Like Dale Earnhardt Jr. Don't like him driving for Hendrick Motor Sports. Give Clint Bowyer or Martin Truex the same ride and they are instant contenders. Leaving Step Mommie Dearest was a no brainer, but going to Hendrick is a no winner. If Junior wins he was supposed to, if he loses the second guessing will be quick and nasty.
Is Canseco lying about Ordonez? Could be. Ordonez' power numbers in the minors projected to what he's done in the majors. Production is consistent, with no unexplainable spikes. You can make the argument Ordonez numbers go back to his status as the rare power hitter who has never struck out or walked 100 times in a season.
Chuck Knoblauch still hasn't been located by the feds to testify before Congress. Let's see. The Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, and Osama Bin Laden. I'd have to say time is on Knoblauch's side.
Who is Jared Camp? The player Minnesota traded to the Florida Marlins in 1999 for Johan Santana. Never made it to the majors. One other bit of trivia about Santana (93-44 lifetime). He first signed with the Astros, who lost him in the Rule V draft to Florida. Go figure.
Someone has to say this other than me. What is with Eli Manning trying to grow a mustache? Payton, how about a priceless pep talk for your brother?
Top three Petty picks the NFL won't want to hear at the Super Bowl halftime show. "The Criminal Kind". "Last Dance With Mary Jane". "Dogs On The Run".
O.J. Mayo took court side tickets to a NBA game from Carmelo Anthony. To the NCAA this is a problem. That Mayo is attending a college he has no intention of graduating from? Not an issue. That the NBA and the NCAA collude to prevent him from making a living at a profession he very soon will practice? Not to be discussed.
From a story about Urban Meyer and the girlfriend of a player he was recruiting. "I used to talk to him every day......He wanted me to come here and do gymnastics." Naturally, an investigation is under way because Meyer was recruiting outside his sport. Bigger question. How much of your dignity and self respect would you have to sell out to be a college coach?
The former Duke lacrosse coach is suing the school over slander allegations. Mike Pressler was hung out to dry by the school in the wake of rape allegations against his players. Who do you pull for? A college administration that couldn't wait for legal proceedings to take their course, or a coach who (giving him the benefit of the doubt) was clueless about his player's conduct off the field?
From today's "Raleigh News and Observer" 'Tyler Hansbrough (UNC) Rates His Top Three Dunks Of The Season". A six eleven guy dunks and we're supposed to be impressed? Talk about your three best passes, three screens you fought through, three blocks on the paint. But three inch layups? Yawn.
Senator John McCain was quoted today as saying he respected Rush Limbaugh. No word on his opinion of Donovan McNabb.
This may get some irritated but...what the heck! Pressler knew what his players were doing. When this first came out one of the initial stories was about the behaviors and run-ins with law enforcement from his players. The administration, while weak and snivling, told him his program was being scrutinized. While this report alone doesn't make them all out criminals and certainly not ####s...they weren't the good boys on campus...at least not all of them. A lot of comments about entitlement and pompous and arrogant behaviors were all over this one from the beginning. Urban "sprawl" Meyer keeps getting in deeper and deeper. Wonder what his line was in regard to the gymnastics situation. Hmmmm! Chuck Knoblauch is missing...still! Must be hanging out in the same place his arm went to. They never found that either. See ya!
Dudski....Any chance Ordonez could have been taking steroids in the minors? Inflated minor league power leads to inflated major league power. Ask anyone who played in the minors in the 90s and they'll tell you that everyone was on the gas.
CountryJag-It is possible Ordonez was using in the minors, but that was a long time ago and would have put him in on the front end of the problem. That's one of the bad parts of the scandal, you really don't know who or what to believe anymore.
Gcoach-I agree with you 100%. The media did thelacrosse players an injustice on the rape allegations, but it's revisionist history to now try and say it wasn't a program out of control. Looked at another way, if the coach had cracked down harder and earlier the team wouldn't have even been in the position to have the rape allegations come up. Looking the other way at underage drinking does nobody a favor.
Wasn't Mayo given permission from his coach to take the tickets?
That Duke LaCrosse situation is just p!ss-poor all around.
These coaches today are more willing to keep their players happy than to MAN up and be a leader, mentor, or, dare I say, a disciplanarian to them. Could explain why players coming into the Pro ranks don't respect coaches or can't stay out of trouble, ie Joakim Noah, Pac-Man Jones to name a few.
Last edited by StormCharger on January 25th at 7:17 AM.
I do not especially care for Mike Pressler for reasons dating back to the rather "chippy" style of his Ohio Wesleyan teams in the late 1980s. But I don't blame him for taking action against Duke.
A coach certainly has to take a measure of responsibility for the behavior of his players, but no coach can be a babysitter 24/7. I would wager that, given the number of campuses in the state, there was at least one other stripper performng at a private party for North Carolina college students that night -- and that it was and is a scene played out fairly regularly across the country.
Does that make it right for the Duke players to have used lousy judgment? Of course not, but those young men are paying a heavy toll because a drugged-up dancer and a prosecutor with political ambitions both went wacky.
Presser apparently got shoved quite forcefully toward the door because Duke's administration played the role of judge, jury and executioner in the first few days after the incident. It wasn't Pressler, but rather his players, who stood accused of criminal wrongdoing. He certainly could have been held accountable, but not before all of the facts were in; we know now that what passed for "facts" in the first 48 hours turned out to be as fiction worthy of Hollywood.
Pressler was entitled to some degree of support from his employer. And whether his departure was immediate or neccesitated later because more unflattering info emerged, the administration needed to zip its collective lip and not commented about him to anyone.
dudski
And to think of it where's Dave Bliss when you need him ?
College basketball and how it's perceived by the NCAA and the public are totally two different things.
See my latest within this forum titled If It Feels Good Then It's Got To Be Good !
The one true feelgood story of this college basketball season so far this year.
Duds...hilarious! OJ is a friend of Melo, which is OK under the NCAA rules, but he still gets hammered for getting free tix....Reggie ruined it for a lot of folks. Urban and the gymnast, sounds like a good movie of the week.
Mike Pressler certainly was hung out to dry by the school! Yet he was in a no win situation. These students were the primadonnas of Duke University and were afforded privilege status. The boosters demanded and the school allowed these kids to live outside of accountability, turning a blind eye and dismissing the "boys will be boys" antics.
When the shinola hit the fan, the boosters and the school administration quickly threw Pressler - the ultimate fall guy - under the bus in an attempt to disassociate themselves from being either responsible or liable for the undisciplined behavior of the prep jocks.
