(This might interest) Maybe Just Me…

ESPN.com - NCB - Penders treated after suffering in-game fainting spell

I will always kind of like Tom Penders because he used to be Texas’ coach and GW’s coach. This is so f-ed up though. The man has a heart condition, drops to the floor. The ref thinks he’s arguing a call and shoot him a tech! Then they figure out he’s actually having a medical issue and the REFS DON’T TAKE BACK THE TECH!!!! Penders was fine and came back to coach. His team lost by 3. I didn’t watch the game, don’t know what happened. But at the VERY least 1 point should be off.

“I was saying, ‘Can I please get one shot off?”’ asked Bonzi Wells, who scored 16 points. “I was almost hoping Shaq played. (Mourning) is an excellent defender.”

haha, Zo’s playing out of his mind defense right now (and serviceable offense) and Shaq is on the downside of his career and defensively he’s a bit limited, but this is a funny quote. This is what Bonzi said after Zo posted 7 blocks in the Kings’ loss to the Heat.

“Because this is football, man. This is the game you love, man. We was playing this game for free when we was born. It ain’t all about the bread, you know?” — Charles Rogers on how he could produce for a team that’s trying to take back more than $10 million from him

I don’t necessarily think there are any professional athletes that are just about the game. Please don’t (all 4 of you who might be reading this blog) send me examples of players taking pay cuts for cap reasons to help the team or pay cuts to go to a contender and help win a championship. Umm, it’s still millions of dollars (the average NBA pay is like $400k, the NFL I think is like $500k). So yeah, pay cut, but going from $10 mil to $4 mil, boo hoo!

Despite all of that, this is the kind of sentiment that I like to at least hear, even if it’s not true, from professional athletes.

This is a cover shot from a community college newspaper. As you can see from the pic, the headline is “Goals gone wild” and the caption reads “Four good reasons to support…”

This from the midwest. The community college is in KANSAS. I don’t know. I’m always torn on these things. I don’t know enough about feminist studies, but part of me wants to say that women who choose this sort of thing (or even more risque things like Girls Gone Wild or stripping or porn) are entitled to make their decisions and some of them truly feel empowered to make the choice. But the whole degradation of women, objectification of women argument is so very strong. Even if women choose that path and it empowers them individually, what does it do on a grander scale?

Regardless, I’m surprised that this cover shot was actually published, community college paper or not.

SI.com - 2006 Winter Olympics - Doughnut-style holes featured in Turin medals - Wednesday November 30, 2005 3:12PM

Hmm, doughnut style or not, I think they look nice. But seriously, 8 people 10 hours to make 1 medal?

FOXSports.com -
More Sports-
The agony of defeat, and then some

the final score of this HS basketball game: 112-2…

ESPNSoccernet.com: Europe US: Italian players rich but stressed

not the youngsters, well not necessarily talking about them, but this is such a load. you know what, i’d rather hear about multi-millionaires not making enough to feed their families than crap like this.

btw, the posts are light these days because up to my eyeballs in bar review. and i’m not talking drinks.

FOXSports.com -
NFL-
Putin reportedly bolts with Kraft’s ring

uh huh, “gift.” i bet it wasn’t but when he gives it back he’ll be all like “i don’t understand english very well”

when you see images of the 80s celtics winning and the crowd rushing the floor of the old boston garden, don’t you kind of miss that sort of fan celebration? i mean i know they still do it in college, but in the nba, especially now post-malice in the palace or whatever you want to call the melee in detroit, can’t have that anymore, which is a little sad.

also, whatever happened to the post game shots of the locker room, champagne being sprayed EVERYWHERE. athletes (e.g. jordan) so happy, so tired, hugging the trophy with every remaining ounce of strength. what happened to that? heck, didn’t they used to even present the trophies in the locker rooms? and as a corollary, for times they still show/do the locker room champagne stuff, i really hate that now the teams like hermetically seal the lockers with plastic tarps or whatever. hey i know these guys clothing, shoes, accessories cost more than i made last year, but they can’t afford it? having the lockers all taped up to protect against the champagne just takes away from it a little. btw, if they stopped televising the champagne celebrations because of the little hubbub over that college team that did it, i’ll be upset about how ridiculous this country is.

last thing, one day, one guy, after winning the championship, should bust out the huge, formula 1 sized champagne bottle. spray your teammates with that. it’d be awesome.

abc kept showing stats about how this game was the lowest scoring in the shot clock era for a game 7. but watching the game, seriously, didn’t feel like a badly played, slowed down, defensive game.

how great was the CRAZY mulleted pic of manu when abc had the chiron (i think that’s the right word) of manu’s basketball accomplishments.

the refs called this game VERY tightly! i really think it is better to call it tight than to let them play all kinds of hard.

in the mid-3rd quarter, spurs down 5, manu made a wild drive and turned it over. that was the moment detroit could’ve taken over. but then duncan became a beast.

hubie brown came up with the best alternative nickname for robert horry, intangible man. he made SO many plays, hustle rebounds, defense, taking charges.

you know how great the spurs played if you notice little things. during the final stretch, starting in the late 3rd (esp those kick out 3s from duncan or the manu drive and kick out to duncan), you noticed that the spurs got the shot they wanted, but more importantly, if you noticed all the shots left the shooters hands in rhythm but the shot clock was ALWAYS at like 1.

sheed played great. but fouls hurt him.

i hope larry brown can come back and coach. and i hope that if he can’t and he DOES take the cleveland job that people lay off him because his participation in the league is a good thing.

i think duncan complained more to the refs during this series than i’ve ever seen. usually he’s arm around the refs, talking, etc.

it was great to see as soon as the game was over, you saw popovich come over to larry brown to comiserate, etc. but the greatness was to see bruce bowen run over too.

you saw this year, like last year, how much the teams played for the guys on the floor. how happy everyone was, how many hugs were going around. and not the cursory hugs, but extended hugs. hugs of joy, relief, whatever.

i can’t stand the espn commentators. talking a lot of smack on air, online before the game, and now let’s see what they say singing in praise of all things spurs.

i was beyond glad to see the manu of old re-emerge in the second half. what a head’s up play at the very end to not take the layup and run off some time (though i think with the time remaining left it’d be fine to take the layup).

i’ll say it again, not high shooting percentages, low scoring, etc, but it was a well played game.

i want to see sheed hand over his belt to duncan. i demand this.

did eva longoria make abc promise not to video her? you saw one shot of her running off camera after obviously hugging tony parker. other than not wanting to piss off one of the stars of one of their breakout shows, you know abc must’ve been pissed about this because nothing networks like more than having their “stars” in stands at sporting events, and you know, being able to show them. but whatevs, eva probably not sitting in abc seats, but tony parker provided seats.

oh man, the rest of the summer will be interminable. at least there’s no hockey. only a few more weeks until football starts.

ESPN.com - NBA/DRAFT2005 - Bogut looks like a pro even before the draft

beyond him showing up to his bucks’ tryout in a suit and tie. beyond him handing the team owner his RESUME (like on paper) because he said it was an interview, i’m a bogut fan for this quote:

My eyesight is pretty good. I can see you.

hahaha…

FOXSports.com - F1- American fans finally fed up with F1

oh the f1 coverage continues in the US. usually any publicity is good publicity as they say, but i don’t think so in this case. though as days go by, i’m starting to agree with bernie a little. regardless of all that, f1 is nowhere near done in the US. it might be done at indy though. i know if they had a las vegas grand prix, it would be full. because people love vegas. no disrespect to indy (which is motor history), indianapolis is no las vegas. of course you’d have to find a way to cover/cool the grand stands, but hell if they have races in bahrain they can have it in vegas.

When the ball leaves Robert Horry’s hands in a playoff game, there’s really only one thing you can say: “It’s pretty. It’s so, so pretty.”

that is the caption to the pic on espn. now yes, admittedly the pose is VERY wesley snipes in white men can’t jump. but this is horry, couldn’t they come up with some sort of will smith quote? it’s like they were separated at birth. that’s one reason i WISH the finals was spurs-heat. if only we could have more horry as will smith “miami” jokes.

1. while i want the spurs to win, i don’t have a vested interest in either team so take this how you want, but in watching the game i think the spurs have gotten jobbed by the refs the past 3 games. yes, there is a certain amount of “let them play” mentality that should be allowed in the playoffs, but it’s ridiculous what the pistons were getting away with. and in watching the game, yes there were non-calls on both ends, but seriously it seemed to go against the spurs more often than not.

2. everyone this morning is talking about how sheed made a mistake in trapping on manu and leaving horry open. well first off, i think there should be at least a side story about the last regulation possession, decent shot, GREAT tip opportunity by duncan missed, sheed gets the rebound and tries to pull a chris webber (btw LOVED that al michaels’s was like “and chris webber is in the building). regardless, i think sheed has to double onto manu. manu had been driving pretty effectively, especially 4th quarter. yes you don’t leave horry open, but with all the time outs that were being called back and forth why not have wallace, wallace, and mcdyess out there. then you have one of the wallaces trap, and the other’s rotate?

3. i’ve only read one thing about it this morning because it’s lost in all the big shot rob/bob/bobby talk, but seriously in detroit, outside of like a 17 minute span, horry has played like absolute crap. don’t know if i’ve EVER seen anyone miss so many driving layups.

4. while it wasn’t as bad as the past two games, the spurs still don’t take of the ball as well as they should.

5. i don’t understand duncan’s FT problems. when he first came into the league he was a decent free throw shooter. i’d like to blame his ankles for his late game suckiness at the line, but he really doesn’t use his legs like other players do at the line. (btw, worse than that is parker’s crap FT%, he’s a guard!)

non-sports thoughts
6. studying for the bar is horrible

7. ever notice how the only people who tell you not to go to law school/be a lawyer are people in law school or who are lawyers? trust me, we’re not trying to discourage you to keep you out and protect our jobs/money/etc. it really does suck.

8. studying for the bar makes me feel like i’m not done with school though i really am.

US Grand Prix runs just 6 cars

ridiculous. the biggest concerns of F1 racing are costs, competitiveness, safety, and the growth of the US market. today’s race was a compromise of all of it (except maybe cost). sure if michelin teams had been allowed new rubber and then completely dominated bridgestone teams, then maybe you could complain about unfairness, but better that than lack of safety. the driver’s championship standings weren’t effected THAT much, but seriously 1-3 failures and if schumi wins some more, then it’s a big deal. i don’t understand what the problem would be with adding the chicane or allowing the new rubber.