Weekly Sportscamp - September 8

-According to the Portland Trail Blazers, Jeff Pendergraph is going to need hip surgery and will miss most of the 2009-10 season. Please feel free to use obligatory "I was sure the first Blazer with hip surgery would've been Greg Oden" joke here.

Now, if they had just drafted David Pendergraft instead, they might have avoided all of this.

-If you would've asked me for the most random football-related headline heading into this season, I never would have come up with anything as crazy as "Shawne Merriman attacks Tila Tequila." Seriously, you couldn't have picked two more random people to be listed in a domestic dispute.

Although this is starting to make me think that her reality show where she searches for love was all a sham. I didn't see Merriman as a contestant...

-Every once in a while, Kevin O'Brien manages to sneak some Internet time and post something new about the San Francisco Giants at "Remember '51." This week it's about Giants' closer Brian Wilson (who, in addition to holding down the 9th inning for SF, also wrote some great songs for the Beach Boys).

-A reminder by the Gonzaga Bulletin's Zach Stratton that, at Gonzaga, there are other successful sports besides men's basketball, and they should be supported with the same fervor. Amen. Women's basketball, baseball, and both soccer teams have consistently been at the top of the WCC for years, so they deserve to play in front of packed crowds, too.

-What's creepier, Jay Mariotti calling the sunshine at a USC game "orgasmic" or Alex Trebek looking at three Teen Jeopardy contestants and remarking "so young ... so young..."? (true story)

-At a speech in Philadelphia, Michael Vick told high school students to avoid peer pressure. He "warned against the dangers of peer pressure and offered himself as a cautionary tale of what can happen when someone is a follower instead of a leader."

It's a wonderful sentiment, until you remember that Vick was convicted of "organizing" and bankrolling the dogfighting ring. Usually the guy who organizes something is the leader, not a follower.

Vick said: "I was influenced by so many people when I should have been a leader, not a follower."

Mike, you were the leader. Don't blame peer pressure, blame yourself.