Can we talk this morning about how long it takes to play games these days?

As someone who has spent most of his adult life dealing with deadlines while covering games I’m always aware of how long a game is taking even when I’m sitting at home half-watching while I’m reading something.

It’s truly gotten ridiculous.

I kind of went around the bend on this eight days ago when Louisville and Villanova played a game in which something like 90 free throws were shot and a 7 o’clock tipoff ended (in regulation) at 9:45. Even Brent Musburger, who was doing the next game in the doubleheader couldn’t resist commenting when he was doing an update that, “I hope your game ends before ours does fellas.”

There were about two minutes left in the first half of Oklahoma State-Oklahoma by the time Louisville-Villanova finally ended.

Last Saturday I spent the day at home with games going on from 11 a.m. on. Not one game I watched all or part of ended inside the two -hour window that TV plans for a college basketball game. Most didn’t come close. There are now NINE TV timeouts in every game—and by the way is there some way to stop calling them, ‘media timeouts'? I have never asked for nor been given a time out in my life. They exist for TV and, occasionally, for radio. One of those timeouts is the first called time out of the second half, which is “technically,” a 30 second time out but “becomes,” a full timeout.

Utterly ridiculous. Here are some other things that delay games: the mindless halftime interviews with the coaches. Understand that when the breathless sideline reporter is asking the coach what went wrong/right in the first half and usually getting gems like, “we have to rebound better,” or “I thought we shot the ball very well,” the halftime clock isn’t moving. It’s frozen until the coach pulls free—which Wake Forest’s Dino Gaudio almost literally had to do on Sunday night because the reporter insisted on asking him what he planned to do to rebound better (gee, I don’t know go out and recruit taller players the next 15 minutes?)—and gets to the locker room.

There are also times—especially on ESPN—where coming out of commercial the producer will insist on getting the ‘talent,’ on camera for 30 seconds to say something brilliant like, “What a great atmosphere here tonight,” while play is held until they’re finished.

Wait, I’ve got more: There are two rules changes that need to be made: 1. Once a player is handed the ball to shoot his first free throw he can’t have contact with his teammates until the second shot is out of his hands. All of this slapping hands after the first free throw— they do it make or miss nowadays—is silly and if you add it up over a course of a game adds five to ten minutes. 2. When a player fouls out this bit with both teams running to the bench for an impromptu time out needs to stop. Coaches do not need 30 seconds at that point to decide who to sub. They know who they’re subbing and if they don’t—tough. Give them 10 seconds and tell the players to get lined up at the free throw line in the meantime.

Another thing: Officials need to be far more vigilante about getting teams out of their huddles. This deal with coaches having to stand on the court and talk to one another before they talk to the players is ridiculous. To quote Red Auerbach: “You’re getting paid millions to be the head coach you damn well ought to know what to say to your players during a time out.”

The other night I was at a game (honestly I don’t remember which one) and one team was lagging coming out of the huddle. When the official went in to get the players, the coach actually held up his hand to say, “give me a minute here, I’m not quite done.” The response to that should be simple: Signal the official who has the ball to start the 10 second clock and then put the ball on the floor and start counting to five. Remember when officials did that? People got out of the huddle then.

I know these are all little things but they add up. College basketball games shouldn’t be taking two-and-a-half hours. When we get to postseason they get longer: halftime on CBS goes to 20 minutes instead of 15 (plus the time for the silly coaches interviews); 30 second time outs become 45 seconds to get in extra commercials. At this rate it won’t be long before the national championship game ends at midnight on the east coast.

It’s also worth noting that the 20-minute halftime came about in 2003 when the war in Iraq started on the first day of the tournament. CBS asked for the extra five minutes to do war updates. Fine. But the next year the time outs were still 20 minutes and they’ve remained that way ever since, which certainly isn’t good for the players. I’ve been in locker rooms. By about the eight minute mark, everyone is getting antsy to get back on the court. When I brought this up with the NCAA basketball committee a few years ago someone said, “Well, you know when you’re in a dome it takes longer to get to and from the locker room.”

Five minutes longer? How about 10 seconds longer—if that.

This problem isn’t unique to basketball. College football is a joke. I’ve said for years the first down rule should be changed to stop the clock ONLY in the last two minutes of each half. The notion that you need to stop the clock on a first down with 13:47 left in the first quarter is ludicrous. Four hour games are just too long even if they have dramatic finishes. They may not seem so bad watching at home where you can keep clicking around to other games during the endless commercials but if you’re in the stadium those commercials are torture. Nothing is worse than a Notre Dame on NBC where some commercials last longer than the careers of a lot of college basketball players.

Baseball, especially in the American League or if Tony LaRussa is managing, can take days to play. There are two rules changes that need to be made: Trips to the mound should be limited not to one per inning per pitcher but to one TOTAL for the starting pitcher and one more TOTAL after he leaves the game. A catcher shouldn’t be allowed to go out to the mound more than once per batter. Learn how to change signals with a runner on second base in spring training.

Far more important is keeping batters in the box. We now have a generation of hitters who routinely step out after EVERY pitch. They re-adjust their gloves, tug on their helmet, kick at the dirt, take a deep breath and step back in. PLEASE. Simple rules-change: You can step out one time during an at-bat. The only way you can step out more than once is if you’re hurt or knocked down. While we’re at it, make umpires ENFORCE the 20-second rule on pitchers with the bases empty.

The NFL has gotten better although it is maddening when TV takes back-to-back time outs after a touchdown or field goal: team scores, extra point is kicked—commercial. Kickoff—commercial again. As I said, at home it isn’t so bad. In the stadium, especially when it’s cold—brutal. The NBA needs to make two rules-changes: teams get one time out in the last two minutes and no more and get rid of the move-the-ball-to-midcourt after a time out rule. In what other sport are you allowed to advance the ball half the playing field as a reward for calling time out?

Hockey’s pretty good overall although having the hockey package this year I’ve noticed there are a number of linesmen who think fans come to the arena to watch them drop the puck. I know they want it to be fair and get it right but for God’s sake drop the thing and let’s move on.

The biggest change though is still college basketball. I know I sound like I’m 100 when I harken back to my days as a kid when games were played in 90 minutes. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back but it is completely out-of-hand. I know TV needs its time outs but NINE—seriously NINE? Throw in a couple more commercials at halftime. We can live without the yammering studio shows anyway. Throw in a couple of simple, sensible rules changes and for the love of God get rid of the halftime interviews. The coaches hate them, the fans hate them, please tell me who likes them?

I’m guessing it must be some of the same people who, at the “urging,” of John Calipari are planning to fill Rupp Arena one Saturday to jump up and down in front of the cameras for ‘GameDay.’ My God, The Apocalypse really is upon us.

The following is this week's column from The Washington Post on the Jets saving the playoff weekend followed by an article on UVA basketball and its coach, Tony Bennett ---------------

If these past two weekends were the best the NFL has to offer, maybe there's a chance for the USFL to make a comeback.

Six of the eight games were enough to make one think about switching to Dick Vitale calling a women's basketball game. Or Dick Vitale talking about calling a women's basketball game.

Wild-card weekend gave us Packers-Cardinals and three games that even fans of the winners would be hard-pressed to watch to the end. The Ravens-Patriots game was over before Bill Belichick had a chance to get his hoodie into position.

Surely the divisional playoff weekend would be better. Except it wasn't: It was worse. The winning teams were ahead by a combined 35 points at halftime Saturday and never looked back, and the only real suspense in the over-hyped Cowboys-Vikings matchup was when the "Can Wade Phillips survive?" talk would begin.

Click here for the rest of the column: Rex Ryan's Jets save NFL playoffs from tedium

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This really wasn't the way Tony Bennett had it planned. It isn't that he didn't love basketball. The game has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, which tends to happen when you're a coach's son. The gym is as much a part of your boyhood as your mom's kitchen table. Growing up while his dad, Dick, was coaching high school ball, then National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ball and then Division I ball, he was the classic gym rat, the kid who makes himself a great shooter by spending hours and hours alone with a ball and a backboard.

Bennett would have been something straight out of "Hoosiers," if he had been in Indiana instead of Wisconsin. But coaching wasn't in his blood. Playing was what he was about.

"When I was a kid, the last thing in the world I thought I'd ever do was coach," he said, relaxing in the Virginia coaches' lounge at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday after the Cavaliers had upset 20th-ranked Georgia Tech. "I loved being a player. I guess in my mind I was going to play forever -- go from college to the NBA and just stay. I saw close-up what a roller-coaster ride coaching was for my dad and for my sister Kathi [who won a Division III national title at Wisconsin-Oshkosh and later coached at Indiana] and I said, 'That's not for me.' Then I got hurt and things changed."

Click here for the rest of the column: Finding direction on an unexpected path

As luck would have it, the first year my parents let me ride The New York subways on my own (I sneaked onto them to go to games on occasion before that) was 1968. I knew the system cold—at least the part of it that mattered to me. To get to Yankee Stadium I took the IRT number 1 train downtown from 79th street to 59th street and then went downstairs (free transfer) and took the IND D train to 161st and The Grand Concourse. The D was an express so it didn’t take very long.

Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.

You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,

The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.

The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.

I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.

Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.

The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.

Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.

“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.

“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”

“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”

“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”

Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.

“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”

“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”

“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”

I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.

My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.

I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.

Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.

But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.

But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.

What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.

“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”

Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.

When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.

“Embarrassing,” he admitted.

“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.

And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.

My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”

That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.

Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.

But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?

Carlos Beltran and Gilbert Arenas are both in the news today.

Arenas will be in court later today to accept a plea bargain that in all likelihood will keep him out of jail. I’m going to refrain from saying too much about this until it actually happens because there’s no point in ripping the prosecutors for copping out until I actually know they’ve copped out.

Beltran isn’t going to court or to jail but he won’t be playing baseball for a while. He had surgery on his arthritic knee on Wednesday and is likely not to be able to resume baseball activities for at least 12 weeks. My guess is he won’t be penciled into a Major League lineup card before May. All of which means the Mets have pretty much picked up at the start of 2010 where they left off in 2009.

But I’m not writing about Beltran to rip the Mets—although they are eminently rippable. They are so incompetent that they can’t even get a player they owe $37 million to over the next two years to go and see one of their doctors before having surgery. Then they whine about it and don’t even send their general manager to talk to the media about it. Apparently after some of his bang-up performances last summer (notably in the Tony Bernazard debacle) the Mets don’t trust Omar Minaya to speak in public. Which begs the question: If you don’t trust him to run a simple press conference how can you trust him to rebuild your broken ballclub?

As I said though, that’s another issue for another day. Today is about what Beltran and Arenas have in common. Which is this: The Mets are reportedly considering the possibility of refusing to pay Beltran while he is out of the lineup because he had the surgery without their formal permission OR even going so far as to try to void his contract. The Washington Wizards are reportedly thinking about trying to void Arenas’s contract—worth another $80 million after this season is over—on the grounds that he will have pleaded guilty to a felony even if he avoids jail time.

Chances are very good the Mets will back down. Chances are decent the Wizards will back down too and see if there’s any way to trade Arenas.

The reason neither team is likely to take any seriously punitive action has little to do with the players involved. It has to do with potential future players.

It really doesn’t matter that Arenas acted like a complete bonehead in this whole thing from the moment he put the guns in his car and drove them from his home in Virginia to The Verizon Center in Washington, committing a crime the minute he crossed the bridge into D.C.

It doesn’t matter that Arenas acted as if the whole thing was a joke until he was suspended by NBA Commissioner David Stern. It doesn’t even matter that he has said when this is over everyone will owe him an apology.

The Wizards are probably going to have to rebuild their entire team—again. Arenas has to be gone one way or the other and they will try to trade Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler because both players have considerable value, especially to teams in contention. The draft only has two rounds and if you get one truly outstanding player in a draft that’s a good year. That means you have to sign free agents.

Are there some players (and coaches) who will sign with the highest bidder, regardless of who it is? Absolutely. How else can Dan Snyder, whose reputation as the worst owner in sports always precedes him, continue to sign free agent players and big name coaches? If you believe Mike Shanahan when he says he took over the Redskins because of how much he likes Snyder, I have oceanfront land in Kansas I’d like to sell you. Shanahan’s friends are the checks for $7 million a year Snyder will be writing.

But if someone else had matched that $7 million, Shanahan probably would have been very good friends with THAT owner. And the Wizards will worry that if a free agent has a choice between their organization and another that’s offering comparable money, Arenas’s name will come up. As in, “you guys are the ones that voided Gil’s contract.”

Don’t think for a second that won’t happen. Before this is over—especially if the Wizards do void the contract—Arenas is going to be the victim here. There will be apologists pointing out athletes who have done worse things (there are) and pointing out that Delonte West was acting far more reckless than Arenas last fall when he was arrested on a motorcycle on the Washington Beltway carrying guns. That’s also true. It’s also true that West has kept his mouth shut and not tried to act as if the whole thing was a joke.

Reality doesn’t matter here. Athletes live in their own reality, one in which Tiger Woods’s agent can actually send an e-mail to a New York Times reporter saying, “Give the kid a break.” The kid being a 34-year-old, billionaire father of two who has been in the public eye for 20 years and crafted an image that has been proven to be totally false.

No doubt a lot of basketball players will think the Wizards failed to give Arenas a break. The Wizards know that. They know that voiding the contract (IF their action is upheld when the players’ union contests it) will save a lot of money short term and will give them a partial escape from this disaster. But they also know that anytime a free agent doesn’t sign with them, people will wonder if Arenas was part of the reason. And if by some chance a player comes out and says, “I wouldn’t sign with Washington because of what they did to Gil,” whether what they did to Gil was fair or unfair will be a moot point.

The Mets and Beltran are different. Beltran’s never been in any trouble at all and for a lot of the last five years has been the Mets best player. And yet—he’s been hurt a lot. He also has become for many fans the symbol of their frustrations in recent years. If you are a Mets fan (which as I always confess I am…sigh) it is pretty much impossible to forget the sight of Beltran with his bat on his shoulder while strike three went past him with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of game seven of The 2006 National League Championship Series.

Beltran’s had good moments since then but the Mets collapsed in September of 2007 and 2008 and in early June in 2009. Beltran, like a lot of his teammates (Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Puetz; even David Wright) missed large chunks of the season. Now, after saying his knee felt fine all fall, he has surgery five weeks before spring training begins.

Beltran’s agent, the lovely and talented Scott Boras, insists that the doctor who did the surgery in Denver consulted with the Mets team doctor, David Altchek and got the go-ahead to do the surgery. Then—according to Boras—after Beltran was IN surgery on Wednesday, the Mets called again to say they wanted Beltran to see their doctors. If that version proves true not only do the Mets have no case against Beltran but they have pulled yet another public relations blunder by ripping a key player who did nothing wrong.

If that’s NOT the case and Beltran did the surgery without letting the Mets know he was doing it, then the Mets do have a case—certainly in terms of not paying him until he can play again.

But don’t bet on the Mets to do any of that. More likely they will come back and say it was all a big misunderstanding and everyone loves everyone. Minaya tried to blame the Bernazard debacle on Adam Rubin of The New York Daily News. Maybe the Mets will blame Adam for this too.

But you can bet they won’t take drastic action against Beltran. They’re going to need to sign free agents to rebuild again. And, while money talks, it someone else has money that’s also talking, a “reputation,” for not taking care of your players can quickly shut your money down.

What a world. And people wonder why I hang out at Patriot League basketball games.

Boy this Lane Kiffin thing is a mess. Anytime a coach leaves a big-time job with big-time expectations after one season it is going to cause havoc. I’ve been to football games at Tennessee and I know how seriously they take it. Of course that’s true of the entire Southeastern Conference. It’s sort of like what football would be like if it had existed in the wild-west years ago.

Back then, Kiffin and Urban Meyer probably would have met up at the OK Corral one night at sundown. Meyer probably would have shot Kiffin cleanly through the heart and he would have jumped up and said, ‘nice shot Urban, guess I’ll just mosey on down the road to a better deal than I’ve got here.”

Actually, I don’t blame Kiffin for taking the job. It isn’t his fault that Pete Carroll decided to beat the NCAA posse out of town—and anyone who thinks that wasn’t a major factor believes in Santa Claus and the BCS—to take the job in Seattle. Kiffin has coached at USC and I’m betting his wife wasn’t exactly upset about moving from Knoxville to Los Angeles. She may be on The View before 2010 is over. (or is that taped in New York, I have no idea. So maybe she’ll play Elin Woods in a TV movie.)

I DO blame Mike Garrett although he technically did nothing wrong since Kiffin had an out clause in his contract. What I blame him for his hiring a guy who was 5-15 as a head coach in the NFL and 7-6 in one season at Tennessee. Putting aside The Look that Kiffin (and his wife) have, exactly what did Kiffin have on his resume that leads Garrett to believe he’s just hired the next Joe Paterno? Or, for that matter, the next Pete Carroll?

People talk about Kiffin’s coaching pedigree but let me make two points: Monte Kiffin made his reputation as a defensive coordinator. As a head coach at North Carolina State he pretty much washed out. My second point is this: Does the name David Shula ring a bell? One’s last name is not a reason to make a hire.

Maybe Kiffin DOES turn out to be Pete Carroll. It is difficult to judge anyone yay or nay based on two years of working for Al Davis and one year in a college job—any college job. Clearly though, Garrett was looking for some kind of a big hit, someone who would win the press conference That sounds a lot like Dan Snyder and we all know how THOSE press conferences have worked out the last 11 years once they were over.

There’s also the issue of recruiting. We all know how cutthroat it is and that coaches who change jobs routinely try to take players who have made commitments to play for them to their new school. (See Calipari, John et al). That said, for Kiffin to stand up at his press conference in LA and say he would only recruit kids who had committed to Tennessee if they contacted him is about as disingenuous as you can get. EVERY kid who made a commitment to Kiffin is going to contact him at some point. This isn’t even taking into account the fact that Ed Orgeron, the recruiting coordinator at Tennessee until Tuesday who now has the same job at USC said he DID contact kids (which technically means Kiffin did not) although he (and Garrett) refused to go into any detail about what was said.

The whole thing FEELS so smarmy. One coach fleeing because an NCAA investigation is about to conclude, another bolting from a job after one year and then trying to recruit kids away from the school he pledged body and soul to a little more than a year ago.

I’m really sorry to see Carroll leave USC because I always thought he was a breath of fresh air in the college game. His practices were open, his players were accessible and he didn’t act as if winning football games was more important than world peace. (Remember Nick Saban once mentioned 9-11 when discussing a loss to Louisiana-Monroe so I’m not exaggerating). It seems clear though that his program had gotten too big in LA and had run amok and now there will be a price to be paid. It isn’t anything that’s going to kill the program because the NCAA never really brings the hammer down on the glamour programs in either football or basketball. But it will probably make Lane Kiffin’s new job a little bit tougher for a while.

I doubt if many people will lose much sleep worrying about him. Maybe he can hire Ari Fleisher to put together a PR campaign for him.

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As I mentioned yesterday I went to Charlottesville last night to see Virginia play Georgia Tech.
It was pretty close to a perfect afternoon and evening. The drive down Rte. 29 has changed very little (except that it now bypasses Warrenton) since I first made it when I was in college and when I was a young Washington Post reporter frequently sent to cover Virginia since it was a secondary beat and I more or less volunteered to go down to football and basketball games.

The last 50 miles, on a sunny winter afternoon, is about as pretty as any you’ll find, the mountains rising up to the south of you as the sun sets almost directly in front of you. (Bring sunglasses).

I had dinner at The Aberdeen Barn, another place that hasn’t changed since I first went there. Same breadsticks, same menu, same great steaks. (Please don’t tell my cardiologist). My old pal Doug Doughty, who I first met when he was a hot-shot young reporter covering his alma mater (he was, as he likes to point out Phi Beta Kappa at UVA. I KNEW some people who were Phi Beta Kappa at Duke) and I was an undergraduate doing stringing work for papers in North Carolina, met me for dinner as did Gene and Lena Corrigan—one of my all-time favorite couples.

I first met Corrigan when he was the AD at Virginia and I was the kid reporter, as I mentioned, at The Post. On one of my first trips to Virginia I had spent some time with football coach Dick Bestwick and came back down the hall to the office of the late, great Barney Cooke, who was Virginia’s SID back then. (Barney was the first SID to ever offer me a drink while I was writing a game story. He did this when I was still working for The Duke Chronicle and not old enough to buy hard liquor. I had gin. I don’t know if it helped me write but it really was cool.)

When I walked into Barney’s office, Corrigan was sitting there. I was about to introduce myself when Corrigan said, “young man I’m sure Barney’s got a lot for you to do but would you mind getting me a cup of coffee? (I was about to go get the coffee when Barney said, “Um, Gene, this is John Feinstein from The Washington Post. He’s down here working on a football story.”)

Gene was horrified. He jumped up from his chair and said, “John, I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize you.” (That would have been tough since we’d never met). I was 21 at the time and no doubt looked like the student assistant he initially thought I was. We still joke about that to this day.

Corrigan of course went on to be the AD at Notre Dame and then the commissioner of the ACC. He was always one of the class acts in college athletics: he might disagree with you but he always told you just how he felt; he never tried to hide anything and if you called him you could bet he’d call you back.

He was the AD at Notre Dame during the ill-fated tenure of Gerry Faust as football coach. (He didn’t hire Faust but he had to fire him. Then he hired Lou Holtz). In 1984 I was out there doing a story on how badly things were going for Faust and I talked to Digger Phelps who shook his head and said sadly, “it’s gotten so bad we can’t even bring our recruits to football games anymore.”

When I repeated that line from Corrigan—who wasn’t Digger’s biggest fan—he said (through clenched teeth) “we’ve had years when we couldn’t bring football recruits to basketball games!”

I liked UVA’s new arena but I miss old University Hall. I like the intimate old gyms without all the bells and whistles and screaming scoreboards and PA guys. The good news is the parking is still very good and my seat—since there was no TV—was right at midcourt. It was nice seeing a lot of UVA people I hadn’t seen for a while.

Seeing them all still there after all these years reminded me (as so many things do) of a Dean Smith story. When I was doing my ACC book, “A March to Madness,” back in 1997 I was standing with Dean outside his locker room about an hour before tipoff. That was always a good time to talk to him (as with many coaches) because he was just killing time.

One of the old ushers who worked in the building walked up to say hello to Dean. “John, you need to meet this gentleman,” Dean said. “He’s been working here at Virginia forever.” He turned to the usher and said, “How many years have you worked here now?”

The man puffed out his chest and said, “Coach, I’ve been in charge of this hallway for 21 years.”

Dean looked at me and said, “He’s been here 21 years. Isn’t that something?”
“Yes Dean,” I said. “That’s really something. Do you realize you’ve been coming here for THIRTY SIX years?”

Dean somehow didn’t think that was as impressive. I saw the man last night, still patrolling the hallway in the new building. He’s now been there for THIRTY FOUR years.

Which is still two years short of Dean.

I made my regular appearance on The Sports Reporters with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) this evening. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a variety of topics, including the Mark McGwire confession and the story lines of the college basketball season.

Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters

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I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke about the college basketball season and the greatness of conference games and rivalries, preferences of doing analysis of games on radio vs. tv, and the Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin moves.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

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Once again, I was on Tony Kornheiser's newest radio show this morning (Thursday) at 11:05am.  It was as fun as always as we talked Gilbert Arenas, Mark McGwire, the college basketball season and the football coaching mess.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show

Last night was one to put the remote to heavy use. There was all sorts of college basketball going on, not to mention the Islanders absolutely smoking the once-vaunted Detroit Red Wings. I can’t wait to talk to Matt Rennie (aka Mr. Detroit who is my editor at The Post) this morning. Rennie is apt to duck my call after that performance.

The college hoops I saw had a myriad of story lines. Purdue lost for a second straight game—at home no less—blowing a late 13-point lead to Ohio State. What does this prove? Nothing we don’t already know: once you get in to conference play no one is going to win every night. Texas is going to lose at some point and so is Kentucky although it is impossible not to be impressed with the Wildcats. I made my first trip ever to Florida’s O’Connell Center last year and it is a VERY tough place to play. Kentucky made it look easy, taking the lead midway in the first half and looking to be in control from that point on.

The other game that caught my eye was North Carolina State winning at Florida State. It’s the road wins you notice this time of year. Wake Forest escaping Maryland in overtime only means the Deacons held serve and Maryland missed a chance for a bonus victory. Baylor losing at Colorado is the same thing. Teams lose on the road. When you win on the road, especially against a ranked team or even a good unranked team, that’s something to hang your hat on.

There may not have been a team or a coach more in need of a win than N.C. State and Sidney Lowe. Two Sundays ago, the Wolfpack had Florida beaten until a 70-foot shot at the buzzer went in and the Gators won by one. Because I always connect Billy Donovan in my mind to Rick Pitino (since he played for him at Providence and coached under him at Kentucky) I remembered a game years ago in Hawaii when a Kentucky player grabbed a rebound in the final seconds, went the length of the court and scored to beat Arizona at the buzzer.

“We call that play explosion,” Pitino said after the game. Back then Rick always had to take a bow. Now I think he would just say, “the kid made a hell of a play.” Donovan simply said his kid hit an amazing shot and left it at that.

After that brutal loss, State beat Holy Cross (yawn) but then blew a nine point lead last Saturday AT HOME to Virginia, which is still learning how to play Tony Bennett slow-ball. So to go TO Florida State and win was a very big deal.

Lowe will always be a hero at N.C. State for his role in the 1983 national championship. He was a superb point guard on that team. One of my favorite (among many) Jim Valvano stories is about Lowe dribbling the clock down late in a game (there was no shot clock). He came over near the bench and said, “Coach, I need a blow.”

Valvano nodded and said, “You’ll get one Sidney—just as soon as your eligibility is used up.”

This is Lowe’s fourth year at State and he hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament yet. He had an unlikely run to the ACC Tournament final his first season but that’s been about it for excitement. State fans more or less ran Herb Sendek out of town even though he had gotten State into the tournament five years in a row and reached the sweet sixteen. Sendek didn’t beat Duke or North Carolina enough and his dry personality wasn’t enough to overcome that defect. Lowe has plenty of personality and that State pedigree but he hasn’t beaten State or Carolina very much and hasn’t won nearly as much as Sendek did. It seems unlikely he’d get run off after four years but we live in an era where Ivy League coaches are getting jettisoned (two of them now—Glenn Miller at Penn, Terry Dunn at Dartmouth) in midseason. So nothing is a certain in coaching.

Ask the Tennessee fans who spent the last year learning to love Lane Kiffin.

Kentucky’s continuing success is going to continue to raise the issue of John Calipari’s move to UK from Memphis; the players he ran off and his history at Memphis and Massachusetts. Everyone knows the Kentucky people could care less about Calipari’s past, they care only about his present and future. They may already be erecting a statue to him by now.

In a very real sense they are no different than other fans—only there are more of them and they do tend to go a little bit nuts in both directions. I still remember being in a car during Tubby Smith’s first season at the school (which ended in a national title) and hearing a fan call into his show. “Coach,” he said, “I just want you to know I haven’t given up on this team yet.”

Kentucky was 25-4 at that moment.

One coach I know who knows Calipari well and has recruited against him for years said this about him: “He’s the most dangerous guy in the game right now. Why? Because he’s a good coach and a good guy and people like him. But he’s going to do whatever it takes to win—whatever it takes. You think it’s a coincidence he’s had two Final Fours vacated? Sure and Mark McGwire took steroids because of injuries.”

That sums up the way a lot of coaches feel about Calipari. Some of that is jealousy but some of that IS his past. I fall into the category of people who like John. I first met him in 1984 when he was a 25-year-old assistant coach at Kansas and was working at The Five Star camp. We were close in age and hit it off right away. John liked to talk. My job is to listen.

Ten years later, when John had taken U-Mass from nowhere to a No. 1 ranking, Peter Teeley—who had been Bush 1’s speechwriter when he was vice president—came to me and asked if I could help him put together a charity basketball tournament in Washington. Gary Williams said yes right away on behalf of Maryland; John Thompson said no right away on behalf of Georgetown. We needed a glamour team to come in and play Maryland the first year. I called John. “Let me see if I can move some things on my schedule,” he said. He did and the U-Mass-Maryland game gave the event credibility that has helped carry it through 15 successful years.

(Note to Georgetown fans who keep asking me why we have “kept Georgetown out,” of the event. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve negotiated with Craig Esherick, with John Thompson III and with Bernie Muir and Adam Brick when they were AD’s and gotten nowhere. I still believe Big John Thompson is pulling that string).

So it is hard for me to not like Calipari for a number of reasons. But there’s no doubt the more his team, built in large part around two kids he brought with him when he left Memphis who are likely to be one-and-outs, will continue to be a source of controversy as it continues to win.

Tonight, I’ll be I Charlottesville for my first in-person look at both Georgia Tech and Virginia, with new coach Tony Bennett. UVA had a good win on Saturday when it won at N.C. State but tonight will be a much bigger test against a Tech team with one of the better young frontcourts in the country.

Remarkably, this will be my first game at The John Paul Jones Arena. I’ve seen it because Craig Littlepage gave me a tour a couple years ago when I went down to speak to some UVA students, but haven’t been there for a game. I know it is a marked upgrade for Virginia over creaky old University Hall, but I for one will miss the old place. Not only did it have excellent press seating it had the best media parking—like 10 yards from the back door to the building—in the country. If you think that’s not a big deal to someone like me you’re wrong. Parking, especially in winter, is always key for me. My guess is I’ll spend a lot of time moaning tonight about the good old days. But getting to have dinner at The Aberdeen Barn with a bunch of my old friends in the UVA media will make it worth the trip. Oh, and the game should be good too.

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I have to admit I was surprised yesterday that some posters and e-mailers seemed to think I let Mark McGwire off the hook. I admitted up front that I liked him. Then I went on to say he clearly hadn’t told the entire truth when he claimed he only used steroids to deal with injuries and to stay on the field. I also said he did not belong in the Hall of Fame and that I wouldn’t vote for him if I had a vote. I don’t think that’s letting him off the hook. I would have said the exact same thing about Barry Bonds—who I can’t stand.

Oh well, can’t please everyone.

I always liked Mark McGwire. I can’t claim to know him well but I did interview him and talk to him on a number of occasions during the 1990s, beginning in 1992 when I wrote, “Play Ball.” He was still in Oakland then and while he would never be described as outgoing he was smart, thoughtful and—unlike his then-teammate Jose Canseco—when he said he was going to talk to you at 3:30 on Tuesday he showed up at 3:30 on Tuesday.

(Not that no-showing for a scheduled interview, even on multiple occasions, made Canseco unique by any means. The all-timer was Kevin Mitchell who told me to meet him in the clubhouse at 2 o’clock one afternoon. I asked him if he really planned to get there that early for a 7:30 game. Absolutely, he said, 2 o’clock. I was there at 2 o’clock and had to sit outside the clubhouse in a drafty hallway because there was no one inside at that hour. Mitchell showed up at 5 o’clock—ten minutes before he had to be on the field to stretch before batting practice. No apology, no explanation. “I can give you five minutes,” he said. I told him not to bother).

I wrote about McGwire—with no discussion of steroids because it really hadn’t become an issue at that time—in ‘Play Ball.’ In 1995, after the players strike ended, I walked into the A’s clubhouse in Baltimore one afternoon and heard McGwire calling my name across the room. I went over to say hello and, as we shook hands, he said, “Why are you just about the only guy who understood what the strike was about?”

Needless to say I REALLY liked him at that point. We talked at length about the strike and about my testimony before Congress when I had more or less gone head-to-head with Bud Selig, testifying at the same time he did.

Three years later when McGwire and Sammy Sosa lit up the summer with their home run duel I was as enthralled as anybody else. By then though there were whispers—about BOTH of them, more Sosa than McGwire to be honest because McGwire had always been a big guy and had hit 49 home runs as a rookie in Oakland. Sosa had gone from flat out skinny to flat out muscular. McGwire was huge. I remember thinking one day when I was in the Cardinals clubhouse, that his arms were about as big as any I’d seen on anyone who wasn’t a bodybuilder.

Still, like a lot of others, I didn’t get it. Maybe I didn’t want to get it. As time went by and more and more evidence came out there wasn’t much doubt that a lot of guys had been using steroids.

Then came Canseco’s book—which has thus far proven to be almost completely accurate—and the embarrassing Congressional hearing when McGwire took the fifth; Rafael Palmeiro lied and Sosa forgot how to speak English. There was never much doubt after that about what steroids were doing to baseball.

When I wrote, “Living on the Black,” in 2007 I talked at length with both Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina about steroid use. Their educated guesses were that at least 25 percent of Major Leaguers had used on a regular basis before steroid testing finally came into play in 2003 and that at least 50 percent had at least experimented at some time. On the day the Mitchell report came out I was wrapping up the research on the book and called them both. The most telling comment came from Glavine: “I’m more surprised by the names NOT in the report than by the names that are in it.”

No one was surprised on Monday when McGwire finally admitted he had used steroids. Most people I know reacted with the famous line from Inspector Renaud in ‘Casablanca,’: “I’m shocked, SHOCKED that McGwire used steroids.’ Once McGwire signed on with the St. Louis Cardinals to be their hitting coach everyone knew he was going to have to address the issue because if he didn’t spring training would become a circus and Tony LaRussa didn’t want that.

So, McGwire made his confession in a day carefully orchestrated by former Bush (2) White House press secretary Ari Fleisher, who is making a very good living these days based on his reputation for defending indefensible positions. (He’s also on the BCS payroll).

I don’t think there was anything fake about McGwire’s emotions in his interviews with Bob Costas and others. What’s more, I think he truly believes that the steroids he took weren’t a factor in the 70 home runs he hit in 1998 or the remarkable numbers he put up during the last eight years of his career. Athletes often rationalize their actions to the point where they actually believe they didn’t do anything wrong if only because that’s how they live with the deed. I think McGwire is a good enough guy that knowing, deep down, what he did, really bothers him now. I’m sure the phone call he made to Pat Maris (Roger’s widow) to confess was probably the toughest thing in this whole process.

That said, he’d be a lot better off if he said simply, “I have no idea how much my steroid use affected my power,”—because he doesn’t know. None of us do. Most of us believe it did have an affect and it certainly gave him an advantage over home run hitters of past eras even if you totally believe McGwire’s version of events because it allowed his body to recover from both injuries AND fatigue much faster. There’s also a chicken-and-egg thing going on here: steroids often make players susceptible to injuries. So, how much did McGwire’s early steroid use break his body down and “force,” him (at least in his mind) to continue taking them? Again, we’ll never know.

What we do know is this: he cheated. Steroids, remember WERE banned by Fay Vincent in 1991 when they were declared illegal by the government. There was just no testing because the union stonewalled and the owners liked all the home runs being hit. He also lied in spite of LaRussa’s claim that by not answering questions to Congress he didn’t lie. It’s what’s called a lie of omission, whether talking to Congress or hiding out for most of the last eight years. LaRussa should also stop acting as if McGwire is Mother Theresa: loyalty is an admirable trait but it can go too far. Just say, ‘yeah, Mark screwed up and I’m glad he finally admitted it so he can move on,’ and leave it at that.

Finally, there is the omnipresent Hall of Fame question. I don’t think there’s any doubt that confessing—even though it wasn’t a full confession—will make McGwire’s case much stronger for the Hall in future years. A number of baseball writers, including smart guys like The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin and ESPN’s Buster Olney have said that they think voters should go ahead and vote for ALL the steroid-era players because no doubt there are some who cheated who simply haven’t been caught or have flown under the radar enough to not be accused.

Personally, I think that’s a cop out. The damage all these guys have done to baseball is incalculable. This isn’t a court of law where one is innocent until proven guilty. This is the court of public opinion. Did anyone think before Monday that McGwire was clean? Does anyone think Barry Bonds is clean? Roger Clemens? Sosa? I don’t think anyone should vote for them.

Olney also raised the very legitimate question this morning about whether writers should be deciding who goes into the Hall of Fame—in any sport. I’m not sure he’s wrong about that and, in fact, The Post doesn’t let any of us vote for any Hall of Fame. That said, the most corrupt and worst Hall of Fame process is The Basketball Hall of Fame, which doesn’t even allow the public to know WHO the voters are which makes the process far more political than others Halls of Fame.

For now, let’s give McGwire credit for finally making an admission—I’m not going to go so far as to say he came clean—and let him move on with his life. No doubt he will be embraced in St. Louis and that’s fine. But if I still had a vote for the Hall of Fame, even though I like the guy, I couldn’t vote for him.

Here are this week's articles The Washington Post, both focused on college basketball.  Today's column was on George Washington, and over the weekend I wrote about Connecticut's Jim Calhoun.

The following is today's article --------

With 8 minutes 24 seconds left in the game Sunday at Smith Center, George Washington's Hermann Opoku had just made two free throws to give the Colonials a 60-50 lead over Xavier. GW had finished the first half strong to take a 41-30 lead and the margin had stayed between seven and 11 points throughout the second half.

That's not enough, Colonials Coach Karl Hobbs thought as he glanced at the scoreboard.

"I knew at some point in the second half we had to get the lead to 14," he said after the game. "I knew Xavier was too good and too experienced a team for us to keep stopping their offense the whole day. After we got to 60, I kept looking up and we were still on 60. It felt like we were there a long time."

They were there for more than five minutes. By the time Aaron Ware made a free throw with 3:04 left, Xavier had the lead and the Musketeers never looked back, cruising to a 76-69 win. In all, Xavier outscored GW 20-1 over a stretch that last nearly eight minutes.

Click here for the rest of the column: GW has spice, needs seasoning

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Some losses are tougher to take than others. As the celebration began Saturday afternoon at Verizon Center in the seconds after Georgetown's stunning 72-69 victory over Connecticut, Jim Calhoun walked through the handshake line, a blank look on his face, probably not even seeing any of the players or coaches he was congratulating.

"I've just never gotten to the point where a loss doesn't tear me up," he said. "I still feel as if I've failed whenever we lose. My friends will say to me, 'Don't you know how much you've done?' My answer is, no I don't. Not when I've got Georgetown to play at noon today. I stay in the present."

Calhoun actually said those words about three hours before Saturday's tip-off. As he spoke, he easily might have passed for just another visitor to the nation's capital, someone looking to stay inside on a frigid morning. He already had worked out and was sipping a cup of coffee while his players sat quietly around him eating their pregame meal.

Click here for the rest of the column: Connecticut's Jim Calhoun still loves coaching

So here we go again with Athletes Not Getting It.

This could be a nightly reality show if truth be told because it’s an epidemic. Sunday, when the Washington Wizards played The New Orleans Hornets, DeShaun Stevenson of the Wizards arrived on court with the words “Agent,” and “Zero,” written on the tape he had around his shins. He said later he wanted people to know that Gilbert Arenas—aka Agent Zero—was still a part of the Wizards and is not forgotten even though he is currently suspended indefinitely by the NBA for bringing guns into the locker room and then making light of his actions.

I have asked this question before and so have others: Is Flip Saunders coaching this team or has team president Ernie Grunfeld just provided him with a very good set to watch the 11-23 Wizards in action? Last Tuesday when Arenas did his fake shooting bit with his fingers during introductions in Philadelphia, Saunders claimed he didn’t see it so he took no action. He can’t use that excuse this time since Stevenson was out there the entire game with the Agent Zero on his shins.

Look, I know some people will say what’s the big deal and, to be honest, in the grand scheme of things it isn’t a big deal. But what this says is that Stevenson and the Wizards still haven’t figured out that this isn’t a suspension for leaving the bench during a fight. Once upon a time putting someone’s number or name on a uniform was done on rare occasions to honor someone who had died or, in rarer instances, someone whose career was suddenly cut short by an injury.

The Wizards are wearing the word, “Abe,” on their uniforms to honor Abe Pollin, the man who owned the team for 45 years until his death in November. That’s exactly as it should be. I think it’s neat that Marquette’s uniforms still include the name “Al,” in honor of Al McGuire because he was responsible for taking Marquette into the big time during his coaching tenure there. The “HK,” on the Phillies uniforms last season for Harry Kalas was entirely appropriate.

But Terrelle Pryor putting Michael Vick’s name on his eye-black when Ohio State played Navy wasn’t just dumb it was insulting. Vick was hardly a martyr. Coach Jim Tressel claimed after the game that he didn’t see it. Other athletes have done similar things on sneakers or socks for players who have been suspended for drug use or doing something stupid. Arenas is about as far from being a martyr as you can get. No one—including Stevenson—is saying his suspension is unfair on any level. So why in the world did Saunders not say something to him before the game on Sunday?

Something like, “Look DeShaun, we’re all upset about this but this didn’t happen TO Gilbert, he caused it to happen. We sent Antawn Jamison, our most respected player, to talk to the crowd pre-game on Friday to basically apologize for what’s been going on. Let’s just go play and not give people more reason to think we still don’t get it.”

Nope, Saunders did nothing. Stevenson played with the Agent Zero wrapped around his shins, the Wizards lost and the ship continues to sink. Sadly, given the behavior of just about everyone connected to the franchise, the ship deserves its spot at the bottom of the NBA ocean.

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Meanwhile….The first round of the NFL playoffs produced exactly one game worth watching in the fourth quarter. You might have stuck with Jets-Bengals because of the Jets past history but no one who doesn’t bleed Dallas blue was still up for the fourth quarter—or for that matter the third quarter—of the Cowboys blow-out of the Eagles. The Patriots season was over before the end of the first quarter against the Ravens. Joe Flacco threw for a total of 34 yards and his team was never in trouble. I don’t think that’s how the NFL draws it up on the playoff bulletin board.

Arizona-Green Bay didn’t save the weekend but it at least provided people with a game worth watching and worth talking about. It’s funny isn’t it how the Cardinals have become the franchise that has been the most fun to watch in the last two postseasons? They weren’t supposed to beat the rising young Falcons in their playoff opener last year and they beat them. Then they pretty much destroyed Jake Delhomme’s career and stunned the Carolina Panthers. They whipped the Eagles and then engaged the Steelers in one of the most dramatic Super Bowls every played before losing in the last minute.

This year, they’ve blown a huge lead, missed what should have been a chip shot game-winning field goal at the end of regulation and then advanced on a defensive touchdown. Do you think the Saints won’t be a little bit nervous—given the way they’ve played in recent weeks—facing Kurt Warner on Saturday? Does anyone think that game is a lock for New Orleans? I don’t.

Speaking of Warner, I wonder where people stand on the issue of his Hall of Fame credentials Personally, I think he has to be in. He took the Rams from nowhere to two Super Bowls—winning one. His career appeared over when the Giants dumped him and everyone figured the Cardinals signed him to back up Matt Leinart. Instead, he came this close to winning The Super Bowl a year ago and now has the Cardinals back in the conference semifinals with 11 victories under their belt.

I think you put all that together and he’s a Hall of Famer. I’ve never been a fan of Warner’s tendency to give all the glory to God after wins. I just don’t think God should be invoked as playing a role in the outcome of any sporting event. If you want to thank God for giving you the ability to play, that’s fine. Just don’t imply he cared if you won the game. People point out to me all the time that President Obama has more important things to do than fix the BCS. If that’s the case God CERTAINLY has more important things to deal with than the NFL playoffs.

The all-timer in this area was Michael Chang insisting after he won the 1989 French Open that his victory was the result of having a closer relationship to Jesus Christ than Stefan Edberg did. When he was asked how he could possibly know that one way or the other, he insisted that he did in fact know it as a certainty.

When I was working on my book on the Baltimore Ravens I asked Ray Lewis, who has six kids, if he thought he would get married anytime soon. “God and I are working on that,” Ray replied. Who knows? Maybe God secretly runs e-harmony.

(Note to readers: If my bringing any of this up bothers you, sorry. I’m not trying to be blasphemous or question anyone’s beliefs. I just think people should keep their beliefs private, especially when it comes to implying that God has anything to do with the outcome of a game).

One other completely un-related note: The PGA Tour began its 2010 season this past weekend. I couldn’t help but notice the number of people who said or wrote the words, “without Tiger Woods.” For the record: Woods hasn’t played in The Tournament of Champions (that’s what I still call it regardless of what corporate name is slapped on it) the last five years. Phil Mickelson hasn’t played in eight years. We’re Tiger-centric enough as it is without implying his “indefinite absence,” somehow means he’s going from playing 40 weeks a year to zero. There’s still a good chance that the absence will mean he ends up skipping exactly two tournaments he normally plays—San Diego and The Match Play.

Thank God they’re playing golf again. (yes, that’s a joke). It’s nice knowing there’s some place on earth where it isn’t freezing cold outside.