Last weekend, Parker McLachlin won the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open golf tournament. Let me be clear, I could not pick Parker McLachlin out of a line-up with Peter Parker, any or all of the Parker Brothers and a Parker House roll. He won this tournament despite staggering home in the final round with a two-over-par round of 74. That bad round meant he only won the tournament by 7 shots. Why bother to mention this junior varsity PGA event? Here’s why:
Michelle Wie could not make the cut against this competition either.
Tiger Woods was on ESPN radio talking with Scott Van Pelt. I heard him say that he was just now beginning to ride a stationary bike as part of his rehab regimen following his knee surgery. Woods said explicitly that he will not be playing any golf until 2009 and that he is not sure at the moment when in 2009 he will be ready to play. There had been lots of speculation that he would be back for some “tune-up rounds” during the golf silly-season late this year. I think I will take Tiger Woods at his word and wait to see when he makes his comeback in 2009.
College football teams have begun fall practice; the season begins at the end of this month. At this time of year, I often recall a line by the essayist/satirist Elbert G. Hubbard regarding college football:
“College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.”
Would that the good folks at the NCAA would ponder the possibilities here…
Nevertheless, there are some college football observations that might prove interesting as the season unfolds. There are two teams that ought to improve significantly from mediocre/bad seasons last year:
UNC: The players have probably figured out that Butch Davis means business and knows what he is doing. He has recruited well and most of the really tough games on the UNC schedule (Va Tech, BC and Ga Tech) are in Chapel Hill this year.
Pitt: They have had good recruiting years recently and the schedule points to a good season for them too. They have their first three games at home against mediocre opponents and then have their tough Big East foes (WVU, Louisville and Rutgers) all at home later in the year.
In case you missed this item when it happened a couple of months ago, Duke cancelled a series of games against Louisville for 2007, 2008 and 2009. Louisville sued Duke claiming that it had been damaged because they could not find a “suitable replacement” and therefore lost revenue. Duke’s defense was that the Duke team was so bad that anyone Louisville put on the schedule would be a “suitable replacement”. The judge sided with the Duke position; Louisville received no damages in the case.
Here is an idea for the professors at Duke who teach creative writing. Have your students put themselves in the position where – 48 hours after the judge issued his ruling that Duke’s football program is so bad that any other team in the country can substitute for it – the student is working in the Duke Athletic Department and has to write a letter to football boosters and season ticket holders encouraging them to dip into their pockets to send money to the program and/or buy season tickets for 2008. That might be an interesting assignment…
I ran across an item announcing that Guy Morriss had been hired as the offensive line coach at Division II Kentucky State. Morriss had previously been the head coach at Kentucky (2 years) and Baylor (5 years). Since neither school is much of a football powerhouse, he had not had a world of success in either place, but still this announcement surprised me. No offense to Kentucky State here, but Morriss is now a position coach at a Division II school after two head coaching gigs at the Division I level. That seems like a pretty big drop to me.
Last year, Stanford beat USC as a 41-point underdog. They didn’t just cover that spread; they won the game outright. Unusual as it was, another factor makes that game even more stunning. If I did the counting carefully enough, I believe that ten players from that USC team were selected in the NFL Draft this year and zero Stanford players were selected. Wow.
Beano Cook has Notre Dame going 10-2 or 9-3 at the worst this season. I enjoy listening to Beano Cook; he has interesting stories to tell about college football and many of the personalities that have dotted that landscape for the past 50 or 60 years; Beano Cook is also an unmitigated Notre Dame fan. So, I went to look at the Notre Dame schedule for 2008 – remembering that the Irish were 3-9 last year and looked absolutely awful in some of their games. The schedule is not all that hard – - but it isn’t one that makes 10-2 look reasonable either. Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue BC and USC will be tough games. UNC and Pitt (see my suggestions for improved teams above) are on the schedule too. Maybe Notre Dame can squeeze out 6 wins and be bowl eligible this year, but 10-2…???
Here is another college football announcement you may have missed – - and if you heard it, you probably wished that you did miss it. The Atlantic Coast Conference announced that “pending eligibility” the ninth-place team in the ACC would play in the newly inaugurated Congressional Bowl in Washington DC – probably against Navy. Now that you know this tidbit, I will save you the mouse-clicks of going to Google by telling you the game is scheduled for December 20. I am sure you will want to get your tickets and your hotel reservations early for this match-up.
Finally, here is an item from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“Central Florida football coach George O’Leary is boycotting The Orlando Sentinel over alleged reporting inaccuracies. How rich is that! This is the same guy who was fired by Notre Dame after about 10 minutes because of gross lies on his résumé.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…