(10) Kevin Garnett: The Boston Celtics star was more than entitled to celebrate the dominating triumph over the L.A. Lakers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals and his first world championship after it looked like he might serve life without parole with the Minnesota Timberwolves. But his barely coherent screamfest in the post-game celebration made Ozzy Osbourne sound like James Earl Jones by comparison. Opt for the “Luke Russert Grace Under Pressure” school of public speaking next time, big fella.

(9) Hank Steinbrenner: Hankenstein is peeved because Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang (8-2, 4.07 ERA) injured his right foot while running the bases midway through what would become a 13-0 blowout of the Astros and may be lost for the season. Steinbrenner ripped the DH-less National League, suggesting baseball’s senior loop is loopy. “It's OK for the Yankees to fill up the seats in the National League parks, they make a ton of money off us,” he said. “Then we should support each other when one of our guys gets hurt.” Earth to Hank: The Red Sox and Yankees were the two biggest road attractions in baseball last year, but the next 11 teams on the attendance list were all from the National League. A year earlier, 11 of the top 14 were from the NL. So who’s really subsidizing whom?

(8) The New York Mets: Leave it to Fred and Jeff Wilpon to make Hank Steinbrenner look like the voice of reason in New York’s baseball scene. Their well-documented mishandling of Willie Randolph’s firing in the early-morning hours on Monday will raise red flags when the Mutts try to hire top-shelf talent. You can never underestimate the lure of the obscene gobs of money the club can offer players, managers and staff, but sacking a guy after midnight local time a day after subjecting him to a cross-country plane ride (and after his job security had already been the subject of speculation for three weeks) suggests a callousness — or at least a level of tone-deafness — that should make prospective employees settle for the second-best offer even if it means leaving money on the table.

(7) Johnny Miller’s apology: The great offense here is not what the NBC golf analyst said but rather the fact that he got beat up to the point of having to offer up a mea culpa. Miller’s descriptions of Rocco Mediate during U.S. Open coverage — "He looks like the guy who cleans Tiger's swimming pool" and "Guys with the name 'Rocco' don't get on the trophy, do they?" — could only be construed as ethnic slurs by minds simpler than the operating instructions for a door hinge. But Miller, who’s been solid in his second career on TV after a successful stint on the PGA Tour, still felt obligated to apologize to end the criticism. Had Miller stood firm, this could have been the instance in which people with brains finally fought back and broke the kneecaps of the Politically Correct. Oh, I’m sorry. Was that another perceived ethnic slur?

(6) The Notre Dame critics : It didn’t take long for the bashing to commence once NBC and the Fighting Irish announced last week that the network would continue televising the school’s eight home or neutral-site football games each season through 2015 despite an abysmal record (and ratings to match) last fall. Sure, Notre Dame has rarely contended for national championships for two decades now, but the notion that it’s somehow unfair that the Fighting Irish are living off their reputation is nonsense. People still talk about the Fighting Irish whether they win or lose. Critics would be better advised to rail at a system that allows many Division I sports programs to rake in obscene amounts of TV money and ticket revenue while paying the talent pennies on the dollar in the form of scholarships that can be stripped away on a coach’s whim.

(5) If it bleeds it leads: The death of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta on Saturday in New Jersey normally would have been given three paragraphs on page 3 of the morning sports section and a comparable brush-off online or on TV. I know this because a typical NHRA event gets no mention in the media most weekends, so those three paragraphs would have constituted sufficient coverage in the minds of editors and producers. But the availability of video and still photos made it too easy for all forms of media to give the story bigger play in the same fashion in which the 11 o’clock news leads with a shooting if they have footage from the crime scene. Kalitta was a successful competitor, but hardly in the same league as Dale Earnhardt Sr., Payne Stewart, Pelle Lindbergh or Thurman Munson. Would the death of an SEC linebacker or Double-A pitcher in the anonymity of a distant practice field rated the same sort of treatment? Doubtful. This time, video made the difference.

(4) Overly possessive Buffalo Bills fans: The death of Meet The Press moderator Tim Russert has left Western New York residents to wonder how they might honor their native son, whose devotion to both the football team and the community was legendary. When someone suggested inducting Russert onto the Wall of Fame at Ralph Wilson Stadium, the howls were immediate from a segment of the population that regards the idea as sacrilegious because no one who’s never suited up in pads is deemed worthy of such an honor in their football temple. Hey, I own a piece of that stadium — I’ve got the tax bills to prove it — and I’m here to say the only reason not to induct Russert is that the meaning would be lost on too many of the 75,000 fans who fill the place exactly eight times a year. Millard Fillmore has been dead for 134 years, the Rick James thing didn’t work out too well and the Goo Goo Dolls now qualify as “the face of Buffalo.” With Russert gone, the Bills and Sabres unwatchable and chicken wings soooo 1992-ish, the Queen City would lack virtually all positive perception if not for folk-punk goddess Ani DiFranco. Citizens should be rushing to honor Russert at the Ralph.

And, last and most definitely least, it wasn’t a particularly stellar week for women in the business of sports: (3) Jemele Hill: The columnist/on-air personality (and isn’t that a rather presumptive word for a good 15 or 20 percent of the people appearing on TV these days?) apparently skipped journalism school the day the professor pointed out that making tacky references to murderous #### dictators was not a career-enhancing tactic. Her ESPN.com piece last weekend in part read, "Rooting for the Celtics is like saying #### was a victim. It's like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.” It earned her a week on the bench “to reflect on the impact of her words” according to an ESPN spokesman. To her credit, Hill offered a prompt public apology. On the down side, though, she was one of the people driving the “fire Don Imus” bandwagon last year after the shock jock’s ill-advised Rutgers basketball rant. Payback’s a glitch.

(2) Becky Hammon: I’m completely sympathetic to her disappointment over not getting a fair shake from the U.S. basketball officials charged with selecting the 2008 Olympic basketball team — leaving her off the initial 23-woman roster last year was inane. But Hammon’s decision to play for Russia in Beijing reeks of mercenary behavior. Hammon supporters suggest a double-standard; few would care if she played for Italy or Brazil but Russia is unfairly perceived still as The Evil Empire. Hammon grew up in South Dakota, attended college at Colorado State and plays for San Antonio of the WNBA, and there’s not a hint of Eastern Hemisphere blood in her ancestry. It’s hard to argue that she’s doing this for any reason other than to cash a check.

(1) Gwen Knapp: Here’s the lead of the San Francisco Chronicle columnist’s post-U.S. Open column: “Tiger Woods is an ####. A mesmerizing, peerless, incandescent ####.” Knapp found fault with Woods for pursuing his 14th major golf championship while playing on a bum knee that will require substantial surgical repair, putting forth a premise that was the equivalent of a bogey-bogey finish to lose by one at Augusta: He has diminished his chance of ever completing a single-season grand slam and has “jeopardized his entire future to play a single event.” I’m pretty sure Tiger will be able to continue to put food on his daughter’s plate and has already established himself as the most dominating golfer ever even if he doesn’t match Jack Nicklaus in career majors. He put no one else at risk by playing and arguably scored the signature win of his career in a 19-hole Monday playoff in the “single event” that just happens to be the most important tournament of the year for many golfers. An editor should have saved Knapp from herself and spiked this column before it ever saw the light of day.

 

Catching up with the best of the worst from the past week in sports:

(10) Malcolm Glazer: Manchester United announced a $113.4 million loss for last fiscal year despite revenue of $409 million, largely because of the 14.25 percent interest rate Glazer is paying on $296 million he borrowed in order to buy the team. Owning Man U is a feather in any sportsman’s cap and the club recently was estimated to be worth $1.8 billion, but here’s a thought: If you’ve got the scratch to take a controlling interest of a business this large, shouldn’t you have met someone somewhere along the way who could have fronted the money at a rate that couldn’t be confused for C.C. Sabathia’s ERA?

(9) Ozzie Guillen: The Chicago White Sox manager had his usual busy week with 16 obscenity-filled rants that he regards as witty conversation sandwiched around the dollgate crisis, in which inflatable beauties were called upon as clubhouse décor to snap a slump. (And I always thought that a little extra BP or taking an extra 20 minutes of infield each day was the surer bet . . . ) On top of everything else, the man has this obsession with the Cubs and their fans. Guillen’s contract runs through October 2012, by which time he either will have finally strung together three sentences sans “#$&(,” #@%$!$” and “!@#$%^&%@$!&” or will have been unemployed for about 51 months.

(8) Spygate: Seven months after it started, pro sports’ favorite scandal is winding down with a thud rather than with fireworks. Barring a stunning double-reverse, like Rams Super Bowl walkthough tapes suddenly materializing, Matt Walsh’s meetings Tuesday with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter will reveal less than Disney-approved publicity stills of Miley Cyrus. That means the commissioner had this one handled correctly from the start and 99.99999 percent of the rhetoric after Goodell threw the book at the Patriots back in September was wasted. Just think of all the extra pornography we could have squeezed onto the Internet if we hadn’t wasted all that bandwidth on conspiracy theories and documentation of why Specter might be playing lapdog for Comcast.

(7a) LeBron James: I realize he’s saddled with the worst supporting cast since McLean Stevenson on “Hello, Larry,” but LeBron is culprit No. 1 in the James Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. His 8-for-42 shooting line (with a staggering 17 turnovers) in the first two games against the Celtics reminds me of the 10-for-55 postseason hole Dave Winfield dug for himself with the Yankees. The Cavs did win Game 3, but James’ 5-for-16 shooting didn’t do much to restore faith that he can carry this team into the NBA Eastern Conference finals.

(7b) Papa John’s Pizza: I preface this by acknowledging that a pile of money ended up being raised for charity, which is always a good thing. But the rogue franchisee who started the 23-cent pizza fiasco by printing “Crybaby” T-shirts to mock LeBron James was out of line. Yes, James is known to complain about calls from time to time, but keep in mind he catches fewer breaks from the officials than Kobe or A.I. while getting knocked around as hard as any baller not named Dwyane Wade.

(6) The NCAA: This one crossed the line between due diligence and overdue diligence roughly about the time Enron en-ran out of schemes to stay afloat. The NCAA has accused Alabama State of 23 rules violations, including using ineligible players, the changing of grades and recruiting improprieties. It adds up “lack of institutional control,” but it comes attached to an asterisk the size of Barry Bonds head (that would be the 2007 model and not 1995, by the way). The NCAA probe, launched after the school self-reported numerous violations five years ago, covers the period from 1999 to 2003, meaning that every athlete who might have done something wrong is already gone. On top of that, none of the coaches mentioned in the report — or the five ADs or interim ADs, for that matter — still work at ‘Bama State. Count on some innocent people getting saddled with the inevitable penalties.

(5) Southern Cal athletic department: Speaking of a lack of institutional control, why doesn’t the NCAA save itself a ton of money on airfare and just open a bureau in Los Angeles. Based on the allegations against football ace Reggie Bush and one-and-done hoopster O.J. Mayo involving gifts being lavished by agents and hangers-on, there would seem to be enough material to sift through to keep a four-man staff busy for . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe five years. And somebody on the outside has to do the policing, because it doesn’t look as though anybody at USC has taken an interest in the job. The first hint of that? How about the sign at the entrance of the USC athletic offices that reads, “We’ve been taking integrity and compliance seriously since 2009.”

(4) Richie Sexson: The Seattle Mariners slugger launched one of the nation’s most dubious attacks since Ronald Reagan played “Pin the Tail on Grenada,” earning himself a six-game suspension for charging the mound against Texas on Thursday night. Sexson took offense after Kason Gabbard came in eye-high with a fourth-inning fastball that was to chin music roughly what the Sex Pistols were to Country & Western. It’s going to be a race to the finish, but Sexson (301 round-trippers) might last long enough to displace Dave Kingman for the title of “Least Impressive 400 Homer Man In History.”

(3) Lower Colorado River Authority: In response to 22 deaths on Lake Travis over the last three years, the LCRA stepped up random safety inspections and made 800 such stops in 2007. The crackdown apparently has extended into 2008, particularly for boaters named Cedric Benson. The Chicago Bears running back has been stopped half a dozen times in about the last year according to a friend, the latest time resulting in an arrest last weekend on a charge of boating while intoxicated. The amount of boat traffic required to generate 22 fatalities in three years must be immense, so 800 random stops in a year — barely two a day — is the proverbial drop in the bucket. If roughly one of every 150 to 200 inspections takes place on Benson’s boat when there are so many other candidates on the water from which to choose, it’s fair to ask if what authorities really meant to charge him with was boating while black.

(2) Marvin Harrison: The (grand) jury is still out on both the Cedric Benson and Marvin Harrison episodes, but there does seem to be evidence linking the Indianapolis Colts wide receiver’s gun to a Philadelphia shooting that resulted in injuries. There will be no judgment here as to whether Harrison was involved and/or whether there was justification. But there is a basis to ask out loud why the man who might be the second or third greatest wideout in pro football history is getting his hands dirty in running gritty businesses like bars and car washes in his old neck of the woods. If you feel an obligation to give back to your community, try opening daycare centers or pay for vocational training programs.

(1) Charlie Weis: You can yap all you want if you’re Ara Parseghian or Dan Devine (not that they ever did). But when you’ve just gone 3-9, it’s smarter to behave like the stiff at an old-fashioned (Fighting?) Irish wake; dress well and keep quiet regardless of how crazy things are around you. So Charlie Weis’ “To hell with Michigan” remark was ill-advised on many levels, not the least of which is he started with a risky premise — that Rich Rodriguez’s squad will arrive in South Bend on Sept. 13 a mess. Let’s be clear: No matter how bad things get in Ann Arbor this fall, Michigan won’t be losing to Appalachian State again (or in the case of 2008, Miami of Ohio). As for the Irish, however, there’s no evidence that they’ll be chalk against Navy, which will also have a new coaching staff. If you’re going to predict the future, coach, be sure you’ve got a shot at being right — perhaps like Mike Hart before the 2007 Michigan-Notre Dame game: "We're going to win next week. There's no question in my mind. I guarantee we will win next week. I'm going to get this team ready. Guaranteed."

 

Catching up with the best of the worst from a week in sports that was so busy that Jose Canseco and Pat Riley are off the hook on the premise that they’ll mess up again sooner rather than later. And I’m not even going to get into the dust-up over the dad who accidentally served Mike’s Hard Lemonade to his 7-year-old son at a recent Detroit Tigers game:

(10) Ryan Perrilloux: The LSU sophomore quarterback reminds me of the old gag in which a man complains that he gave his wife a credit card with no limit on it — and she exceeded it anyway. Perrilloux was finally tossed off the team Friday after having been the recipient of more breaks than Evel Knievel’s skeletal system. Perrilloux was suspended last summer when his name surfaced during a counterfeiting investigation and he was also caught trying to enter a casino with a phony ID. He was involved in a nightclub fight in November, causing him to miss the Alabama game, and was suspended again in February for his casual approach toward attending classes and workouts. He was benched for LSU's spring game and finally earned his one-way ticket out of football amidst reports he may have failed a drug test. I imagine the Bengals will now petition the NFL for a do-over of the seventh round of the recent draft because they overlooked a newly available QB prospect.

(9) Hobart College: Last weekend, the board of trustees announced that the Upstate New York men’s lacrosse team would drop down from Division I to Division III, where the Statesmen once won 12 consecutive NCAA championships. By Friday, they’d changed their minds in the face of an angry response by the alums and announced the team would stay in Division I. Way to be decisive, gents. Their next announcement will be that they’ve split the difference and decided to give Division II a shot.

(8) H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger: The “Friday Night Lights” author came across like the north end of a south-bound horse on Bob Costas’ much-discussed HBO special, obfuscating whatever valid points he might have had regarding the cesspoolish nature of some blogging by letting fly with a profane attack against Deadspin.com editor Will Leitch. There is a lot of God-awful blogging out there and Deadspin can sometimes be to journalism what Wilt Chamberlain was to abstinence, but Bissinger looked like the new-media hate-mongers that he was railing against. And let’s not even visit the discussion about the lives that Bissinger affected in a negative way with the book that gave birth to the movie and TV series of the same name. I happen to think that a lot of what Bissinger wrote about Texas high school football was probably dead-on accurate, but others feel he might have taken journalistic license with some aspects of the story along the way. Is his work automatically more credible because it appeared in three forms of “traditional” media rather than on the Internet? I’ll leave it to media ethicists to decide who’s done more damage — me for not seeking Bissinger’s response before writing this or Bissinger for his affront to civil discussion in a national forum.

(7) Pat Putnam: Breaking new Bottom 10 ground, the Sports Illustrated boxing writer earns his place posthumously as it now appears that the stories he told before dying in 2005 about his time as a Marine and Korean War prisoner were less accurate than Wesley Snipes’ tax returns. Details that emerged just hours before the Boxing Writers Association of America was scheduled to present the Pat Putnam Award for courage and perseverance caused the organization to delete references to the writer during the annual awards dinner in Los Angeles. In the aftermath of the damning investigation by a group that sniffs out phony war tales, Marines officials said they cannot find evidence that Putnam ever earned four Purple Hearts or the Navy Cross.

(6) Loose lips in the NBA: If you thought the Cleveland Cavaliers’ dissing of LeBron James was out of line, how about the people who are spilling the NBA’s secrets. Once again, the results of balloting for one of the league’s major awards – this time MVP – seeped out prematurely as the Los Angeles Times reported that Kobe Bryant is the winner. Compared to the way the NBA leaks, the Titantic really was just making a scheduled stop to pick up ice.

(5) Tim Montgomery: Already awaiting sentencing for his role in an elaborate stolen-checks scheme, the former Olympic sprinter was indicted last week on heroin distribution charges. The former Fastest Man of Earth, 33, stands accused of dealing more than 100 grams of the drug in Virginia in the last year. A U.S. District Court magistrate ordered him jailed pending a bond hearing, which probably won’t go well considering his May 16 sentencing on the checks charge could fetch him nearly four years in prison. Marion Jones is starting to look like the model citizen in that former relationship.

(4) New York Daily News: Most multiple-part series that you read in newspapers are in the form of book excerpts. Rather than giving a sneak peak of an upcoming book, the tab pulled a sneak attack on Roger Clemens. Likely hand-fed The Rocket’s dirty laundry — and there certainly was a lot of it — by someone with a rooting interest in Brian McNamee in the upcoming defamation suit, the paper went into full tabloid mode and milked it for most of the week instead of hitting us with it all at once. Just another case of Mainstream Media out of control, I guess.

(3) Jay Bergman: The veteran baseball coach, six wins shy of 1,000 for his 26-year career at Central Florida, was fired amidst allegations of sexual harassment of a team equipment manager. According to The Orlando Sentinel, Bergman, 69, wielded a bat last month to simulate raping the employee. Bergman denies the allegation, but school officials have made him persona non grata and are saying they will not pay him for the remaining two years on his contract.

And that brings us to the final two “honorees” of the week, a pair of men whose time in the spotlight can be summed up as a case of “Lola, meet Lolita; Lolita, this is Lola.”

(2) Ronaldo: The Brazilian soccer star drove his girlfriend to her house Monday night and then picked up three prostitutes in Rio de Janeiro (where “play for pay” is legal, by the way). Upon reaching the hotel, though, the three-time FIFA player of the year discovered that the “ladies” were in fact transvestites. Police had to be called in to sift through a classic “he said, he said” dispute when the player said the prostitutes tried to extort money. For their part, the faux-females claimed Ronaldo threatened to harm them and also alleged the injured AC Milan striker is a druggie. Ronaldo’s statement to police said he was having psychological problems related to his bum knee. Umm, OK.

(1) Roger Clemens: The top three signs you’ve had a bad week? (a) You play for the Phoenix Suns; (b) The loyal opposition throws the anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” in your face 24/7; or (c) Your name is Roger Clemens. The week got worse by the day for Clemens, but it started pretty low — the newspaper story strongly implying that his friendship with country music performer Mindy McCready may have been of a physical nature while she was still a young teen. As any blackjack player would tell you, Raj, nothing good comes from hitting on 15.

 

Catching up with the best of the worst from the past week in sports:

 

(10) Boston Red Sox: Sure, he isn’t going to cost them anything, but can the BoSox brass seriously expect Bartolo Colon to give them as many as two quality starts between now and Curt Schilling’s return. Colon didn’t lose his fastball; a gopher ate it: 15 HRs among the 132 hits he allowed in just 99 innings last season. And forget his 6-8 record and 6.34 ERA with the Angels a year ago. He was 1-6 with a 7.09 ERA after mid-June. At 34, he’s not even close to the pitcher he was during a 21-8 season in 2005. There had to be a better Rent-A-Wreck out there for Red Sox Nation to pursue.

(9) Maria Sharapova: It turns out that one of the greats of tennis is a bad influence on children. The winner of three Grand Slam titles is known as a bit o####runter (on the court), and that influence has rubbed off on 9-year-old Lauryn Edwards, who has been banned by the Mt. Carmel Tennis Club in Sunbury, Australia, because she’s too noisy when she plays. The youngster idolizes the Russian star and has even been dubbed “Lauryn Sharapova” by an old coach.

(8) American Basketball Association: This rag-tag “league” began its 2007-08 season with “commitments” from 57 franchises to play. Most never launched their season or folded faster than an off-Broadway musical starring Rosanne Barr singing opera. Now, they’re taking about putting franchises in China, Mongolia and a slew of other Asian outposts. It’s one thing to have to scrape up money for a bus ticket home when your team goes belly-up during a swing through Corning and Syracuse. It’s a whole different matter putting together enough pesos to get home from Singapore, where the penalty for traveling is a public flogging.

(7) Larry Bowa: Joe Torre’s right-hand man doesn’t like the new rule requiring first- and third-base coaches to wear protective helmets on the field, saying he’d go so far as to write a check to cover a season’s worth of fines in advance. My advice to MLB: Don’t bother cashing the check because nothing bad will happen to Bowa; anyone that thick-headed can’t possibly get hurt, let alone killed, by a line drive.

(6) Associated Press Sports Editors: Please indulge a former sportswriter’s rant. Ever wonder why the same big-city columnists win the top sportswriting prizes every year. It’s because the APSE sets them up to succeed. More than 400 American newspapers belong to the organization and they compete for awards in four divisions each year based on circulation size. But it turns out only 34 papers are large enough to be in the top category while 202 publications fight it out in the smallest group. The APSE board recently rejected a proposal to tweak the rules to smooth out the distribution. Thank God the newspaper industry is dying faster than David Caruso’s career.

(5) Skip Bayless: The man used to be a top-notch columnist and was ahead of his time when he tried to syndicate his daily thoughts to subscribers by faxing them to fans willing to lay out the dough in the early 1980s. But watching him now on ESPN2 is painful because of his outrageously contrarian views. If the guy sitting across from him contends that the time is 1:17 p.m. and the temperature in the studio is somewhere between 68 and 72 degrees, Bayless feels compelled to argue that the time is actually 6:33 a.m. and that it’s 23 degrees and snowing in the studio. It’s oafish behavior at its best/worst (pick one, Skip).

(4) Bobby Knight: Speaking of Bristol pistols, what’s this? The man is too (pick one: bored, drained, arrogant) to finish out the season coaching basketball at Texas Tech but now he’s going to talk about the sport on ESPN? As a coach, Knight was plenty quick to mock and criticize the media. As an “analyst,” will he have the stones to call out a coach for an obvious blunder? Doubtful. He already weaseled out of answering Indiana-related questions during his ESPN Radio debut last week.

(3) Syracuse Orange basketball: I was more than willing to give Jim Boeheim’s boys a free pass and accept that winning a couple of games in the NIT would make for a successful season in light of the season-ending knee injuries to Andy Rautins over the summer and Eric Devendorf early this winter, plus the defection (emphasis on “defect”) of Josh Wright in a hissy fit over freshman Jonny Flynn’s playing time. But Saturday’s Chernobyl act at home against Pitt was a collapse on the level of the ’64 Phillies and ’67 Arabs. The Panthers outscored the Orange by 18-2 over the final 3½ minutes to win 82-77. Say it loud and proud, ‘Cuse fans: N – I - T, N – I - T.

(2) David Duval: Face it, it’s all over for the Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech. Duval, 36, has four MCs and a WD in five tournaments this season. He’s gone five years without making a Top 10, but a steady stream of 72-78-MC showings like the one this weekend at the Honda Classic in Florida will keep him in our Bottom 10.

(1) Darren McFadden: Besides being a prolific ground gainer on the football field, the former University of Arkansas star apparently is well on his way to being the mother of all fathers. Already embroiled in one paternity suit with possibly two more on the way, this prodigy of progeny will be spending the next several years of his life worrying less about which NFL safeties provide bone-jarring run-defense support and more time looking for lawyers who can get him out of paying child support.

(Records through Saturday)

(10) Emmitt Smith: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The former Dallas Cowboys great looked suave and smart last year with a Travolta-like strut through a supermarket in his commercial for HEB. Contrast that with his god-awful performance in the spot for Just For Men and you can only come to one conclusion: His gig as a studio analyst at ESPN is knocking valuable points off the man’s IQ. Get out while you can, Emmitt.

(9) Memphis Grizzlies (13-37): They’re 0-4 since more or less donating Pau Gasol to the Lakers. The schedule gets easier than the recent Jazz/Bucks/Mavs/Hornets stretch, but the lineup isn’t going to get better. Kwame Brown skipped more than just college; he apparently was absent the day his high school coach taught offense and defense.

(8) Pat Riley: If the Heat coach worked near Wall Street instead of South Beach, he’d be under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission's right now because of a su####iously rapid turn of events. Last weekend, Riley was being quoted as saying Shaquille O’Neal deserved a spot in the upcoming NBA All-Star Game, in part as recognition for career achievements but also implying that his center has done enough this season to justify the honor. By mid-week, Miami had shipped Shaq off to Phoenix. In the financial world, that’s what’s known as “pump and dump,” Pat.

(7) New York Islanders (24-25-7): Just 4-9-5 in 2008, they’re starving for goals as of late. Roxanne puts on the red light more often than the Isles, who have scored 11 times during their current 0-6-1 slump.

(6) Bobby Knight: It would be so easy to criticize the winningest coach in Division I men’s basketball history for abruptly retiring last week . . . so let’s get started. Aside from the whole deal with bequeathing his job to his son effective immediately (even George W. Bush made his kid wait eight years), there’s the issue of quitting on his players. If an Indiana or Texas Tech player had complained of being tired during a game, we’d be using dental records to make a positive identification the next day. Maybe there’s something deeper to the story along the line of health issues, but “The General’s” boorish behavior over the years didn’t earn him the benefit of the doubt now. Good Knight and good riddance.

(5) Ford drivers: The Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway was the proverbial spinout for David Gilliland, Bill Elliott, Jamie McMurray and Greg Biffle, who all crashed out of Saturday night’s season-opening NASCAR event. The words “Ford” and “crash” haven’t appeared in the same sentence so prominently since Richard Nixon bailed out in 1974 just in time to dump a Wall Street meltdown on a former Michigan congressman.

(4): Northwestern men’s basketball (7-14) The Mildcats are way out of their element in the Big Ten, going 0-10 thus far — all by double-digit margins. The final score on Saturday against Purdue could be so obscene that the game may get moved from network TV to the adult PPV tier on your cable system to keep impressionable youngsters from watching.

(3) Illinois basketball players and fans: University athletic officials issued an apology (and not a very good one, at that) after “fans” greeted Indiana freshman standout Eric Gordon with obscene trash talk last week. Gordon was playing in Champaign for the first time since backing out of a non-binding commitment he made to the Illini before signing a Letter of Intent with Indiana, and the "Liar! Liar!" chant — as if no one in the crowd had ever changed his/her mind about which school to attend — was about the most congenial behavior toward the player, whose family was also subjected to abuse. And what was up with Chester Frazier? His combination chest bump/body check on Gordon during pre-game introductions was delivered with malice and deserved a technical foul if not an out-and-out ejection.

(2) Washington Redskins: Apparently wowed by his work as offensive coordinator since arriving two whole weeks ago, owner Daniel Snyder gave Jim Zorn what amounted to a battlefield promotion to head coach over the weekend because no one else could be conned into taking the job. Gregg Williams bombed out in his fourth interview to replace the retired Joe Gibbs last month, losing his existing job as defensive coordinator in the process. That was a tipoff to Jim Mora, Steve Spagnuolo and Jim Fassell to think long and hard before committing to work for Snyder.

(1) The adults around Kevin Hart: Hart is the 6-foot-4, 305-pound high school lineman who held a news conference at Fernley (Nev.) High five days before Letter of Intent day to announce he was accepting a scholarship to play football at Cal. In fact, neither the Cal staff nor any other Division I school recruited Hart, and the hoax quickly unraveled. Tuition, room and board for a five-year stay on the Berkeley campus add up to more than $225,000. So why did Hart’s family and coaches let him navigate this alleged process alone? If someone was making that kind of investment in my kid, I’d want to at least have the college coach stop by for dinner so I could thank him and maybe photocopy his driver’s license in order to check up on him by doing a Google search or something.