PGA Tour Remembers Former U.S. President

With the passing of former U.S. President Gerald Ford on Tuesday at the age of 93, you can expect to see many tributes commemorating his personal and political life. One of those tributes comes from the PGA Tour, which is honoring Ford as a passionate golfing enthusiast who may have contributed more to the sport than he did to American politics.

Even though Ford played college football at the University of Michigan, he turned down two offers from NFL teams so he could play golf instead. He regularly attended the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs, Calif., where he lived, and he became good friends with Hope and Arnold Palmer. He was the honorary chairman of the inaugural Presidents Cup in 1994, hosted his own celebrity pro-am tournament for 25 years, and participated in many tournaments that generated awareness and fundraising dollars for the PGA’s charities. “For all these contributions and for his personal qualities of integrity and honor, President Ford was a tremendous ambassador of golf. We’re indebted to him and we will miss him,” says PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.

Chess Player Caught Cheating

Chess is not an easy game in which to cheat, so experts say. One Indian player was banned from playing chess for 10 years after he was caught trying to cheat, according to Reuters. At a recent tournament, chess officials discovered that the player, Umakant Sharma, had stitched his mobile phone's wireless bluetooth device inside a cloth cap that he always wore pulled over his ears. He would communicate to his accomplices outside the room, who then used a computer to determine what his next move should be. Officials suspected that Sharma had been cheating after he had quickly racked up rating points and qualified for a national championship — all within an 18-month period.

ESPN Adds Arena Football to Lineup

The ESPN sports broadcasting empire continues to grow. The network has acquired national TV rights to air Arena Football games for the next five seasons beginning in 2007, as well as a minority stake in the 19-team indoor league. ESPN will air 26 games in all — 17 regular-season and nine postseason, and will add a regular Monday night telecast. The network also will have extensive multimedia rights for everything from Internet to radio to publishing to international distribution.

NBC covered the AFL games over the past four seasons, but decided not to renew when the contract expired after the 2006 season.

Bears Ring in New Year in Prime Time

There's nothing that says "Happy New Year" like a good old-fashioned Bears-Packers game. The NFL and NBC announced that next week’s New Year’s Eve showdown between the Bears and Packers has been moved to Sunday night beginning at 7:15 p.m. at Soldier Field. Yes, it may be Brett Favre’s final game, which is probably why this game was chosen as the Sunday night game of the week. Bears fans are split on whether this move is a good thing, since it may interfere with their New Year’s Eve plans. Some love it as a way to spend New Year’s Eve. Others had made plans and are forced to make a choice about which event to attend. The best comment I saw appeared on the Chicago Tribune Web site where one fan wrote, “Look at it this way. It’s one way to get Tank Johnson out of the bars on New Year’s Eve.”

Traffic in downtown Chicago will be a mess as many party goers will be heading downtown. But as a Bears fan, I love the idea. I’ll be at a friend’s apartment ringing in the New Year, but as she is not a sports fan, I know I will have to beg her to have the TV on. Go Bears!

Cohen Withdraws from Nationals

Sasha Cohen officially withdrew from the 2007 U.S. National Championships and insists that she will be ready for the 2009 competitive season (which I guess means she is also skipping the 2008 season). I know a lot of skating fans are disappointed, but really this is no surprise. Cohen has said all along that she is skipping the 2007 and 2008 seasons to take a break from skating – that’s her official word. But what she isn’t saying is that she wants to focus on her budding acting career.

Cohen is deluding herself if she thinks she will be “ready” for the 2009 competitive season. When young rising stars like Kimmie Meissner, Mao Asada and other Japanese skaters are routinely performing triple axels, three-jump combinations, and triple-triple combinations, Cohen has failed to show me that she is capable of performing a single triple jump without falling on her a** during her free skate program. Does she honestly believe that she will be able to compete with the likes of Meissner and Asada? Don’t get me wrong. Cohen is a beautiful skater, and she obviously loves to perform and entertain. But when it comes to competing, she lacks the mental toughness and desire to withstand the pressures of rising to the highest level on the world stage. She can have all the talent in the world, but without mental and emotional toughness, I doubt she will ever be a world champion.

In other skating news, Cleveland may have lost out to Los Angeles for the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships, but the city got a door prize instead – the 2009 U.S. National Championships, according to the U.S. Figure Skating Association.

Sox’ Call to Arms

When the White Sox traded pitcher Freddie Garcia several weeks ago, many fans in Chicago were upset that the Sox had traded away one of their best starters for two no-name, unproven players. This trade was not unexpected, and certainly Garcia was expendable. He was projected to make more than $10 million next season and would become a free agent. Garcia himself said last summer that he expected to be traded in the off season. Trading Garcia was the only way the Sox could make room for their top prospect Brendon McCarthy.

But that was several weeks ago. Now fans really have a reason to be upset with the trade of Brendon McCarthy to the Texas Rangers for three pitchers, including John Danks, a first round draft pick in 2003 that the Sox have been drooling over. At first, I was as upset as everyone else. Why would you trade away the one player that you claimed to be “untouchable” after you just made room for him in your starting rotation?

That answer is clear when you look at all the moves collectively that Kenny Williams has made this off-season. In the heat of anger and confusion, fans forget that the one problem area the White Sox had in 2006 was the bullpen. Williams is making these trades to add more pitching depth to the bullpen as well as their farm system. He understands the importance of keeping the pipeline filled with young pitching talent. And whoever does not make the team after spring training can be traded for an outfielder, which the Sox also desperately need. People also forget that the Sox still have a strong starting rotation with Mark Buehrle, Jose Contreras, Jon Garland and Javier Vasquez, which means they only have one starting position to fill. So the Sox may sacrifice some quality in the starting rotation, but their bullpen will likely be stronger in 2007 than it was in 2006.

As with any trade, it will be a matter of time before we find out who really benefits the most from this deal – the Sox or the Texas Rangers. The Rangers have more immediate pitching holes to fill to remain competitive with the Oakland A’s and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and McCarthy can step in right away and be an impact player. The White Sox appear to be building for the long term by stockpiling pitching. I had similar misgivings when the Sox traded Carlos Lee to the Milwaukee Brewers for Scott Podsednik before the 2005 season, and that deal worked out fine for both teams, at least in 2005. I may not always agree with the workings of Kenny Williams, but I have to trust that knows what he is doing in this case. Let’s hope things do work out well for the White Sox, so they can remain competitive with their division rivals Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.

Big Ten Network Finds a Home in Chicago

When officials from the Big Ten Conference announced plans for a new cable network last summer that would broadcast Big Ten football, basketball and other collegiate sports, it was not known where the network headquarters would be located. Last week, the network named Chicago as its new home, with the help of $3.2 million in incentives from the state of Illinois, beating out Indianapolis. The Big Ten will invest nearly $18 million in the facility, which will create 130 new jobs over the next three years.

Former Bear QB to Coach at Stanford

Remember Jim Harbaugh? He was a first-round draft pick by the Chicago Bears in 1987 and had a fairly successful 15-year career in the NFL, although in Chicago he had mixed results. Since leaving the NFL, coaching has become his new career. His biggest career challenge may lie ahead as the new football coach at Stanford, a team that has struggled over the last few seasons. The Cardinals finished 1-11 this year and has won only 16 games over the last five seasons.

Harbaugh has spent the last three seasons at the University of San Diego, leading the Division 1-AA team to a 29-6 record over that period.

29-6. That’s impressive. Too bad he didn’t have that kind of record as the Bears’ QB. Here’s wishing him luck in the Pac-10, where he will need a lot of luck to rebuild a very bad team to compete with divisional rivals USC and California.

Lions’ Coach Suspended

When the Bears face the Detroit Lions this Sunday, the Lions’ defensive line coach Joe Cullen will not be standing on sidelines. Instead, he will be serving a one-game suspension handed out by the NFL for “conduct detrimental to the league,” according to a report by the Associated Press.

Cullen was pulled over on Aug. 24th on suspicion of indecent and obscene conduct after police said he was driving nude. Team sources said alcohol was also involved (it usually is, isn’t it?). In addition to serving the one-game suspension, Cullen was also fined $20,000.

Running on an Empty Tank

The problems of Bears’ defensive tackle Tank Johnson have been widely publicized, so I wont' go into any of the morbid details here. Today the Bears announced that Johnson will be suspended for one game for disregarding owner Jerry Angelo’s request to stay clean and stay out of trouble in the aftermath of his arrest over weapons charges late last week. Instead, Johnson went out to a somewhat disreputable bar in Chicago where his friend and bodyguard William Posey was shot and killed.

Johnson was inactive for Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay and was waiting to hear if he will remain a Bear. In the meantime, everyone in Chi-town is weighing in on the debate about whether Tank should stay or go.

It’s interesting that fans and sports writers have opposite opinions about the matter. In their Sunday night post-game telecast, Fox sports anchor Corey McPherrin and his sidekick Tom Waddle both felt the Bears should cut Johnson immediately to set an example for the rest of the team. In a fan poll on Comcast Sports Net on Monday, however, only 12 percent said the Bears should cut him while nearly 72 percent said the Bears should play him.

The Bears felt they had to respond to Johnson’s behaviour Saturday night. Hence the one-game suspension. But this one will hurt Johnson more than remaining inactive, as it comes with a fine. With only two games left in the regular season, I would not be surprised if Johnson is inactive for next week’s game against the Packers. Then the team will decide his fate for the playoffs.

Wie Aids Paralyzed Football Player

Travis Hearn, a local football player from Rock Island High School in Rock Island, Ill., received quite a gift last week when teen golf sensation Michelle Wie donated $25,000 to the Travis Hearn Fund. Hearn, who suffered a spinal cord injury during a varsity football game earlier this season, is recuperating at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Wie, who has participated in two John Deere tournaments in the area, wanted to help the young athlete after she read about his situation in the local Quad Cities newspaper. “The people of the Quad-Cities have rooted for me and supported me like no other,” she told the paper. “I told Travis not to give up.”

In related news, Wie will be attending Stanford in the fall.

‘Y’ One Athlete Lost Her Silver Medal

An Indian woman who finished second in the 800 meters race at the Asian Games recently was stripped of her medal. Why? She failed a gender test.

According to the AP news story, the Olympic Council of Asia disqualified the 25-year-old runner, Santhi Soundarajan, after a post-race gender test revealed more Y chromosomes than were allowed. An Indian athletics official insisted that Soundarajan never had a sex-change operation.

What I want to know is how many Y chromosomes are allowed before an athlete is disqualified? And why did Asian Games officials request that Soundarajan take the gender test? What made them suspicious? Inquiring minds want to know.

Davenport Reaches Break Point

U.S. women's tennis will be losing one of its stars next season. Lindsay Davenport says she will be retiring from the game after she gives birth to her first child, according to a Reuters news report.

There has been speculation for some time that Davenport would follow fellow tennis icon Andre Agassi into retirement. The three-time grand slam winner missed most of the 2006 season because of a back injury, but managed to make the quarter finals at the U.S. Open. "I hate the word 'retirement', but this season was such a struggle physically for me and I can't imagine playing again," she told ESPN.

Davenport began her tennis career in 1993. While she says she doesn't feel any sadness about leaving behind the sport, she is looking forward to her future with her husband and child.

Alive and Kicking

Does the name Katie Hnida ring a bell? She was the place kicker at the University in Colorado in 2000 who brought allegations of harassment against her fellow players and coaches. She also claimed she was raped by one of her teammates. The Colorado football scandal made headlines across the country, including Sports Illustrated. When she left the university after one season, Hnida had a successful college football career at New Mexico – without mishap –
where she became the first woman to score in a Division I football game.

Six years later, Hnida is touring the country to share her story. She is the author of a new book Still Kicking: My Journey as the First Woman to Play Division I College Football. She is hoping that her success at New Mexico will inspire other young women to try to make it in a man’s sport.

Love Match Over for Evert

Long gone are the days when the husband paid the wife in a divorce settlement. These days, it's bcoming more commonplace to see the woman pay the husband, especially if you’re a well-known athlete or actress. For example, tennis great Chris Evert (I still think of her as Chrissie) just divorced recently from her husband of 18 years skier Andy Mills. As part of the settlement, Evert must pay him $7 million. She is also the primary caretaker for their three sons. The couple was married for 18 years.

Santa's Job Isn’t So Ho-Ho-Ho

Tis the season to write about things other than sports. If you think Santa Claus has a cushy job, guess again.

In a survey of 339 members of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas (yes, that’s a real organization), Santas have a few complaints about their jobs, in particular their little customers.

* 90 percent of Santas said children pull their beard to see if it’s real. Nearly half said children try to pull off their eyeglasses.

* One-third said that children had wet on their laps

* More than 60 percent said they were sneezed or coughed upon up to 10 times a day.

* Three-fourths said as many as 10 children each day cry while sitting on their laps.

The Santas also complained that they suffer back strain from lifting children, exposure to contagious illnesses and overheating from wearing heavy Santa suits. “There is more to it than sitting in a chair. Children can really put the wear and tear on you,” says Timothy Connaghan, head of the Santa association who has worked as a Santa for 38 years.

Get real. You play Santa only a few weeks out of each year. If you think this is a tough job, try being a parent.