Sports 'N Stuff: Downtime - A Month of 'Honey Do'
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This is the most unexciting time to be a sports fan. Football is over and baseball hasn't begun yet. The NBA is on a break. By the time this column hits, they will have played their All-Star Game but that game is nothing more than a hyped-up popularity contest.
There is the NHL, but that's hockey so who cares. Not that hockey is unwatchable but compared to football, baseball, basketball and the Westminster Dog Show, it comes in a distant fifth. Get it yet? Not a big fan of hockey.
They did run the Daytona 500 on Sunday, which was entertaining. The race saw some big names like Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Casey Kane hanging around until the end. With a stellar finish, car-owner Roger Penske got his first-ever Daytona 500 win in Ryan Newman, driver of the AllTell No. 12 car. Newman's team mate, Kurt Busch, came up from behind and literally pushed Newman into the lead (known as bump drafting). For a fan it was a great race to start the season.
College basketball is starting to kick into high gear in preparation for March Madness. Memphis barely escaped this weekend to retain their No. 1 ranking. Meanwhile, No. 6 Georgetown lost a key Big East match up to rival Syracuse. Since we are on college basketball, I want to talk for a moment about the head coach at famed basketball powerhouse Indiana University.
Kelvin Sampson, while head coach of the University of Oklahoma, made more than 550 illegal telephone calls to 17 recruits. Thus, his university was placed on three years probation and he was ultimately relieved of his duties. For some reason I will never understand, Indiana hired him in 2006.
Now this history-rich college will have to suffer through a coaching scandal. Sampson is now accused of committing the same violations at Indiana that he did at Oklahoma. The university had launched a seven-day investigation at the beginning of the weekend and all signs point to Sampson losing his job by next weekend. When will these guys learn?
Apparently this is what we are relegated to paying attention to for awhile. So now what do we do? Pitchers and catchers are almost ready to go for Major League Baseball and their headlines are already hitting the wire so we can at least read about that I guess. There is going to be about a 30-day break in the action for us true sports nuts, which spells trouble for those who look forward to sports so we can avoid that dreaded "honey do" list.
There are locks to be changed and curtain rods to hang. There is also snow to be shoveled and ice to break away. I think my list even consists of washing dishes and helping with laundry!
Help! Hurry March Madness. Hurry baseball season. Football season can't come back quick enough and the NBA can't save me. She knows I don't watch it! Thank goodness, I have a column to write. At least I can use that as an excuse every other week.
Ugh!
Brian Flagg was co-host of "The Sports Page" on local public access stations for nearly five years. The North Adams resident has been coaching girls' basketball and softball for 16 years. His column appears every other Monday.
