as Page 1789 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The NFL Appears Totally Ready For An Openly Gay Player, So Long As You Overlook Its Teams And Players
One of the most unintentionally hilarious sentences currently in print can be found on this SB Nation post by Robert Wheel, a.k.a. Bobby Big Wheel, called "What the NFL can do to support gay players." Beneath, a comma-spliced subhed reads: "The NFL is ready for a gay player, the problem is the rest ...

World Number One Rory McIlroy Walked Off The Course Because He Was Having A Mental Breakdown His Teeth Hurt
Yesterday, reigning PGA champ Rory McIlroy walked off the course at the Honda Classic in Florida after a day of subpar golf, eight holes into a second round for which he was already seven strokes over par. As reporters trailed him on his way out, he said he was in a "bad place mentally," which doesn...

North Korea Invented Its Own, Totally Different Way Of Scoring Basketball Games
Dennis Rodman's bizarre visit to North Korea has led to many dissections of North Korea's strange relationship with basketball—or rather, the Kim family's strange relationship with basketball—and one happy consequence is the opportunity to remember that, despite the Kim family's love for the NBA, th...

Here's A Photo Of UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland, In A Tracksuit, Playing Beer Pong With Students Last Night
From the game day campout live-blog at the Daily Bruin (and via Twitter), here's a picture of notoriously sorta grumpy UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, looking extremely relaxed last night in advance of today's game against #11 ranked Arizona at Pauley Pavilion (9 p.m. EST, ESPN)....

Alex Rodriguez Only Gave $5,090 Of The $403,862 He Raised For Charity To Charity
The Boston Globe dug through the world of shady athlete charities this week, and while many of their findings were disappointing (if not surprising), we'd be remiss if we didn't highlight one charge in particular. It's been a while since anyone thought Alex Rodriguez was a stand-up guy, but this see...

Four Things You Can Learn About The NBA By Skimming Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Research Papers
The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is under way in Boston and, though we sent no intrepid reporters to Dorkapalooza this year, the conference happily made its research paper finalists publicly available on its website. Let's blearily page through and see if we can't learn a few things. (We're foc...

Steve Buckhantz Couldn't Tell Whether That Game-Ending Shot Went In Because The Owners Moved Him To The Cheap Seats
We all had a good laugh when Washington Wizards play-by-play man Steve Buckhantz dusted off his patented "dagger!" call despite Trevor Ariza's (very nice looking) airball to end the Wizards' game on Wednesday night. The misplaced enthusiasm was funny but, as we noted at the time, you couldn't really...

The U.S. State Department Actually Clarified That Dennis Rodman "Has Never Been A Player In Our Diplomacy"
In case you were wondering:...

Reports: Joe Flacco—That Joe Flacco—Will Soon Be The Highest Paid Player In NFL History
Yep, Joe Flacco. The big-armed oaf. The doofy bridegroom. The guy whose dad said he was "dull" four times in two sentences five days before the Super Bowl. That guy. No, not the plumber who stripped the washers off your sink and left his wrench on your kitchen table—I mean the guy who backed up Tyle...

How To Cook Bacon, Eggs, And Toast: A Guide For Infomercial Skeptics
So I had the occasion, brain-fried and worked-over and at best quasi-sentient by the end of some long recent day, to plop my faltering attention on some cable channel well outside the familiar rotation and there, eventually, to be captivated—horrified, really, the gape-jawed half-smiling horror of e...

Start Your Weekend With An Inspirational Quote From Bob Knight
Bob Knight has a new book out next week. It's called The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results, because Bob Knight is still playing his (lucrative) role as college basketball's senile great-uncle. He sat down with Andrew Goldman for the New York Times M...

17 Sports Moments That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity
It's been a rough week in the sports world for those of us who put faith in our fellow man and woman. From NASCAR drivers' alleged bigotry, to NFL execs wanting to know if Manti Te'o is gay, to a youth hockey coach being sentenced for tripping a little kid, it's tough to look at the sports world ...

Entire School District Locked Down Because Someone Misheard A Fresh Prince Lyric
Life got flip-turned upside down this morning in a suburban Pittsburgh school district. Everyone was chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool—at least until a doctor's office employee called a 19-year-old high school student to confirm an appointment. When the employee heard the student's outgoing v...

The Known Universe Of TV's Funny People, Mapped
Welcome to Dataspin, a weekly data visualization of whatever the fuck....

Actually, Duke Had No Problems Getting Off The Court In Virginia Last Night
Virginia fans stormed the court in Charlottesville last night, after the unranked Cavaliers defeated No. 3 Duke, 73-68, and Mike Krzyzewski was a bit rankled by the lack of protection for his team. He reportedly "hollered an F-bomb at a fan" and later suggested that he and his team hadn't been pro...

Patriots Punter Zoltan Mesko In A Speedo With Two Chihuahuas? Patriots Punter Zoltan Mesko In A Speedo With Two Chihuahuas.
Zoltan Mesko is a punter for the New England Patriots. He got pretty bored on Wednesday....

Zach Galifianakis Is Nikola Pekovic's Ventriloquist Dummy
If the two people in this photo weren't famous, it would be quite the optical illusion. Is the guy on the left some kind of bearded mini-person, or is the guy on the right a gigantic mutant? I can't tell!...

Coach K Hates Fun And Games
A wonderful thing happened in Charlottesville, Va., last night: the Virginia Cavaliers defeated No. 3 Duke, 73-68. Duke losses are always something we, united in our reasonable hatred of the Blue Devils, can collectively appreciate; that this one came against an unranked bubble team playing on it...

We Still Don't Know What Racially Insensitive Thing That NASCAR Guy Said Because Everything About This Is Dumb
A quick refresher: NASCAR driver Jeremy Clements said something that was deemed racially insensitive in the presence of a NASCAR official and an MTV blogger following the Daytona 500, which was dumb, though we don't know how dumb because NASCAR, which suspended Clements indefinitely, won't tell us w...

"Change This Face. Be Happy. Enjoy!" Says Ricky Rubio To A Bummed Out Alexey Shved
Man, why can't we live in a world where Ricky Rubio magically appears whenever we're having a bad day and tells us to turn our frowns upside down? Spilled coffee on your new shirt? Poof! There's Ricky reminding you that sea otters hold hands when they sleep next to each other so they don't float a...