from youtube

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Tiger Woods to Return Next Wednesday At Accenture Match Play

The wait is finally over. Tiger Woods announced Thursday on his personal website that he will be in the field next week at the Accenture Match Play in Marana, Ariz., a tournament Woods won last year over Stewart Cink.

This will be the first time Woods will compete in a competitive golf event since his heroic win at the U.S. Open last June, a tournament Woods winced his way through as he took down Rocco Mediate. Immediately after the victory, Tiger announced he would be undergoing reconstructive ACL surgery and that he was done for the ‘08 season.

Woods has won the Accenture Match Play event three times (’03, 04 and 08) and simply said on his site, “I’m now ready to play again.”

Speculation has been tossed around to when Woods would be back on tour, and my take was he’d most likely skip the Accenture because the tournament can run five days, and there is an endless amount of holes one could play if the match you were playing in went to extra holes. Not only that, but if Tiger actually came back and played well in the thing, he would be forced to go 36 holes on both Saturday and Sunday.

No matter my thoughts, Tiger is back. The time has finally come and golf fans should rejoice. We get our king back. Not much is better news than that.

Really cool story about the reception that a Texas high school football team and their fans gave to a team of prisoners…check it out:
http://www.nbcdfw.com/sports/football/A_Game_of_Hope_Dallas-Fort_Worth.html

With the BCS game fresh on my mind after Florida’s decisive national championship victory last Thursday along with the excitement of NFL playoff football this weekend, it caused me to wonder what the NFL playoffs would look like if they used a BCS type format and vice versa.

As of this writing, the teams headed to the NFL League Championship Games are the Cards, Eagles, Steelers, and Ravens. If the NFL used the BCS formula, the number one seeds (Tennessee Titans and the NY Giants) would be in the Super Bowl. The Cards, Eagles, and Ravens wouldn’t have a chance since the voters and the computers pre-determined that they are not worthy to compete in the big game.

Look at what we would have missed this weekend.

I wondered what a college football playoff would look like if you mirrored them to the NFL playoffs. I took the 12 BCS teams and matched them with the results of the 12 NFL teams in the playoffs. (Note: Since the NFL seeds by league and in order to create 12 seeds for this scenario, I alternated teams between the two leagues starting with NFC first so that the two #1 seeds were 1 and 2, the #2 seeds were 3 and 4, etc.)

NFL/BCS

1 Giants/Oklahoma
2 Titans/Florida
3 Panthers/Texas
4 Steelers/Alabama
5 Vikings/USC
6 Dolphins/Utah
7 Cardinals/Texas Tech
8 Chargers/Penn State
9 Falcons/Boise State
10 Eagles/Ohio State
11 Colts/TCU
12 Ravens/Cincinnati

If the BCS mirrored what has happened in the NFL so far, Cincinnati, Ohio State, Texas Tech, and Alabama would be the final four teams. The NFL proves that you HAVE TO PLAY TO WIN. Let’s destroy the BCS computers and let the best teams play it out.

A few thoughts about the Gators 24-14 win last night over the Sooners in the BCS game:

• The debate over which is the better conference will continue, I’m sure, but the SEC is definitely ahead when it comes to winning the big games.
• I didn’t give Oklahoma’s defense much of a chance as did a lot of other fans. I was wrong.
• Tim Tebow not NFL QB potential? I don’t buy it. He’s smart, strong, a natural leader. He throws the ball on a line on target with regularity. He may be the Lions QB next year…from first to worst.
• Bradford is good, but what if the Heisman voting took place after all was said and done? Would Tebow be a repeat winner?
• Speaking of Tebow, if he decides not to go pro, what if he stays with the Gators and wins another Heisman and National Championship next year? It could happen.
• Not sure Gators would have come out on top without Harvin.
• Final thought - FOX’s coverage of the big game was AWFUL! How much longer is that going to last? Another year, I think.

James Harrison is an inspiration for all athletes. The AP 2008 Defensive Player of the Year was an undrafted free agent who was cut several times by the Pittsburgh Steelers and once by the Baltimore Ravens. Now he’s a star.

There aren’t too many NFL stars who played at Kent State University. Let’s be honest, Kent State doesn’t churn out a lot of pro football players like the SEC, Big 12, and Big 10 teams. With the exception of Jack Lambert, ironically a Steelers linebacker, the road to the NFL from Kent State is narrow.

“It couldn’t happen to a better guy,” Steelers veteran receiver Hines Ward said. “He’s worked his tail off to get to where he is. You appreciate it more, considering where he came from and how he got here.”

Fellow linebacker James Farrior has seen Harrison develop from a backup to Joey Porter into one of the game’s biggest playmakers.

“His whole attitude about football, I think he works harder than anybody else in this locker room,” Farrior said. “He has a great work ethic. He’s very tuned in to what he has to do to make himself better. That’s all he strives for, to try to be better than anybody else, and you can see his determination when he’s out there on the field. “We’ve got good players on this team, and every team has good players, but he seems to be — this year and last year — making the plays that made the difference in the game.”

Harrison is the fifth Steelers player to win the award, including three Hall of Famers from the original Steel Curtain: Joe Greene (1974), Mel Blount (1975) and Lambert (1976). In 1993, Rod Woodson was AP Defensive Player of the Year, and he’s eligible for the Hall for the first time this year.

“People said I couldn’t do this or couldn’t do that,” Harrison noted. “I was too short, too slow. Basically, I play and prepare myself in the offseason with the thoughts of what people said I couldn’t do.”

And he’s proven he can do just about everything.

(A portion of this article taken from AP article.)

Let’s be honest. There are too many bowl games. When there are too many things to choose from, you often choose nothing. That’s what I’ve done the past couple of weeks. Very few bowl games have been interesting matchups. It’s hard for me to get excited about the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsetta Bowl or the MagicJack St. Petersburg Bowl.

The bowl season used to be the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day - with the culmination of it all being the January 1 games where all of the best teams played toward their final rankings and a national champion was determined usually before midnight. Now, the games go on for about three weeks. I’ve got to wait until January 8 to see the National Championship game. A game between two teams that were hot at the end of the regular season but now, after a month or more off, the rusty teams will come firing on 6 of their 8 cylinders until the second quarter and we may never really see the best of the best.

You know what I’m thinking. Bring on a playoff system! This whole second season of bowl games are awful. Did anyone really race to their TV so that they wouldn’t miss a single play of the PapaJohns.com Bowl? I doubt it.

For me, the college football season is over. These are exhibition games. There is no fire, no excitement, and no interest in the bowl games. Yes, they give us something to do while we are digesting Aunt Myrtle’s homemade pecan pie but that’s about it.

Gotta go…the International Bowl is kicking off in a few minutes. I’ve been looking forward to watching Buffalo and UConn play for weeks!!

Not.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

by Jonathon Ramsey on Dec 16th 2008 at 6:28PM

A columnist over at Slate.com is recommending — and not lightly, he wants you to know — that with the domestic automakers enduring “Detroit’s version of The Troubles,” now would be a good time to “euthanize” NASCAR. He makes a long argument, but the crux of it is simple: if the domestics get a heap of money from the government, should that money really be used to sponsor a specialized race series that arguably doesn’t have the national pull or the return it once did? His supporting arguments are sometimes disingenuous and occasionally slightly off-base, but the question is worth considering. If the public loans money to the automakers, who decides where that money is spent? Yet, if Ford, GM, and Chrysler were to do the same thing to NASCAR that Honda, Suzuki, Audi, and Subaru have been doing, well… that would leave NASCAR as a one-make series featuring, ta-da, Toyota. And wouldn’t that be something to see? Thanks for the tip, Josh!

[Source: Slate]