si Page 754 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

All Four Major Commissioners Whined In A Court Record About New Jersey's Plan To Legalize Sports Betting
The state of New Jersey plans to legalize sports wagering as early as January by defying the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. Governor Chris Christie and other New Jersey lawmakers support this on the theory that it would cut into the profits of the many illegal and offshore s...

Lionel Messi Scores Record-Breaking 86th Goal Less Than A Week After Going Down With Injury
Call him "MESSI-ah." The world's greatest association footballer capped off his best year ever by breaking Gerd Müller's 40-year-old record of 85 goals in a calendar year midway through the first half of a La Liga match at Betis after tying the record minutes earlier.. That he did so mere days aft...

The Last Tackle Of Jovan Belcher's Life Left Him Shaken Up
Last week, a friend of Jovan Belcher's told us that "if you review the footage of the Cincinnati game [Belcher] took a few hits to the head directly" and described how, after that game, Belcher "was dazed and was suffering from short term memory loss."...

Meet AJ Matthews, The 7-1 NBA Talent Playing At Farmingdale State Because No One Told Him About The SATs
Yahoo recently published a profile of AJ Matthews, Farmingdale State center and favorite for Division III player of the year. It shouldn't be surprising that he's kicking ass at Farmingdale State—he's 7-1 and athletic, a late-comer to basketball but also the recipient of a good deal of coaching sinc...

The Jovial, Bleak, Affectionate Bully That Was Rick Majerus Simply Cannot Be Comprehended In Full
Today, a week after his death, many of Rick Majerus' friends, former players and colleagues gathered to wish the basketball coach farewell from this mortal coil. Del Harris and George Karl were reportedly there, as was Glenn Rivers, whose nickname Majerus pinned on him years ago when he saw the youn...

"Dese Coaches Run A Train On Arkansas State": A Player Ponders Gus Malzahn's Departure
We're almost reluctant to out a certain Don Jones II as a master of Twitter, because we all know that s̶t̶u̶d̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ athletes who exhibit true voice on social media scare the thin liquid shits out of university athletics officials. But what the hell....

"Minimum of 5 Years Of Successful Collegiate Football Coaching Experience Preferred": You Can Apply To Coach Wisconsin Football
You only have 11 days to ready your application, and you have to possess a bachelor's degree, but the rest of it is all optional: If you sent in a good enough application—and really, that's just about confidence—you could probably wow them enough that they would waive their "preference" for a coach...

A Story About College Sports Conferences, Told Through One School's Many Entangling Alliances
You want to know what conference realignment looks like? We've told you about how it works at bigger schools, but how does it work at smaller schools, like, say, the University of Denver? Most of its teams are headed to the Summit League. Where are they coming from? Mike Pesca explains, in this week...

A Skeptic's Guide To The 2012 Heisman Trophy
Remember the lullaby afternoons of September, when we all figured we'd see a Heisman winner who merited the award? Maybe a Geno Smith, slinging the ball all over the yard, or even a Matt Barkley, who despite being named after Big Bird's dog had the right pedigree and weaponry (Robert Woods and Marqu...

The <em>B.S. Report</em> Report: I Love This Parlay So Much I Could Die
Julia Alvidrez, Gawker Media's operations manager, is an unabashed fan of Bill Simmons and everything Grantland. She is also an occasional reader of Deadspin. Every week, she will recap Simmons's podcast, The B.S. Report, for us....

Cockblocked By Creationism!
Welcome to Great Moments in Drunken Hookup Failure, where we showcase three heartwarming true stories of drunken love gone horribly awry. Off we go....

Why The NCAA Doesn't Care About Concussions
In the third quarter of a 34-17 loss to Cincinnati this past Saturday, UConn quarterback Chandler Whitmer took what he would later describe as a "bullet to the head." Chandler had suffered a head injury the previous week against Louisville. "We're just trying to be as careful as we can," Huskies coa...
![Five-Star Recruit Decommits From Auburn University, Even Though He Got An Auburn Tattoo This Summer [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/187mrc4hm3yhxpng.png)
Five-Star Recruit Decommits From Auburn University, Even Though He Got An Auburn Tattoo This Summer [UPDATE]
Linebacker Reuben Foster is the top high school prospect at his position, and one of the best in the country. This summer, he had already rescinded his verbal commitment to the University of Alabama and committed to Auburn University thanks to some recruiting by assistant coach Trooper Taylor—the e...

Why The NFL's "Concussion Crisis" Isn't Really A Concussion Crisis
Originally published in Bloomberg View....

The Last 12 Hours Of Jovan Belcher's Life: What We Know So Far
We're still getting new and revised details about the timeline of events leading up to Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide. Below is everything we know so far, based on a number of media reports, police statements, and other sources. ...

Which NFL Pundits Made The Least Terrible Predictions In Week 13? Grading ESPN, Yahoo, And CBS
Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com....

Five Players Ejected From Marshall-WVU Game As Kick To The Balls Turns "Friends Of Coal" Game Unfriendly
The intrastate rivalry between West Virginia and Marshall has been nasty of late both on the football field and basketball court, and the annual Capital Classic game (featuring a massive, full-court logo from "Friends of Coal") turned ugly again tonight in Charleston as the Herd's Robert Goff deli...
![Lionel Messi Suffers Knee Injury In Meaningless Match; Run At Breaking Goals-In-A-Year Record May Be Over [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/187g6j1n9dke9jpg.jpg)
Lionel Messi Suffers Knee Injury In Meaningless Match; Run At Breaking Goals-In-A-Year Record May Be Over [UPDATE]
Lionel Messi came into today hoping to break Gerd Müller's 1972 record of 85 goals in one calendar year. Now, after suffering what appears to be a knee injury during this evening's Barcelona-Benfica match, fans are wondering if Messi will even take the pitch again in 2012. ...

Nobody Wants To Watch The Eagles: Last Week’s TV Ratings, In Context
A weekly feature wherein we contextualize TV ratings for national sports broadcasts. Data via Nielsen, Sports Business Journal's John Ourand and @TVSportsRTGS. Viewership numbers represent approximate number of persons tuned to a given program; ratings share refers to the percentage of all household...

Ask The Internet's Biggest Television Writer About Everything That's Happened On TV In The Last 15 Years
It used to be that TV was so mediocre that it wasn't really worth discussing. Then TV got a lot better, but we didn't have much of a place to discuss it. Then Alan Sepinwall, who was the TV critic for the Star-Ledger hung out his shingle online, recapping episodes and spurring plenty of discussions....