Of coarse, that is the question! It has happened so many times recently that someone gets on T.V. and adamantly denied something. It has also been the exact opposite every time! Someone goes on T.V. and points their finger, screams, or cries and it turns out to be a complete fallacy.

So when Roger Clemens goes on 60 Minutes and says he didn’t inject steroids or HGH, I think he did. No one has any credibility or "an inch or respect" (Roger Clemens) because all the credibility was used up by prior allegations on American Icons that got on many cameras and lied right to our T.V. screen.

I remember where I was when President Bill Clinton came into that press conference and started it off by saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman Miss Lewinsky" as he tapped his pointing hand on the press table. Well we all know what happened there. He did have sexual relations with that woman Miss Lewinsky! If you do not believe #### sex is a sexual relation than ask your wife/girlfriend or both if she would care if you got #### sex from someone else. Or better yet. Would you care if she gave #### sex because it isn’t a sexual relation?

I don’t remember where I was when Marion Jones said she had not violated and anti-doping rules. "They" have been after her for so many years that when they finally figured out that she really had, I didn’t care anymore. However, she was stripped of all medals years later. Many say the price of success is paid in advance. But in Jones’ case her past took her to the top and dropped her right back off.

Barry Bonds said for so many years that he didn’t do steroids. People would always say "look at his head". It is huge! That is from steroids! Actually that is not from steroids. That is what happens as you get older. My head has grown almost ½ inch since my first fitted Tigers hat back in 1991. Look around you. Older people have bigger heads. Look at T.V. star George Lopez. He says it all the time that he has a really big head and he does. It is also why you occasionally see much older people that have oversized facial features.

Barry Bonds always said he had just taken flack seed oil "the cream" "the clear" I don’t know. He has a Federal Grand Jury indictment against him for perjury on this and Tiger outfielder Gary Sheffield said that he and Bonds had shot steroids into their butts. As it turns out he is just another person lying to all of our faces.

Michael Vick is sitting in prison right now over dogfighting after he had to tell the truth. Too bad he didn’t start with it. He may not have a suspension when he gets out of prison. He may have even garnered a much shorter sentence.

Now Roger Clemens says he only injected B-12 and lidocaine I don’t believe him. I also took a one week coarse on Neurolinguistic programming about ten years ago. Neurolinguistic programming is the study of the neurological processes underlying the development and use of language. Or how to tell if people are telling the truth, lying, or just making stuff up.

He does so much reflecting the blame on other people to start off. He is aggressive as well which says to me that he can’t be caught so don’t even try. Then he releases this weird cell phone conversation he just had with Brian McNamee? McNamee, questioned by federal prosecutors, told them last year he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Prosecutors had him repeat those charges to Mitchell. Since the report was issued, Clemens has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegations.Also invovled in this was Andy Pettitte. He has admitted McNamee injected him twice with HGH. Pettitte coming clean has really had no heat at all from this.

So the question is To Believe or Not to Believe. I do not believe Roger Clemens. I really don’t care that he did it. After all he was pitching to hitters that were juicing as well. In fact players at all positions and ages were doing it.

Roger Clemens is still a first ballot Hall of Fame player based on his career, including 1998, 2000, and 2001. He has been dominant his entire career and is one of the few 300 game winners all-time. He has six 20 + winning seasons along with a span from 1997 to 2005 with 13 or more wins. His best season was way back in 1986. His first breakout season. It was his third year in the league. The Rocket was 24-4 with a 2.48 ERA. He also had 238 strikeouts that year as well.

Celebrating life through sports?  sometimes in the midst of another Lions loss I tell myself that life could be worse.  I have a great family and live in the #1 sports city.  I still see so many fans living and dying on game-by-game results.  Never once looking at the bigger picture.  Well this was one of those "looking at the bigger picture" moments for me.

"It was halftime at the Lake Fenton-Mount Morris game, seemingly just another high school football contest during another homecoming week on another October Friday night in another American suburb.

But this time the fix was in.

Four Lake Fenton (Mich.) football players and a co-conspirator on the golf team arranged it. Seniors all, they'd used their cell phones to hatch and agree on the plan, and then met outside the school building the afternoon before the big homecoming game to nail it down.

Lose on purpose?

Jake Kirk, the ringleader and a Blue Devils' running back, saw the decision differently: "We knew we'd all be winners if we did it."

By game's end, they'd done it. The scoreboard at Lake Fenton Stadium claimed the Blue Devils lost to Mount Morris 37-20, their lone defeat of the season so far.

But scoreboards can lie.

Last Friday, Kirk and fellow seniors David Bittinger, Lucas Hasenfratz, Matthew Tanneyhill and Ethan Merivirta scored one of the biggest victories of their lives.

Candidates for the senior royal crown, they each gave up the chance to become Lake Fenton's homecoming king."


Lake Fenton is a sub school of near by Fenton.  The city is located 10 miles south of Flint in Michigan.

" They fixed it so Eli Florence won instead.

Eli is a 5-foot-7 former offensive lineman. He's only a sophomore. The doctors say there's nothing more they can do for him. He's at home, barely able to speak, getting regular blood transfusions. Eli Florence, 15, is dying of leukemia.

"I'm praying for a miracle now," said Trina Florence-King, his mother.

In these days filled, it seems, with it's-all-about-me athletes and iPod-wearing, text-messaging teenaged zombies, these Lake Fenton High athletes did something special for a special classmate.

"He's taught us never to give up," Kirk said. "And if you keep fighting, you can overcome the odds. We're happy he's still around because he wasn't supposed to be."

---

 

It's etched in her memory: Aug. 20, 2003, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich., a short drive from Lake Fenton.

That's when Trina Florence-King learned her son was suffering from acute myelogenous leukemia.

That day, her wise little boy boldly consoled her.

"I've got something to tell you," she remembers him saying. "Me and God, we had a heart-to-heart. I told him I was available for whatever he needed."

And Thursday, Trina Florence-King told ESPN.com: "Since then, I've seen him working on other peoples' lives, working on people for four years. I'm not saying this because I'm his mother, but this is a special boy."

From one remission to two cutting-edge stem cell transplants to one stint of 13 straight months in the hospital, from Flint to Ann Arbor to Minneapolis and now back home, Eli Florence traveled and endured.

"Eli has become an icon for strength and perseverance and character for this entire community, and especially our student body," said Lake Fenton principal John ####ko.

But last month, the awful, final, numbing news came. Eli's mom reported it on a Web site set up by friends to monitor Eli's health.

"Tonight I come with a broken heart," she wrote. "Eli has been given just a few weeks to maybe one month to live here on this Earth with us. … This process of 'losing my son' is going to be very soon. When I look at him, even today, it just doesn't seem possible."

That was Sept. 16. Word spread around the school and the town of about 5,000.

The nicest kid in school, the one who's out of class so often, was fading.

Then, it came to Jake Kirk, as crisply and clearly as his two syllable name: Eli should be homecoming king. King Eli.

It felt so right.

---

 

On Oct. 4, on his way to school, Kirk got the plan under way. A neighbor had given him an orange ribbon -- orange is the color of leukemia awareness -- and it triggered Kirk's vision.

"It had been in the back of my mind," Kirk said Thursday via phone from the high school. "I've had people say, 'Wouldn't it be cool if Eli could get to be king?' I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if the five candidates gave it to Eli?'"

Kirk phoned Tanneyhill. Tanneyhill was with Hasenfratz. Before Kirk even got the entire concept out of his mouth, "They immediately said, 'Yes!'" Kirk said. Soon after, the other two senior candidates for homecoming king agreed.

By lunchtime, they'd planned their announcement for what was to be the king candidate-selection assembly.

Kirk took the microphone in front of the entire student body of 538 students and said there wouldn't be any vote this year for king.

"We, as the king's court, decide there is nobody in this school who deserves this more than Eli Florence,'' Kirk said. "This year's homecoming king is going to be Eli.''

The entire audience cheered and clapped in unison.

But Eli was too sick to be in school that day.

"The whole school knew, but Eli did not know," said Sticko.

That night, Trina Florence-King received a text message on her cell phone.

Eli would be crowned the next night at halftime of the football game.

She didn't tell her son.

---

 

There was a problem. Halftime was approaching and the king-to-be was at a local clinic receiving a necessary blood transfusion, getting energy, getting life. He was scheduled to escort his friend, Ashley Look, a member of the sophomore royal court, to midfield. He didn't have a clue he would be the center of attention.

Barely in the nick of time, Eli, in a wheelchair, and Ashley joined the other members of the court and their parents at midfield, surrounded by the Lake Fenton band, clad in blue and white.

The public-address announcer said: "Your 2007 king, as designated by the five candidates is … is Eli Florence."

The king was stunned.

 

 

 

"It's like he heard his name, but it was sort of surreal," his mother said.

"But I'm not a senior," Eli told others around him. "I'm not a senior."

The crowd of 2,000 people, including homecoming queen Brooke Hull, 17, stood. Many cried.

The four Blue Devils football players who ceded their kingship opportunity to Eli missed the moment. They were in the locker room trying to make adjustments for the second half to hold off Mount Morris.

---

 

Eli's mom brought the telephone to Eli in his bed Thursday morning.

He spoke softly of the five boys who honored him.

"It was definitely a sacrifice to take that step down to let someone else get it, to be homecoming king," he said. "The guys were really sincere. They honestly were OK with it."

Even ####ko, who sees a lot as a high school principal, was taken aback by the action of the Lake Fenton Five.

"There's not much that surprises me, but that did," he said. "We can't lump all kids into the same bucket. We see so much character development in so many kids in so many ways. This was just amazing."

Said Trina Florence-King: "I'm so proud of those boys. They wanted to honor him and make him feel special."

Saturday, Eli has another football date. Through a friend, he's been invited to visit the University of Michigan bench before the Wolverines' game against Purdue.

"It's going to be really cool," Eli said.

It's Michigan's homecoming game, the perfect place for the toughest little homecoming king of this, or any, football season."

ESPN.com correspondent Jay #### writes from St. Paul, Minn. He can be reached at jay@jayweiner.com. A Web site has been set up to chronicle Eli's battle. A benefit will be held Sunday to help Eli's family cover medical expenses.

 This is a local story from where I live that I thought needed to be shared.  I give special thanks to ESPN.com and Jay ####. 

1. Will Calvin Johnson will make a big difference in Detroit?  He was the number two pick in the draft and the Lions did need a number two WR.  However one thing is for sure, having a great WR corp has worked really well for the Arizona Cardinals hasn't it?

2. How is it no one ever saw a guy named Magic Johnson getting a sexually transmitted disease such as HIV?  Had the name not already been taken I would have named my unit that.

3. Dallas got knocked out by Golden State.  It is one of the bigger upsets in NBA playoff history, but Golden State did have their number the entire season going 3-0 vs the Mavs.  Just remember it is all about the match-up.  This is why they say any given Sunday in the NFL, it is all about the match-up.

4. Many fans of the Detroit Lions say that Mike Martz will be gone next year as he would take a head coaching job somewhere else.  However if Martz was such a hot coaching prospect he would not have been beaten out in so many jobs this off season.  He was beat out by rookies and Norv Turner for jobs.  To me that says a lot.

5. So many people have opinions and predictions on games but never really back them up.  Predictions and opinions are like butts, every one has them and most of them stink!  However there is a site that you can put all your predictions in stone (well actually encrypted data).  The site is FanIQ.  Here is the link to see just how smart you really are.

  As of today the Raiders still hold the number one pick in the 2007 NFL Draft.  The question remains, What are they going to do with that pick?  The Lions are also still holding the number two pick, with plenty of options.

Raiders #1 - They hold the number one pick and are looking for a quarterback.  They could take Calvin Johnson as well.  JaMarcus Russell seems to be the clear cut pick for them though.  However I wouldn't be shocked if they took Brady Quinn either.  If the Raiders trade for a QB before the draft they may take Calvin Johnson or maybe even Adrian Peterson.

Lions #2- If the Raiders don't take Russell the Lions will at number two.  The Lions could even take Calvin Johnson as they have not ruled that out yet.  Tampa may have to trade into the Lions spot to get Johnson because this is the guy they want and need.  Most mock drafts have the Lions taking Brady Quinn and they could do that as well.  It is not likely they take a RB here as they have acquired Tatum Bell from the Broncos and T.J. Duckett.  Joe Thomas could be the guy at number two also.  The Lions could also trade down and then trade down again to gain even more draft picks.

Browns #3- They want and need Adrian Peterson at number three.  They may have to trade with Detroit to get him if someone else wants to move in front of Cleveland to take him.  If Peterson is gone they should take one of the QBs still available.   Charlie Frye does not appear to be the franchise QB they need.  He has looked more like Tim Couch than Bernie Kosar. 

Buccaneers #4- They have a specific need at WR that they could solidify with one pick, Calvin Johnson.  They may have to make a deal with Detroit to get him.  They definatley don't need anymore quarterbacks.  They signed Jeff Garcia, traded for Jake Plummer (retired), played Gratkowski almost all season in 2006, and have Chris Simms.  If Johnson is gone they could trade down.  One partner could be the Vikings who need a QB.

Every year when the brackets come out we all get excited.  Sometimes a little too excited.  There are so many choices and now with the internet there are also so many choices of where to play your brackets too.  Some sites have huge prizes and some are for pride only, like the ones on Yahoo you and your buddies may do.

I have been a top finisher many times.  There is some method to "March Madness" whether you think so or not. Here is some real advice to picking your brackets as a winner.

1. Take your time picking your brackets.  Look past the name of the school and there seed number, unless it is the first round and they are a one or two seed.  The chance for an upset gets a lot better for the middle seeds.

2.  Don't take advice from Beano Cook.  He has never been a good sports guy to take predictions from.  He is so old he still talks about way back when John Wooden was just a high school kid looking up to him.

3.  Who is hot and who is not.  Look to see who won their conference tournament and who got out played and lost in the first round.  Also teams that have great records, no matter what the school and current overall RPI rank, will do better in the tournament because they know how to win and did it most of the year.

4.  Don't pick teams based on last years tournament.  It is a new year.  Florida does have a shot to repeat but the likely hood is that they won't. Besides, their best player looks like Tyra Banks on Crack after she got hit in the face with a shovel a few times.  Well they did win their tournament but didn't play as well as they could have this whole season.

5.  This year, Dude is not Duke.  That may be a good thing though.  Maybe they can go to the final four this year without having any pressure on them.

6.  Look at Wisconsin to make another trip to the final four.  They are a team built for the Final Four.  They have been there before, and recently, and they were a top five team most of the season.  They have a grind it out offense and solid defense that is perfect for the tournament.

7.  Get in as many brackets as you can.  There are many sites on the net that have huge prizes.  When you do get in them, pick different teams.  It is like playing the Big Game Lottery, when you play you don't just buy one ticket do you?  Usually you buy 2-5 tickets so your chances are better, you also pick different numbers as well, so why change that for bracketology?  Mix it up!

There you go, your ticket to your "Final Four" of what ever league or contest you enter.  But also remember that predictions are like a-holes, everyone has them, only use yours.

  This weekend we saw a lot of free agents mainly offensive lineman sign some massive deals.  San Fransisco inked former Bills corner to an eight year $80 million contract.  I know some where Chris Tucker said dangggggggggg when he heard that or he was watching Venus Williams playing tennis again.  Leonard Davis got almost $50 million from Dallas for seven years.  The Cardinals didn't want to lose him, but they knew he wasn't a $50 million lineman.  Cleveland signed Cincinnati's former gaurd Eric Steinbech to a deal similar to that of Leonard Davis.  The Bills brought in three offensive lineman Derrick Dockery, Jason Whitle, and Langston Walker.

  The Patriots were very busy signing linebacker Adelius Thomas, tight end Kyle Brady, a possible offer sheet on Miami RFA wide reciever Wes Welker.  According to the Boston Globe they may be interested in acquiring Raiders WR Randy Moss.  The story says that Patriots coach Bill Belichick loves him and has been enamored with bringing him to Foxboro.

  It appears that newly acquired RB Tatum Bell may be on the move possibly to the Giants.  The New York Post said that Dominic Rhodes was in over the weekend but did not sign.  The Giants may be using the interest in Bell as negotiations against Rhodes.  If they aren't they should. 

The Lions signed former back up defensive end Dewayne White from Tampa Bay.  White played under both head coach Rod Marinelli and defensive coordinator (and son in law) Joe Barry.  He is a speedy end who can give the Lions a little pass rush and is expected to flourish as a starter.  The Lions are also looking to sign Kevin Curtis from St. Louis, a former Martz player who is the offensive coordinator.  The Lions coaches are going to merger former back ups from both their former teams in Detroit.  Matt Millen also just traded CB Dre Bly and a 6th round pick to Denver for RB Tatum Bell, tackle George Foster and a 5th round pick.  Tatum Bell is needed due to Kevin Jones foot injury also known as a Lisfranc injury.  I had the same injury years ago and it took me over a year to come back and I was never the same after.  KJ may start the 2007 season on the PUP list and miss the first six games.  Also once the Lions sent DE James Hall to St. Louis for a 5th round pick, that gives the Lions four 5th round picks.

Now as we move into week two of free agency and the "crazy" money is spent, the draft starts to take shape a little better.  The Raiders could pull a fast one again this year.  Last year when they past on QB Matt Leinert to take DB Michael Huff  I was shocked.  I thought that drafting a California Guy to be the "Franchise" at a time when the Raiders needed a future QB they stayed with Aaron Brooks and drafted defense.  This year could be no different if the traded Moss to New England and draft WR Calvin Johnson.  What if the Raiders really broke everyone off and draft Oklahoma RB Adrian Peterson.