December 2006 Archives

It's been a rather eventful last couple of days in the Middle East, and our brother in law, Mitch, about to start his fifth month serving his latest tour with the Marines, says he will "lose no sleep over" the execution of Sadam Hussein. You do what you gotta to do focus on your job, and count the days until you get to some home, which won't be until the spring.

Sports continues to be a nice distraction for Mitch, although the digression of his Indianapolis Colts isn't much for him to cheer about lately. He emails on the final day of the year -- Iraq is 10 hours ahead of us here on the West Coast -- so his New Year's Eve party has probably already started.

How is all on this last day of the year?
Sorry my picks took so long but I have been a bit busy. For the college games, it will be USC over Michigan in a tight Rose Bowl, and for the national title, Florida over Ohio State, which will start to show in the 2nd half. No pro picks -- too many teams that have locked up spots will bench players. I finished 3rd in the fantasy league here. It's a little strange. I should have been first, but that is a conversation for another day.
For the Lakers, a triple overtime loss against the Bobcats? Come on. Odom, get well soon and I mean soon. Kobe and the boys need you. I must say they have done pretty well, but Radman has to stay consistent. This hot-cold stuff is OK for Morrison not for Rad. How about Bynum looking real good and Kwame too. We will see. I think next year it is ours, when we use Grant's 15 mil to get Garnett.
Well take care. It is cold here; it's been in the teens ... burr. Here is a new picture of a sunrise over Iraq. The birds are everywhere, huge ravens, I will start a new class tomorrow, so I will send more photos. Have a great
new year. -- Mitch

Mitch's previous emails:
Dec. 1
Oct. 12
Sept. 19
Sept. 11
Sept. 9

John Warner set out to make a simple movie about NASCAR driver Wendell Scott. By the time Warner was finished, the filmmaker had spent $3 million of his own money to create a four-part DVD documentary that traces NASCAR from its early days of racing all the way through the 1960s.
Warner knew “The Golden Era of NASCAR� was a film he could be proud of. Narrated by his father, Virginia Sen. John W. Warner, the film is truly a labor of love.
But when he received a thank you letter from a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan who used the film to fill his idle time, Warner realized just how special it was.
Now he’s donating 10,000 copies of the set — which retails for $79.95 — to Operation Gratitude. The nonprofit will include the DVD in holiday packages it sends to deployed U.S. troops.
“Documentaries by nature are very passion driven, and to get the whole story on film is a very powerful thing,� Warner said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. “And then I got this letter from the brother of a friend of mine who really enjoyed the story, and it really touches you to know that something you have done can bring joy to other people.�
Warner enlisted help for his donation from his stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who penned a letter that will be included with the DVD sets. She also included one handwritten letter to commemorate the 200,000th care package that Operation Gratitude will mail out.
“Millions of people around the world are remembering you each day in their prayers. I want you to know that I am one of them,� Taylor wrote in the three paragraph letter. “Please believe that as you travel through harm’s way, you are valiant, loved and respected. I wish you safety in the days ahead and a warm reunion with those you love.�Getting Taylor to contribute to the gift “only took a phone call,� Warner said, as the actress was pleased to help.
“This was something that is important to me, especially since the films touch on all the World War II veterans
who helped create NASCAR,� Warner said. “This is just one way that a civilian like myself can give back.�

Read on ....

By JAKE COYLE
AP Entertainment Writer

We’ve all experienced this during the coming attractions: Hollywood puts forth a dramatic, inspiring pitch for an upcoming production — and everybody laughs.
That’s happened with the trailer for “Rocky Balboa,� the sixth installment in the franchise after a 16-year absence (and opens Wednesday). And the film has been battered with derision and peppered with punch lines even before it hits theaters.
That hasn’t blindsided the film’s 60-year-old star.
“I understand, I do. I totally get it. They’re going to have that polarization,� Sylvester Stallone told The Associated Press when asked about audience reactions. “My hope is that people that have screened it have enjoyed it and say, ‘You know what? It’s not as bad as you think.’�
Stallone’s comeback bid is part of a larger trend of aging stars revisiting dormant franchises. Sharon Stone, 48, earlier this year again crossed her legs for “Basic Instinct 2,� 14 years after the original. Harrison Ford, 64, wants to make another “Indiana Jones� (which last was in theaters in 1989) and more than a decade later, Bruce Willis, 51, thinks he can “Die Hard� again.
Back in 1983, Sean Connery had moderate success returning to 007 in “Never Say Never Again,� an encore to his James Bond run which had ended in 1971 with “Diamonds Are Forever.�
But Stallone — who’s also hoping to revive “Rambo� — is playing a role particularly revealing of the aging process.

Read more on the aging fighter and his movie history ...

What a surprise: The NFL Network has rejected two proposals from Time Warner Cable that would have allowed New York-area viewers to watch Rutgers and Kansas State in the Texas Bowl on Dec. 28.
The NFL Network, which is supposed to be NFL-centric, bought the rights to that college bowl game, as well as the Dec. 29 Insight Bowl between Minnesota and Texas Tech, and continues to hold them hostage.
Neither Time Warner Cable nor Cablevision have agreements to carry the network full-time, meaning many Rutgers fans wouldn’t be able to watch the matchup at Reliant Stadium in Houston.
The Scarlet Knights are coming off their best Big East season, and there is great local interest in the game. But not big enough, apparently, to make them available to fans of the two schools who don't have access to the channel -- nor ever thought they would need to in order to watch their team play.
NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky said the network was offering a free preview to New York-area subscribers “to appease the New York residents who don’t have a choice.� But there were no plans to include Kansas in that offer.
Friday, Kansas made it clear there’s interest in the game there, too.
Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said he had urged NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to make the Wildcats’ bowl game available to Kansas viewers.
“Every Kansan should be able to cheer on their team, be it the Wildcats, the Jayhawks or the Shockers,� Roberts said in a news release. “This issue is symptomatic of a long-running dispute between the NFL Network and certain cable providers.�
Tuesday, Goodell told the AP the network would offer a free week to Time Warner Cable and Cablevision from Dec. 24 to 30, which would include the Texas and Insight bowls.
Time Warner Cable, a unit of the media conglomerate Time Warner Inc., responded with two proposals — carrying just the Rutgers game on its basic tier, which would include all New York area customers, or carrying the network for the full week on a digital tier, a premium service used by about 75 percent of area customers.
But Steve Bornstein, the head of the NFL Network, told Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt in a letter Thursday that neither proposal would satisfy the network’s goals of making the Rutgers game available to local fans at no additional cost while also exposing customers to other NFL-related programming.
Bornstein’s letter, which Time Warner Cable provided to the Associated Press, left open the possibility of further talks. A Time Warner Cable spokesman said Friday that the two sides still are talking, and the company is “still
hopeful of finding a way to get the Rutgers game to our customers.�
Another version of this mess is in Saturday's New York Times.

With his beach volleyball career winding down, Karch Kiraly is looking forward to the next step in his career by opening the Karch Kiraly Volleyball Academy.
The academy, which is sanctioned by USA Volleyball, will start with two one-week sessions for high school girls next summer, one in Anaheim and the other at a site east of the Mississippi River to be determined.
Kiraly, a three-time Olympic gold medalist out of UCLA said he hopes to eventually expand his academy and offer sessions for boys, and for longer-term than just one week.
�This is something that I and others have been batting around for the better part of 10 years,� Kiraly said this week at the NCAA women’s volleyball championship in Omaha, Neb. �It started looking like my career might be winding down, and I kept playing and playing and playing. I’ve been looking to do something unique and very special.�
Kiraly, 46, said he had knee trouble on the AVP Tour last year, and decided that he’ll make this his last season, although he won’t compete in every event. He has also been doing TV work for NBC on its beach volleyball telecasts the last few seasons.
“As I make this transition, this year is a year where I’ll have more time than in last 20 or so to get to spend with some of these activities,� he said. �It’s yet another reason why the academy will work for 2007.�
Kiraly, who won gold medals with the U.S. indoor volleyball team at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, and the gold
medal with Kent Steffes in the inaugural beach volleyball tournament at the 1996
Atlanta Games before winning a record 148 tournaments in beach volleyball.
His coaching staff will include Olympic medalists Eric Sato, Steve Timmons, Troy Tanner, Mike Dodd and Kim Oden, and former Olympians Liz Masakayan and Angela Rock.
-- Associated Press

By RACHEL CARTER
The (Raleigh) News & Observer

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The women’s basketball team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill might have to cut Scott Maynor.
Maynor, a 5-11 junior, was dripping with sweat Wednesday afternoon after practicing two hours against Ivory Latta (pictured) and the powerful Tar Heels. He may be a good reason why they've jumped out to a 10-0 start and are outscoring opponents by an average of 44.6 points per game.
Fact is, many women’s collegiate teams, especially in basketball, bring in male students for practice. Coaches think practicing against men -- usually taller, faster and stronger -- helps their teams.
But the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics thinks this violates the intent of Title IX, the 1972 federal legislation requiring equality in education.
Earlier this month, the committee released a recommendation that the NCAA ban male practice players in all women’s sports.
“It’s taking away opportunities from female student-athletes,��? said Patrick Nero, commissioner of the America East Conference and a committee member. “How are they to get better if they’re sitting in practice?
"It’s one thing to not be playing in a game because they haven’t reached that level yet, but for them to sit through an entire practice while men run up and down with their teammates? We just think it’s really against the spirit of
Title IX."
NCAA committees, conferences and schools will make proposals on the subject during the next year. At the earliest, a vote could come in January 2008.
Erlana Larkins (pictured), a junior forward and one of the stars on UNC’s women’s basketball team, said: "I don’t see us getting any better with girls practicing against us and practicing against our teammates."
Duke basketball coach Gail Goestenkors wonders where she could find a woman to compete against 6-foot-7 Alison Bales in practice.
Men provide talented practice fodder. At Duke, freshman Mike Zhadkevich didn’t make the men’s team, so he joined the women as a practice player. Like all student-athletes, he and the other men must qualify under NCAA regulations.
Many male students -- such as Duke sophomore Mike Cools, from Marquette, Mich. -- do it for the competition. But part of their responsibility is to learn opposing teams’ offenses and defenses. They also have to accept losing to women -- although they don’t always.
The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics has been considering the issue for more than two years and
discovered the practice had spread from women’s basketball -- where it has been common for years -- to such sports as soccer, volleyball and softball.
"If we do this, yes, it may make us better," said Nero, the America East commissioner. "It may make an athlete better, it may make a team better; but is it good for the game and is it good for the spirit of sport?"
University of Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale argues that male practice players help the sport. Coale’s third-ranked Sooners feature 6-4 Courtney Paris (pictured), one of the nation’s best players.
The men practice against Paris and then tell friends, who want to see her play. Students’ attendance has exploded, Coale said, in part because of the men.

Frank Caliendo, dressed up as "Late Show" sidekick Paul Shaffer as he talks to segment producer Bill Richards, slides in and out of character so quickly and fluidly, even he can't keep track of it sometimes, causing him to pause and say, "Wait, what was I saying?" The surreal moments are when he's in Shaffer mode, but then morphs into an immitation of President George Bush, as he did Thursday afternoon while he watched him work for a few hours in Century City taping this Sunday's segment for Fox's NFL pregame show.
Spinning off on the topic of how much longer the impressionable impressionist/comedian would like to continue this Fox gig -- he's done it four years, the same number as Jimmy Kimmel did before him -- Caliendo sat in the makeup chair getting into his Letterman character and went more indepth about on how he manages to pull this two-minute spot off week after week, mostly after flying in from his home in Phoenix to the Century City studios to get it done.

In addition to the story in today's Daily News, which also has a great slideshow of pictures showing him getting in and out of makeup, he gave us this Q-and-A exchange:

Q: How are you able to sustain your energy and creativity all this time?
A: At the beginning of the season, I have no idea how it's going to work out. This year, we knew we'd do James Brown at the beginning (he'd left the show and went to CBS), but we know how many characters we can generally do and make them fit.

Q: Take us through a typical work week.
A: After watching the games Sunday, we get together with Bill Richards (the segment producer) on the phone and start talking things out. By Monday, we decide what the character will be and the gist of the sketch. Between Bill and Jeff Cesario and my friend, Scott Long, we'll get the jokes down and punch them up. Then we have to make sure they're approved (by the Fox bosses) and we see what we can or can't sneak in. They trust us. Some things do get cut out. After all, we are a Sunday morning show. We've never been dirty, but there've been times we've come up with jokes that aren't even worth trying to get in. We then shoot either Wednesday or Thursday.

Q: How would you rate your performance this year?
A: Honestly, we've been very consistent, especially compared to the first three years. Rarely is anything been bad. We've had a couple of segments not have the payoff. If a show goes great, I think it gives us confidence the next week to take some chances. And they seem to be working. The toughest part about this season, with the show mostly on the road, is trying to make the impressions make sense and seem more organic.
Bill was once a sports producer who loved comedy, but now I think of him as a comedy guy who knows a lot about sports. Sports TV is about fast cuts, emotions, music, sound bites. But comedy has to build, there are moments of stopping and thinking. It's almost like filmmaking. It takes awhile to get it there, and I think as our group has done, we've gotten there. It seems stupid, but it takes awhile to find the characters. We have to please the audience, the executives here and the four guys on the set. If they don't like it, why do it? It's really their show, not mine. And no matter how many times Bradshaw it's "not funny, not funny," he'll say off camera, "That was funny, Frank." And I'll say, "Why didn't you say that on the air?" And he'll say, "Because Howie finally explained it to me."

Q: We've heard John Madden isn't all that crazy about your immitation of him, but he's never approached you about it. What about Jim Rome?
A: First, any time I've done someone, it's because I'm a fan. Back when I was doing MadTV, there'd be this attitude that, 'Let's take 'em down.' I'm not trying to bring anyone down. I'm all about recreating the mannerisms, the menutia. Even when I'm on stage, half of the jokes are just sailing through voices. I'm not afraid to call myself on that for what the gimmick is.
Rome created a whole new way of doing sports radio and I can't look past that. When I was doing shows on the college circuit, I'd listen to him all the time. There's something about doing him that's just fun to push his radio character. ... Incredible ... Great job by me ... Phen-om-inal ... That's not a rip, it's the character he's created. He doesn't get enough credit for being as funny as he is on the radio. I don't believe what I just said.... He references himself, that it's a joke and that people don't always get it.

More Q-and-A, read on:

Postmarked and giftwrapped in time to add to the weekly sports media column, as we head into two weeks of vacation hibernation:

-- The temptation may be too great to fork over $6.99 for the January issue of Playboy with Pamela Anderson on the cover, so don’t do it just because your eye catches the tease that reads “Keith Olbermann … Dan Patrick … Chris Berman … An Oral History of SportsCenter.� Writer Kevin Cook calls the ESPN highlight staple “the Greatest Show in Sports,� devoting five pages to it – then there’s the Anderson spread, a peek at Miss January, the 2006 Year in Sex review and one last photo of all Playmates of the Month from a year ago – and five-plus pages to it on the jump end with quotes spliced together from all the usual suspects. Nothing really new gleaned from stuff we’ve already read before in books at the ESPN empire. There is Olbermann admitting that “on my first ‘SportsCenter’ (in April, ’92), I did the same ratio of jokes to minutes as I’d done on L.A. newscasts (at KTLA Channel 5 and KCBS Channel 2), on which the sports segment was much shorter. By the end, I’d done something like 90 jokes. Dan (Patrick) sat there quivering. He said, ‘I’m gonna need some time to adjust.’� John Walsh, the ESPN exec in charge of “SportsCenter,� then adds: “Really talented anchors always overdo it at first. It takes about six months before they find their rhythm.� Unfortunately, the magazine also encourages readers to vote online for their favorite “SportsCenter� catchphrase. Of the eight choices, I think we’ll go with Olbermann’s “Live from ESPN headquarters, It’s the big show.� Pretty catchy, eh? It may even pass Stuart Scott’s “Boo-yah!�

-- Even though the Target World Challenge is part of what the golf establishment calls the "Silly Season," ABC isn't giving it second-class treatment as it does its last tournament before the new PGA Tour TV deal takes affect -- without them. Says Brant Packer, the producer of this weekend's telecast who has covered the last two Target events at Sherwood as well as a Shark Shootout in years past: "The PGA people might not want to admit it, but once the British Open ends (in July), there's only three or four events that really have a great field, and this is one of them. Any time Tiger Woods is on the course, it's an event, especially in this quality of a field. If you went to Tommy Roy at NBC or Lance Barrow at CBS in the beginning of the year and said, 'Here's a list of the 16 people you'd have in your final eight pairings for the last round,' they be in. Our job is to not screw it up." Rain could cause havoc with things this weekend, but Packer said Wednesday he wasn't thinking that far ahead. "We'll cross the bridge later," he said. "We have no gameplan yet. Our job the first day is just to make sure everything works technically with the USA Network coverage and to start the storylines. After Thursday, we'll set things up for the weekend." Packer, the 32-year-old son of CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer, says his dream job one day is to produce a telecast of the Masters and do a game that his dad is calling. "So far, I'm 0-for-2," said the younger Packer, knowing he'd probably have to go back to CBS sooner than later to get those two things done. Packer will head over to The Golf Channel to produce the Champions Tour events starting next season, which he has some added interest: His father in law is Allen Doyle, a two-time Champions Tour winner. Brant's first love is golf; with the help of his father's broadcast partner, Jim Nantz, Brant got a golf scholarship to the University of Houston before he transfered to the University of Tennessee. Upon graduation, he got a job at CBS doing graphics for his dad's telecasts and has been in the business 11 years.

-- Syndicated columnist Norman Chad admitted on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN Radio show this week that Bryant Gumbel responded to a column Chad wrote last week tearing apart his performance as an NFL Network game play-by-play man so far this season. Wrote Chad: “When Bryant Gumbel made critical comments about the NFL before this season, outgoing NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue suggested that Gumbel might be relieved of his new duties as play-by-play broadcaster for NFL Network games. As it turns out, the NFL shouldn't have fired Gumbel for his remarks, it should've dumped him because his play-by-play work, well, stinks. … He makes Homer Simpson sound like Al Michaels. … Gumbel is unspectacular and uninspired -- his play-by-play voice flat, his play-by-play sensibilities pedestrian. He is wordy and windy, seemingly without emotion or care. It's like listening to an insurance underwriter giving last rites to the family gerbil.� Chad said Gumbel’s email was generally a grin-and-bear-it reaction, agreeing that it's an evolving process and he expects to shake off the rust. From our end of the couch, Chad was 100 percent correct in his assessment of Gumbel, especially from his start on the Thanksgiving night game. Gumbel does Saturday’s Dallas-Atlanta game with first-time network analyst Dick Vermeil, since Cris Collinsworth, Gumbel’s usual Thursday night partner, is tied up with NBC’s Sunday night studio show.

We got more ...

Highlights from Thursday's action at the Rip Curl Pro Pipeline Masters event at the Banzai Pipeline at Sunset Beach in Haleiwa, Hawaii:
(All photos by Lucy Pemoni of the Associated Press)

Andy Irons completes a 360-degree turn ...

Irons sheds some more waves ...

Kelly Slater, eight time world champion of surfing, shows his form during one of his runs ...

But in the end, Irons holds up his first-place trophy as third-place Cory Lopez helps him out with his crown. Slater, who was second, and Rob Machado, who was fourth, join him on the podium.

By NANCY ARMOUR
Associated Press

The San Francisco Giants were in the thick of the pennant race in August 2002. And Blake Krikorian and his brother, Jason, were stuck at their office with no way to watch.
The afternoon game was being shown on a local TV station, but their office didn’t have a TV feed. They signed up for an Internet service that showed games live — only to discover local teams were blacked out.
“We thought, ‘There’s got to be a way we can watch and control our living room television,’� Blake Krikorian said. “Whether I’m in my backyard on my laptop, or sitting in an office on my desktop, or traveling in Shanghai with my mobile phone, it shouldn’t really matter. All I want is my familiar, living room TV programming.�
Thus, Slingbox was born.
The product, which lets people watch their home TV anywhere, anytime using an Internet-connected computer or
handheld device, is one of the many ways the view of games we love are changing.
No matter how many channels on a cable system or state-of-the-art satellite dish, there isn’t enough room for everything. The networks have little choice but to stick with the programming they know sells — baseball, the NFL, NASCAR, NCAA basketball and football, plus the golf and tennis majors. Viewers have turned elsewhere for what
they want and are using the latest in technology to get it on their terms.
“Television is still king of the hill,� said David Raith, executive director of U.S. Figure Skating, which launched IceNetwork.com this fall. “(But the Web) brings out great opportunities for further exposure, for marketing opportunities. ... There are no time or space limits. It’s wide open. It’s endless. It’s as much as you want to put in there.
“And it’s 24-7.�

Read on for more about where sports viewers are headed these days ...

By BARRY WILNER
Associated Press
After Len Dawson made his debut as a host of HBO’s “Inside the NFL� in 1978, he couldn’t critique his own work because his home city was not yet hooked up for cable TV.
“I live in Kansas City, Mo., and back then I never saw the finished product unless I called up friends in Kansas City, Kan., which did have HBO, and told them I was coming over to watch,� Dawson recalled this week before taping the 30th anniversary show of what has become a television staple for football fans. “It’s certainly changed.�
All of pro football has changed in those three decades, of course. But the easygoing style and a willingness to broach controversial subjects have remained constants on the program. Through cast changes and competition from all brands of media, the camaraderie of the hosts, the humorous banter and pointed analysis have made “Inside the NFL� appointment viewing not only for fans, but for players throughout the league.
“This show was so original when it began — no one was doing anything close to what this show was — and it still has the best of all worlds. Not only do we have previews of upcoming games, but all of this incredible footage from NFL Films,� said Cris Collinsworth, who now hosts the weekly program, along with Dan Marino, Cris Carterand Bob Costas.
“It’s even more of an inside look at the NFL because of how it goes behind the scenes. It’s like being in the locker room.�
That was the show’s mission when it debuted out of a studio in Philadelphia in 1977, with local announcer Al Meltzer and former Eagle Chuck Bednarik as hosts. The next year, HBO replaced them with Jets play-by-play man Merle Harmon and Dawson, who led the Chiefs to the 1970 Super Bowl title and was a sports commentator for a Kansas City television station.
A year later, Nick Buoniconti came aboard. He and Dawson clicked immediately and became an institution on the show, lasting through the 2002 season.

Read more on the HBO show that rolls into year No. 30 ....

Three days since the Heisman Trophy final balloting was revealed, and there's still no confirmation as to who gave USC receiver Dwayne Jarrett his lone first-place vote.
That's kinda fishy.
There are 923 official voters. Of them, 870 are from the media.
Of the 880 first-place votes cast in the 2006 campaign that were revealed by the Associated Press in their final Top 10 voting, Ohio State's Troy Smith took 801 of them.
Arkansas' Darren McFadden had 45, the second highest.
Notre Dame's Brady Quinn had 13. West Virginia's Steve Slaton and Hawaii's Colt Brennan had six each. Five went to Michigan's Mike Hart.
And then there was, for no other reason than to make some sort of lame statement, one first-place vote was given to Rutgers' Ray Rice, Boise State's Ian Johnson, Georgia Tech's Calvin Johnson.
And Jarrett.
Who may have only been the second-best receiver on his team.
But that's beside the point.
Why any concern over who thought it would be cute/cool/honorable to give Jarrett his lone vote of confidence when there was absolutely no way he was going to, or deserved to, win? Because anyone who did give that vote to Jarrett, who ended up finishing ninth overall with 47 total points -- or about 2,500 behind the winner Smith -- should have to admit to it.
Unfortunately, Heisman voters -- at least those who haven't won a Heisman and get an automatic vote -- can live in some anominity. None of them ever has to let the general public know how they selected, as we brought up recently in a blog posting about who really gets a Heisman vote versus who really deserves to have one.

For argument's sake, let's look at the potential list of suspects:

1) The former USC Heisman winners.
There are seven of them. Any one of them could have decided to "stay in the Trojan family" and voted for one of their own. Initial speculation on WeAreSC.com is that Charles White may have been the one to do it. Kari Chisholm, who runs the website StiffArmTrophy.com that predicts each year who'll win the Heisman based on asking current voters, said in an email that he did not know who voted Jarrett first, "but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Matt Leinart, White or Mike Garrett."
We would be.

2) What about others with some sort of ties to USC.
Chisholm has a list of who she has been able to confirm as current Heisman voters. From her list, we'll extract these USC-ties names:
Artie Gigantino, Fox Sports Net, former USC assistant coach; Lynn Swann, formerly of ABC Sports, former USC receiver; Pat Haden, NBC Sports, former USC quarterback;.
Doubt it, doubt it and doubt it.

3) Can we cast a cloud over the sports writers or broadcasters from L.A. who cover, or have covered, USC?
Daily News staff writer Scott Wolf and columnist Steve Dilbeck; retired Orange County Register columnist Steve Bisheff, the Long Beach Press Telegram's Bob Keisser and Doug Kirkorian, former ABC broadcaster Keith Jackson, sports-talk show host at 570-AM Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton, a former USC play-by-play man; and Daily Breeze columnist Mike Waldner.
They all have too much integrity to pull a stunt like that.
Wolf's ballot, by the way, was Brennan, Smith and McFadden.

4) Anyone else we forgot? Let's look at that list on StiffArmTrophy again ...
Oh, right.
Pete Arbogast, current (for the time being) USC play-by-play football broadcaster, and recent winner of the "Homer Call of the Week" on the Dan Patrick ESPN Radio show.
The same Arbogast who, in 2002, admitted that he cast his second-place vote for Arizona State defensive end Lee Suggs because he knew that would help USC quarterback Carson Palmer, the eventual winner.
Can't deny, there's heavy speculation that the lone Jarrett vote came from here. We can't verify, so we don't want to implicate him. So far, he hasn't admitted it to anyone. At least none that have passed it on.

Until then, we'lll patiently sit back and wait to see who finally comes clean.

The editors of Maxium magazine certainly have a good track record for knowing a good thing when they see it.
But now they're the arbitors of what's become an eyesore as well.
The Maxium.com website has come up with their ranking of the 10 sports buildings in America that need more than a face lift and implants. They need to be condemned.
Your Los Angeles Coliseum isn't spared from the list, despite its traditional value. Maxium doesn't go much in depth about why they'd do it, only that no one seems to like it. Not necessarily true, but if you really want a list of what could be fixed up, start with the fact only one elevator goes up to the three levels of the press box. At least the upgraded Rose Bowl has three (maybe four?) elevators.
At least there are some drawings out there of what an upgraded Coliseum would look like, with luxury boxes, etc., to appease an NFL franchise. But so far, it's far from getting off the ground. So we just have these pictures to look at and dream about.
We can't say we disagree too much with their list, or including the home of the USC Trojans and occasional international soccer game. It would be a shame, though, to just nuke it -- and then leave the nearby Sports Arena standing.
Somehow, Pauley Pavilion escaped the wrecking ball.
Here's the Maxium list:

10. Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans: Even before Katrina, the place came across as drab and soulless as a long-abandoned warehouse. Great symbol of New Orleans' resilience, lousy place to see a game.

9. Madison Square Garden, New York: Oh, the arena itself ain't half bad, especially if you like $8.75 Miller Genuine Drafts and $16 "personal pizzas."

8. Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh: If folks from Pittsburgh, ­among the hardiest fans in sports, are saying, "Dude, this place could use, like, a fresh coat of paint," you know it's about one windy December afternoon away from implosion. One of North America's five most prominent candidates for a massive, raging electrical fire.

7. US Cellular Field, Chicago: "The Cell" is the most recently constructed of the cookie-cutter, rounder-than-Aykroyd ballparks that plagued baseball from the early 1970s until the Y2K construction wave. Do stadiums have feelings? If so, this one boasts lower self-esteem than several generations of Hilton women.

6. Cameron Indoor Stadium, Durham: Those Duke kids­they're craaaay-zeee. They create their own refugee camp outside rickety Cameron and, whether through Jedi mind-trickery or massive ingestion of hallucinogens, proceed to pretend that their hardwood heroes ply their craft in something other than a barn.

5. L.A. Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles: Hello? Anybody here? Remind me again: Why is the NFL so darn eager to place a pro football team that nobody wants in a stadium that nobody likes?

4. Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, Minnesota: Never mind that it's named after a Vice President memorable for being so utterly, remarkably unmemorable. The stadium boasts precisely two noteworthy features: fences baggier than Snoop's trousers and a pale ceiling that makes locating simple pop flies an arduous task.

3. Shea Stadium, New York: Don't get us wrong, the neighboring auto-body shops lend a certain je ne sais quoi to the fan experience, as do the gently wafting scents of rot and tire fires. The bigger problem is inside the cavernous park, where even the box seats are way recessed from the field. Spatially, it's the baseball equivalent of a de-elasticized waistband.

2. Fenway Park, Boston: Sure, they've gussied up the joint in recent years: seats on the Green Monster, elimination of the trough urinals, etc. Still, you can slap as much rouge on an old, decrepit prostitute as you'd like; She still remains, at her core, an old, decrepit prostitute…in this instance, one with ghastly sightlines and seats designed to accommodate the 5'4", 125-pound hominid of the 1820s.

1. Joe Louis Arena, Detroit: We're on board with anything named after the great Joe Louis­Joe Louis Pancake Batter, Eau de Joe cologne, anything. But his name/legacy, as well as the Red Wings, deserve better than a crumbling facility in a scary (and not in a Regis-without-makeup way) neighborhood. It's sportsdom's only arena where the presence of teeth and veritable rivers of sputum in the concourses doesn't prompt any reaction vaguely resembling surprise.

I was at the Coliseum 25 years ago when the Rolling Stones capped an all-day concert that included George Thorogood and the Destroyers, the J. Geils Band and, as the opener who came on at about noon, something called Prince.
I believe he sang about three songs. The third song was called "Jack U Off," from his "Controversy" album. Surely, it was an album back then. Did we even have CDs?
So the song goes:
"If U're looking for somewhere to go
Thought I'd take u to a movie show
Sittin' in the back and I'll ..."
Right after the next line, or two, I went along with the crowd, took my shoes off, and threw them at him on the stage. He thankfully ran away.
We weren't sure who he was before this, and we didn't care afterward. Prince was canned.
(The next 24 years are a bit hazy ...)
Flash forward to Feb. 2007.
The Artist Currently Known Again as Prince, as was reported a half a year ago by SportsByBrooks.com, was officially announced today as the halftime show for Super Bowl XLI.
It will be televised by CBS, which had the fun of trying to apologize for a Janet Jackson flailing boob the last time they covered (or uncovered) a Super Bowl.
According to the press release emailed out today by the NFL and its broadcast partners, which is good info since we haven't really kept up the career of this little fellow:

"Prince is more than just one of the world’s most popular and influential musicians – he is an international icon. One of the greatest living performers of our time, he has sold nearly 100 million albums and is a member of The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He has won six Grammy Awards (he’s one of the leading nominees this year with 5 Grammy nominations) and five American Music Awards. He has one of the most recognizable and successful bodies of work of any musician, consisting of 20 Top 10 hits which include “Purple Rain,� “Little Red Corvette,� “1999,� “Kiss,� “When Doves Cry,� “Cream,� “Diamonds and Pearls� and countless others. There is no question that when it comes to his achievements, Prince has made an indelible mark on rock ‘n roll history."

This is what it sounds like when viewers flip to another channel ...

Given, I did watch some, but not all, of Sunday night's Saints-Cowboys game on NBC. Up until the Saints charged ahead 21-7.
Then, I fell asleep on the couch. Sitting up. Snoring loudly.
My wife can attest to it.
When I staggered back into the real world, Fred Roggin was already well into the weekly "Challenge" on Channel 4. I awoke to see him talking to USC basketball coach Tim Floyd, and wondering how I'd managed to miss yet another episode -- that's three weeks in a row.
It's just not on the radar anymore. Why?
Are we just inspired to lose this weekly game of trivial pursuit? Are we just demoralized by being so far down in the standings? Have we decided not to rally for a comeback in the final weeks, to at least save some face while others around us continue to cheat, lie and steal their way to the top?
We have no proof of the later. Only theories.
We TiVo'd it, ran it back, answered a few right, got a couple wrong, and, when all tallied, figured we'd have amassed about 235 points. Which woulda got me tied for 12th, but well behind the week's leader, Barry Lightner and Mike Rafferty, both of whom had 300.
Even farther behind the season leader, Sonia (Don't Call me Steve) DeSaegher (3,165 points). I'm stuck in a tie for 188th place overall, stuck on 1,425 points. Oh well.
That's life. And as Christmas nears, the time demands are greater.
We do what we can. And we sometimes fail.
At least we can provide the day's questions and answers:

(AP photo by Lucy Pemoni)

By TARA GODVIN
Associated Press
WAIMEA BAY, Hawaii — As much of the country battens down for an icy winter, Hawaiians await their annual siege of monster waves on the islands’ northern shores and hope for a chance to witness one of surfing’s greatest big wave contests.

Founded in 1985, the contest evokes all that is awe inspiring about the sport of surfing. But it only has been held seven times in 21 years, and it depends entirely on the waves off Oahu’s North Shore.

The contest, which brings together the world’s elite of big wave surfing, only runs when open ocean swells are at least 20 feet — meaning the face of the waves that roar toward shore soar to more than 30 feet.

Though wave heights were only 4-6 feet as of Wednesday, and 8-12 feet on Friday, the holding period for the competition runs through the end of February. And some forecasters predict the warm-water El Nino trend in the Pacific this year improves the odds for big enough swells.

“You never really notice how tall it is. And if you do notice how tall it is and how far up, and you’re going ‘Oh, oh, I’m not going to make this one,’ that’s when it’s too late,� said Peter Mel, a California surfer known for being among the first in the 1990s to surf the notoriously dangerous big wave break south of San Francisco called Mavericks.
Mel is one of 24 invited big wave surfers this year on a list that includes 2002 winner and eight-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater (pictured), and 2004 winner and three-time world champion Andy Irons.

Once organizers decide conditions are right for the contest, invitees get 24 hours to get to Hawaii. The official span of time during which the contest can be held runs from Dec. 1 to Feb. 28 at Waimea Bay.

The competition officially is called The Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau , a former surfer and lifeguard and a crew member of the voyaging canoe Hokulea when it capsized in a 1978 storm shortly after leaving Honolulu for Tahiti. Aikau volunteered to paddle for help and was never seen again. The contest, informally known as “the Eddie,� kicked off Nov. 30 with an opening ceremony that featured an intimate benefit concert by Pearl Jam, with only 250 allowed to attend on the North Shore.

Read on for more about "The Eddie" ...

By BILL PENNINGTON
New York Times

The winner of the 72nd Heisman Memorial Trophy will be announced tonight, and although the choice is unlikely to be controversial, like so many things in college football this season, it is the voting process that could bring scrutiny.

Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith is expected to be a runaway winner, but if his margin of victory is the largest ever, it could foster a debate over the merits of that distinction. Like many elections, the focus then turns on the electors. In the case of the Heisman, who gets to vote for the award and why is a perennial topic of discussion — as well as a matter of some secrecy.

There are 923 Heisman voters— 870 members of the news media and the 53 living Heisman Trophy winners. Fans can vote for the winner online, with the result counting as one additional vote. The Heisman Trophy Trust, the caretaker of the award, does not release the names of the news media voters.

For decades, people have grumbled about the makeup of the Heisman voting pool with insinuations that many news media voters are unqualified, apathetic or disconnected with college football because they stopped reporting on the sport years ago.

Dave Rahme, who covers Syracuse football for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, has been asking for a Heisman vote for several years. He has not been granted one, he said, even though a recently retired columnist at his newspaper retains his vote and another colleague kept his for years after transferring out of the sports department.

“I’d love to know how often this happens all around the country,� said Rahme, who on his blog this week addressed the situation under the heading, “Heisman hooey.�

“You would think they’d want somebody who’s actively covering college football,� he added.

Rob Whalen, the director of the Heisman Trust, would not speak directly about Rahme’s situation. But in an interview Thursday, he said that the organization reviewed its list of voters annually.

“There is a system, and we work to verify voters’ qualifications and their commitment to following college football,� Whalen said. “But you’ve got to understand there are a lot of people all over the nation asking for votes, more every year. It’s also true that if someone retires from his newspaper post and he has been a knowledgeable voter and is
going to continue to be committed to being knowledgeable about college football, we don’t necessarily revoke his vote. But we do absolutely take votes away all the time. Every year.�

Read more on this injustice ...

We interrupt this Time Warner Cable-vs.-The NFL Network squabble to introduce a new litigant.
Time Warner filed a lawsuit against DirecTV, which stands to benefit from those viewers who drop their cable system in frustration over the fact that it doesn't carry the NFL's channel, claiming the dish company is lying in their ads.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan claims DirecTV lied about the accessibility of NFL broadcasts in an attempt to pry away customers, and seeks unspecified damages and a court order to stop DirecTV from saying in advertising that Time Warner Cable subscribers cannot watch their local NFL team play games when DirecTV is showing games on the NFL Network.
“These ads are blatantly false,� the lawsuit filed Thursday said, citing newspaper advertisements claiming that the Dec. 30 game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins will not be available to 4.4 million people in New York unless they join DirecTV. In fact, the game will be broadcast to Time Warner Cable customers in New York over the free channel WNBC-TV, even if the residents are not DirecTV customers, the lawsuit said.
Technically, they're right. But we understand DirecTV's pitch here: Drop cable, take us, however you want to interpret this mess.
Robert Mercer, a DirecTV spokesman, said the company had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.
This is the first year NFL games are going on the NFL Network, which is available to DirecTV customers but not to many cable customers. The move has angered many who have cable and don't have access to the NFL Network, while stepping up the fight between satellite and cable over the lucrative NFL market.
In its lawsuit, Time Warner said false ads were causing Time Warner Cable "immediate and irreparable harm" because once customers switch from cable to satellite, it is difficult to persuade them to switch back
because of switching costs involved and lengthy contracts.
And, the fact that the dish is superior to the cable, and usually delivers better customer service. But we digress.
The lawsuit accused DirecTV of making similar claims about football broadcasts in advertising aimed at
people in Green Bay, Wis., Cincinnati and elsewhere when games feature cities’ home teams.
“These false ads were obviously targeted at markets where DirecTV believes that loyalty to the local football team will drive consumer purchasing decisions,� the lawsuit said.
And if that's not enough, Time Warner Cable also accused DirecTV of using advertising featuring actress Jessica Simpson and actor William Shatner to say its high-definition television service provides a picture quality that is superior to Time Warner Cable’s high-definition service.
(Maybe Time Warner hasn't heard, but DirecTV is also using "renouned journalist" Frank Deford to say the same thing about its high-def reception).
Time Warner Cable said those ads were also false because both companies provide exactly the same screen resolution. At best, the lawsuit said, DirecTV’s picture quality is “merely equivalent.�
Guess it depends on what half-empty wallet you're paying for each service.

Holiday online shopping tip: go to the websites at USC and UCLA and see what they're already churning out.
At the UCLA site, here's the new hot item: For $17. Or a hooded sweatshirt version is $38. Would a Bruin on your list rather have this, or a $19 T-shirt announcing that they're going to the Emerald Bowl? (Note, the photo here of the "13 Reasons" shirt has the one sleeve folded over. It's for all the UCLA fans whose arm is tired of high-fiving other UCLA fans in the stands that day). And, by the way, for those who are still in disbelief of what happened, 570-AM, the Bruins' flagship radio station, is replaying the broadcast from last week's game at 4 p.m. Saturday, right after it airs the UCLA-Texas A&M and USC-George Washington basketball games from the John Wooden Classic in Anaheim. Can't enough of it, can you?

At the USC store, they've countered with the ever-classic Rose Bowl T-shirt, for $20. There are 21 items, in fact, related to the return trip to Pasadena on Jan. 1, including a few more different style T-shirts, hats, pins and the "Beat Michigan" button (for 99 cents).

There is, of course, also plenty of Ohio State and Florida stuff for sale in anticipation of the Jan. 8 national title game in Arizona. Rivals.com has enough in stock to fill a room of miserable Trojan fans.
Actually, the Gator fans will likely be toasting a cold one to USC from this new bucket you can buy online for $40. Beer not included.

Dan Patrick wasn't afraid to tell Will Ferrell that he thought a better ending to his latest movie, "Stranger Than Fiction," would have been for Ferrell's character to die.
"I said, 'Don't take it the wrong way,' but I just wasn't all that thrilled with the ending,'" Patrick made it known to Ferrell during their interview on Tuesday's edition of Patrick's ESPN Radio show, which eminated from the Los Angeles studios of KSPN-AM (710) this week.
"Will just said, 'Thanks, but I only value the opinions of those I really care about.'"
Patrick had a chance to mug for the cameras with Ferrell (above) after their show, and then went into character for a Q-and-A with us during our visit to the KSPN-AM (710) studios where we caught up with him before he went on for his regular 10 a.m.-to-1 p.m. shift -- a portion of which made it into print with today's Daily News media column:

Q: Why are you wearing a Texas Longhorns hat in those shots with Ferrell? Is it to rub it in that they won the national championship game last January instead of Ferrell's Trojans?
A: Someone just gave me that hat. I guess I had predicted a Texas victory in the Rose Bowl, someone gave it to me, and I just put it on Tuesday.

Q: Are you now officially out of the ESPN "SportsCenter" rotation and committed fulltime to radio?
A: I don't even remember the last "SportsCenter" that I did. Maybe in the summer? I've done enough of it; time to let someone else go for it. I've been attached to it for so many years, but I can't do it anymore if I'm just taking it for granted. I thought I was going through the motions for too long, so let someone else do it. I've got the NBA pregame show now. And with the radio show, it's got my name attached. I remind Keith Olbermann of that every day.

Q: What about this role you're playing in the new Adam Sandler movie, "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"? Since it's about a couple of Brooklyn firefighters (Sandler and Kevin James) who pretend to be gay lovers to get insurance benefits, do you have to play it straight or kind of gay it up yourself?
A: Nope, just a police officer. Again. In the first Sandler movie I did, "The Longest Yard," I played a cop with a now famous porn mustache. I named him Sgt. Jack Pugh, after my dad. This time, I haven't come up with a name in the credits for the character yet. I may call him Officer Bill O'Reilly, just to tweek Olbermann.

Q: What kind of relationship have you developed with Sandler that allows you all these free passes into his films?
A: I just saw him at a Knicks game one time, and he said, "Danny Patrick, I'm going to get you a part in my next movie." I was going to be in "Little Nicky," so I'm thankful he didn't make good on that one. Then I saw him again, and he said, "You're going to be in 'The Longest Yard' as a cop who arrests me." I had played myself in "The Waterboy," and I really am tired of playing that role (he also did himself in the ill-fated "BASEketball"). In "Benchwarmers," he wrote me in as a card player. So this time, it's back to a cop who arrives on the scene of someone stuck in an air vent at a store. Sandler encourages me to ad lib, so I could get as much screen time as I did last time.

Q: So are you already in line for another Sandler movie down the road?
A: This is just a three-picture deal. Then we'll see what happens. I'm sure next will be Speilberg at the Ivy ... not at the same table. I really can't tell you my next project. It's in development. Isn't that what you say when you're out of work? I think that's what Craig Kilborn (above) is doing now, something in development. He says he knows the Wilson brothers (Luke and Owen) and Vince Vaughn, so maybe he's waiting for something with them.

Q: You've really got this L.A. name-dropping thing down, haven't you?
A: It's part of being here. You act phoney and drop names.

Q: What's your ultimate movie role, if you could choose something that goes longer than a minute?
A: Something that shows my emotional range. Something tragic. Maybe a "Raging Bull" kind of thing, where I have to morph into the character and sustain it. I'd like to do the remake of "The Legend of Ron Burgendy" and play a cable TV guy against Will Ferrell's news team.

Q: Did you ask Ferrell for a role in his next movie?
A: Begged more like. He's working on a movie about the old ABA -- that's why he's growing his hair out into a fro. He asked if I could commit to three months of shooting. I said I'd quit ESPN and make the $680 a week scale just to get in it. You know, I do have a Screen Actors Guild card. Had to get it about 10 years ago. I do like to flash it around. I'll pull it out with my credit card by "accident" when I'm buying something. I do that here, and it's no big deal. Back in Bristol, they see it and think SAG has something to do with a Weight Watchers program that I'm on.

Q: Would you consider taking acting lessons if you continue doing more movies?
A: I'm more a method actor, improvosation. I feel the scene. Like Brando, Bobby DiNero ... Rob Schneider... all the great ones. Schneider actually asked me to be in his last "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo" movie but it would have taken six weeks in Amsterdam. I would never have come back. I think that was another good career decision.

Q: While you're in L.A., why don't you get an appearance on Jay Leno, since you've been on Letterman a couple of times? Maybe even Jimmy Kimmel?
A: I could call Kimmel and let him know I'm in town, but that's not my style.

Q: At least you're known around town now, right?
A: I think I noticed that finally (back before the January national championship football game at the Rose Bowl) when I was trying to get into Teddy, the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel which no one can get into. I was there with Jack Giarraputo, Sandler's production partner, and we were waiting at the door and I noticed that across the street (on Hollywood Blvd.) there was a big billboard for my radio show. I told the lady at the door, "That's me, up there." And she said, "Oh, it is you," so we walked right in. We see Owen Wilson right away and he says, "How'd you get in here?"

As far as what's happening in the rest of the media world:

BERRIEN SPRINGS, Mich. (AP) -- Muhammad Ali used to recite poems before his fights that brashly predicted victory against his ring opponents, but boxing’s poet laureate had to overcome dyslexia as a child to learn how to read and write.

A new classroom collection of children’s books bearing Ali’s name is intended to help motivate and empower young students, particularly boys, to overcome a different kind of obstacle to becoming accomplished readers: disinterest.

Scholastic Corp.’s “Muhammad Ali Presents Go the Distance� features books that champion Ali’s values and are aimed at socially disadvantaged students in grades 3-8 who believe neither reading nor education is relevant to their lives, says Lonnie Ali, the boxing legend’s wife.

“The foundation of all education is reading,� she says. “Books can take a child outside of his immediate vicinity, his immediate environment, to someplace else. It makes them learn about other communities outside of their immediate neighborhoods. That’s one of the things this particular library has been designed to do: to take children on that next journey out.�

The collection includes a wide range of multicultural fiction and nonfiction books that generally reflect the interests of young boys in underserved classrooms because, on average, they read far less than their female counterparts.

“A lot of it has to do with subject material — getting the interest of the child, to make them read,� Ali says. “The more you make a child read, the more they are motivated. The more motivation they have, the more they seek out books to read and the more they become empowered by what they read and empowered with what they can do.�

Some of the titles in the collection include: “Stealing Home: The Story of Jackie Robinson,�
about the legendary athlete who broke baseball’s color barrier; “Hunterman and the Crocodile,� a folk tale from west Africa; “White Star: A Dog on the Titanic,� about a young boy and a dog who bond while aboard the doomed ocean liner; and “Touching Spirit Bear,� a story of a young boy’s journey from self-destructive anger to forgiveness.

The collection wouldn’t be complete without an Ali book, so Scholastic also included “The Champ: The Story of Muhammad Ali.�

Read on for more info on the Ali book program ...

The next edition of the Amgen Tour of California cycling race, which runs Feb. 18-25, 2007, has figured out its final course of action.
That's 650 miles of it, our version of the Tour de France without the crazy Frenchmen on the route trying to trip up the leader, but more of the laidback, isn't-this-kinda-cool spectators who'll line the route once they figure out where things are laid out.
For local consideration, we note the fifth stage will be an 14.5 mile individual time trial on Friday, Feb. 23 in Solvang, where many of the top pro teams train. The race will only be a couple of blocks long, winding through some vineyards, farms and a little steep climb, with plenty of time to get off and sample some Danish pastries and clog around in wooden shoes when it's all settled down.
As for stage six, they're going 105 miles from the Santa Barbara shoreline, up Highway 150, past Lake Casitas, through Ojai and Santa Paula before the final climb to the Valencia Town Center at McBean Parkway in Santa Clarita on Saturday, Feb. 24.
Santa Clarita, by the way, gets a nice writeup on the official Tour website, referring to it as "Los Angeles without the traffic." I'll remember that next time I'm stuck on Interstate 5 with no where to go.
Anyway, 16 of the world's top pro cycling teams won't be stuck in any traffic -- they'll create the traffic when they compete in this race, which starts in San Francisco and ends with a loop course in Long Beach. Organizers claim 1.3 million watched it last year. VERSUS (which used to be OLN), the home of Babe Winkleman, is also the official cable TV carrier of the race and plans daily coverage.

We just got finished talking about comfortable it was seeing USC fans peacefully coexist with UCLA fans before a rivalry game, there comes this story out of the blue.
According to KCBS Channel 2, a 32-year-old USC fan lost the sight in his eye after a pro-UCLA group attacked him during a tailgate party before Saturday's game.
Daniel Crowson and a friend were attacked by as many as 10 UCLA fans for doing nothing.
"There certainly was no instigation," Crowson, of Torrance, said. "I just remember seeing a flash of a bottle come across my face."
A cut to an eyeball took more than five hours to repair in surgery at Kaiser Permanente in Harbor City, he said.
Crowson said he and his friend were attacked when they left their car to walk to a bathroom outside the Rose Bowl shortly before Saturday's game, which UCLA won 13-9.
Anyone who saw the attack was asked to call Pasadena police at (626) 744-7113.

On the season leaderboard for Fred Roggin's "The Challenge," which airs every Sunday night after the NFL game, it's now a bit disheartening to note that we've amassed just 1,425 points and fallen into a tie for 153rd place with my new best friends, Emmanuel Williams, Bruce Swinford and Craig DeBano -- which may be first and last times those other three guys ever see their name on a blogboard.
We feel like the USC offense in Saturday's game against UCLA: Stagnant, uncomfortable, overlooking the competition.
That's just wrong.
According to our calculations, if we'd have been around to play Week 12, we'd have amassed our greatest one-week total of all time: 255 points and made it into the Top 15, looking up at the weekly leader, Satoshi Nago with (gulp) 310 points out of a possible 360. Yikes.
Alas, we didn't play. Again.
We TiVo'd the show because we had another family committment, and as Christmas nears, that's gonna be the theme for the month of December. If we had planned this right, we could have built a big lead and then coasted. Instead, we stumbled, mumbled and fumbled our way through a dozen weeks, hardly cracking the Top 25 in any of them (maybe the first week, we'll have to go back to check). We've won no prizes.
But we don't cheat, either. We don't have a buncha friends hanging around shouting out answers to us (that's two weeks in a row Mrs. Roggin has finished near the top, by the way). We don't even have the full time allotment to answer since our TiVo delay on DirecTV already has us in a delay mode. And ...
We'll stop the whining right there. There's no way we're catching current overall leader Sonia (don't call me Steve) Desaegher (2,905 points) or No. 2 man Patrick Alog (2,875).
We'll just lay out the questions and answers for you and see how you'd have done:

They're doing more than just killing time before the kickoff of Saturday's 76th edition of the USC-UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl.
They're killing a few beers, a few brain cells, a few bugs that dare come out onto the Brookside Golf Course on a glorious day like this one.
As we wrote about in today's Daily News column, these are the sights you may or may not have missed were you tailgating among the masses before kickoff:

How do USC and UCLA fans coexist? Pretty well, as far as we could see from their actions speaking louder than words all across the Arroyo Seco. No matter what part of the golf course we'd venture to, there were plenty of Bruins sharing food and drink with Trojans, Trojans playing catch with Bruins ... even a Florida fan who no doubt was pulling for UCLA on Saturday as well.

USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA

-- We came upon a gaggle of young, athletic females near the Brookside 7th green, all wearing the power blue UCLA T-shirts involved in some sort of competition that involved a Frisbee, yellow plastic cups and ... why are they running off to the side to do?
"Take beer shots," said Yvonne Leung of Irvine, a member of the school's BLU (Bruin Ladies Ultimate) squad that has embraced the frivolity of flying discs along with an attitude of play 'til you puke.
It's not an easy activity to explain, but it's a heck of a thing to watch. The pictures here don't do it justice.
Think college-aged girls, ultimately serious about their Frisbee flinging abilities, spaced about 20 yards apart like a game of horseshoes, trying to knock down the cups in front of their opponents, who then have to sprint and guzzle before they can play defense, which is mostly diving to prevent the other girl from throwing a Frisbee at her cups ...
"It's way fun," said Lisa Vampola of Santa Barbara, who's identified as Clyde (her nickname) and as the captain of the squad.
A group of USC fans walked by to watch.
"You can't get Gauntlet points for that," one yelled.
Sure, but you can get plenty of grass stains, scraped elbows and beer-soaked shirts.
Good enough for us.
There's more info on this thing at the group's official website.

USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA

-- Brad Bring of Sherman Oaks had the UCLA Bruin stuffed mini mascot on a string routine going all day long, and enough UCLA fans came by to kick it without thinking about as Bring requested.
"C'mon, six-and-six is no way to live!" Bring shouted to a group of UCLA fans who refused to kick the bear as he commanded.
Oh, by the way, UCLA is 7-5 after Saturday's game.
At one point, a women let her fairly newborn son take a stomp on the bear, enough to where Bring had to get up and take a picture of it himself. Although ultimately, it seemed like the mom was just as eager to pose for herself.
Despite the fact Bring was all dressed up in USC garb -- all the way down to his custom-made Nike shoes that had his nickname, "SC Demon" -- plenty of UCLA fans kicked the bear anyway just because he asked nicely.
"Free kicking! No charge! Totally free!" he kept saying.
Eventually, Bring put two stuffed Bruins out there to be beaten upon. It caused one UCLA fan to exclaim: "That's a double murder." Touche.
A couple of girls representing Google video came by and shot some footage of people kicking the bear, and told us it'd be up on their website. We can't find it, so if you take a look youself and track it down, let us know.

USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA-USC-UCLA

Read more to see the display of T-shirts, as well as other stuff we stumbled upon ...

Again, another long period of time goes by before we hear from my brother in law, Mitch, with his Marine Corps unit doing their stuff in Iraq. (That's him in the front with the sunglasses).
He had a brief moment this week to offer up these comments on how he sees the sports world from his side of the globe:

Hey Tom. Wow it has been a while. I have been swamped. I have a small break then I will get back at it. How is everything in sunny California? Go SC, one more to go. If we can beat UC UGLY then we can prove we are for real in Arizona.
My Colts are looking sharp, the D is getting healthy and Adai is showing up.
I don't want to jinx them but the Lakers are looking real real good, and with 15 mil coming available in 07, Garnett may be the missing link. Poor Shaq, even more so D-Wade mister Flash has shown he is no Kobe and can't win without a big man, especially when all the double teams go on Shaq to leave Wade wide open.
o Lakers, far into the playoffs this year, the title next year.
Iit may be a bit late but here are my picks for this weekend: USC over UCLA in a close one. Bears over Vikings, Seahawks over Denver, and Saints over Frisco -- that should be a good one.
Sorry I could not reply sooner. Take care. Kobe scores 52 against the Jazz, what???? Lakers looking good.

Among the items worth noting, but didn't make the final cut of today's media column in the Daily News:

-- Did you see the ads that AM-710 projected on the outside of the Coliseum before and after the USC-Notre Dame game last Saturday, touting the station and Colin Cowherd's show? Pretty effective use of dead space. And, unlike the stuff ESPN puts up on the Hotel Figueroa, it comes down quickly.

-- The best laid plans of FSN Prime Ticket can only get a half-hour pregame show at 12:30 p.m. for Saturday's USC-UCLA game. You'll note the kickoff is actually at 1:30 p.m. That's because the network has to cut away to carry the Kings-Ducks NHL game at 1 p.m. Lindsay Soto hosts the Prime Ticket pregame show, and an extended post-game show starts at 5 p.m.

-- Fox’s BCS selection show (Channel 11, 5 p.m.), which follows the network’s NFL doubleheader, originates from its L.A. studio and dispatches Jeanne Zelasko to USC for interviews.

-- Before the operators of the WeAreSC.com website took down the message-board postings, readers of the site and USC play-by-play man Pete Arbogast got into some sparring over facts that Arbogast had incorrect in a Wednesday blog posting that focused on his recollections of past USC-UCLA games. For example, Arbogast mentioned the USC quarterback Rodney Peete played with the measles in a game against UCLA in 1987 (it was '88), and that USC receiver Eric Afholter (sic) made his game-winning catch in ‘85 (it was ‘87).

-- From a survey of 2,100 readers of the Sports Business Daily and Sports Business Journal, NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol (40.6 percent) won over ESPN/ABC's George Bodenheimer (27.7 percent) for the category of who is the "most effective TV network sports executive," despite the fact that Bodenheimer was first in "most influential person in sports business" at 23.6 percent, ahead of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (17.5 percent), NBA commissioner David Stern (14.2 percent) and Ebersol (12.5 percent). Also, ABC/ESPN were named far and away winners in "most effective overall sports division" (76.5 percent, over Fox's 13 percent and NBC's 4.4 percent). In other survey results, NBC's Al Michaels (21.1 percent) was voted favorite TV play-by-pay personality over Fox's Joe Buck (17 percent) and CBS' Jim Nantz (9.0 percent); NBC's John Madden (16.4 percent) was voted favorite TV game analyst over Fox's Troy Aikman (10.6 percent) and ESPN's Dick Vitale (8.1 percent); NBC's Bob Costas (22.1 percent) was the favorite studio show host winner over ESPN's Chris Berman (20.6 percent); ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" was the favorite studio show (anthology) with 36.2 percent; ESPN's "College GameDay" was named favorite studio show (game-related) with 32 percent, over ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" (23.1 percent), ESPN's "NFL Prime Time" (11.6 percent) and Fox's "NFL Sunday"(10.9 percent); ESPN's Peter Gammons (57.1 percent) was far and away voted favorite baseball studio show analyst, as TNT's Charles Barkley (62.6 percent) won the same for NBA coverage. Fox's Terry Bradshaw (15.9 percent) was the favorite NFL studio analyst over ESPN's Tom Jackson (13.2 percent) and NBC's Cris Collinsworth (12.0 percent).

-- DirecTV, which for the last few years has been offering its "CricketTicket" package of subscription international cricket matches, recently added the first 24-hour Cricket Plus channel dedicated to the sport.

-- The NFL Network claims that, among 531 national cable channels, its bumbling Bryant Gumbel coverage of the Denver-Kansas City game on Thanksgiving night was the most-watched cable program that day with an estimated 4.2 million viewers and a 6.8 rating. The network continues its very expensive smear campaign against those cable companies that won’t carry it, taking out full-page color ads in the newspapers to tout its schedule and try to incite readers to complain to companies like Time Warner to get it on. DirecTV, which has the NFL Network on Channel 212, has been trying to add frustrated customers, now running a radio ad that says, “If you take away the man’s football, you take away the man."

-- Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson call CBS’ coverage of the SEC title game between Arkansas and Florida (Channel 2, 3 p.m.), preceded by the Army-Navy game (Channel 2, 11:30 a.m.) with Ian Eagle and Boomer Esiason.

-- CBS' 2007 golf schedule includes taking back the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club (Feb. 17-18).

-- CBS starts its 26th consecutive regular season of NCAA basketball with the Kentucky-North Carolina game (Channel 2, 9 a.m.), with Craig Bolerjack and Billy Packer on the call. Meanwhile, ESPN2 has USC's game at Kansas on Monday (6 p.m.) with Mark Jones and Fran Fraschilla.

-- The NBA Network, which Tuesday started coverage of its own D-League games, has the Lakers' affiliate, the Los Angeles D-Fenders, on its schedule Thursday (Dec. 7) at 1 p.m. at Colorado. The network will do 60 Development League telecasts, 20 of them live, including the All-Star game on February.

-- The December edition of HBO's “Costas Now� (Tuesday, 10 p.m.) has a round table with Fox's Joe Buck, TNT's Barkley and NBC/CBS tennis analyst John McEnroe and includes the announcement of Sports Illustrated's “Sportsman of the Year.� The next night, also at 10 p.m., Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti come back to "Inside the NFL" for one show as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.