Dave Sez

Blogger At The WSOP

You probably remember the mgoblog, it's the site that put together the BlogPoll for college football (yes, I'm a voter). Brian, mgoblog's creator has evidently forked over $10K of his own money and went out to Vegas to play in the WSOP. According to this entertaining update, he made it through Day 1 and managed to do a little star (and cleavage) gazing while he was at it.

Go Brian!

Uh Oh

Could Floyd Landis become bike racing's Ben Johnson? Top of the world one day and the sport's signature goat the next? I certainly hope not, but reports are that Landis has failed blood tests. The tests showed unusually high testosterone levels on the day he made his miraculous ride.

Bad news. They're going to run tests on his B sample to verify. Let's hope the first results were wrong.

Blog Highlight - Every Day Should Be Saturday

Earlier today, I linked to Ed Zipper's divorce notice for ESPN. The one problem with the idea of leaving the country's foremost supplier of sports information and artificial cool is that you need to find a replacement. Fortunately in today's Internet world, there are many places to look.

So maybe it's time for a new feature, one that I've thought of doing for ages. At some indeterminate interval (hey, I'm not penning myself in here), I'm going to pick a worthy site (probably a blog) that you should be reading.

You already know about the big, famous ones like The Sports Frog and Deadspin and personal faves like ACC Basketblog, The Duke Basketball Report and StateFans Nation, so for my first pick I'm going elsewhere.

Every Day Should Be Saturday is a phenomenal college football blog written by guys calling themselves Orson Swindle and Stranko Montana. Swindle in particular has an unhealthy knowledge of the college game and is a damn funny guy.

A sampler of some recent goodness:

Notre Dame's Jimmy Clausen looking, uh ... available.

A fantastic series of posts on offensive line play. The prologue is here and it was followed up by two parts (1 & 2) of a three-part series written by former NFL lineman Jim Richards. Great stuff here that you just don't find most places. Why, it's nearly as good as Bobby P's Eleven series!

UT Recruit Allegedly Improved Grades With Penis

The Troy State offensive linemen will regret this series of pictures for the rest of their lives.

Love for the Sackrider.

OK, that's enough. I think you get the point. Some seriously good stuff there. Who needs the WWLIS anyway?

What The Zipper Said

Ed Zipper of the Sports Frog wrote what I'm sure many of you have thought for a long time - it's time to move on from ESPN. Ed wants a divorce and I do too. Hell, we barely ever spend time together anymore and when we do, I'm never happy. The only thing (outside of PTI) they do right is live sports, and I'm not including darts.

BTW, Zipper is a professional stand-up comic in his spare time.

Previous clues that ESPN and I were coming to this point in our relationship:
Ombudsman
Scam
"Reality show"
I'm not paying
Most annoying personality?
Insufferable Sports Guy

Keeping It Real, Cane-Style

If you thought that maybe Willie Williams' departure from Miami meant that maybe they'd lose a bit of their thug edge, wonder no more. Check this story out - Hurricane safety Willie Cooper (Dub-C of 7th-Floor Crew fame) was shot in the ass this morning.

Two great aspects of this story - first, it happened at 6:30 in the morning. Evidently the guys say some strange car outside of their house. What college students are up at 6:30 in the morning? Unless they were up for practice, I'm guessing they had been up all night.

The second nugget here is this sentence from the article, "After Cooper was shot, teammate and roommate Brandon Meriweather pulled a pistol from his pants pocket and fired three times at the person." He had a pistol right there in his pants! At 6:30 AM!

Only at Miami.

Twofer Friday

I've fallen way behind in the stories I'd like to comment on. Several of those stories seem to have now paired up, so that's how I'm going to address them - as twofers.

Duke - Man, has it been a rough stretch for the Duke athletic department or what? You had the lacrosse scandal, AD Joe Aleva's boat accident caused by his drunk son, JJ Redick's drunk driving arrest and back injury and now the football team is losing their starting quarterback to a plagiarism charge. Without Zack Asack (Raise your hand. How many of you knew that was the name of Duke's returning QB? I sure didn't remember his name.), the Blue Devils now have to turn to sophomore Marcus Jones who mostly played receiver last year. I guess that means Duke will suck at football this year.

As for Asack, apparently he is off the team for one year, but if he stays out of trouble, he can return to school and the football team. It's good to see that they are getting slightly tougher on cheating at one of the nation's top universities. A few years ago, Greg Newton missed only two basketball games after he was caught cheating.

The other Duke story is the bizarre ripping of USA Basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski by espn.com writer Chris Sheridan. Sheridan wrote a whole article (admittedly, I haven't read the whole thing. It'll be a cold day in hell when I pay for ESPN content) about his outrage over K telling the US players that they should dominate every quarter that they play. Imagine K's nerve! To Sheridan's feeble mind, this sort of aggression and attitude constitutes "screwing up royally." K is "dead wrong."

What a tool. I don't care what happened at the last Olympics or World Championships. We do still have the best basketball players in the world and it's not even close. Our problem has been the team selection process and the lack of preparation. That has all changed now and there's no reason to think that we can't go out there and dominate every second of every game we play if we put our best team out there. Anyone who thinks otherwise is blind.

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Talent and Performance - By no means am I big cycling fan. I sort of follow the Tour de France each year, but that's about it. I think it's amazing what those guys (and their pharmacists) do, but I just only keep up with so many sports. This year, I knew going in that American Floyd Landis was one of the favorites and that his odds increased when his two main challengers never started the race due to (shocker!!) a drug scandal. I followed his progress and was pleased when he grabbed the Yellow Jersey a few days ago. It looked like the best rider, an American, was going to win. Very cool. The story was even cooler for the fact that Landis has a degenerative hip condition and very likely will need a replacement after the tour. Who wins major sporting events just before a hip replacement?

Then Landis' tour fell apart on Wednesday. He bonked, to use a cycling term (I think) and just couldn't chase the lead riders. He not only lost the overall lead, but he fell to eleventh place, 8 minutes out of first. Even Landis said his tour was over.

Like Landis, Tiger Woods has suffered recently, going from the top of the world to failing miserably (by his standards) in the US Open. Tiger normally scares the bejeezus out of every golfer in the tournament, particularly in majors, but he didn't even make the cut at Winged Foot. He hadn't really played terribly well all year, then his dad died and he took some time off. When he came back, most people expected him to go right back to domination but when he failed instead, it led many to wonder if maybe he'd never completely dominate again. Maybe he'd lost his mental edge.

Then came Thursday. Landis was up first. It was the tour's last day in the Alps and probably the last day to conceivably make up a big deficit. But not 8 minutes. Not on the top riders in the world. Not after flopping so miserably on Wednesday. But Floyd Landis is one stubborn and talented mother. He attacked the course largely on his own, dropping his challengers one by one. He went out without the protection of his team and completed one of the most amazing days in the history of the tour. At the end of his relentless attack up the hills and crazy flight down the backsides, Landis had lopped 7:30 off of that 8 minute deficit. He rose from eleventh to third and with only one time trial left, is once again the favorite to win the Tour de France. Incredible.

Tiger's day wasn't quite so dramatic. He started slowly and then caught fire late. When he eagled the 18th hole, he had gone to 5 under par on the first day of the British Open, good for second place. Whenever Tiger is near the top of the leaderboard after one day of a major, it usually means one thing - everyone else is fighting for second.

Tiger had an early tee time today. By the time I got around to checking the leaderboard this morning, he had already done his damage. Tiger dropped the hammer, absolutely tearing up Royal Liverpool, shooting a 7-under 65 to take a three-stroke lead on the field. By the end of the day, Ernie Els had risen up to only shot back, but I think we all know what that mean. Els is Tiger's favorite bridesmaid.

I didn't watch too much of the US Open last month, but I'll be watching the British Open this weekend. There's just something electrifying about watching an elite athlete on top of his game, dominating all around him. I don't care if Tiger wins by 8 strokes, I'll be watching. That is, when I'm not checking on the Tour de France.

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Stupid - I like Marion Jones. I can't help it, I just do. But Marion Jones may just be the dumbest athlete of all time. One of the most talented female athletes ever, she can't seem to help but get herself mixed up in bad situations with shady characters. First, she started dating one of her college track coaches, CJ Hunter, and eventually married him. Hunter was later found to be a heavy steroid user. After leaving UNC, Jones went to work with track coach Trevor Graham, long suspected of being involved with steroids. While working with Graham, Marion went out to seek training advice (and probably much more) from Victor Conte at BALCO. She divorced Hunter (who later said that he personally injected her with steroids at the Sydney Olympics) and started dating sprinter Tim Montgomery. Montgomery later had his 100m world record stripped for his links to BALCO and implied steroid usage. Before Montgomery was nailed, he and Jones left Graham to go work with infamous Canadian coach Charlie Francis, the man who put Ben Johnson on steroids.

That's quite a string of bad decisions, huh? And now this. Marion Jones, an athlete who made millions on endorsements, involved in a check-forging scandal? Are you kidding? How does she keep getting mixed up in this sort of crap? And just when she seems to be getting her career back on track! I just don't get it.

BTW, I first wrote about Marion and her likely steroid usage here.

Ranking the ACC Stadiums

FanBlogs has a link to a SportingNews.com article ranking the ACC football stadiums. As always, this sort of article is less about the actual picks than the discussion it generates. That said, I thik Matt Hayes did a pretty good job ranking the stadiums.

I think you could debate Lane vs. Doak vs. Death Valley forever and never settle on on order. Doak is the toughest simply because the Noles are the best program. Lane is probably the nastiest and possibly most intimidating. Memorial is the biggest and has the most history.

I'd say he overrates the Orange Bowl. The program? Great. The stadium? Poor. Attendance sucks for any non-FSU game and that's just embarassing for a program of Miami's stature.

I'd also say that he rates Kenan stadium too high. Yes, it's a pretty setting but even in the Mack Brown days, it just wasn't a really nasty crowd. Nowadays, the stadium is never full and has a ton of opposing fans.

Take this with a huge grain of salt, because I've only actually been to games at UVA, UNC, Duke and State, but here are my picks:

1. FSU (Doak Campbell)
2. Clemson (Memorial)
3. VT (Lane)
4. NC State (Carter-Finley)
5. UVA (Scott)
6. Miami (Orange Bowl)
7. Georgia Tech (Bobby Dodd)
8. UNC (Kenan)
9. BC (Alumni)
10. Maryland (Byrd)
11. Wake Forest (Groves)
12. Duke (Wallace Wade)

A Cautionary Tale

I remember Brien Taylor. He was quite possibly the most hyped baseball prospect ever - a can't miss kid with a million-dollar arm headed to the Yankees.

I remember being somewhat disgusted by the demands of his family. They weren't content with the Yankees' initial offer of just over $300K for a signing bonus. They held out for more and eventually landed a stunning (at the time) signing bonus of $1.55 million. It seemed so greedy at the time.

I realize now that I was wrong. Taylor's career started off in stellar fashion, but just a few years along his certain path to stardom he hit a pothole. A big one. He blew his shoulder out in a street fight and was never the same. He never pitched a single inning for the New York Yankees and now Brien Taylor works as a bricklayer in his hometown of Beaufort, NC. Holding out for that $1.55 mil seems like the smartest move in the world now.

It's a sad story. Sure, he didn't fall into the traps of drug addiction or petty crime that catch so many failed prodigies, but you have to wonder how often Taylor regrets that one decision to fight when he could have walked away.

On the other hand, with one swipe of his pen, he made more money as an 18-year-old than I've made so far in my entire career. Maybe I shouldn't feel too badly for the guy. Still, Taylor's story should be required reading for every kid out there who's told that he's going to be a star. It can all disappear in the blink of an eye.

Happy Birthday To The DBR

The Duke Basketball Report is 10 years old today. That's pretty impressive for any website, much less one that's pretty much run by the seat of the pants. In Internet time, 10 years old qualifies you for Social Security and adult diapers.

So, congrats to the guys at the DBR! It's not a very sexy site and it certainly has its biases, but there's not a finer resource for ACC basketball news out there. We're all the better for its long tenure.

Sunken Chest

I've done my share of Chuck Amato bashing on this site. It's not that I hate the guy or think he's a complete idiot, I just find him funny. Also, I can't resist to poke sticks at his inflated ego and the inherited pride that so many Pack fans inherited his first few years when his charisma and showmanship hid the fact that he wasn't really delivering on his promise.

But, despite all of that, I don't think he's the worst coach in the country. But Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel does. He lists the top ten college footbal coaches in the country (the ACC has only Frank Beamer) and then the five worst. Chuckles came in dead last.

But don't chortle too much, Carolina fans. Big John Bunting and his mustache were an honorable mention worst, along with Virginia's Al Groh. Chan Gailey joined Amato as one of the first worst.

So if you're keeping track at home, according to Mandel, the ACC has one of the ten best coaches in the land and four of then worst. Ouch.

Dr. Z on ZZ

I haven't written anything about Zinedine Zidane's fabulous final flame-out (other than this), because I just couldn't find the right words.

Imagine my surprise when I found out (thanks to the ACCBasketblog) that football's own Dr. Z (maybe the best football writer going) knows a bit about futbol as well. Dr. Z's thoughts about Zidane aren't too far off from my thoughts. He might be being a bit kind to Zizou, who's blunder might just top Jean Van de Velde for the dumbest move by a Frenchman in a big sporting moment, but that's OK. He makes up for it by going after the moronic commentary of Marcelo Balboa. Dr. Z's the man.

p.s. Check this other angle of the incident - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2slJ9CBnk0 - you'll see Materazzi reach around and pinch Zidane's nipple and then run his mouth up until the point where Zizou drops him.

p.p.s. And check these videos of some of Materazzi's past work - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJPKM5aJGW8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gyu8W1g2co

2006 ACC Helmet Schedule

Now I'm excited! I've had my 2005 ACC Helmet Schedule hanging on my wall all year - god bless the color printers at work (shhhh!) - and lately it's been making me pine for the fall.

Once again, Joe Ovies of 850 The Buzz did an outstanding job putting it together. Here ya go - the 2006 ACC Helmet Schedule 2006.

My only complaint about this version is that Joe stuck in logos for his radio stations in the off weeks. I much prefer having just the word "OFF" in there. It makes it much easier to spot at a quick glance. I think I'll be editing my copy before printing it out.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

In 1993, Bobby Cremins, the charismatic coach of Georgia Tech shocked the sports world when he announced that he was leaving to take the head coaching job at South Carolina, his alma mater. It was a huge hire for the Gamecocks and a crushing blow for Georgia Tech. And then it wasn't. Cremins quickly came to regret his decision and managed to successfully call a "do over" and stayed in Atlanta.

A few weeks ago, Winthrop's hot young coach Gregg Marshall pulled a very similar trick with the College of Charleston. He accepted the job, attended a press conference and then changed his mind. It quickly called Cremins' move to mind. Even Cremins himself was quoted as saying that Marshall had "pulled a Bobby Cremins."

So who did Charleston look to to soothe their "Creminsed" pain? The man himself. They hired Bobby Cremins to take the place of a "Bobby Cremins."

You couldn't make that up.

As to the hire itself, I'm of two minds. On the one hand, CofC got themselves a Grade A coaching name. Schools like that just don't hire guys like Cremins too often. I mean, that guy won the ACC several times, took his famous Lethal Weapon 3 team to the Final Four and recruited numerous NBA talents. On the other hand, I was never convinced that Cremins was really a good coach. He was a great recruiter - at least at landing stars - but not a great coach. But he's not going to land any Mark Prices or Stephon Marburys at Charleston. Can he compete there with his tight 7-man rotation and heavy reliance on superior point guard talent? I don't know. I have a hunch it's not going to work out.

But it's still a hell of a story.

The Finals

I know I haven't posted much lately, but I am still around. I'm not trapped under a large object, adrift at sea or finding myself in India. Just been busy with work and sort of taking things slowly in the college sports off season.

As I've mentioned before, one sporting event that I have been following closely is the World Cup. With ABC and ESPN showing all the games and with my TiVo, I've actually been able to catch at least some of every single game. TiVo is a fantastic thing! Despite the nearly record-low scoring, it has been a very good cup. Sure, there's been way too much diving (so sorry to see you take it in the ear yesterday, Portugal!) and the reffing has been inconsistent, but the play has generally been top-notch and there have been a ton of great games.

And it all ends today. In about one hour, France and Italy square off to decide the 2006 winner. Unless you have some sort of tie to The Azzurri or you still eat freedom fries, I'm going to have to assume that you are rooting for France in this one. While the Italians have doubtlessly been very good and maybe not quite as demonstrative as in years past (it's easier when you aren't losing), they are still extremely difficult to root for. I can't stand their constant whining and faking. The French started off very slowly and were easy to mock, but have been sensational since the knockout round began. Watching the rebirth of Zinedine Zidane has been incredible and add in the aggressiveness of Franck Ribery and the unmistakable talent of Thierry Henry and the French are just damn fun to watch. I mean, did you see Zidane against Brazil? The old, bald French-Algerian was killing the Brazilians at their own game. When he's playing like he can, he has complete control over the ball, the tempo, his teammates and ultimately, the game. It's just hard not to love the guy. He doesn't whine, he doesn't flail, he doesn't preen. In a game filled with prima donas like the execrable Christiano Ronaldo, Zidane is a straight-up man.

So, as I bid farewell to a fantastic tournament, I say Allez Les Bleus!