Already Dead

I had Georgia going to the final 8 in my bracket picks based on the “Big Mo”.

I forgot to figure that the “Big Mo” of Georgia was forever decimated by one of my heros, William Tecumsah Sherman.

My bad. My mistake.

Congrats are in order, however, to Georgia for winning the SEC title under VERY trying circumstances.

Remember This

No matter how bad your day is. It isn’t as bad as being a Michigan fan at the end of the first full day of College Football.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - What was supposed to be a tuneup turned into a stunner: Appalachian State 34, No. 5 Michigan 32.

Wow.

Go Vols

Here’s hoping Bruce Pearl and the Tennessee Vols can continue their strong run with a win over the dog-ass Buckeyes in the NCAA tonight.

Super Bowl Prop Bets

Haven’t even looked….but here they are:

http://www.bodog.com/sports-betting/football-player-props.jsp

Exposed

Wayne Larrivee is a “not bad” announcer. His Packer work is better than most and his Big Ten calls are average.

Too bad he’s a big-time leftie. From Folkbum

[..]“Mentioning the evening’s radio schedule that included both President Bush’s State of the Union address and the Democratic response, Larrivee added that it was surprising WTMJ was willing to air the Democratic response, given what usually what goes on around there.“

Wayne, let me give you some free advice: Stick to sports. You’re at least marginal there. When it comes to politics, you’re a loser.

Superbowl Thoughts

Congratulations to the Bears and Colts. This has the makings of a decent Superbowl. I know that Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are the first black coaches to take their teams to the Superbowl but I hope that doesn’t become the focal point of the media hype….it probably will and you could almost see Dungy and Smith flinch when asked about it.

Sure it’s a great acheivement for them to take their teams to the final game but they got there through ability. The fact that they are black doesn’t make them better or worse than any other coach. The NFL is a meritocracy and these guys (once they got the shot) proved they were up to the job.

I see the early line is Indianapolis -7 (making them a one touchdown favorite) with the over/under at 49.5. One of the neat things about the Superbowl are all the goofy prop bets. 1st team to score, will the opening coin toss be heads or tails, 1st team to use a coach’s challange…and those are some of the normal ones.

Congrats to Jerry Kelly

Madison native and resident, PGA Tour Pro Jerry Kelly recently spent Thanksgiving (and his 40th birthday) over in Iraq as part of the PGA’s “Operation Handshake Tour”.

Full details here in the local rag.

“[...]The golfers visited 14 bases in Iraq, entertaining the troops with golf exhibitions and swapping stories with soldiers in conversations that stretched into the early morning hours.

“We hit balls off of Saddam’s palace, off the back of a tank, off the wing of an Iraqi MIG fighter,” Kelly said. “We stopped a soccer game in the Kurd region and hit balls off the field into Turkey. We hit balls in Mosul.

“We did a ton of stuff. We wish we could have spent more time with the guys. They were like, ‘Thank you so much.’ We were like, ‘Are you kidding me? We’re the ones who are thankful.’ “

The group was escorted by soldiers and ferried between bases by Blackhawk helicopters; the golfers had to wear full body armor and helmets, but Kelly said he never feared for his safety. “[...]

I like Kelly and wish he would win a little more on the tour. He’s a great inteview…no PC with that guy. He has learned to control his emotions a little better but he’s an ex-hockey player and sometimes it looks to me like he just wants to body-check someone. He’s very candid about his views, as usual.

“[...] Kelly has supported the war effort and couldn’t say no when given the opportunity to visit Iraq, even though it meant spending Thanksgiving away from his wife, Carol, and 8-year-old son Cooper.

“If you’re going to talk the talk you better be able to walk the walk,” he said. “Coop has been saying a prayer for the soldiers every single night. It’s part of our lives.”

He came away with a new appreciation for what the soldiers are accomplishing and expressed in strong terms his disdain for how the war was being covered by the American media.

“Our soldiers are so selfless,” he said. “We need to be promoting them and telling people what a great job they’re doing. All they’re hearing is bashing.

“One guy told me, ‘I’m hesitant to do the job I was trained for. I don’t want to return fire because I might be on CNN the next day.’ That’s sad. That’s a guy risking his life for us. He doesn’t want his family to see him on CNN being portrayed the way those guys are being portrayed.”[...]

(Emphasis mine).

Another little blurb on Kelly’s visit to Iraq over at Powerline.

All of the above makes Kelly one of the good guys in my view.

These Guys are Good

Awhile back, I wrote that the GMO was a putt-putt course. I never thought I’d say that about Medinah #3 which is one of the toughest golf courses out there. Well, if you watched the PGA Championship today, the field put on a clinic and made Medinah look like a putt-putt course, too.

These guys are good.

Cat Fight

There looks to be a feud brewing between Mark Belling and Steve “The Homer” True, based on this article in today’s MJS.

“Marquette chose to take an offer from one of those sports stations that nobody listens to,” Belling said. “To go from a station which is one of the dominant stations in Milwaukee to a station with no listeners, it must have been money. Marquette now goes to a rinky-dink station further down the dial.

“As you know, the Marquette play-by-play guy, Steve ‘The Homer’ True, has been a Marquette whore for 10 years and has altered his positions and thrown softballs at Marquette, and defended them for years and years and years even if in the face of idiotic decisions,” Belling said. “So they go to a station where they know that the on-air talent is going to defend their every move and get off the station where the on-air talent, like me, was critical of them.

“In return, however, in exchange for getting this money and going into a station where the on-air talent consists largely of a bunch of whores, they are going to have a much lower profile in the community.

“So we wish Marquette the best of luck as they go into the black hole of local radio,” Belling said. “They get what they want - a station they can control, even if it has no listeners and a play-by-play guy who is just a whore.” [...]

I happened to hear Belling’s comments and thought he was out of line. It’s not True’s job to criticize stuff that Marquette does. He may have a question for Coach Crean about strategy or tactics but for True to question Crean about things like the ill-fated “Marquette Gold” name change or other policy decisions of Marquette is not in his job. Just like it’s not Belling’s job to do play-by-play.

Of course, True was not taking all of this lying down.

“Mark Belling has made a career out of saying he will tell the truth while everyone else is selling out. So while he will say publicly that I am a whore, he will privately. . . (try to) see that the whore remains at his radio station. He also speaks as a defender of competition and free enterprise. Open discussion of ideas, publicly. Privately. . . he is exactly the opposite, as any fraud is.

“The Mark Belling cruise - no one else at his station can have a cruise. Why? Because Mark Belling says so. He can be the only one that has a cruise. That, of course, by the edict of free enterprise and open competition. [...]

“Now, I wish his station success without Marquette and no ill will here. I want to emphasize that. . . I assume since he is on the air he can’t hear (what I’ve said), but you can e-mail him or visit him at Victor’s every night.”

This should be an interesting distraction during the last few weeks of summer.

The Good News Just Keeps on Coming

Thomas Jones was slated to be a backup in the Chicago Bears’ first practice of training camp Thursday. As it turned out, he didn’t take part in any drills because he was injured in unusual fashion - while taking his physical.

Read the whole thing here.

The only reason I say this is good news is:

1) It’s not a career ender for Jones; and,

2) It happened to the Bears.