CBSportsline.com reports that Billy Donovan has not actually signed his contract with the Orlando Magic and that he may be thinking about going back to the University of Florida. I understand the lure of an NBA job in terms of a guaranteed contract worth somewhere north of $25M, but it isn’t as if Donovan was making minimum wage at Florida. I hope this situation does not turn into some long and drawn out brouhaha where we get to hear and read psychological analyses of Donovan that have all the depth of a parking lot puddle.
Elsewhere in NBA doings, the Charlotte Bobcats hired Rod Higgins away from the Warriors to be the Bobcats’ new GM. In Michael Jordan’s previous incarnation as an NBA front office executive, he hired Higgins to do something in the Wizards’ front office. Since Jordan made all the decisions in that situation, it was never really clear what Higgins did in Washington but here is a fact. He was there when the decisions were made to hire Leonard Hamilton as the coach and to draft Kwame Brown with the overall #1 pick in the draft. What role Higgins played in those decisions is completely mysterious, but the fact is that he did not talk the rest of the front office out of them. Bobcats’ fans had best hope that he is not around for anything similar in Charlotte.
Interestingly, about three of four days after Higgins was hired in Charlotte the Golden State Warriors announced that they were not going to replace him in their front office. That not only has to make me wonder what he might have been doing for the Warriors but it also has to make me wonder how vital the functions of the job he was supposed to be doing might have been…
You may recall that I told you about a recent NCAA study that took 16 years to determine that the injury rates for football and men’s hockey were higher than for other collegiate sports. Well, if you think the conclusions there were patently obvious, check out the latest flight of fancy by the NCAA. Last week, the NCAA announced the formation of a study panel whose members will include coaches, athletic directors, college presidents and “others” to shed light on the issues surrounding – - drum roll please - – why collegiate men’s basketball players experience deficient academic achievement. In announcing the birthing of this panel, Dr. Myles Brand said that their charter was wide-ranging and that “nothing will be off the table.”
Memo to Dr. Myles Brand (and his faithful sidekick, Captain Obvious):
1. Many men’s basketball players are academically deficient in college because they have been “passed along” in their high schools due to their athletic prowess. They are the academic equivalent of a talented seventh grade student.
2. Many men’s basketball players have the NBA as their goal in life (realistic or unrealistic as that may be) and have zero interest in academics.
3. Many men’s basketball players do not belong in college anywhere for any reason other than to play basketball.
4. If your study panel finds anything contrary to points 1-3 above, check to see what was in those brownies they ate at lunchtime.
Some folks in the Washington DC area are trying to put the pieces together to get yet another bowl game on the NCAA schedule. Rumor has it that they would hope to play their inaugural game after the 2008 college football season; the game would be held in RFK Stadium. I can’t begin to tell you how bad an idea this is. So let me just tick off a couple of items:
There are already too many bowl games. This one would attract two teams with all the cachet of a bovine bowel movement.
Washington DC in late December is a dreary place to be.
RFK Stadium is a horrible venue. The only reason it is not the worst baseball stadium in the country in 2007 is because Shea Stadium is still standing.
There is some fluttering about that this putative new bowl game would have some kind of tie-in with Navy. That might help since Navy would draw a crowd in the DC area, but one has to wonder why Navy might be interested. As long as Navy has a good team and is bowl eligible, it has the choice of lots of the second-tier bowl games because lots of the games realize that Navy will sell tickets in lots of bowl venues. So why would Navy tie itself down to a single bowl game in a dreary locale to be played in a bleak stadium? I don’t get it … Oh and by the way if the bowl game had such a tie-in with Navy, what might happen if Navy were not eligible for a bowl game some year?
Because there are so many mismatches on the college football scene, it is hard to pick out the biggest scheduling mistake in any given year. However, this year one might point to Penn State as having a non-conference schedule that is just a tad softer than one might expect from a school with the football tradition of the Nittany Lions. In 2007, Penn State will play Florida International, Buffalo and Temple. Granted the fourth non-conference game is against Notre Dame, but those other three games should be embarrassing to the school.
Here’s a public service announcement for you. June is Celibacy Awareness Month. Here’s a guess. Adolescents and adults who are celibate are already aware of what that means…
Finally, Greg Cote had this item in the Miami Herald about a week ago:
“The Ottawa-Anaheim Stanley Cup Finals starts Monday, and Vegas odds are out: The likelihood of this drawing a big national TV rating is slightly less than the probability that global warming will melt both rinks and cancel the series.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………