To refresh your memory, Paul Donahoe and Kenny Jordan were kicked off the Husker wrestling team last year because they appeared naked on a gay porn website called Fratmen.tv. Both men say it's not fair—not because of the whole gay thing, but because everyone on the team (including themselves) are guilty of far worse crimes that no one has ever been punished for. But Nebraska couldn't cover up naked internet photos, so these two guys had to go.

And go, they did. Donahoe transferred to Edinboro College and Jordan went to Purdue. However, while Donahoe made his way to the NCAA finals this season, Jordan had to sit out a year and is still waiting to see if Purdue will actually give him a scholarship. Why the different treatment? Some say Donahoe was given permission to transfer worry-free, because he won a National Championship for the Huskers and was head coach Mark Manning's favorite son. Others say it was because Donahoe blackmailed the athletic department, threatening to expose numerous instances of wrongdoing unless they gave him an unconditional release. And by "others," we mean that it was Donahoe who said that himself.

But when ESPN did a follow up interview seven weeks later, to find out more about this alleged wrongdoing, suddenly he didn't remember ever saying that! How convenient. He also said he was going to return to Fratmen.tv, but has yet to keep his promise. (I guess he really likes jerking people around.) However, Jordan did confess that athletes gambled large sums of money on poker games—playing against their coaches—and two other members of the team got into a bone-crunching fight after getting drunk at Manning's wedding. (They were underage, too.) Nearly one-third of the program's athletes in the last two years have been charged with a crime and a former Husker football player says it's better to commit a crime in Lincoln than a NCAA violation, because the school isn't concerned with enforcing actual laws.

It isn't really fair for Nebraska to kick two people off the team for doing something that isn't at all illegal, but after watching his interviews it is kind of hard to feel sorry for Donahoe. He really just seems like a cocky little prick—although that isn't why he's so popular over at Fleshbot, wink, wink (NSFW, duh)—who is ticked off that for the first time in his precious life, he wasn't allowed to get away with something. Both Donahoe and Jordan had plenty of legal troubles while in Lincoln and probably should have been kicked off the team long before they were given the official boot. Gay porn was certainly the least of their crimes.

Jordan, who is no saint himself, was treated much less fairly, but at least he has a good perspective on things. "We did some porn. Get over it," he says. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one....

Wrestler Paul Donahoe's nude photos cost him a college career at Nebraska [Outside The Lines]

Caption: Shady Side Academy's Roman San Doval, front, wrestles against Line Mountain's Jon Fausey, behind, in the PIAA wrestling championship AA semifinal round in the 189-pound class Friday, March 6, 2009, in Hershey, Pa

This photo is apropos of nothing, but I found it amusing for reasons that will never be fully understood. Plus, it's the warmest day my town has had in months and I'm stuck inside watching college basketball with you peo... I mean ... sweet, it's Championship Week! (Actually, I am getting revved up for March Madness.) Plus—semi-competitive international baseball! Maybe some tennis! Someone's got to be playing golf somewhere! There's probably some sort of ice sports going on?

The February drought is over folks. No more messing around.

Oh, and P.S. Watchmen sucks.

Paul Donahoe was kicked off the Cornhuskers grappling squad last year after he and teammate Kenny Jordan were discovered just as God made them on the naughty picture site Fratmen.tv. Donahoe left Lincoln and enrolled at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, which is Division II in all other sports, but is somehow Division I in wrestling.

His record this season? 24-0

Donahoe is the top-ranked 125-pounder in the country and he hopes to become the first wrestler to win an individual NCAA title for two different schools. (He won his weight class in 2007.) The team is coached by former Olympian Bruce Baumgartner, who felt Donahoe deserved a second chance. Apparently, he came to the ground-breaking conclusion that taking your clothes off for the sexual delight of others is only slightly more scandalous than rolling around on a mat with other muscle-bound dudes as leering onlookers shout their lusty approval.

Wrestler in porn scandal unbeaten at new school [Outsports, via the very penis-friendly Fleshbot (NSFW, duh.)]

Meet Todd Gerleman, 44, of Gilbertville, who was arrested on Friday for "distributing a controlled substance to a minor." In this case, the distribution came in the form of a needle in the kid's ass. Oh, and the youngster in question is 14. What took dad so long?

The boy had assaulted his mother at her Gilbertville home Nov. 19, and officers who responded found a syringe and 105 pills in the boy’s bedroom, court records state. The teen told authorities his father gave him the pills during an earlier weekend visitation, records state. The father “admitted to bringing the needle and pills from his residence ... and supplying them to ‘motivate’ his son about sports.”

How this is not Bill Romanowski is a major upset.

From Steroid Nation: Gilbertville is a hotbed of high school wrestling. Several D-1 wrestlers started their careers at Don Bosco High School in the small Iowa town. Hopefully they were clean.

Wouldn't it have been a lot easier for Gerleman just to change his last name?

Iowa Teenager Assaults Mother; Cops Find Father Juiced Up The Son For 'Motivation' [Steroid Nation]
Man Accused Of Giving Son Steroids [Waterloo Courier]

According to Men's Journal, via the New York Daily News, Rourke all but admitted that he beefed up chemically for the role, which has already won him a Golden Globe for best actor.

Mickey Rourke really did those backflips and rope dives in “The Wrestler,” but probably not without a little help. Though he doubled his daily 80-minute workouts with an Israeli cage fighter and ate seven meals a day, Men’s Journal reports that he most likely took steroids. When asked, Rourke said: “When I’m a wrestler, I behave like a wrestler.”

Ah, so that's what Roger Clemens was doing; method acting.

I don't claim to have enjoyed the film as much as a certain Prince Valiant-hairstyled former Deadspin editor — that may not even be humanly possible — but I do agree that it's a great movie; Rourke deserves all the accolades. Is there a separate Oscar category for getting your body punctured with a staple gun? There's also a perfectly lovely scene involving a deli slicer, which we don't see often enough in films these days. Needles, razor blades, staples, deli slicer: Wizard Cat gives this movie, six wands.

Oh, and in accepting his Golden Globe, Rourke thanked his two dogs. That is all kinds of awesome.

Mickey Rourke Alludes To Steroid Use In Last Movie [Graney And The Pig's Blog] (NSFW)
Celebrity Side Dish [New York Daily News]
Ten Things You Need To Know About The Wrestler [The New Yorker]

"There's no greater contact sport than wrestling. It's intimate and prolonged skin-to-skin contact," says the head of dermatology at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, NJ. No wonder roughly 70% of the York team contracted Type 1 herpes by the end of the 2006 wrestling season, according to one of the plaintiffs. And now the coach that let the original infected wrestler participate in practices and the school that employed the coach face at least $50,000 in damages for each wrestler involved in the suit.

As an aside, the NCAA has guidelines on how to avoid spreading herpes on the mat, but they don't have any pamphlets on how to avoid addiction to bowl game money. NCAA Publications, call us!

Former college wrestlers pinned by illness: 3 suing school for giving them herpes [Philadelphia Daily News]

Three former York College wrestlers sued the college recently, claiming they contracted herpes from a teammate while on the wrestling team. In their civil lawsuit for negligence in Philadelphia County Court, the three claim that they were "forced to grapple" with another infected wrestler.

The three men claim that, in October 2006, one of their teammates developed Herpes Simplex Virus I lesions on his skin and was not allowed to practice for three days. When he returned to practice, Cooke bandaged the wrestler's lesions, according to court documents.

For the next several weeks, other wrestlers developed similar lesions, and all "continued to engage in full-contact practice with bandages over their lesions," according to court documents.

To which I say, is Herpes Simplex Virus I not a small enough price to pay for a conference wrestling championship? The painful itching, swollen lymph glands and inflamed blisters around the infected area will fade in time, but that trophy will last forever. Go Spartans!

Wrestlers File Suit Against York College Over Herpes [The York Dispatch]

But ever year there's a movie that one William F. Leitch falls madly in love with just based on a trailer or a concept alone, then if the movie turns out to be everything he'd hoped it be, he becomes obsessed with it. One year it was "Punch Drunk Love"; this year, it's "The Wrestler" directed by Darren "Ass to Ass" Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke as a Randy "Macho Man" Savage-like character. Even though it's an odd premise, the film is inexplicably getting all sorts of Oscar talk right now. And, Will, of course, has vowed to pound this drum until everyone listens to him and Mickey Rourke gets his statue. (If you don't agree with this notion he will most likely say something along the lines of "I'm surprised you're able to walk upright" or something.) Somehow he kept his composure and pulled together "Ten Things You Need To Know About 'The Wrestler'" for New York magazine's Vulture blog. I admit, regardless of how awful an experience it is listening to him yammer about movies, he makes a compelling case for this one:

Rourke’s Randy “the Ram” Robinson was a star wrestler in the eighties, which means the whole movie is soundtracked by glorious, awesome hair metal, his preferred genre. Haven’t heard Accept’s “Balls to the Wall” in a long time? You’re in luck: The Ram rocks out, HARD. One particularly amusing exchange between the Ram and Marisa Tomei’s stripper, Cassidy, features the line, “The eighties fuckin’ ruled, man, till that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up.” Expect to hear the soundtrack played ironically at Christmas parties on the Lower East Side.

And there are nine more of these.

Ten Things You Need to Know About The Wrestler [Vulture]

From the Peoria Journal Star:

The penalty is substantial, Mayor Kevin Meade said after the city liquor commission voted unanimously Wednesday to suspend the license for Outskirts Bar and Grill at 725 W. Locust St. "It's meant to send a message to other businesses in town that this won't be tolerated," Meade said.

Outskirts owner Kim Scott cried after the vote. "I'm not being treated like any other business," she said. "Don't tell me I am, because I'm not." Scott said she had a contract with the group for male wrestlers to perform. When the group arrived, Scott said, two women in oil were wrestling topless while she was outside smoking.

As one might imagine, this has caused much activity on the Peoria Journal Star message boards. A sampling:

• I agree wholeheartedly with Jim Beam, for once, lol. What's the big deal! — JD

• JUST BECAUSE SHE LOST HER LIQUOR LICENSE , DOES THAT MEAN SHE CAN'T STILL BE A RESTAURANT??? — cg

• A Canton bar had naked midget wrestling. Just think about that for a second. — Barrak

• Dang it. What are we going to do for the next 8 Saturday nights? — RegalBeagle

• Classic Canton logic. It's a good thing Creve Coeur exists. — admin

Liquor License Suspended After Topless Midget Wrestling [PJStar.com]

Even though she fell from the balance beam, possibly costing her team the gold; was browbeaten by Andrea Joyce, and finished with one measly team silver medal, U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone is emerging as one of the biggest stars of the Beijing Games. In fact, according to the San Diego Union Tribune, our pert hero is second only to Michael Phelps as most-Googled Olympic athlete.

Charts on Google Trends, which tracks Web searches, indicate more people have performed Google searches in the past week for Sacramone than for Liukin or Johnson. At one point, Sacramone ranked No. 4 on Google's Hot Trends list. Her hotness, as Google puts it, was rated as “volcanic.” Dozens of new Sacramone pages have been created on Facebook. One is called “Alicia Sacramone cost us the gold.” Another is called “Alicia Sacramone has a gold medal in my heart.”

Still another: “Alicia Sacramone Transfer to SDSU.” The page's stated goal is “to have Alicia Sacramone visit or transfer to San Diego.” (The U.S. women's gymnasts, in fact, are to tape an ABC television special at the Sports Arena on Sept. 14.) “I guess it's kind of surprising,” Sacramone said of her sudden fame, “because I didn't have that good an outcome here.”

And, update, one entry that is NSFW. Ha.

None of this should be a shocking surprise to anyone except Buzz Bissinger.

Meanwhile, Shawn Johnson won the gold medal in the beam finals on Tuesday, and Nastia Liukin finished second. They were also 1-2 in the all-around last week, Liukin winning gold and Johnson silver.

Marco! Polo! Brenda Villa, known as the Wayne Gretzky of women's water polo (does not compute), scored with one minute remaining to win it for the U.S., 9-8 over Australia in the semifinals. Brittany Hayes of Santa Ana, Calif., had two goals. The United States will play the Netherlands in the championship game.

Soon To Be A Lifetime Movie Of The Week. To the horror of Lou Dobbs, Henry Cejudo of the U.S. beat Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga, 2-2 on a tiebreaker and 3-0, for the gold medal in freestyle wrestling at 55 kilograms (121 pounds). Cejudo was born in Los Angeles to parents who were undocumented workers.

The pictures were initially posted online by The Scarlet Project—a gossip and scandal site focusing on Nebraska. (Don't click on this at work unless you want to be blinded and fired.) Now you might find yourself asking what's fratmen.tv? Maybe the whole gay porn thing is just exaggerated. Not so much. PerOutsports.com here's their advertising slogan:

“Our Models are all young, hot, athletic men in solo action, most of whom are exclusive to our site, so you won’t suffer from, the ‘Been There, Seen Him’ syndrome. We take great care to make sure our models are stunning and our content is of the highest quality … no grainy video with bad sound and static shots of a guy on a couch watching p0rn.”

Below, in the links are the extremely — extremely — not safe for work photos pulled by Fleshbot. Only click if your curiosity gets the best of you. No, those aren't ears of corn.

Two NU wrestlers under investigation [Journal News]
College wrestlers on gay porn site [Out Sports]
National Champion wrestler bares all on gay porn site [The Scarlet Project]
Real college wrestling jocks at fratmen.tv [Fleshbot]

Designed to help protect against facial injuries. Total padding on both sides. This competition model can be used in meets when there is documented evidence of injury. Now designed to fit all Cliff Keen headgears, (not included) and chin cup assembly (included).

I don't know why, but I'd wear mine while gardening.

Cuvo's Wrestling Warehouse
Wear This Mask And Get Swiftly Beat Down [Deuce Of Davenport]

Too little too late for the 'rasslers.

"We can't walk down the hallway without someone yelling 'herpes,' " said senior wrestler Zane Atkins. "Kids, teachers who usually shake our hand, they don't want anything to do with us."

One wrestler said he was told by a physical education teacher to sit in the corner with his coat on.

You know, it's a really bad sign, we think, that your team is the first group everyone turns to when there's a herpes outbreak. This never happens with the chess team.

Rash To Judgment? [Merced Sun Star]

Last month, the Eastern Illinois University wrestling program was discontinued by the school, which cited low academic marks from the team. The grapplers immediately protested in the only way they know how.

(And yes: That article is from the Mattoon paper.)

A Quick Note For The Wrestlers [Stephen Has A Blog]

"I thought it was a prank call," [Tommy] Rowlands said, laughing. "When I returned his call, it was a voice mail and it said he was from the New York Jets, so I figured if someone was pranking me, they're going to great lengths to make the joke work. At that time, I knew it was real."

Strange thing too: He wanted them as wide receivers. OK, not really.

Mangini Is Pulling Out The Mats [Just Call Me Juice]