Something popped up on the sporting radar this past week that didn't get much attention, at least in the U.S., what with March Madness, the WBC, and spring training in full swing. It seems to merit at least a mention though, so here goes.

In what would appear to be a classic case of good intentions trumping good sense, a "Dutch Multicultural group," whatever that might be, is organizing a gay-Muslim soccer tournament. To paraphrase a failed presidential candidate, doesn't that seem like it might be the wrong event in the wrong place at the wrong time?

They take their soccer seriously in Europe. So seriously that the word "hooligan" has come to be associated with European soccer in the way that Americans are beginning to associate the word "bumbling" with Bud Selig. Combine this passion for the game with a religion/culture having trouble playing well with its western neighbors and you seem to have at least a potential recipe for trouble.

Let me now state something clearly and unequivocally: This is not an indictment of the Muslim faith. I understand there are millions of Muslims living their lives in harmony with their neighbors. That said, the millions of peaceful Muslims are not the ones tournament organizers need to be worried about. The radicals who already hate everything associated with the West, who feel Western civilization is to blame for all the world's ills, could conceivably take offense at what they consider to be an abomination of their faith.

This doesn't mean the "Institute of Multicultural Development" should shrink from the issue, but at this particular time in world history, does it make sense to create such a large, inviting target out of the players in all those rainbow-colored uniforms? And what about the heterosexual Muslims playing against the gay teams? Is it possible that extremists, who aren't opposed to slaughtering fellow Muslims if they feel it helps advance their goals, might feel killing both sides is justified?

Here in America, where the issue was raised in horrific detail on 9/11/2001, and continues to be played out in the Middle East every day, we don't pay much attention to soccer, unless it's the World Cup and we happen to be fortunate enough to be involved. But in Europe, soccer is a big deal. Hopefully, some attention-seeking radicals don't look at this tournament as another opportunity to make a statement.

Hypothetical situation:
You are a father with children that show an interest in competitive tennis, and have some talent to boot. Like any proud dad, you want to see the little darlings succeed in whatever they try. You:
A) Work hard to earn enough money so they can have quality coaching and equipment.
B) Let them know you will be proud of them whether they succeed at tennis or not.
C) Poison their opponents.

Incredibly, Christophe Fauviau of France chose Option C, not just once but 27 times between 2000 and 2003, thereby simultaneously providing tennis' answer to "rink rage" and making Venus and Serena Williams' father Richard look like a candidate for Father of the Year.

In a story Stephen King would reject as too unlikely to be believable, Fauviau would make a practice of sneaking the antidepressant drug Temesta into the water bottles of opponents of both his son Maxime and his daughter Valentine. His theory apparently was that Temesta's side effect of drowsiness would slow the players' reflexes, thereby giving his children a competitive advantage.

It worked so well that in July, 2003 Alexandre Lagardere slept for two hours immediately following his loss in a match against Maxime Fauviau, then got in his car and died in a wreck while trying to drive home. Police discovered the traces of Temesta in Lagardere's system during post-accident blood testing, leading eventually to Fauviau's arrest and conviction on charges of manslaughter, and his sentencing to a term of eight years in prison.

Is there something in the culture of tennis that allows this sort of thing to happen? Its history is replete with examples of boorish, overbearing parents behaving badly, sometimes to the point of being banned from tournaments. In addition to the aforementioned Richard Williams, there is the case of Jim Pierce. In 1993, up-and-coming women's player Mary Pierce was forced to go so far as to take out a restraining order against her father and former coach, citing verbal and physical abuse, a charge which was verified by many observers.

Perhaps it is due to the fact that so many promising female players break on to the scene at a young age, but that is the case in other sports, notably women's gymnastics and figure skating, which don't seem to have the same behavior problems out of the parents.

Of course, any parent who has watched a child compete in Little League baseball or Pop Warner football can relate his or her own stories of how far over the top some parents will go to relive their imagined glory days on the field through their children. Listening to an overwrought dad yell at his son on the pitcher's mound to brush back your child because he's crowding the plate is a nightly occurrence around the country.

During his trial, Christophe Fauviau testified that he felt tremendous personal pressure while his children were competing in their tournaments, and he felt that their performance was a direct reflection upon him. Any parent that has watched his or her child stand at the plate in the seventh inning of his Little League baseball game with the bases loaded, two outs and his team behind by a run can relate to feeling presure. The difference, of course, is that most parents are nervous for their child, not for themselves, and accordingly have not spiked the opposing pitcher's Gatorade.

It appears that the saga of Christophe Fauviau is over now that he has been found guilty and will cool his heels in prison for the next eight years, hopefully not experiencing too much pressure, but the frightening thought is this: It seems the only reason he got caught was because Alexandre Lagardere was thoughtless enough to die driving home. Had that accident not occurred, how many people would Fauviau have poisoned by now?

You know those couples that just seem meant for each other but you can't quite put your finger on why? It occurred to me that there are lots of pairings in the world of sports (and a couple of celebrities) that just seem to be perfect for each other. So, even though I wasn't bright enough to come up with this list at Valentine's Day, here are some of the least likely but most logical couples in the world of sports/celebrity.

Eddie Sutton, OSU basketball coach and Erin Lashnits, Stanford tree mascot - Both are presently without duties due to alcohol abuse. Party on.

Johnny Weir, U.S. Olympic figure skater and Vanilla Ice - They both feel black inside.

Sasha Cohen and Ben Roethlisberger - Sasha fell, coming up short in her triples, but was awarded a silver medal anyway. Big Ben fell short of the goal line in the Super Bowl, but was awarded the touchdown anyway.

Lindsey Jacobellis, U.S. Olympic snowboarder and Ben Johnson, Canadian Olympic sprinter, 1988 - Here's a May-December romance for you. Both had gold in their grasp before pissing it away; Jacobellis when she fell showboating on her way to the finish line and Johnson winning 100-meter gold in the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics before failing a blood-doping urine test following his race.

Dominik Hasek, Czech Republic Olympic goaltender and Michelle Kwan - Here's a pair that could talk all night. If conversation lagged, they could compare groin injuries.

Bode Miller and the U.S. Olympic men's hockey team - Both flew all the way to Italy for no apparent reason other than to rack up the frequent flier miles.

Laila Ali and Tony Stewart - One fights for money and the other fights for, well, nobody really knows why. Can you imagine the arguments over the remote?

And finally,

U.S. Olympic Curling sisters Cassie and Jamie Johnson and....you - Come on, admit it, you've thought about it....

Donovan Mcnabb has done the impossible! We know he didn't do it on the football field, since the Philadelphia Eagles haven't played a meaningful game since, oh, October 2005. So what did he do? Rescue a baby from a burning building? Make a commercial where he comes off looking better than his mom? Sadly, no, it was nothing that interesting.
With his comment Wednesday that the insult he took from Terrell Owens last November as Owens was busy not just burning bridges but nuking them on his way out of Philadelphia was akin to "black on black crime," Mcnabb, a long-time professional who should know better, actually looks more ridiculous than T.O. himself.
In case you haven't heard, or you have but simply want to relive the moment in all its glory, here's the deal. Last November, in an interview aired on ESPN, T.O. basically agreed with Michael Irvin's assertion that Brett Favre's struggles this season were mostly due to a lack of talent in his surrounding cast. He said that if you took Favre and surrounded him with the offensive cast of the Eagles, Phillie would have a better record than they did at the time, maybe even be undefeated.
Mcnabb kept quiet about the snub at the time, at least publicly, but in a wide-ranging interview with Michael Smith of ESPN.com Wednesday, Mcnabb broke his silence in a big way. No quarterback would be happy being called out by a teammate in that way, especially during the season, but of all the things Mcnabb had to be upset about (and there were many), race just shouldn't have been part of the equation.
Mcnabb felt hurt by T.O.'s assertion that the Eagles would have been better off with Favre, a three-time NFL MVP, Super Bowl winner, certain Hall of Famer and in his day maybe the most dangerous offensive player in the league, not to mention a white quarterback. Yet he implied it would have been more acceptable if Owens had put African-American quarterbacks Steve Mcnair, Michael Vick, Byron Leftwich or Daunte Culpepper on his wish list.
Of all those players, only Mcnair has won an MVP award (once), and none has won a Super Bowl or performed at or near the level Favre did for such a long time. Any or all of them may end up doing so, but none has as yet.
For Donovan Mcnabb to put a racial slant on the issue is to take away from the real point of the matter. Black on black crime is wrong, as is white on black crime, black on white crime, or any other kind of crime. The real crime here is, once again, the amazing ability of Terrell Owens to waste his incredible talent on the football field by becoming a distraction to his team and by self-destructing, this time during the season.
Donovan Mcnabb is clearly a thoughtful, intelligent guy, a fact that comes across if you see the entire interview. It's a shame he played the obvious, if inappropriate, race card and became the story instead of keeping the focus where it belonged: on the sad case of Terrell Owens.