Golf Quiz: Golfweek had a list of brothers on the PGA Tour and if you look at combinations where each had at least one win, Lloyd Mangrum (36 victories) and Ray Mangrum (5) lead the way. But in the modern era, call it post-1955 (Lloyd was basically 1940-55), which brother duo has the most where each won at least one event? [So…Curtis Strange (17) and Alan Strange (0) don’t count. Lanny Wadkins (21) and Bobby Wadkins (0) don’t either.] Answer below.
Jerry Tarkanian, RIP
First Dean Smith, then “Tark the Shark.” Polar opposites, but two amazing legends.
Tarkanian died on Wednesday at the age of 84. He had a record of 761-202 coaching for Long Beach State (1968-73), UNLV (1973-92) and Fresno State (1995-2002). His 1989-90 UNLV team won the national championship.
Tark was constantly battling with the NCAA, but in September 2013, two months after he had heart surgery, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Jerry Tarkanian was one of the most colorful coaches of his era, and certainly one of its most successful, as he guided UNLV to greatness with his high-scoring, up and down game that so fit the city his Runnin’ Rebels were playing in.
He took UNLV to the Final Four four times and his 103-73 rout of Duke in the 1990 title game is still the largest for a final. That squad was led by future NBA players Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and Stacey Augmon. His teams won at least 20 games in all but one of his seasons in Vegas.
Consider that when he took over UNLV after incredible success at Long Beach State (where he played in the shadows of UCLA but finished in the final AP Top 20 his last four seasons; his first one LBS wasn’t Division I), the Runnin’ Rebels played in a convention center that held 6,400 and ten years later they were in the 18,500-seat Thomas & Mack Center. High-rollers would pay $1,800 for a season ticket to sit courtside in “Gucci Row.” The place became known as the Shark Tank, Tark prowling the sidelines, scowling, sucking on his trademark wet towel.
But all three of Tarkanian’s programs, including his alma mater, Fresno State, were placed on probation. Tark countered with two lawsuits against the NCAA and in one case he was awarded $2.5 million in a settlement.
Famously, in 1991, The Review-Journal published photos of three UNLV players socializing in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer at his home. That proved to be the final straw for school administrators, who were attempting to raise UNLV’s academic profile. Tark resigned under pressure, coached briefly with the San Antonio Spurs, and then finished his career at Fresno State.
When he coached his last game at Fresno, Tarkanian said of the NCAA, “They’ve been my tormentors my whole life. I’ve fought them the whole way. I’ve never backed down. And they never stopped.”
Bottom line, as Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said upon Tark’s passing, “He put UNLV on the map.”
Tarkanian was born in Euclid, Ohio; his mother, Rosie, a refugee from the genocide of Armenians following World War I.
As noted by Richard Goldstein of the New York Times, in his taped Hall of Fame speech (due to his failing health), Tarkanian said his mother had “fled her homeland on horseback with only the clothes on her back after her father and eldest brother were beheaded by Turkish soldiers.”
Tark was 13 when his father died and his stepfather criticized his love of sports.
“I would never amount to anything – so much was sports all the time,” Tarkanian recalled his stepfather saying. “I should look into becoming a barber.”
But his mother was supportive and Tarkanian ended up at Fresno State, where he played basketball and graduated in 1955. He coached high school and junior college ball before ending up at Long Beach State in 1968.
Immediately, the NCAA began investigating his program there for recruiting violations and they seemingly never let up the rest of his career. He was accused of tampering with transcripts, excessive financial aid offers, allowing stand-ins to write papers and take tests for players, overlooking boosters who made payments to team members, drug abuse and point shaving by athletes. [Bloomberg]
At one point, after the NCAA placed UNLV on probation for two years and demanded Tarkanian be suspended, Tark sued, stayed on the bench, and over ten years later, 1988, the Supreme Court ruled against Tarkanian, though he remained at UNLV, reaching the settlement that imposed further penalties on his program. Then he won the second suit and $2.5 million.
“They can never, ever, make up for all the pain they caused me,” Tarkanian said when the deal was announced, according to the Los Angeles Times. “All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me.”
Not many of Tarkanian’s players ever graduated, but as he put it, “90 percent remain in Las Vegas in hotel management or as dealers in casinos, where they make very good money.”
UNLV’s former President Robert Maxson said of Tark, “What he’d really like to be remembered as is someone who helped young men, sort of like Father Flanagan.”
“Tarkanian vs. NCAA was the legal version of Ali vs. Frazier, two combatants exchanging blows for decades. The feud’s origins date to the early 1970s when Tarkanian, while coaching Long Beach State, penned critical columns for the local newspaper alleging the NCAA targeted smaller schools.
“Tarkanian would later famously quip, ‘The NCAA is so upset at UCLA they’ll put Northridge on two years’ probation.’
“The coach never claimed he was a saint – his problem, he said, was the hypocrisy. ‘In major college basketball, nine out of 10 teams break the rules…the other one is in last place,’ he wrote.
“In a 1992 profile of Tarkanian for The Times Sunday Magazine, Michael J. Goodman wrote: ‘Tarkanian has a perfect record of conceding little, admitting less, confessing nothing and denying what seems undeniable…The person most responsible for Tarkanian’s troubles is Tarkanian.’….
“Tarkanian had spectacular hits – Larry Johnson, the catalyst of UNLV’s national title team, was recruited out of Odessa College in West Texas – and one mind-boggling miss.
“Tarkanian took his most misguided risk in the mid-1980s on Lloyd Daniels, a troubled prodigy from New York.
“ ‘The problem with Lloyd,’ Tarkanian would write, ‘was he had a lot of problems.’….
“Tarkanian seethed over UCLA, which won 10 national titles in 12 seasons. He respected Coach John Wooden but thought the NCAA turned a blind eye to booster Sam Gilbert, a contractor who befriended many Bruin stars.
“In his memoir, Tarkanian wrote that Gilbert put UCLA ‘so far over the salary cap it was ridiculous. He was the biggest cheater out there.’
“In March 1973, only days after Tarkanian had accepted the UNLV job, the NCAA accused Long Beach State of dozens of violations, including improper recruiting practices and academic fraud.”
“Stacey Augmon, who was a member of the dominant Runnin’ Rebels teams in 1989-90 and 1990-91, said the practices were always harder than the games.
“ ‘He had everyone believing what he wanted to accomplish on the court,’ Augmon said. ‘…Our conditioning was second to no one. I don’t think the NCAA would let teams practice as hard as we did now. When we had a game it was like taking a break.’….
“ ‘His on-court coaching made him a Hall of Famer,’ said San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, who won a national title at Michigan in 1989. ‘You can talk about all the other things if you want, but he brought in kids from all over and was successful.’ [Ed. what Fisher has done at SDSU is very similar.]
“ ‘He won over a long period of time. He was as good as there was out there. He guarded like crazy. They shared the ball. They liked one another. It was a tribute to his coaching. He took players and found ways for them to be successful. They ran like crazy. They scored a ton of points. They all enjoyed playing for him.’”
“To some he is a hero, a man who fought the establishment and won. To others, he is a cheater, a man who tried to beat the establishment and lost.
“Tarkanian was an incredibly gifted coach and a champion for kids who never had a champion before and needed one.
“Yet he also was a man who at least lived in the gray and occasionally tap-danced on the black side of the rules.
“He was, like most of us, incredibly complicated and layered, not entirely good and certainly not all bad.
“Tarkanian often – too often – was portrayed on TV as a lovable, ‘Guys ‘n’ Dolls’ character. ‘Oh, that Tark! What a character!’ and ‘He plays all the angles!’
“And that was true; he was short on pretense. He was only doing what he was paid to do, allowed to do. And he knew that we knew that he knew that we knew.
“After all, there was no hiding that many of his recruits, at UNLV then at Fresno State, had no business being in college other than to win him and his employers ball games….
“He knew you knew and he didn’t care, at least not that much. As long as everyone was on time for practice!
“An athletic director told me of attending one of the NCAA’s feckless reform conventions at a time when Tarkanian’s teams were national symbols for high intrigue and well-earned doubt. Tarkanian was his school’s rep at the same conclave, and this AD was stunned to see Tarkanian vote in favor of all stricter rules designed to diminish fraud – recruiting, financial and academic.
“Later, at the hotel bar, this AD was moved to ask Tarkanian why someone with his rep would favor firmer NCAA compliance legislation. Because, Tarkanian replied, some of the schools ‘actually might follow those rules.’”
“Tarkanian spent most of his career having a major image problem, the image being that anything went in the desert, as long as you played hard and played defense.
“It was probably overstated. Tarkanian may not have flouted the rules much more than his peers. But the odd charm of the guy was that he never tried to air-brush the cloud away, and the truth is he’d probably prefer being remembered as the ultimate Runnin’ Rebel anyway, a champion of the underdog who helped make those underdogs champions, and getting credit long after it was due….
“One of his good friends, and Thomas & Mack Center regulars in UNLV’s heyday, wsa Frank Sinatra. Jerry Tarkanian did it his way, too.”
“Tarkanian…was anything but a shark to those who knew him. Oh sure, his entire coaching career was filled with question marks – many of them put there by the NCAA.
“But the man you sat across from in one of the many Vegas restaurants he loved was anything but a shark.
“More like a dolphin. He was smart and fun and quick and, occasionally, slippery. But there was never any malice in him. He was outgoing and funny, self-deprecating and honest. Once, when he was asked why he had so many transfers on his teams, he shrugged and said, ‘Their cars are already paid for.’….
“It has always been easy to dislike the NCAA. It was impossible to dislike Tark.
“Lost in the constant struggle with the NCAA was this: The man could coach….
“ ‘He’s as good a defensive coach as anyone I’ve ever coached against,’ Georgetown’s John Thompson said years ago, when he and Tarkanian would play almost every year. ‘The shame of all the outside stuff associated with him is the people don’t pay attention to just how good a coach he is year in and year out.’….
“Only toward the end of his UNLV run did he start to successfully recruit big-name high school players. More often than not he won with junior college players, transfers and players who were overlooked by the big name schools.
“He had 10 players who were first round draft picks. Mike Krzyzewski has had 28; Dean Smith had 25. Tark was as good as anybody at taking good players and creating great teams.
“His three Final Four losses were to Smith in 1977; Bob Knight in 1987; and Krzyzewski in 1991. The loss to Krzyzewski and Duke is still considered one of the great upsets in NCAA tournament history.
“Tark’s Runnin’ Rebels had crushed Duke a year earlier in the championship game and were 34-0 coming into the national semifinals a year later. Their average margin of victory that season was 29 points a game, prior to that stunning 79-77 defeat.”
That defeat proved to be the beginning of the end for Tark.
“Several years ago, sitting around the coaches lobby at the Final Four, the subject of death came up – since every coach sitting at the table was at least 70 and Tark had just reached 80.
“Someone asked Tark what he thought he’d say if he ran into any of his NCAA adversaries when he got to heaven. Would he forgive them?
“ ‘Won’t have to worry about that,’ he said, grinning the famous sad-eyed grin. ‘None of them will be there.’
“Tark will. Sharks may not go to heaven. But great coaches who never took themselves very seriously always do.”
College Basketball Review
—North Carolina State (15-11, 6-7) upset No. 9 Louisville (20-5, 8-4) 74-65; its second big one of the year having defeated Duke back on Jan. 11. But in between they’ve played some lousy ball and they have no shot at getting into the Big Dance unless they win the ACC tournament.
—Pittsburgh (17-9, 6-6) kept alive its slim NCAA tournament hopes in defeating No. 12 North Carolina (18-7, 8-4) 89-76. The Panthers, never known for their shooting, hit an astounding 64.9% of their field goal attempts, 37 of 57, going 8 of 15 from three. Pitt did also defeat then No. 8 Notre Dame a few weeks ago so they do have something to show the committee come selection time.
—No. 8 Kansas (21-4, 10-2) beat No. 16 Baylor (18-7, 6-6) 74-64.
—Defending champion UConn has had a tough go of it this season and the Huskies (14-10, 7-5) lost to No. 25 SMU (21-5, 12-2) on Saturday down in Dallas, 73-55.
–In a terrific ballgame, No. 6 Villanova held off No. 18 Butler in Indianapolis, 68-65, as Darrun Hilliard had 31 points, including 8 threes, for Nova.
–Then there was Wake Forest. The Deacons (12-14, 4-9), led No. 2 Virginia in Charlottesville 31-24 at the half, only to get blitzed 27-7 out of chute in the second to fall behind by 13. But Wake fought back and it was 61-59, our point guard Codi Miller-McIntyre at the line for two, less than 15 seconds left, and he hit the first but missed the second….except he got the rebound, Wake called timeout, and with 12 seconds to play, it was going to be McIntyre taking the final shot for the win…only he never got the shot off, losing the dribble on his drive to the basket…Wake goes down 61-60. The Cavaliers moved to 23-1, 11-1, but are not playing well without star guard Justin Anderson who is out with a broken hand and won’t be back until perhaps the second week of the NCAA tournament.
But gotta hand it to first-year coach Danny Manning. Wake is going to struggle to finish 6-12 in the conference, but he’s had the team playing tough for a long spell now.
And it also needs to be noted that freshman forward Konstantinos (Dinos) Mitoglou, “The Greek,” has hit six three-pointers in consecutive games for the Deacs…quite a weapon when you’re 6’10”.
—Seton Hall (15-10, 5-8) lost to Providence (18-8, 8-5) 69-62. It’s amazing how quickly things change. After a terrific 66-61 overtime win on Jan. 3 against No. 6 Villanova, Seton Hall was 12-2 and about to enter the Top 25 for the first time in ages. Optimism around here was soaring.
But since then they are 3-8, one of their starters, Jaren Sina, left the program, there is major dissension, and the Pirates are in free fall.
–Lastly, while some of you were watching the NBA All-Star events Saturday night, I was catching Colorado State vs. my “Pick to Click” San Diego State Aztecs at Viejas Arena and the Aztecs (20-6, 10-3) looked solid in defeating the Rams (21-5, 8-5) 72-63. Winston Shepard had one of the better all-around games of his career, 19 points, 11 rebounds, and Skylar Spencer had six blocks in the post.
So SDSU kept its first-place lead in the Mountain West with five regular-season games to go and it’s looking pretty good for them at this point…a probable 8-seed, with the potential for getting as high as a 5 if they went 4-1 and then ran the table in the conference tourney.
[This was the Aztecs’ 10th consecutive 20-win season under coach Steve Fisher and they have now won a staggering 139 straight when leading with 5:00 to play.]
This is my All-Star break. I’m watching Saturday Night Live’s 40th Anniversary Special, not the game, and as alluded to above, the only Saturday event I saw was the slam dunk contest and that’s the first time I watched it in years. The only All-Star game I still watch is baseball’s (and I couldn’t care less about the home run derby for that one).
I mean I guess I’m happy for Zach LaVine and his family that he won the slam dunk in spectacular fashion but what does it all mean? Nothing.
Now if the 19-year-old LaVine, who is averaging 7.6 points and 3.2 assists per game for the Timberwolves, continues to improve, the value of the slam dunk win is it may put some fannies in the seats when the T’Wolves come to town.
Minnesota is indeed building something good, especially if Ricky Rubio could stay healthy. At least their fans, despite the 11-42 record, have something to look forward, unlike us Knicks fans.
–Speaking of the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony continues to jerk us around, let alone his teammates, coaches and ownership.
Here’s the bottom line. He needs surgery on his knee and he should just do it so he’s fully recovered for next season. But the truth is, Anthony is afraid of going under the knife. Really.
–Our thoughts and prayers go out to former Knick Anthony Mason, who played on those 1990s teams that were entertaining, they played hard (led by Mason and Charles Oakley) and almost won an NBA championship.
Mason, just 48, suffered a heart attack after going to a hospital to have his heart checked. Happened right there. Now there is talk of a heart transplant.
In his career, Mason averaged 10.9 points and 8.3 rebounds a game. Talk about blue-collar, his two best statistical seasons were 1995-96 with the Knicks, 42.2 minutes per game, 14.6 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and with Charlotte, 1996-97, 43.1 minutes! 16.2 ppg, 11.4 reb, 5.7 ast.
—Peyton Manning is coming back for another season, assuring the Broncos he is mentally and physically prepared to play at a high level, after Peyton underwent a comprehensive evaluation from a performance manager and trainer, Mackie Shilstone, in New Orleans. The quad injury that plagued Manning is said to be healed.
Interestingly, as noted by ESPN Stats, only three quarterbacks have ever started all 16 games of an NFL season at the age of 39 or older, Manning turning 39 next month.
Brett Favre (2008-09), Doug Flutie (2001) and Warren Moon (1995).
If Manning is on the Denver roster March 9, one day before the league’s new business year commences, he will be guaranteed $19 million for 2015. While Denver has cap space, the team may want Peyton to restructure his contract.
–The NFL just disclosed its tax return for 2013 and Commissioner Roger Goodell was paid $35 million in salary and bonus. Team owners decide on his comp for 2014 in a few months. I guess he has to look for Burger King’s 2-for-1 Whopper coupons in the meantime, just as your editor does year round.
Actually, in 2012, Goodell was paid $44.2 million, but this included $9.1 million in deferred comp…so his total was really the same as 2013, $35.1 million.
His base is $3.5 million. Goodell started at the league as an intern 33 years ago. [Scott Soshnick / Bloomberg]
—Ray Rice apologized to the city of Baltimore for his domestic-violence incident a year ago in a statement through the Baltimore Sun, thanking the Ravens and the fans for their support during his seven years with the team. He apologized to “all the kids who looked up to me,” saying he was “truly sorry for letting you down.”
“I hope it’s helped you learn that one bad decision can turn your dream into a nightmare,” Rice wrote. “There is no excuse for domestic violence, and I apologize for the horrible mistake I made. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and I hope to make a positive difference in people’s lives by raising awareness of this issue.”
Rice has been reinstated by the NFL, but I’d say it’s 50/50 he gets another shot.
However, as I mentioned a while ago, while many are saying he has no chance because he averaged just 3.1 yards per carry in 2013, he could still be an effective third-down back.
It’s the time of year for mock drafts and on some Heisman winner Marcus Mariota has been slipping but a recent one from NFLDraftGeek, an affiliate of USA TODAY Sports, has the following.
1. Bucs – Mariota
2. Titans – Leonard Williams, USC, DT-DE
3. Jaguars – Dante Fowler, Florida, DE
4. Raiders – Amari Cooper, Alabama, WR
5. Redskins – Landon Collins, Alabama, S
6. Jets – Randy Gregory, Nebraska, DE-OLB
7. Bears – Shane Ray, Missouri, DE-OLB
8. Falcons – Vic Beasley, Clemson, OLB
9. Giants – Danny Shelton, Washington, DT
10. Rams – Jameis Winston, Florida State, QB
Even a Mariota fan like yours truly can understand why in other polls he’s been slipping. No way Winston is available this late.
Ball Bits
–This really sucks. Ernie Banks’ remains are at the center of a battle as his estranged wife has gone to court to prevent a longtime friend from having his remains cremated.
Boy, I just want to throw out some words to describe Elizabeth Banks, but I’ll hold off.
The other woman was his caretaker and executor of Banks’ estate. Regina Rice asserted her rights to dispose of Ernie’s remains after his death, and now it’s unclear where exactly the body has been taken!
According to an attorney representing Elizabeth Banks, Mr. Cub is buried at Graceland Cemetery, blocks from Wrigley Field, but a person answering the phone there, when the AP called (reporter unknown from the account I’m reading), said he’s not buried there. And the guy at the funeral home where services were held Jan. 31 doesn’t know where the remains are.
Elizabeth Banks was Ernie’s fourth wife and he had filed a petition for divorce because she had “committed extreme and repeated acts of mental cruelty upon (Ernie).”
Ernie Banks had said on at least one occasion he wanted his ashes “spread out over Wrigley Field – with the wind blowing out,” but it’s not known how serious he was.
Bottom line, this is awful. Clearly a battle over his money more than his wishes.
Golf Balls
—Brandt Snedeker won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, his seventh PGA Tour title and first since 2013 after a lousy 2014.
16-time Tour winner Jim Furyk was the 54-hole leader and for a ninth consecutive time in that position, he couldn’t close the deal. Furyk’s last win was in 2010.
–Golfweek reported that after Billy Horschel won last year’s season-long FedEx Cup and the $10 million prize that goes with it, he gave his caddie, Micah Fugitt, $1 million.
Now that’s the standard percentage for a caddie if his player wins, but 10% of a special $10 million prize?
Fugitt this week described it as “Shock, happiness, joy.”
Let me tell you. I have followed, and written of, the tipping policies on Tour extensively over the 16 years of Bar Chat and Horschel was under zero obligation to be this generous, though I suspect noted tipper Phil Mickelson would have done the same had he won it.
That said, Horschel also tipped the locker room attendants at Tour Championship host East Lake Golf course $10,000, which is probably exactly what Mickelson would have done, having chronicled his exploits. [Nate Davis / USA TODAY]
–According to Golf Digest’s latest survey of top money makers in the sport of golf, Tiger Woods is barely No. 1 with a total of $55,110,775 in earnings last year…$610,775 on course; $54,500,000 off course.
Phil Mickelson is second at $50,738,019, including $48,500,000 off course.
Rory McIlroy is third…$49,183,976…and Arnold Palmer is still fourth with $40M off course. You gotta love it.
But here’s another way of looking at it. No. 50 on the list is Korean Seung-yul Noh at a total of $4,892,534. Think about how many NBA stiffs earn more than that, or crappy relief pitchers, or NFL players who worked out high guarantees.
Yes, many professional golfers do exceedingly well, but not that many, especially when you take into consideration all their expenses.
And you know that compensation package for Roger Goodell? Tim Finchem’s was $4,578,168 for the same year, 2013, vs. Goodell’s $35M.
Back to Tiger, this is the lowest figure for him since 2000.
Meanwhile, Tiger said his golf is not acceptable and he will not return to the Tour until it is.
In a statement on his website, Woods said in part: “My play, and scores, are not acceptable for tournament golf. Like I’ve said, I enter a tournament to compete at the highest level, and when I think I’m ready, I’ll be back.”
Tiger is slated to appear at the Honda Classic, near his home in Florida, Feb. 26. Since he won’t qualify for the WGC event the following week at Doral (unless he had a top ten at the Honda), that means he’d probably wait until Arnie’s event at Bay Hill, which he has won eight times, March 19.
Or, does he swallow his pride and play the event in Puerto Rico that runs concurrent to the Doral tournament? That would show us all a lot. [But highly unlikely.]
–Lastly, you have the ongoing strange story of Robert Allenby in Honolulu. This week police there said three people seen leaving a wine restaurant with him on the Friday night of the Sony Open are not believed to be connected to the case and that Allenby did not go to a strip club that night has had been alleged by some.
Det. John McCarthy of the Honolulu Police Department said several Australians were in the strip club, but not Allenby. “It was a case of mistaken identity.”
A 32-year-old was arrested Wednesday on second-degree identity theft, second-degree attempted theft and unauthorized possession of confidential information, police said. Owen Patrick Harbison was shown on video at various Waikiki stores using Allenby’s credit cards. Det. McCarthy is unwilling to speculate how Harbison obtained the cards.
But it still isn’t known what happened to Allenby after he left Amuse Wine Bar.
World Alpine Championships
So who is the most underrated great American athlete these days? I think it has to be Ted Ligety. On Friday he became the only man to win three straight giant slalom titles at the world championships in Beaver Creek. He trailed after his first run, then kicked butt in his second. Just super clutch.
Actually, Ligety now has seven podium finishes at worlds, surpassing Lindsey Vonn with the most individual medals.
And on Saturday, American Mikaela Shiffrin, who started off the World Cup season in her specialty, the slalom, slowly, failing to make the podium in her first three races, came through to win the world championship, her third in a row (including gold in Sochi), in defeating Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter by 0.34 of a second. So its three major ski racing titles before her 20th birthday. She has 12 career wins, including the giant slalom, overall. [Shiffrin receives far more press than Ligety, thus she is not ‘underrated’ by my gauge.]
Lindsey Vonn finished 14th in the GS, her last race of the championships, but she still had a bronze in the super-G.
–It’s on! Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have agreed to terms for what will be the most lucrative fight in boxing history, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. The date is set to be announced in the coming days. May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas seems the likely time and place.
–The Daytona 500 is next Sunday and today, Jeff Gordon won the pole in what will be his final start in “The Great American Race.” Gordon has won the race three times. Teammate Jimmie Johnson will be alongside him on the front row.
The process for determining the pole, however, was blasted by the drivers; a series of knockout rounds for the first time in 57 years.
—40-year-old Bernard Lagat set a record for runners 40 and older at the Millrose Games in New York on Saturday, finishing fourth in the Wanamaker Mile but his time of 3 minutes 54.91 seconds was the fastest ever for a runner 40 and older, blowing away the old record of 3:58.15 held by longtime rival Eamonn Coghlan.
Matt Centrowitz held off Patrick Willis of New Zealand to win the race in 3:51.35.
—Usain Bolt announced over the weekend through The Daily Mail that he will retire after the 2017 World Championships in London. The 28-year-old had previously hinted the 2016 Rio Olympics would be it for him but he’s decided to run in 2017, though only in the 100 meters.
In Rio he’s going for the triple…100, 200 and 4X100 relay. He holds the world records in all three…9.58 seconds, 19.19, and 36.84.
This year the World Championships are in Beijing, Aug. 22-30.
From the AP and the Star-Ledger: “Gamblers who won $1.5 million at a casino (in Atlantic City) after realizing the cards hadn’t been shuffled have been ordered to return the money.
“State Superior Court Judge Donna Taylor has sided with the Golden Nugget casino in its long-running dispute with 14 gamblers who say the fault wasn’t theirs and they should be allowed to keep their winnings.
“At issue were games of mini-baccarat played in April 2012 using decks of cards the casino had paid a manufacturer to pre-shuffle but that hadn’t been shuffled. Once players realized the pattern in which the cards were emerging they drastically upped their bets from $10 a hand to $5,000 and won 41 straight hands….
“ ‘The dealer did not pre-shuffle the cards immediately prior to the commencement of play, and the cards were not pre-shuffled in accordance with any regulation,’ the judge wrote. ‘Thus, a literal reading of the regulations… entails that the game violated the (Casino Control) Act, and consequently was not authorized.’”
The gamblers must repay the money, plus any outstanding chips in their possession, while the casino must refund the gamblers the money they first put up to play.
–“Fifty Shades of Grey” took in $30.2 million on Friday on its way to a projected $76 million four-day weekend opening.
But I loved this review in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey character is a ‘jerk of a billionaire who never seems to work’ and ‘an emotionally crippled narcissist who no one could love,’ said Nine Network presenter Lisa Wilkinson on Today.
“ ‘Meanwhile, Dakota Johnson is the one dimensional, lip biting…pathetic Anastasia Steele who, for no discernible reason, falls in love with the aforementioned jerk and single-handedly sells women across the world short.’”
By the way, the French film board decided against giving the film an adult certificate, meaning children as young as 12 can head to see it. Really.
—Gary Owens, the announcer for ‘Laugh-In,’ died at the age of 80. Owens literally did everything; movies, TV shows. He voiced hundreds of animated characters. He was a staple on Los Angeles radio. But nationwide, he’ll forever be known for that ground-breaking show that launched the career of Goldie Hawn, while Dan Rowan and Dick Martin became true legends of their era.
–This just in…Beyonce is very upset at Jay Z for allowing Kanye and Kim (excuse me, Kimye) into their inner circle at the risk of Bey and Jay’s carefully crafted image.
Top 3 songs for the week 2/17/68: #1 “Love Is Blue” (Paul Mauriat…yet another example of what was so great about the 60s…that a song like this could beat out those who follow on the list…) #2 “Green Tambourine” (The Lemon Pipers…used this one in my early radio commercials for the site…) #3 “Spooky” (Classics IV…like “Stormy” more…)…and…#4 “I Wish It Would Rain” (The Temptations) #5 “(Theme From) Valley Of The Dolls” (Dionne Warwick…great tune…Cynthia Myers looked pretty good in the film as well…Oops, wrong version, never mind…) #6 “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” (Otis Redding) #7 “Goin’ Out Of My Head/Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (The Lettermen…this one always cracks me up…the audience applause in the middle of it…I mean it was the Lettermen, not the Beatles!) #8 “Nobody But Me” (The Human Benz) #9 “Judy In Disguise” (John Fred & His Playboy Band) #10 “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonite” (Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
Golf Quiz Answer: Brother combinations (modern-era) where each won at least one PGA Tour event.
Dave (13) and Mike Hill (3)
Jay (5)* and Lionel Hebert (5)
Danny (5) and David Edwards (4)
*Jay’s Wiki page says 7, but the article, sourcing the PGA Tour, says 5. Two of Jay’s triumphs look like small-field events, and, indeed, when you go on PGATour.com and dig around, Jay is credited with 5. Regardless, the Hill brothers have the most.
