The Ravens Got To Have Ice Cream

It's not just because they won the Super Bowl: they've had Mr. Tastee roll through training camp before. That's right, Patriots: their coach is way cooler than yours. When did he ever let you have ice cream?

Liverpool FC Has A List Of Unacceptable Words

The Fenway-owned Premier League side distributed a list of words commonly found offensive to their employees, which was later leaked on Twitter. Of course, they'd save themselves a lot of trouble by just selling Luis Suárez.
Read more at The Guardian.

Is NASCAR's New TV Deal A Bad Sign?

Last week, NASCAR announced a new 10-year, $4.4B TV deal with NBC, taking over for ESPN and ending a 26-year relationship with Turner Sports. While it sounds like NASCAR ditched the other two, Sports Business Journal's John Ourand reports it's the other way around. Turner told NASCAR they wouldn't renew after suffering their worst ratings in three decades, and ESPN did the same citing sour ratings and an aging demographic. SBJ's report comes of a poorly attended Brickyard 400, which Autoweek reports was anywhere from 70,000 to 80,000 (260,000 attended the race in 2006). It also comes a month after a Sporting News report that 25% of seating has been removed from ISC-owned tracks.
Read more at Sports Business Journal and Autoweek. 

Notre Dame Recruit's Case To Be Decided This Week

Lineman Eddie Vanderdoes signed a Letter of Intent to play at Notre Dame in February, but when his grandmother fell ill, he wanted to return to Southern California to be close to her, and enrolled at UCLA. The problem is, Notre Dame's Brian Kelly will not let him out of his Letter of Intent, even if it is because of his ailing grandmother. The Letter of Intent is not required to play football. There is also no penalty for a school that recruits a player that has signed an LoI. But if a player breaks his LoI, he loses one year of eligibility, unless the coach releases him.
Vanderdoes has already appealed to the board that governs LoI's once, but he had another appeal scheduled for Monday, and that decision is expected this week. Critics of Vanderdoe
s say that a reversal of his LoI would mean an open season of recruiting on LoI-signed players. Critics of Brian Kelly point to the fact he left Cincinnati with only hours notice for Notre Dame with no penalty, as can any other coach.
Read more from Gregg Doyel at CBS Sports.

Move Over, Johnny Football - There's A New Infamous Tweeter In The SEC

Crimson Tide defensive lineman Dee Liner (yes, that's his name) posted a picture on his Instagram that's been getting press. The image shows the 18-year-old Liner (on the left) flashing a healthy wad of C-notes. The image has raised more than the eyebrows Johnny Manziel got for tweeting his cash: many Auburn fans remember Liner verbally committed to the Tigers in 2011, but signed with Alabama this spring. So it's safe to guess what Tiger fans are posting to their message boards.
Read more at College Football Talk.

DudeBros Riot At Surfing Tournament

No one knows what made these DudeBros go ape at the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, California. Perhaps local stores had run of Axe Body Spray or shirts that come with the sleeves already cut off. Maybe officials banned barbed-wire tats or Ed Hardy shirts. Perhaps they were upset at being unable to park their tricked out Honda Civic, or their slammed Chevrolet Silverado's with the fart can. Or maybe their girlfriends couldn't come so they had to swing at somebody. Either way, things went sideways in SoCal Sunday.

Brian France Almost Got It

NASCAR CEO Brian France recently spoke with the Indianapolis Star, and was asked about NASCAR's relationship with the IRL:

Q: Is IndyCar a friend or foe to NASCAR?
A: We consider it a friend. We can’t win when other people lose. We would prefer to see a healthy IndyCar Series. I know we’ll help them significantly by moving to NBC and the NBC Sports Network. We’ll give a lot of visibility to that network and that in turn will be good for them. Our hope is that they will get stronger because we run at a number of the same venues and if they can contribute to those venues that need all kinds of capital and improvements, (that) would be a win for us.

Excellent point. That's the kind of talk from someone who understands how your league can benefit by building up the sport and...oh, wait...

Q: Are you willing to pair a Sprint Cup or Nationwide Series race with an IndyCar race at the same track on the same weekend?
A: No. Nationwide is significantly ahead of the Indy Racing League in terms of its television ratings and attendance and everything else with the exception, obviously, of the Indy 500. We wouldn’t want to mix that. They have to stand on their own, and we have to stand on our own.

There's a reason nepotism doesn't always work.
Read more at IndyStar.com.

Yeah, Fox Sports 1 Isn't Coming Together So Well

When Fox Sports 1 was announced, their first show named was the Regis Philbin vehicle, now named Crowd Goes W!ld (apparently, Fox brass are e-mailing anyone who forgets the "!"). While the show does have credibility with Embassy Row Studios' production, having an octogenarian host a show that's expected to take on ESPN's yelling shows does have it's issues. Those issues came forward on The Late Show with David Letterman:

Letterman: Who else is on the show?
Regis: We got uh.. uh... a great big defensive end.... who uh... 14 years in the NFL... two Super Bowl games ... his name is uh....(laughter) ... I know the guy! I just spent the weekend with him! Uh.... Travis ... uh... Honest to God! This is really embarrassing! (asks to Fox Sports PR person off camera) What is it?
Fox Sports PR person off camera: Pryce.
Regis: Yes! Travis Pryce!
Fox Sports PR person off camera: TREVOR!
Regis: TREVOR PRYCE! DAMMIT!

Yep. Fox Sports 1, the alternative to ESPN.
Read more at Awful Announcing, a Fox-owned blog that's killing Regis right now.

Fox Decides Erin Andrews Is Not Ready For Primetime

After crediting her high number of Twitter followers when they hired her, Fox made Erin Andrews the host of their college football coverage based on her experience as a sideline reporter. A year later, and Fox has decided to go with Fox Soccer's Rob Stone as host of their prime-time coverage. Andrews will now host the morning pre-game show.
Read more at Awful Announcing.

Is College Football About To Split?

In their recent media days, commissioners of the Big 12, SEC, and ACC have all said they're tired of the current NCAA rules their football teams play under. They've hinted at a new division solely made up of the five BCS conferences (code-named "Division 4"), and possibly even a break from the NCAA itself. The five "Division 4" conferences (the previous three plus the Big Ten and Pac-12) could make rules that would allow payments to players, wide-open rules on scholarships and recruiting, and lax enforcement rules. In essence, they could have teams made up of students who barely go to class. And even if the teams stay in the NCAA with their other sports, the disparity between the new "Division 4" basketball team and a current Division I team could mean the end of competitiveness in March Madness.
Talk has gotten so serious, NCAA President Mark Emmert has called for a Division I summit in January, but it could be too late. ACC Commish John Swofford says change could come within the next six months, and conferences are looking at adopting the Big Ten's new practice of not playing non-BCS level schools.
Read more at CBS Sports.

College Sports Dossier: Richard Spencer

UTEP Senior DB Richard Spencer was arrested Wednesday following an early morning incident outside a bar. According to the El Paso Times:

Spencer allegedly pushed a 22-year woman on the shoulders and against a white truck, El Paso Police spokesman Darrel Petry said. She was injured in the incident.
Spencer walked away from the officers after being told to stop, Petry said. Officers caught Spencer and placed him under arrest on suspicion of assault causing bodily injury and evading arrest, Petry said.

Which should work out for his first office job, since Spencer is a Business Major at UTEP.
Read more at the El Paso Times and UTEP's Bio Page.

Fox Sports Tape Delays NASCAR Race Without Warning

On Wednesday night, NASCAR ran it's first national tour race on a dirt track since 1970, with the Truck Series Mudsummer Classic at Eldora Speedway. It was a memorable event that a lot of NASCAR fans were hoping to share on social media - until those who logged onto Twitter saw the results of a race they were watching on TV. Fox's Speed Channel, soon to become Fox Sports 1 next month, had chosen to tape delay their coverage without informing fans.
The decision came within a week of NASCAR announcing they would no longer allow aerial cameras such as CamCat, the system Fox was using until one of its cables broke at the World 600, causing damage to cars (including leader Kyle Busch) and injuring 10 fans.

NFL Checking Tats?

CBS Sports' Bruce Feldman is reporting NFL teams may start using police experts to examine the tattoos of incoming prospects to see if they are gang-related. The NFL previously had experts review touchdown celebrations to find gang signs.
Of course, this probably has nothing to do with the fact Aaron Hernandez has been photographed often with an ink sleeve on each arm.
Read more at Pro Football Talk.

Pac-12 Has Issue With First For-Profit School In D-1

Grand Canyon University is a for-profit school: founded as a non-profit Christian school in the 50's, it's now a publicly-traded company that incorporated about ten years ago. For-profits aren't a new concept, as everyone's familiar with DeVry, ITT Tech, University of Phoenix, and UTI. But GCU is the first such school to play in the NCAA's Division I, with the Antelopes starting this year in the WAC, and they will be eligible for 2018's March Madness. But the Pac-12 conference has a problem with that. Commissioner Larry Scott has sent a letter of protest to NCAA headquarters, following complaints in his conference about a for-profit school joining the 340 tax-exempt non-profit D-I schools in the tax-exempt non-profit NCAA. From CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd:

“It's gotten on the radar of our schools and are trying to raise it as a policy issue as to whether for-profit schools ought to be playing Division I athletics, or not, before there are any,” Scott said. “It's always hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”

Among the Pac-12's issues is their belief that GCU will be “responsible to financial partners and shareholders. That's the bottom line of accountability.” They're also bothered by the fact that the school would receive money from the NCAA's financial distribution fund, which distributes the revenues from the March Madness tournament. There's even rumblings Pac-12 teams will refuse to play games against GCU in protest.
Grand Canyon University does not have a football team, and the WAC no longer sponsors the sport after all the conference realignments the past few years. According to What You Pay For Sports, the Pac-12 makes $30M per school a year from television deals.
Read more at CBS Sports. 
Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Current Players Join Ed O'Bannon Lawsuit

Six current players have joined the class-action Ed O'Bannon anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA. With current players joining the suit, now any damages could reach into the billions of dollars for the NCAA and schools. The lawsuit, filed in 2009, concerns the use of players' likeness in video games and high-dollar TV deals without compensation.
The six men that have joined the lawsuit (all football players):
Jake Fischer - LB, Arizona
Jake Smith - K, Arizona
Chase Garnham - LB, Vanderbilt
Darius Robinson - CB, Clemson
Moses Alipate - TE, Minnesota
Victor Keise - WR, Minnesota.
Asked by ESPN's Outside The Lines, the NCAA had no comment.
Read more at ESPN.

Bama Fan: Saban's A Winner Like Hitler

No, you're reading that headline right.
The AL.com's Jon Solomon wrote an article about SEC fans in line for an autograph session at SEC Media Days. One young man gave his opinion of why his favorite coach, Alabama's Nick Saban, is so good:

"He's a winner, he just does what he wants to do," says Lee Allen, an Alabama fan from Decatur. "He's kind of like Hitler. He's a dictator. He brought us back to the top and I figure we're going to be here for a while. Money well spent." Wait, what? Hitler? You mean that as a compliment? "Yeah," Allen says in between discreetly spitting tobacco juice into a water bottle in the lobby. 

Congrats, Bama fan. As long as you don't play a Russian team, that fourth title in five years should be yours for the taking.
Read more at AL.com.

Charles Barkley Talks The Zimmerman/Martin Case

The Round Mound of Rebound recently appeared on CNBC's Closing Bell, where Maria Baritromo asked Charles about the Zimmerman/Martin case. Never afraid to speak his mind, Barkley took on the case as it went through the media.

BARKLEY: I just feel bad because I don't like when race gets out in the media, because I don't think the media has a pure heart, as I call it. There are very few people have a pure heart when it comes to race. Racism is wrong in any, shape, form. There are a lot of black people who are racist too. I think sometimes when people talk about racism they act like only white people are racist. There are a lot of black people who are racist. And I don't like when it gets out there in the media because I don’t think the media has clean hands...And like I said, the main thing I feel bad for, it gives every white person and black person who is racist a platform to vent their ignorance.
BARTIROMO: Right.
BARKLEY: You know, that’s the thing that bothered me the most because I watched this trial closely, and I watched all these people on television talking about it. A lot of these people have a hidden agenda. You know, they want to have their racist views, whether they are white or black.
BARTIROMO: The bias comes out.
BARKLEY: The bias, it definitely comes out. It was a bad situation. We all lost. And I feel bad for his parents. You don't ever want to see anybody lose a kid.

Barkley did say he agreed on the verdict based on the lack of evidence, believing Zimmerman was wrong for profiling, but Martin did "flip the switch" and start attacking Zimmerman. As Charles said, "It was a bad situation. We all lost."
Read more at Deadspin.

Current Florida Coach: Coaches “100%” Responsible For Player Conduct

During SEC Media Days, current Gator's coach Will Muschamp was asked how responsible coaches are for their players' off-the-field actions. Not only did Muschamp respond with "100%", he admitted that even though coaches can't know everything all the time, they "can’t stick their heads in the sand and act like nothing is happening."
The question was undoubtedly about previous head coach Urban Meyer, Aaron Hernandez, and the 31 arrests under Meyer's leadership. A 2012 Sporting News article detailed Muschamp's first season after Meyer, when he cut so many troublesome players he was 13 under the NCAA's 85 scholarship limit and was forced to start 15 of his true freshman.
Read more at College Football Talk.

Big Stars On The Small Screen: Christopher Walken on Five-0

Everyone has to start somewhere, and a lot of our biggest stars got their start in small roles on television. In Christopher Walken's case, as early as age 10. In our new feature "Big Stars On The Small Screen," here's Walken getting a major guest spot on Hawaii Five-0, in 1970's "Run, Johnny, Run."



If you ever want to watch the full episode, there's another interesting cameo: Al Micheals as defense attorney Dave Bronstein. The episode aired seven years before Annie Hall (ironically, he did an episode of Kojak the same year), and eight before The Deer Hunter.

Police Transcript Reveals JoePa Knew It Wasn't "Horseplay"

Documentary filmmaker and author John Ziegler might be a hero to Penn State truthers, but even the Paterno's want nothing to do with him. And for good reason, considering he tried dropping victim's names on news shows before (temporarily) naming the shower victim on his own website. But now he's probably blown a hole through one of the most common Paterno defenses in his recently published book, The Betrayal of Joe Paterno (available in pdf on his website). He includes the transcript of an October 2011 police interview with Paterno that's supposed to prove his innocence. Instead, it reveals Paterno knew the now-infamous shower incident was of a "sexual nature:"

SASSANO: Did Mike McQueary, some years ago, come to you, report to you an incident that he observed in the shower between Jerry Sandusky and another individual most likely a young boy.
J. PATERNO: Yes he did.
SASSANO: Okay, and can you tell me what Mike McQueary told you please.
J. PATERNO: Mike McQueary came and said he was in the shower and that Jerry Sandusky was in the shower with another person, a younger, how young I don’t know and Mike never mentioned it, that there was some inappropriate sexual activity going on. We didn’t get in to what the inappropriate action was, but it was inappropriate. And that’s how I knew about it.
SASSANO: So he did not elaborate to you what this sexual activity was, only that he witnessed some sexual activity between Sandusky and a young boy?
J. PATERNO: Well he, well he, to be frank with you it was a long time ago, but I think as I recall he said something about touching.
SASSANO: Touching?
J. PATERNO: Touching.. whatever you want to call them, privates, whatever it is.
...
SASSANO: Okay, the key element is, do you remember if you told Mr. Curley whether in person or over the phone, that McQueary witnessed a sexual incident between Sandusky and a boy?
J. PATERNO: To my knowledge yes I think Tim was aware of the fact that Mike had been a.. had seen this inappropriate action.
SASSANO: Sexual action?
J. PATERNO: Well yea, I guess you’d call it sexual. I don’t .. he had a, yea.

Besides the four times in this interview, Paterno also used the term "sexual activity" in his grand jury testimony. Most JoePa defenders insist he thought it was "horseplay," and even the Paterno's own report claimed he could not understand what McQueary told him.
Classic Zeigs. Next thing you know, he's going to reveal JoePa had every episode of Love Boat on Blue Ray.
Read more at Deadspin.
Image courtesy Arkansas Online.

Becks Teasing MLS Team Announcement

David Beckham's been hinting he'll soon reveal his plans for owning a Major League Soccer franchise. If rumors are true, the man who made soccer the #1 sport in America will be bringing the beautiful game to sports-hungry Miami. For the record, it would not be the Magic City's first MLS franchise: the Miami Fusion played from the league's founding until 2001, when poor attendance forced the team to fold.
Read more at Pro Soccer Talk.
Image Courtesy Crappers Quarterly.

College Sports Dossier: Will Ritter

Senior DE Will Ritter of the relatively-new University of Texas at San Antonio Roadrunners was arrested Sunday morning after an incident in an Austin bar. From the San Antonio Express News:

An arrest affidavit said Ritter was arrested early Sunday morning outside the Blind Pig Pub at 317 E. 6th Street.
Information in the affidavit alleges that Ritter, in a scuffle, hit two females and then hit a male who was knocked unconscious.

Ritter was also arrested for public intox, but he should be able to figure out what incident led him to drinking: Ritter is a Psychology major at UTSA.
Read more at the San Antonio Express News and UTSA's Bio Page.

Keith Olbermann Keeps Getting Offers

The NY Daily News is reporting KO is in talks with ESPN to host a new late night talk show on ESPN2. It would be Olbermann's third stint with the Worldwide Leader: "The Big Show" years of 1992-97, and a short-lived one-hour daily spot on Dan Patrick's ESPN Radio show in the mid-2000's. Besides crossing the previously burned bridge, the irony would be KO already hosted a late night show on "espn2" at it's launch in 1993.




Read more at the NY Daily News.

Has MLB Banned Replays of Pete Rose Footage?

Tim McCarver is retiring at year's end, which might be why he dropped a dime on Bud Selig Monday. In an interview with Dan Patrick, McCarver revealed MLB restricts Fox and ESPN from showing highlights of Pete Rose, the all-time hit king banned for gambling on baseball.
Read more at Awful Announcing.

Gawker Publishes Tweets Complaining Of Bilingual Home Run Derby Interviews

During Monday night's Home Run Derby on ESPN, Pedro Gomez interviewed Aroldis Chapman and Yoenis Céspedes. Neither speak English, so Pedro spoke to them in Spanish and translated the interview. As with anything that ever happens in the world, people complained on Twitter. Now Deadspin's Timothy Burke is publishing any tweet (with username) that's negative on his sports blog. Timothy Burke has published tweets in this manner before, recently for anyone defending Paula Deen, any racist tweets about Sebastien De La Cruz's national anthem, and people complaining of a ESPN Deportes broadcast on the main ESPN channel.
Read more at Deadspin.

Where's 2002?

NBC Hardball Talk's Craig Calcaterrra noticed the out-of-town scoreboard at Citi Field is displaying the final scores of the most recent All Star Games. Well, almost every score...

It's @MLB revisionist history. The tied All-Star Game in 2002 didn't happen. pic.twitter.com/BqSq1sJOpl
— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) July 15, 2013

Read more at NBC's Hardball Talk.

LSU Stays Mum On Twice-Convicted Running Back

According to CBS Sports' Gregg Doyal, LSU coach Les Miles is waiting for an August 16th probation hearing before he makes a decision on sophomore running back Jeremy Hill. In January 2012, Hill pleaded guilty to "carnal knowledge" of a minor, for an incident in which he and another 18-year-old forced a 14-year-old girl to perform oral sex on them in their high school locker room. He received probation, and Les Miles offered him a scholarship to LSU. After a freshman season with 755 yards and 12 touchdowns, Hill was arrested this past April for "simple battery" of Connor Baldridge. A video released by the local DA shows Hill sucker-punching Baldridge. Hill plead guilty, but was given a six-month suspended sentence and two years probation by District Judge Mike Erwin, a 1976 graduate of LSU. Erwin also enacted a curfew, but made exceptions for football activities. The August 16th hearing Miles is waiting on is to determine if Hill violated his first probation with his second arrest. Presiding will be District Judge Bonnie Jackson, 1978 graduate of LSU's law school. LSU has said Hill is currently suspended (during the off-season), and Miles will wait "until the legal process surrounding this matter is completed."
Read Gregg Doyal's column at CBS Sports.

Did Anna Benson Kill Someone?

Deadspin has unearthed a 1996 murder case involving Anna Benson's apartment in Knoxville, TX. Benson, who at that time was Anna Warren, was living in a dirty apartment that had "anti-cop graffiti and satanic messages," such as "666," "187," and “The only good pig is a dead pig.” One day, an argument with a man named Micheal Evans led Warren to tell her live-in boyfriend Paul Dejongh to "get rid of him." On January 22, police found Evans face down by her front door, with two bullet holes in the back of his head.
The two fled, and Benson was captured two years later; Dejongh was captured two months after her. Dejongh pleaded guilty to second degree murder in a plea deal, and charges were dropped against Benson since there's no evidence "get rid of him" meant murder. Later that year, Anna met Kris Benson.
If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because the case was aired on "America's Most Wanted."



Read more at Deadspin.

College Football To Start Ejecting Players For Head Hits This Fall

The NCAA passed a rule for the upcoming season, stating a hit above the shoulders on a defenseless opponent is a mandatory ejection. But Big Ten Network's Tom Dienhart was at a meeting of officials on Friday, and the word from the Big Ten is “When in doubt, throw him out.” Conferences can review plays on Monday and issue suspensions (the SEC did a few times last year), but they'd prefer to just eject on Saturday and get it over with. This has been your National Collegiate Athletic Association in action!
Read more at Pro Football Talk

Baron Davis Claims A Close Encounter

In an interview with "The Champs," a podcast hosted by comedians Neal Brennan and Moshe Kasher, NBA player Baron Davis casually claimed he was abducted by aliens two weeks ago while driving from Vegas to LA:
And you thought it was bad enough driving through bat country.
Read more at CBS Sports.

Sharknado, Hype, And Twitter

With all the coverage on news shows, radio shows, and the tweets leading up to it's airing, you'd think "Sharknado" scored record ratings Thursday night. As a matter of fact, with more than 600,000 tweets during primetime (that's two tweets for every three humans), it surely had to be a blockbuster.
Um, no.
In fact, only one million people watched "Sharknado", and SyFy scored a 0.4 in the 18-49 demo. According to Bloomberg Business' Claire Suddath, that's not only a TV bust, but "[m]ost Syfy originals have an average viewership of 1.5 million people, with some getting twice that."
The Atlantic compared the twitter and viewership numbers of "Sharknado" to the Red Wedding episode of "Game of Thrones:. As you can see on the right, tweets don't equate to eyeballs.
But don't cry too much for SyFy: they make around 24 of these movies a year, at a cost of $1.5M each, paying companies who used to be direct-to-vi
deo before the market dried up. That's not even 1% of what Disney paid for "The Lone Ranger."
Read more at Bloomberg Business and The Atlantic. 

NHRA Driver Courtney Force Makes ESPN Mag's Body Issue

Courtney Force, daughter of legendary 15-time Funny Car champ John Force, posed for ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue, where sports stars pose nude (with strategically place objects, of course). Courtney is in her second season in Funny Cars, with four event wins and last year's Rookie Of The Year title. And yes, John's OK with it (he actually had photos of his scarred body published in 2011).
Of course, Danica Patrick's posed for magazines and Go Daddy commercials for years, but has been criticized for the perception she's a marketing tool while her results aren't so spectacular. Which is a point brought up by SiriusXM and MRN Radio's Pete Pistone:

So Danica Patrick gets bashed for this kind of stuff but Courtney Force gets a pass? Seems hypocritical pic.twitter.com/Ju3ka1E1Zz #NASCAR
— Pete Pistone (@PPistone) July 11, 2013

Which is actually a good question: Is it unfair to criticize Danica for photo-shoots and not Courtney, or does Courtney deserve a pass because of her on-track success?

Journalists Accuse NFL Player of Extremism Before Checking Sources

Oday Aboushi, the 6th-round pick for the New York Jets, is a Brooklyn-born Palestinian Muslim. This week, Yahoo Sports' Adam Waksman wrote an article about how Aboushi's anti-Semitic activism "is a potential disaster that needs to be dealt with before it becomes anything real." And MLB's new media coordinator Jonathan Mael tweeted, "The Patriots have Aaron Hernandez, the Jets have Oday Aboushi."
The problem?
The two men's source was an article at Frontpage Magazine, a blog founded by far right-winger David Horowitz. The article made accusations of antisemitism and claimed links to Muslim extremism based on a tweet Aboushi shared of a Palestinian woman being evicted from her home. There is no evidence Aboushi is anti-Semitic or a Muslim extremist.
The Yahoo! article, which did not quote Aboushi, has been removed, and Mael has apologized. But when you're looking to throw stones, why check sources?
Read more at Deadspin.

Pac-12 To...China?

Notre Dame played in Dublin last year, and Penn State's expected to join them soon. Now Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is planning on globalizing the Pac-12 Conference. In an interview with the Pac-12 Network, Scott said "I think we will have football [in China] at some stage," referring to some sports having already played overseas. He admitted, "It’s only natural for us to look West with so many of our schools already doing it." So there you go: Pac-12's looking to corner the Asian market.
Guess that means the SEC or ACC could be going for Europe next?
Read more at College Football Talk.

More Bad News For Patriots?

According to the AP, one of Hernandez' associates, Carlos Ortiz, gave an interesting detail to investigators about that rented apartment searched last week. According to Ortiz, he and the other suspect, Ernest Wallace, “went to an apartment in the area that Hernandez and other football players used” the day after the shooting. Yes, he mentioned the apartment was used by "other football players," which means investigators (and the media, of course) might be interested in what other players might know about a flat that had five boxes of .45-cal ammo in it.
Bet Bob Kraft feels like a dummy right now, after spending all that time worrying about Gronk dancing shirtless and laying the wood to porn stars.
Read more at Comcast Sportsnet New England.

Jason Collins' Ex-Fiancé Speaks

Two months after Jason Collins came out in a first-person interview in Sports Illustrated, his former fiancé Carolyn Moos did a first-person interview with Cosmo magazine. After an 8-year relationship and 1-year engagement, Collins called it off without giving a reason in 2009. She never heard from him again until a phone call last April:

"Jason told me he's gay over the phone on a Monday morning in April, the same day the magazine hit newsstands. However, he didn't mention the article—that came as a surprise when I heard about it from a friend. In his essay, Jason wrote that he'd once been engaged to a woman. Reporters zoomed in on me, thrusting my name into the news." 

Carolyn said Collins' promised he would discuss things further with her, but he hasn't ("I am sad that the media seems to be a higher priority"). She also addressed her current feelings for him:

"I empathize with Jason and support him. But at the same time, I remain deeply hurt by him. I wish he could have been honest with me years ago... He's being hailed as a pioneer, but I believe true heroism is a result of being honest with yourself and with those you love." 

Read Carolyn Moos' full interview at Cosmo.

Urban's Drug Test Claims May Be Inaccurate

In his first public comments on Aaron Hernandez Saturday, Urban Meyer emphatically denied Florida ever covered up a drug test, and Hernandez himself admitted in pre-draft interviews he was suspended for the 2008 season opener against Hawai'i for failing a drug test. However, a 2010 Orlando Sentinel story said Meyer claimed Hernandez "wasn't ready to play." And a 2012 Sporting News story on new coach Will Muschamp's rebuilding of the Florida program revealed Hernandez and two other players were reported as "injured:"

In the season opener against Hawaii, Meyer said a few elite players (including wideout Percy Harvin, linebacker Brandon Spikes and tight end Aaron Hernandez) would miss the game with injuries. According to multiple sources, the three players—all critical factors in Florida’s rise under Meyer—failed drug tests for marijuana and were sitting out as part of standard university punishment...

“They were running with us on the first team all week in practice,” one former player said. “The next thing you know, they’re on the sidelines with a (walking) boot for the season opener like they were injured.” 

The Sporting News article also mentions Muschamp let go three players for marijuana offenses, including thrice-arrested Janoris Jenkins, who told the Orlando Sentinel, "If (Meyer) was still the coach at Florida, I’d still be there."
The weeding out of troubled players meant Muschamp had to play fifteen true freshman, and he was 12 players under the NCAA's 85 scholarship limit during Florida's 2011 season.
Read more at the Orlando Sentinel and Sporting News.

Another Example Of Your Hollywood Execs In Action

In the late 1980's, Paramount Studios were looking into making a feature film of the BBC standard Doctor Who, according to the new book Now On The Big Screen: The Unofficial And Unauthorised Guide To Doctor Who At The Cinema. And as Paramount readied to take on the project in 1988, they decided on their first choice as The Doctor:

Are NFL Players Usually More Criminal?

The BBC looked to USA Today's Brent Schrotenboer, who's created quite the database on NFL arrests, to see if the NFL has a crime problem. By the numbers:

• Since 2000, there have been 664 arrests (individual arrests, not arrested individuals). 
• The arrest rate for active players is one in 47. For the general public, it's one in 25. 
• The arrest rate for all men 21-34 is one in 8. 
• The arrest rate for all 23-year-old men (like Hernandez) is one in 6. 
• The arrest rate for US women is one in 46. 
• "[Drunk] driving makes up 30% of all active player arrests during a year," but is half the rate of the general public aged 21-34. 
• "[I]n general terms there are about six times as many arrests among the general population of young American men, as there are among football players." 

However, the BBC does add this caveat: "Other critics would argue that the one in 47 figure is still too high because unlike a lot of the general population the players had an education in college, earn very good money and live in safe neighbourhoods." Read more at BBC News Magazine.

Adam Sandler And Kevin James Do Horrible Command...Again

To help promote their latest film, Grown-Ups 2, Adam Sandler and Kevin James (with Shaq) gave the command for Saturday night's 400 mile Cup race in Daytona:



This a follow-up to their last command when promoting Grown-Ups 1:


 And don't forget Kevin James by himself promoting Chuck & Larry:


 And James again last year promoting Here Comes The Boom:


If anyone in Hollywood is listening, please stop letting these two make movies, at least for NASCAR fans. For Christ's sake, they already have to listen to Darrell Waltrip.

Urban Meyer Speaks

After initially insisting no comment on his former Florida TE Aaron Hernandez, Urban Meyer texted Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch on Saturday to tell his side of the story:

“Prayers and thoughts are with the family and friends of the victim. Relating or blaming these serious charges to theUniversityofFlorida, myself or our staff is wrong and irresponsible.”

“I just received an email from a friend where there is an accusation of multiple failed drug tests by Hernandez covered up byUniversityofFloridaor the coaching staff. This is absolutely not true. Hernandez was held to the same drug testing policy as every other player.” 

“He was an athlete at Florida 4 -7 yrs ago and there are some comments being made that are not correct. Our staff, myself and our families worked very hard to mentor and guide him.” 

The current Ohio State coach has been under recent scrutiny with Hernandez bringing up old memories of his time in Gainesville, when over 30 players were arrested during his tenure.
Read more at Buckeye Extra.

Was Aaron Hernandez Involved In ANOTHER Double Shooting?

Now Florida and Massachusetts authorities are working together to see if Aaron Hernandez was involved in a Gainesville double shooting in 2007. According to the police report, three men leaving a local nightclub were shot in their car at a red light. One man was hit in the head and another in the arm. The unharmed third man in the back, Randall Cason, gave a description of two men; one being former Gator Reggie Nelson, and the other a large "Hawaiian" or "Hispanic" male with a muscular build and a lot of tattoos.
From the police report:

"As they were waiting for the light to change, the Hawaiian football player and Reggie Nelson walked up to their car on the right side. Then without saying a work [sic], the Hawaiian pointed a small handgun in the front right window and fired five quick shots. Cason saw Smith slump over with blood coming out of the back of the head, at which time the Hawaiian and Nelson took off running towards McDonald's."
 While most instances of Hernandez' name is blacked out, it exists in two sections: one where it's noted he "invoked his right to counsel" and did not answer questions, and another where Cason "rescinded his identification of Aaron Hernandez and Reggie Nelson," indicating at some point he had fingered Hernandez as "The Hawaiian." 

Police say the case is still open, and the only reason the file was released was an error by a clerk responding to a public records request. While authorities are looking for a connection, Hernandez has at least gained a new nickname: "The Hawaiian." Look out for the Punch Man!
Read more at ESPN's Outside The Lines.

Hernandez May Have Faced Legal Troubles At Florida

The Wall Street Journal reports Aaron Hernandez was involved in a fight at a Gainesville bar in 2007. The then-17 Hernandez allegedly refused to pay for two alcoholic drinks, and when the bar manager demanded he pay, Hernandez punched him in the side of the head with such force his ear drum burst. Police recommended felony battery charges against Hernandez, but they never came. The state attorney for Florida' s 8th District has not commented on the report, but Deadspin has revealed through booster membership records that he routinely donates between $1,800 and $2,300 a year to the football program.
The Gainesville Sun also reports Hernandez was questioned over a 2007 shooting at a Gainesville nightclub. Read more at the Wall Street Journal and Gainesville Sun.