ow Page 901 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

No, Brad Nessler, West Virginia Is Not A City In Virginia
This just in from the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring Michigan vs. Virginia Tech: In tomorrow night's Orange Bowl, the Clemson Tigers will "take on another team from the state of Virginia: West Virginia." (H/T Jeff Q. and Cyrus the Virus)...

Here's Mike Ditka Calling Dan Orlovsky A Polack, Then Apologizing
Mike Ditka comes from a Ukrainian family and grew up amongst people of various Slavic extraction in western Pennsylvania. He inevitably had friends who were Slovakian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, or Czech. He also probably knew some Polish people, whom he and everyone else he grew up around cal...
![Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18j4opz3qbkx6jpg.jpg)
Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]
NBA X's & O's maven Sebastian Pruiti (formerly of NBA Playbook, now at Grantland) watches a lot of basketball on television—as much, I'd wager, as anyone in the country. An experienced observer of local NBA broadcasts, then, he's within his rights to offer the tame criticism of the Mavericks broadc...

Michele Bachmann Is Just Like Tim Tebow, Says Most Inevitable Campaign Ad Ever
One won the Iowa straw poll five months ago and is now trending in single digits on the day of that state's caucus vote. The other made the playoffs despite a three-game losing streak to end the regular season with a .500 record. See? They're exactly the same! [The Hill]...

Mike Milbury Referred To The New York Rangers As "The Blue Shits" Yesterday
It wasn't deliberate, and he quickly corrected himself, but we can all still have a laugh at it. [NBC; h/t to Roe H.]...

ESPN Thinks Helmet-To-Helmet Hits Are Pretty Great
The Worldwide Leader did away with its "Jacked Up!" segment some time ago, but it's still not above marveling at and even promoting footage of a good old-fashioned helmet-to-helmet blast, as this tweet to its 2.4 million followers clearly indicates....

Dwight Howard To The Nets Is Almost A Done Deal, Reports... Jermaine Dupri
You can have your Wojnarowski, your Broussard, your Aldridge. We've got early-2000s hip hop producer and frequent Mariah Carey and Usher collaborator Jermaine Dupri, thank you....

Yep, It Looks Like A Wisconsin Assistant Coach Ate A Booger At The Rose Bowl
We think this is Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Rudolph pulling a Spaulding in the first quarter of the Rose Bowl; here it is in full forensic-quality slow-mo and zoomed-in just for your enjoyment. [ESPN]...

The Capital One Bowl Brought Us The Rare Defensive PAT
You won't see this play in the No Fun League (defenses cannot score on a PAT in the NFL) but college football still permits the glory that is sprinting the length of the field with a measly two points as reward, an opportunity of which South Carolina's Stephon Gilmore made the most....

License Plate Guy Hates The Cowboys And Has The Banal Novelty License Plates To Prove It
Your morning roundup for Jan. 2, the day we learned you're not that tall. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Here's Another One Of Those 105-Yard Kickoff Returns We Were Told We'd Never See Again
When the NFL moved kickoffs up prior to the start of the season, long returns were nearly declared extinct. While the number of return TDs is down significantly, there have been a good number of surprises, like this one from San Diego's Richard Goodman. [CBS]...

Your Dumbass NFL Play Of The Season Stars Packers KR Pat Lee
The Packers' usual kick returner is Randall Cobb, but he's out with an injury. In stepped Pat Lee, who has completely bungled his kick returns so far today—the most egregious example of which came after Detroit's opening touchdown in which Lee drops the ball out of the end zone, then downs it back...

Drew Bledsoe Is A Big Fan Of <i>Caddyshack</i>, Filming Televised Nose Pickers With His Camera Phone
Although we have better resources for providing high quality video from sporting even broadcasts, we figured we'd share this with you. That's because the Zapruder to this head shot was (apparently) Drew Bledsoe....

Illinois Ball Boy Later Flagged For Unsportsmanlike Conduct While Attempting To Pick His Friend's Nose At Fight Hunger Bowl
Your morning roundup for Jan. 1, the day we whimsically shook our heads and thought "they've done it again." Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Let's Celebrate The New Year With Auburn's Statue Of Liberty Play
There's never a bad time for a trick play, and Auburn tied up the Chick-Fil-A Bowl in Atlanta with a picture-perfect Statue of Liberty. Happy New Year in the United States of Football. [ESPN]...

The Only Entertaining Thing To Come Out Of The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Was Also The Most Heartwarming
As part of the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, players from Illinois spent two and half hours feeding the homeless at St. Anthony's Dining Room in San Francisco. They also spent at least two minutes and eleven seconds breaking it down with this wheelchair-bound gentleman. Look at that guy go!...

Teenage Girl With Brain Tumor Gets Concussed By Drunk San Jose Sharks Fan
Maggie Herger is a 16 year old Vancouver Canucks fan with a brain tumor who recently had a run in with the fine sports fans of California. Maggie was assaulted and battered by a drunken female San Jose fan while at a Canucks-Sharks game at the "Shark Tank" with her sister Maya, who gave her the tic...

Virginia Tech Kicker To Miss Sugar Bowl After Violating Curfew In New Orleans
What is it with these Virginia Tech kickers? Just days after being elevated to starting kicker when Va. Tech's previous starter, Cody Journell, was arrested for allegedly participating in a "home invasion," Tyler Weiss just booked himself a one way ticket back to Roanoke for violating curfew....

ESPN's SkyCam Becomes Self-Aware, Starts Attacking Iowa Players
It was bound to happen eventually: the wire-suspended ESPN SkyCam came crashing to the ground late in Friday's Insight Bowl in Tempe, nearly decapitating Iowa's Marvin McNutt and leaving the Worldwide Leader's Sean McDonough to apologize with a sheepish "Sorry folks."...

No, <em>ESPN The Magazine</em> Columnist Was Not Comparing The Marlins' New Stadium Deal To The 1989 Massacre Of 14 Women In Montreal
You probably know Chris Jones from Esquire, Grantland, or his busy Twitter feed, but it's his column in ESPN: The Magazine that has ticked off legions of his countrymen. Jones, like the angry mob needlessly chasing him online yesterday, is Canadian....