Thirteen things I learned about the world of sports in 2006:

 
No matter how many millions are spent on the Winter Olympics, no one cares when they're over.

Remember Shani Davis? Odds are that you don't. It's OK, I won't hold it against you, even though it's only been 10 months since he became the first African-American athlete to win an individual gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

No... I won't hold it against you because he's a speed skater, and he - much like the other 2,662 Winter Olympic athletes - quickly faded into oblivion (or, as Mike Tyson would say, "bolivian") shortly after the closing ceremonies in Turin.

Sure, Davis still skates competitively, just like skier Bode Miller continues to drink recreationally. But as soon as the Olympic torch was extinguished in late February, speedskating, skiing, snowboarding and the biathalon fell completely off of the radar of the typical American sports fan.

Take care, Shani. See you in Vancouver in 2010.

No matter what you may have done in the past, if you drop 81 points in an NBA game, you get a free pass. At least for a little while, anyway.

You can't mess up the #1 pick, can you? - Volume I
It made all the sense in the world. The Houston Texans had the first pick in the
2006 NFL Draft. They needed a running back. USC RB Reggie Bush - four months
removed from winning the Heisman Trophy - was the consensus #1 selection. The Texans didn't take Bush. They didn't even take the hometown darling Vince Young. No - they took NC State DE Mario Williams, who has all of 4.5 sacks during his rookie campaign.

You can't mess up the #1 pick, can you? - Volume II
Any person who had the #1 pick in their fantasy football league this season and didn't select LaDainian Tomlinson (myself included) is an idiot. Period. And I don't care if he's on the cover of Madden NFL 2008 - if you have the first pick in your league next year and you don't take LT, then you should be banned from fantasy sports for five years. In fact, LT should be automatically assigned to the worst team in every fantasy league just as a matter of principle.

2006 was Vince Young's year.
Let's review, shall we? 2006 was only days old when Vince Young and his Texas Longhorns upset the USC Trojans in what may have been the best college football game ever. All Vince did that night was score 3 TDs and rack up 200 yards on the ground, while throwing for 267 more through the air.

Less than two months later, reports surfaced that VY scored a 6 on the Wonderlic test given at the NFL Combine. Since a score of 10 is considered the threshold for literacy, Vince allegedly did the Wonderlic equivalent of running into several parked cars, failing to properly use his turn signal, and botching a three-point turn during his driving test. Young would later retake the Wonderlic and score a 16, which was good enough for the Tennessee Titans to draft him 3rd overall and lock him into a 6 year/$58 million deal.

With Tennessee, Young has learned the game under the tutelage of offensive coordinator Norm Chow, who is arguably the greatest quarterback coach ever (for references, see: McMahon, Jim; Young, Steve; Rivers, Philip; and Palmer, Carson). And despite not starting until the fourth game of the season (with the Titans starting out the year 0-3), Young has led his team to an 8-7 record with a reasonable chance at making the playoffs.

So Vince is basically playing with house money right now. Even someone with a 6 on the Wonderlic understands that much...

It's still hard to say goodbye.
Every year, we lose a few more. Reggie White, Bo Schembechler, Red Auerbach, Lamar Hunt, Buck O'Neil, Kurt Gowdy, Kirby Puckett and dozens of others all said their final goodbyes in 2006. We all know that it's inevitable, but that doesn't mean that it hurts any less, either.

We fly high, no lie, and you know this... BRAWLIN'!
Of the four major sports, two of them - football and basketball - have relatively few fights. But when they do happen... hide the women and children.

To say that the Miami and Florida International football teams "got into it" during their game in October is probably the understatement of the year. Helmets and crutches were used as weapons, bodies were being stomped on, and 31 players in all were suspended. Strangely enough, the fight occurred on a night when the Miami-Dade Police Department brought 700 area kids to the game as part of their "Join-a-Team, Not-a-Gang" anti-violence program. Irony is a beautiful thing.

Fortunately, the recent Knicks-Nuggets brawl was much tamer by comparison. Sure, J.R. Smith and Nate Robinson fell into the stands, and 10 players wound up getting suspended, but it was a far cry from the infamous "Malice in the Palace." As a matter of fact, the only semi-decent shot that landed in the whole incident was when the Knicks' Mardy Collins was "punched" by Denver's Carmelo Anthony, who backpedaled quicker than Champ Bailey covering a 9 route.

The US? That's Us.
Losing in the World Baseball Classic was OK, even though it was played in our own backyard. And losing in the World Cup was fine as well - soccer is still a fringe sport in our country and the US team was vastly overrated well before they boarded their flight to Germany.

But in the month of September alone, athletes representing the United States lost in tennis' Davis Cup, got blown out 18.5 - 9.5 in golf's Ryder Cup and both our men's and women's basketball teams lost in the semifinals of the FIBA World Championships.

Well, at least we have a shot at winning the America's Cup in 2007. Nothing gets me more excited than a sailing regatta in Spain!

People really love horses.

Game truly does recognize game.
In September, Tiger Woods attended the U.S. Open in Flushing, NY as the personal guest of Roger Federer, who went on to win his 9th major title. The fact that Woods and Federer roll in the same circle shouldn't be that surprising. It's the same reason why the Angelina Jolies of the world always seem to hook up with the Brad Pitts.

In Woods and Federer, we may be watching the two most dominant athletes in the history of their respective sports. Enjoy it while you can.

The NHL gets lower ratings than SpongeBob Square Pants. Seriously.
Question: who won the Stanley Cup this year? I'll admit it - I even forgot that the Carolina Hurricanes won until I saw a year-in-review retrospective on SportsCenter an hour ago.

It's a shame that no one cares about hockey. There are a TON of young stars - Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Heatley, Kovalchuk, et al. - who are absolutely ridiculous with the puck. Yet because the NHL lacks a legitimate TV deal (most Americans don't even know they get Versus on their cable systems, much less actually watch it), the only people who get to see these talented athletes are die-hard hockey fans. So enjoy it IF you can...

Terrell Owens has 25 million reasons to live.
This is the time of the year when just about everyone you run into will say something along the lines of: "Wow... 2006 sure went by fast!"

Everyone, except for Terrell Owens, that is. There aren't too many people on the planet who have had a more eventful year than the mercurial WR for the Dallas Cowboys. Here's what #81 has gotten himself into in the past 10 months alone:

- Waived by the Philadelphia Eagles in March
- Signed a three-year deal with the Cowboys four days later
- Posted a rap song on his website announcing the deal
- Shows up two hours late for his youth football camp
- Penned his second autobiography in 22 months
- Admits that he was misquoted in parts of his autobiography
- Spent most of training camp on a stationary bike
- Overdosed on painkillers
- Admitted to falling asleep in the film room
- Tuned out a motivational speech from Coach Bill Parcells because he was more concerned with his birthday party in Vegas
- Wrote a children's book: Little T Learns To Share
- Spit on an opposing player
- Currently leads the NFL in TD catches
- Currently leads the NFL in dropped passes
- Blames his teammates and coaches for the dropped passes

Other than that, T.O. hasn't really done much this year.

And finally...

The Bears are who we thought they were.