a bribe of 500,000 rupees (about $12,500 U.S.) from female weightlifter Shailaja Pujari to place her on the team! Although both deny it, the country’s Sports Ministry has directed that Pujari’s rival, Monika Devi, be placed on the team, even thought she finished behind Pujari in the country’s weightlifting trials.
>> Beijing, China: Before his opponents finish piling on the scorn on U.S. President George W. Bush for attending the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Games, it’s worth noting that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will also attend. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy may still attend, although a poll on the popular Chinese Web site Sina.com showed that 89% of 173,527 voters would prefer that he doesn’t show up.
Sarkozy’s remarks that he’ll show for the ceremony only if there is progress in talks between China and the Dalai Lama over Tibet. Posts on Sina.com called Sarkozy’s comments “not fit for a leader of a major developed country.”
Comment: At least no one on Sina.com is called for the French to surrender . . . yet.
>> Beijing, China: With a little more than a month to go prior to the Opening Ceremony and just 20 days to go before the Olympic Village formally opens on July 27, not only will China’s preparations for the Games be under scrutiny, but its attitude.
A bad sign came last week, according to the Reporters Without Borders organization, which said that Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reporter Norman Choy was not allowed to enter China even though he has been approved for Olympic accreditation. According to the group, Choy’s photographer was granted entry into Beijing, but Choy was detained at the airport and then put on a plane back to Hong Kong after about 90 minutes on the ground. The reporters group has asked the International Olympic Committee to intercede.
>> Beijing, China: The China Anti-Doping Agency announced a second positive of a national team member, who was barred for life from his sport. Wrestler Luo Meng tested positive for a diuretic, which can be used to eliminate traces of performance-enhancing drugs from the body and was banned. He’s the eighth doping positive announced in China this year: two from the national team level and six from the provincial team level.
Comment: China can disqualify all the athletes it wants and if they show up in August with a team full of medal-winners that no one has ever heard from before, these pre-Games announcements will mean absolutely nothing.
>> Birmingham, Al.: The city of Birmingham, Alabama has declared its intention to compete to host the 2020 Olympic Games! That announcement assumes, of course, that Chicago won’t win in its bid for 2016 and that the United States Olympic Committee will even try to bid in 2020. But like childhood hopes of a gold medal, Birmingham has the dream!
Where is Birmingham, anyway?
>> London, England: Think London 2012's soaring infrastructure costs aren’t serious?
Consider this: A request from Queen Elizabeth for a grant for repairs to Buckingham Palace was refused! The annual $30 million payment for upkeep has stayed the same for years and a request from the Queen for an increase was rejected due to pressures from Olympic funding.
= Potpourri =
>> Bristol., Ct.: High fuel prices even affect NASCAR. An ESPN report that looked at the situation included this comment from team owner Doug Yates: “We could see six or so teams shut down.”
>> Wardie, Scotland: The president of the Broughton Rugby Club, a mostly amateur club which finished fifth in the top division of the East League in Scotland, announced that in order to attract more players, it will give beer vouchers for everyone who attends all of the required training sessions this coming season! The club may not get better, but the players won’t notice!
~ Rich Perelman
>> Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below!
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