1. HOLDING ON: TIGER WOODS, MACHINE MADE FOR PLEASURE. It's not even proper to call them mistresses anymore, since having a mistress is a stylish thing with serious responsibilities. Take Ted Turner. For decades Ted has had mistresses, and knows how to properly stable them and make them feel like the prize fillies they are, showering them with gifts, scheduling their appointments with care, and otherwise conducting himself properly in the matter. They were relationships, dammit. There was candlelight, delicious dinners of buffalo steak, and luxurious waxings of Turner's mustache. Ted never texted his mistresses with a hurried "Wanna get laid?" He called them and asked, and then picked them up in his personal blimp, because Ted Turner is insane and probably does in fact own a personal blimp.
The count stands at 14 this week for "the number of women Tiger Woods slept with who should not really be called mistresses, since all Woods was doing was attempting to pole-vault around the world member-first, and not really being the classy dude who has mistresses and limos and soft music playing in the background. His wife is divorcing him. Accenture dumped him as a client, an irony since Accenture is essentially an overgrown accounting firm, and Tiger seems to have kept an impressive and accurate account of his own strokes. Oh, and he's taking an indefinite leave from golf just to destroy not only his family's life, but his de facto employer's as well.
The press, however, maintains its track record of amazing timing.
2. UP LIKE THE FIELD GOAL OF AN AVERAGE-TO-MEDIOCRE BIG EAST TEAM BEATING YOU AT HOME: Brian Kelly, Your Quinquennial Savior in South Bend. Quinquennial is a word meaning "occuring once every five years," as in the changing of the guard at Notre Dame, the school whose five year plans have been starving Irish fans like Ukranian kulaks pretty efficiently ever since the departure of Lou Holtz. Brian Kelly kicked off the era by announcing his departure at a rousing press conference where he announced he had never been to a game at Notre Dame, and that his stated "dream" of being Notre Dame's coach had really been sort of an indirect, fuzzy, and vaguely held thing instead of an explicit lifelong dream. He then had his house in Cincinnati egged over the weekend.
Smashing start all around for Mr. Kelly, who should be fine at ND, since unlike two of his three immediate predecessors, he has actually been a head coach before, which you think would be a requirement for the job, but you know Notre Dame. They're different.
3. UP LIKE THE HAND OF AN EAST COAST SPORTSWRITER ASKING "WHO'S THAT BIG WHITE GUY NEXT TO MARK INGRAM, AND WHY IS HE HERE?: The Heisman Trophy Goes To Mark Ingram. Ingram finished first in the closest Heisman race in history, edging out Stanford RB Toby Gerhart despite having fewer rushing yards and touchdowns than Gerhart and playing a smaller role on his team than superfreaky Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Ingram seemed genuinely overjoyed to be Alabama's first Heisman winner, but if you happen to be Mark Ingram, just stop reading when you read this anonymous quote from a Heisman voter on how he determined his voting:
The reason that I voted for Ingram, Tebow and McCoy was because I saw them play the most. I never saw Gerhart play an entire game (we work all day Saturday and Saturday night) and only saw a few minutes of Suh’s game against Texas. I refused to vote for somebody based on highlights.
...or refused to vote on someone he was too busy to watch play the game of football. The Heisman would be about as honest an award as an Oscar at this point, but there is one exception: voters in the Academy at least watch all of the movies in question. Sportswriters who vote on the Heisman don't even do that.
4. HOLDING STEADY LIKE THE HANDS OF ROBERT MEACHEM: The Unknown Whodat, Soon To Be The Known Whodat. You saw him during the Washington game in all his glory. You marveled at the cult that sprang up around him. You beheld the majesty of his joyous smile and antediluvian Saints gear, likely worn through a hundred horrible losses inflicted on him by his historically dismal club. He is: The Unknown Whodat.
via www.findtheunknownwhodat.com
The site dedicated to him finally found him, and will reveal his identity sometime tonight, making him the Known Whodat, and guaranteeing him lucrative cajun sausage and used car endorsement deals in the New Orleans area. He also has a free room to stay in at the Hotel Monteleone, according to the site. (Fame, no matter how fleeting, greases the wheels nicely.) We will miss the mystery, but look forward his inevitable MC Hammer-esque downfall when the money starts to run out after he blows his millions on a Saints-themed house.
5. UP, AS iN THE CUE CARDS WE'RE ABOUT TO READ: The Three-Way The Phillies, Blue Jays, and Mariners Just Had.
Um. We rolling?
/adjusts earpiece
Yes, it was quite a deal when [squints at cue card] Roy Holiday was traded to the Phillies---Halladay, you say? Well, we can just rewind and reshoot that. Wait, we're live? [stares at camera] Um, apologies. That was Roy Halladay, who plays [puts finger in ear, pauses]]...baseball. Yes, baseball. He is a baseball player, and he just went to Philadelphia and their team "The Phillies" for...wow, that's a lot of names you have there. I'm not reading all of them, because we have the story of an adorable monkey named Po-Po and the adorable child he saved from the jaws of a thresher on a farm in Missouri. Moving on...
<------KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT BASEBALL
<------ACCEPTS THAT OTHERS DO AND ENJOY IT FOR SOME REASON
<------moving on
6. UP IN THE GRACEFUL MANNER OF A SCREAMING CGI BALD EAGLE: Speed Skating Gets The Colbert Bump, And It Bumps Back. Colbert raised $250,0000 for United States Speed Skating, will be their sponsor in the 2010 Winter Games, and earned himself a fantastic SI cover for his efforts to fund the team.
via www.google.com
REEEEMIX. Not totally, as Shani Davis called Colbert "a jerk" last week, most likely in reference to this extremely tongue-in-cheek skit about Davis in 2006. Stephen Colbert, this is your reminder that athletes and satire do not get along well, especially athletes who are only really discussed once every four years. (They have no immunity to it due to lack of exposure.)
7. UP LIKE THE HAND OF A CONFERENCE BEGGING FOR ATTENTION: The Big Ten Announces Its Intentions To Think About Expansion At Some Point In The Next 1-38 years. The conference announced it would consider expansion to 12 schools, allowing for a championship game in football, a further expansion of its geographical footprint, and another team's games to put on the Big Ten Network and slather in the cheesy goodness of wall-to-wall RoTel Dip advertising. (RoTel may own 15% of every Big Ten grad, so pervasive is their deathgrip on Big Ten Network ad time.) The leading suspect for the conference: Notre Dame, who will join just as soon as NBC stops pouring truckfuls of money down their willing throat. When will this happen? Considering how poorly NBC is run, sometime in the year 2038.
8. UP LIKE THE EYEBROWS OF A RECRUIT BEING BRUSHED AGAINST BY A COMELY YOUNG LASS: The Tennessee Hostess Recruiting Scandal, and George Vecsey Being Killed By Bootleggers. The Tennessee hostess recruiting scandal deepened and intensified this week with the discovery of a photo showing that yes, despite claims by the father of one of the recruits in question, members of the Tennessee "Orange Pride Club" did have contact with recruits at their home fields during the recruiting process. Hint: the football players are the ones in the football uniforms, and the hostesses are the attractive ones with the signs.
As hayseed as the story may seem, it pales in comparison to the reverse hayseedism it spawned in George Vecsey, the New York Times columnist who penned an insane column in the Times about the scandal. it included the following words.
By the way, I am no Tennessee-basher. I’m an old Appalachian hand.
An old Appalachian hand, that Vecsey. Missin' an eye from a duel! Got the lockjaw and can't play the harmonica no more! Got to eat his arugula and organic beef in smoothie form through a straw! Once raped Ned Beatty on film! He's practically a brown bear wearing a Dollywood shirt!
Been to Kingsport and Monteagle and Oak Ridge....I love looking at maps of my old stomping grounds. Makes me want to get in a car and take a drive. The Web tells me that Interstate 40 is cut off by a rock slide west of Asheville, N.C. (I am not making this up),
Rock slides! Can you IMAGINE? Gravity and geology work everywhere, which means Vecsey can't just go willy nilly walking off the third floor balcony of his hotel room like he was planning to, darn it!
...so if I had time and the weather were benign, I would take Route 441 out of Knoxville through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, put on a Dolly Parton tape in homage, and think about taking a hike in the Smokies, haven’t done that in years,
LOOK OUT NED BEATTY VECSEY IS COMING BACK FOR MORE!!! RUN!!!
...and then meander around Asheville on local roads, bowing toward Thomas Wolfe's gravesite (damn, I am getting nostalgic just writing about this) before picking up Interstate 26 toward Spartanburg, S.C., and adjacent Duncan.
This clearly proves his familiarity with both the topic of Tennessee and college football, or alternately that he too can use Google Maps, or perhaps that he is the 441/I-26 Killer various law enforcement authorities have been seeking for years. Whatever it is, it ends with him suggesting that the NCAA should suspend the Volunteer football program for year, which is insane and gives further credence to the "441/I-26 Killer" theory we mentioned a second ago.
9. UP LIKE THE FLYING HELMET OF ANTHONY REDDICK: The U Becomes The Most Popular Documentary In ESPN History. Two solid hours of Howard Schnellenberger, uncouth dancing, and stories about players nearly getting in fights with cocaine dealers in 1980s Miami nightclubs: The U was all that and more, and became the most-viewed documentary every aired on the network. If you cannot go watch it right at this instant, you can enjoy its essence distilled in a single image below.
Yes, that's Sebastian the Ibis wearing fatigues and brandishing a replica of an AK-47. (At least we think it's a replica. After watching The U, we can't say for certain.)
10. HOLDING STEADY: The Orbiting and Ever-Present Brett Favre PR Death Star/Country Bear Jamboree. A quiet, 30-10 victory against the Bengals is just what the doctor ordered to lull you into thinking that Brett Favre and his All-American hesitation have blended neatly into the background at Minnesota. This is setting you up for his shocking retirement coming up this Tuesday, two solid days of hesitation and press conferences where Favre hesitates in public, and then his announcement that he will be playing the remainder of the season at forward for Real Madrid on special lend/lease agreement. The Vikings will get Cristiano Ronaldo in return, though, and therefore learn the real meaning of an intolerable prima donna.
Gone from the rankings: The BCS (back in a week or two, surely,) Mike Vick, Peter Gammons' career moves, Greg Oden and his osteoparotic knee, Tim Tebow and his tears,
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