v Page 2874 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Helmet-To-Helmet Tackles Are Especially Painful If You're Not Wearing A Helmet
Forgive Houston's Bryan Braman for trying to make an impact on the game and impress the Texans coaching staff, but the undrafted rookie from West Texas A & M ended up making an impression on his skull via impact with the helmet of Titans punt returner Marc Mariani. Top that, James Harrison. [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...

LeBron James Gets Engaged, Preemptively Breaks His New Year's Resolution To Stop Being So Tacky
LeBron proposed to his long-time girlfriend, Savannah Brinson, at a joint New Year's Eve and King James birthday celebration last night. And she said yes! How romantic....

Sunderland's Ji Dong-Won Delivers Last-Second Winning Goal, Then Makes Out With A Fan
Sunderland continued a giant-killing weekend in the English Premier League by stunning Manchester City in the final seconds of stoppage time with a goal by Ji Dong-Won....

No, Kathy Griffin, Your Attempts To Seduce Anderson Cooper Will Not Be Enhanced By Getting Naked
Somewhere, there is a person for whom seeing Kathy Griffin in her underwear is appealing. This video is for you. For everybody else, at least admire the tenacity with which she goes after the visibly-distressed Anderson Cooper. (She got even more aggressive later.) Happy New Year, and here's hopin...

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]...

This Guy Died This Year: The Man Who Hated Us
2011 was a bad year for assholes. It was the year we were finally rid of this demented and twisted man who hated everything at the very core of what it means to be an American, a human. This man who spit hateful words toward those unlike himself, whether it be based on race, religion or sexual ori...

Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald Is Wondering Why God Has Forsaken Him
The Meineke Care Care Bowl Of Texas became the scene of a spiritual crisis for Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, as he sought divine explanations for a momentum-killing tripping penalty. [ESPN]...

This Guy Died This Year: Nate Dogg, The King Of G-Funk
Nathaniel "Nate Dogg" Hale always sounded smooth. His voice gave him a niche within G-funk's very stylized confines for the most quintessential G-funk crooner of them all—not that there were many, because who else did we really need?—and he held that title for as long as it even existed....

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....

10 Stories Of 2011 That Didn't Suck: A SportsFeat List
Max Linsky is the editor of Longform and SportsFeat....

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."...

Brock Lesnar Just Retired From UFC. Here's Why (And The Official Announcement)
Here's the shot from Alistair Overeem that knocked Brock Lesnar out of UFC (along with Lesnar's announcement that made it official). The announcement seems to have come a fight too late, given how miserably Lesnar managed to defend himself against Overeem's strikes. Bon voyage, real-then-fake-then-r...

Johny Hendricks Knocked Out Jon Fitch In Ten Seconds
Actually, it was more like one second, as it was a single punch from Johny Hendricks that took Jon Fitch out of their welterweight match at UFC 141....

There's A Late Entry To The List Of 2011's Most Gruesome Injuries
Rutgers kept their improbable bowl win streak alive (it's up to five now) with a 27-13 victory over Iowa State, but it came with a cost: the right leg of linebacker Khaseem Greene, Big East co-Defensive Player of the Year. Greene announced this week he plans to return for his senior season next ye...

This Guy Died This Year: Peter Falk
Depending on your age, Peter Falk is that guy from Columbo, that guy from Princess Bride, or that guy from that show your dad used to watch (which was Columbo). But all three of these suppose Falk to be an actor. In reality, acting was the career he landed in after failing as an academic and rese...

This Guy Died This Year: Clarence Clemons, Big Sideman
When Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died this year at 69 after a stroke, a lot of the remembrances, including Hickey's in this very webspace, cued up his solo in "Jungleland." "Jungleland" is a great song, one of Bruce's best, filled with lyrical drama and e...

BYU Won The Military Armed Forces Bowl By Bearing False Witness
Brigham Young University, the school that suspends you for daring to have sex, holds no such stringency to the words of the Lord when it comes to running football plays. This one earned the Cougars the Military Armed Forces Bowl trophy and, sure, it's a stretch to call a fake spike "lying," but it...

The Highlights (And Assorted Lowlights) Of 2011, In Under Three Minutes
A collection of highlights and occasional lowlights from 2011, a year of triple plays, juggling catches, buzzer beaters, record-setting performances, Abby Wambach, "We will see you tomorrow night," fathers dropping daughters to catch foul balls, and old men punching each other silly. Enjoy...

This Guy Died This Year: George Shearing, Music's Original Hipster Taste
Jack Kerouac was into George Shearing before it was cool to be into George Shearing (or into Jack Kerouac, for that matter). Kerouac wrote a great deal about the near-orgasmic experience of listening to jazz, and one of his more notable passages on the subject appears in On the Road. It's drawn fr...