New blog policy: Car chases in all commercials - a South Carolina preview

Anyone telling you they've got a prediction for this game is full of it.

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Some commercial the other night made me think: "We should put a car chase in all commercials." And if it's good for a commercial ...


Wasn't going to go with Bullitt. And then Steve McQueen "explained" it to me. Warning, though, the guy he's chasing doesn't even put his seat belt on til 3:14.
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Starnes: I have no idea if this is going to be the resurgence or the complete unraveling downfall. I mean, it could go either way the next three weeks. What if we lost two out of these next three games? Also, it wouldn't surprise me if we just come out and kick ass.

Me: I don't know that it has to be either of those yet. It could be in the middle. I think I'm more excited than worried.

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Is it possible I forgot how much I like College Football? Because it's been story-line packed so far. I would have preferred not to see AJ Green in the wake of the NCAA getting awesome at catching people for violations just after catching USC.

Makes you wonder: Who does the NCAA know in the south eastern United States? You know, some one who knows things about football programs in, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

But the NCAA/AJ situation did shut people up about Boise State for a while. Joe told me he heard Brent Musberger and Paul Finebaum, early in the week on satellite radio, debating whether Boise State could succeed with an SEC schedule.

"How do you think it went," Joe said.
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Does any one else want to hear Michael Adams, and some other people at the University of Georgia, take issue with the NCAA?
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Me: Is it me, or is it getting stupider out there this year?

Joe: I don't know. Do you think Boise State should play for the National Title?
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It's one thing to say there's a difference between sportsblogging and sportswriting. It's another to see elements of their evolution toward one thing.
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Me: The two teams seem pretty evenly matched. But the problem is that Louisiana Lafayette and Southern Miss, I just don't know how to account for them. They're like unknown values in an equation, and I hope it adds up to Georgia beat down.

Huff: That's some professional analysis.

Me: If our line blocks, I feel good. We have speed on defense. We'll miss a few things, but we'll make plays, too. And from there, we just can't beat ourselves, and the talent will take over.
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From the Senator, last Friday:

Easily the biggest surprise last night for me was seeing how much of the old swag Spurrier reclaimed. I’m not talking about his behavior. I’m talking about his playcalling. As vanilla as Johnson was, the OBC was anything but – tons of formations, a very nice reverse call, a little wildcat were all on display, along with the old staples. That’s the sign of a confident man who believes he’s got the weapons to play with again.

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Finally, there is this from the L.I. Athens Bureau, reporting from Columbia shortly after midnight:

Consensus: Noon games for two top 25 teams are lame.

Tone Loc has collapsed in Florida

Luckily, he appears to be OK. No word on whether Funky Cold Medina was involved, but you have to assume it was.

The Pensacola News Journal has a story.

Be sure to check out the pictures of the young ladies that came to Mr. Loc's aid.

The Russian Bear is from Canada, and other wrestling tales

My girlfriend is a reporter in Raleigh. And that's how I found myself in a converted basketball gym Saturday night in Clayton, North Carolina, watching wrestling matches with about 400 people and talking to a couple of professional wrestling icons.

For more than 30 years, Ivan Koloff was a scary guy that the crowds shouted down. He and his tag team partners wore the evil red of the Soviet Union.

But "The Russian Bear" is from Canada. His real name is James Perras. The Bear is a 60-something-year-old man living in North Carolina. He's more than a full head shorter than me and walks with one of the worst hitches I've ever seen.

He has an embracing smile. But there must be nights when his body is a knot of pain.

I met him Saturday night. And I heard other names I vaguely remembered from when I was a kid and my grandfather loved Saturday night wrestling. I saw faces that had to be worn out wrestlers I never recognized.

Even for the famous ones, the crowds had gotten smaller.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts was there. He looked the way you'd imagine. Large. The stringy, curly hair. The big, bushy mustache now gray. He had a middle-aged woman with him selling DVDs and pictures that were clearly printed from a home computer.

He was balding on the top. But, then again, he was always balding on the top. He was friendly, like an uncle. He smiled and had eight different markers with him for autographs. His T-shirt had a picture of a snake with a big, open, purple mouth on the front.

A line formed quickly when Roberts arrived. The first picture he took with a guy, he stood up and put his arm around him. And with a smile under that big bushy mustache he said, "Somebody's touching my but."

The woman to his side, the one accounting for the money, had glasses and a mullet. A newspaper reporter who had written a story about Jake years ago brought a copy of the article.

"I didn't know he'd make it back then," the reporter said. "You never know which ones are going to make it. You never know which ones want to make it."

The woman smiled. "They all want to," she said. "Let me just clear that up for you. They all want to make it."

Roberts was charming. He tried to guess kids names and asked them questions. He was cool. He should have been. It was $10 to have your picture taken with him.

The woman said he actually hates snakes. He has bite marks up and down his arms. His famous snake, Damien? There were more than 40 of them, she said, always bought or rented by the wrestling federation.

The crowd was something to behold. There was this massive fat guy. He must have weighed 450 pounds. All he did was sit in a chair against the wall and call people over to say hello and shake his hand. He seemed to know half the people there. I never saw him stand up in nearly 3 hours.

There was a guy there in Pitsburgh Steelers jersey. I noticed because it was a Kendrell Bell jersey. It looked like the guy's right hip was half-displaced the way he walked, and his right shoulder dipped far below his left. He had two young blond kids with him and a massive beer gut. He got to shake The Russian Bear's hand.

One of the women taking money at the door (the sign said $10 for adults, but they were taking $5) said her grandson is a local wrestler named "Sudden Impact" Louis Moore. It's his dream to go pro, she said.

Moore challenged The Bear to a match during one of the intermissions. The Bear had a better idea. He said Jake The Snake would handle this upstart.

"No," said Moore. "Anyone but that."

It was theater. A guy with a big black afro came out wearing a ripped American flag like a cape. He wore American flag shorts and American flag boots that said "Creed" on them. Like Apollo in Rocky IV, he came to the ring to James Brown's "Living in America."

Creed and his partner put on a high-flying act. It was legitimately impressive. A little different, I figured, than what "The Snake" had in store later on. Hell, he's in his 50s now.

We left before Roberts made it to the ring. My girlfriend had a deadline. Two no-name young guys were wrestling when we left. As I walked to the car, I could still hear the rumbling on the mat, and the roar of the crowd inside, loud through the gym's brown brick wall.















"The Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff.














Jake "The Snake" Roberts.










I didn't get his name. His partner was an old Indian guy people called "The Chief."



UPDATE: My uncle, whose father was a huge wrestling fan, just sent this note: "Don't you know you should consult your uncle before putting a picture of a wrestler in your blog and referring to him as unknown? Hell, everybody that's anybody knows The Barbarian."


You can buy Jake "The Snake" Roberts merchandise here. I don't think it's his own site, but Ivan "The Russian Bear" Koloff photos and DVDs are available here.

It seems like I've met an inordinate number of professional wrestlers over the years. This was a piece I did on Lex Luger.

Signing Day, Bobby Knight and Steve Martin with a gun

I would like to publicly thank Lane Kiffin for taking any of the ire that Urban Meyer or Nick Saban might have stored for the University of Georgia and focusing it directly on the University of Tennessee instead.

Hiring a coach that got fired by the Oakland Raiders. How could that not work out?
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I saw yesterday that, of the 20 kids Purdue signed, 14 of them are from Florida.
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What Lane Kiffin said about Urban Meyer was a big deal. It was a big deal and Urban Meyer won't forget it. And it will be dealt with. It will be dealt with by Urban Meyer.
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There was moment yesterday when some tool bag anchor was kissing Gene Chizik's ass over Auburn's recruiting class when I wondered: "Should I actually worry about this guy?"

Surely not, right? Right?
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Speaking of Bobby Knight, I see that this moron is putting on the full court press to bring the once-great coach to Athens.

Look, I think it would be cool to have Coach Knight running the show for a little while, too. But, seriously, do you really think that's the best move here?

Please read this if you object:

Over their last three seasons both Felton and Knight each coached 86 games, and each left their jobs before the end of the season. Their records were:

45-41 for Felton
48-38 for The General

Knight won exactly three more games than DF, and they went to the same number of NCAA tournament games. Some upgrade that would be.

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This is hilarious. But you have to watch a 30 second commercial first. When did we get to a place where that was nearly unacceptable?

Chain email wisdom

One of my aunts sent me this today:

Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

It's like every day there's something new

140 photos from the 4th of July around the world. That includes the opening of a new American embassy in Berlin, at its pre-World War II address.

Bozo the Clown has died.

National Geographic's week in photos:




Finally, I have a friend named Brett Unzicker. He and his brothers grew up in the D.C. area.

And he's got these jackass friends who've managed to get The Washington Post to file daily updates about their shenanigans at a golf tournament: Stacy responded by ripping off his shirt and flexing.