The Good...The Bad...The Ugly...
The Good
This is an easy choice. By putting together a winning game plan and getting his players to execute it in upsetting #1 Ohio State last night, Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer has the #1 team in the nation and is our unanimous choice for The Good award of the week. Meyer who was Notre Dame's first choice for their coaching job before they settled on Charley Weis, picked Florida over the Irish two years ago and is now #1. "We had 30 days of motivation" Meyer said about his 8 1/2 point underdog Gators. The New York Post is now suggesting that the Giants consider him for coach, replacing Tom Coughlin. So Florida at 13-1 is now #1 while Ohio State finishes at 12-1 and is #2 while Boise State, the #5 team is the only undefeated team at 13-0. There are those that say the current BCS system for awarding championships stinks more than Manhattan did yesterday and it's hard to argue against them...
The Bad
Nick Saban wins this hands down not only for lying about leaving the Miami Dolphins for Alabama but for throwing the personnel staff under the bus on the way out, implying that they didn't bring him that edge or the players he wanted despite making the final decisions on personnel himself. In reality what drove Saban to Alabama was his choice of quarterbacks - Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees (which he also blamed on personnel), having the oldest defense in football and not being able to schedule cream puff teams as he could at the college level. Miami's God-like Don Shula called Saban a "liar". Well that was the mildest thing he said about him. Good riddance Nick Saban...
The Ugly
This is ugly considering the tragic results of, pending toxicology results, what appears to be a non-homicidal life-ending fall down a 120-foot rocky cliff in Southern California for kicker Mario Danelo who had just kicked 2 field goals in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day for the winning USC Trojans. The LAPD was quoted as saying "there's no crime. It was either an accident or a suicide". An outstanding kicker, Danelo, son of former NFL kicker Joe Danelo was just 21...
Today's video link features a live "Shindig!" performance (circa 1965) of the Ronettes singing "Be My Baby" after being introduced by host Jimmy O'Neill. The Ronettes, along with Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, R.E.M. and Van Halen (with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar) were inducted yesterday into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyGO5NRhzvk&mode=related&search=
Timeline Memories...
"Birth of a station": 1922] KQV Pittsburgh was licensed and launched (I was fortunate enough to program this legendary station from 1973 to 1974)...
"Lights, camera, Kleenex": 1894] William Kennedy Laurie Dickson copyrights the 1st motion picture. The movie was filmed in February 1893 at the Edison Studio in West Orange (NJ) and features 47 images of a man sneezing (no Oscar nominations were handed out, strangely enough)...
"I Only Have Eyes For You": 1929] The Seeing Eye is incorporated in Nashville (TN). The company's purpose was to train dogs to guide the blind...
"SOLD to the highest bidder": 1903] New York businessmen Frank Farrell and Bill Devery buy the Baltimore Orioles franchise of the American League for $18,000 and move it to upper Manhattan where the team finishes 4th as The Highlanders. In 1913 the team is renamed The Yankees...
Premiered on this date: 1937] LOOK Magazine. Within a month, LOOK becomes a biweekly until 1971. There was an attempt to revive a smaller edition but it only lasted for one year (1979-1980)...1956] Abigail Van Buren's "Dear Abby" first appears in newspapers...1959] "Rawhide" starring Clint Eastwood along with 30 westerns in the '59-'60 TV season...
One-Man Band: 1958] Future Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson scores 56 as Cincinnati beats Seton Hall 118-54...
"You're Fired": 1963] Paul Brown, coach and GM of the Cleveland Browns and the man the team is named for, is fired by owner Art Modell (this did not help sales at Modell's in Ohio)...
Bogus book: 1972] Reclusive (in the Bahamas at the time) billionaire and resident wacko, Howard Hughes, says a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving is fake (Hughes' nails and hair are not)...
Fire Sale: 1972] The Queen Elizabeth ocean liner is destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor...
The gift that keeps on giving: 1979] The benefit concert, "A Gift of Song" is held at the U.N. starring Olivia Newton-John, Rita Coolidge, the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer, John Denver, Kris Kristofferson, ABBA and Earth, Wind & Fire (what a lineup)...
"Where's The Beef": 1984] Clara Peller is first seen by TV viewers in the "Where's The Beef" commercial for Wendy's...
"Fade to Black": 1986] Kodak gets out of the instant camera business after 10 years in a court battle with Polaroid over patents...
Going to Hall: 1989] Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame...1990] Jim Palmer and Joe Morgan are elected...
"The Start of Something Big": 2002] The U.S. Justice Department announces that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Enron Corporation regarding their bankruptcy...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in the timeline]...
Commentary...
Congratulations to Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes for their election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For years, Ronnie felt that it was Phil Spector who influenced the R&RHOF committee to keep her group out. Since his murder trial is coming up in March, Spector has other problems. This was long overdue...
"Happy Birthday...happy birthday":
Dave Matthews (40), Joely Richardson (42), Crystal Gayle (56), David Johansen (57), Jimmy Page (63), Susannah York (66), Joan Baez (66), Jimmy Boyd (68), Dick Enberg (72), Bart Starr (73) and Judith Krantz (79)...
Timeline Countdown: 4 days until NFL Divisional playoffs, 12 days until NFL Conference playoffs, 26 days until Super Bowl XLI and 37 days until 'pitchers and catchers'...
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