california Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

California Chrome Wins Kentucky Derby
Victor Espinoza rode California Chrome to victory, winning the 140th running of the Kentucky Derby. Steve Coburn, one of the owners also celebrated his 61st birthday today, so, he's having a pretty good day....

Meet April Atkins, Once The World's Strongest 7th-Grader
You might think that a huge amount of information about a 12-year-old girl once celebrated as the "world's strongest seventh-grader" would surely exist online. That's the sort of thing ARPANET was built for, wasn't it? That, and allowing mainframe computers all over the world to talk to one another....

Swimsuit Issue: The Butterfinger Edition
The 50th anniversary edition of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue hit newsstands this week, which (inevitably, perhaps) evokes memories of a Golden Age when a bikini-clad blonde eating a Butterfinger was the veritable emblem of hotness....

The NCAA Is Not Going To Tolerate Excess Education
Originally published at Bloomberg View....

California Golf Coach Charged With 65 Counts Of Child Molestation
Andrew Nisbet, a junior golf coach from Livermore, Cal., was arrested Saturday while working and charged with 65 felony counts related to alleged molestation of his students....

California High School Under Attack For Its "Arab" Mascot
Many high schools have generic mascots like the Wildcats or Bulldogs, but how many can say they're the "Arabs?" Coachella Valley High School can....

How The NFL Lied Its Way Out Of Millions In Workers' Comp
Yesterday California's governor signed into law a bill that blocks athletes from filing future workers' compensation claims for games they play in the state, unless they played for a California team. It was shut down thanks to intense lobbying from the NFL and other pro sports leagues that hinged on...

Dream A Little Dream With Joan Didion
Found online: Joan Didion’s famous 1966 piece for the Saturday Evening Post, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.”...

Has Any Coach Ever Done Less With More Than Lane Kiffin?
Watch enough football for long enough, and eventually you'll see everything. I believe this: In this calendar year alone we've seen a one-point safety, a Heisman finalist cop to having an imaginary girlfriend, and a 300-pound left tackle score on a hook-and-lateral, among other improbable feats. And...

The Few, the Proud, the Totally Chill: In Praise of Old-School Beach Bums
In February 1950, LIFE published a feature on what the magazine called "the gold-bricking existence" of ski bums at Sun Valley, Idaho. Eight months later, the magazine published a follow-up under the wonderful title, "LIFE Revisits the Ski Bums (and Finds They Are Now Beach Bums)."...

Pitcher Hits Batter In Head; Batter Fires Bat Back At Pitcher
Not a great camera angle, we know. But it's the best look we're going to get at what triggered a brawl Saturday night during a Far West League game between the Humboldt Crabs and the California Warriors. Take a close look at how the batter reacts to getting plunked by that pitch. It's safe to say he...

Holy Shit, Look At Jay Mariotti's Shoes
This picture comes to us from a reader who spotted Jay with a lady friend outside of the Club Monaco clothing store in Santa Monica, Calif., yesterday. Our tipster tells us that that Jay was "slumped on a bench" wearing a "sad/pouty look on his face" before his companion emerged and led him inside t...

Good News, Thunder Fans Have A New Fight Song To Sing While Shirtless
Nice song, Mathias in Southern California. Nice pecs, too. Keep doing you. ...

Introducing Sonny ****, The Cal Bears' New Football Coach
A little more than two weeks after firing Jeff Tedford, the Cal Bears have their man: They've hired Louisiana Tech coach Sonny ****. ****'s Bulldogs had the nation's top-ranked offense this season; they averaged 51.5 points and 577.92 yards per game. ****'s Tech team finished with a 9-3 record but w...

College ShameDay: Who Embarrassed Themselves In 2012? (Besides USC, Iowa, And The Tom Selleck Impersonator At Boston College)?
Our weekly college football shame index. ...

College ShameDay: Who Embarrassed Themselves On Saturday (Besides Poor Bob Stoops)?
Our weekly college football shame index. ...

College ShameDay: Who Embarrassed Themselves On Saturday (Besides West Virginia And Steve Spurrier)?
Our weekly college football shame index. ...

Dallas Braden, Anti-Crime Crusader, Told Police "I'm A Multi-Millionaire And I Pitch For The Oakland A's. I Pay Your Fucking Salary."
A's pitcher Dallas Braden caused a scene at a public meeting last week, brandishing a baseball bat and yelling about the high crime and lax police response in his hometown of Stockton, Calif. He said his grandmother had been robbed, he had been assaulted in his car, and enough was enough—he's moving...

Cal's Brendan Bigelow Threw His Hat Into The Ring For Play Of The Day With This 81-Yard Touchdown Run
Ohio State has mostly dominated today's ABC game in Columbus against the Cal Golden Bears, but Brendan Bigelow helped narrow the lead to 20-14 with this exceptional run that involved several spins, a juke, and a few stumbles. We're sure that's just how Jeff Tedford drew it up. [ABC]...

Student-Athletes To Be Slightly Less Exploited, At Least In California
We learned, from Taylor Branch's history, that the term "student-athlete" only arose as a (successful) attempt by the NCAA to avoid having to pay workman's comp to injured players. A Colorado football player, killed by a head injury in the '50s, wasn't entitled to a thing from the NCAA—no health car...