Weekly Sportscamp - September 16

-Sorry for the week's layoff. Multiple things have come up in my professional life (more on those later) that have forced me to take the past week off. During that time, I witnessed a fight over a bicycle at a bar downtown (somebody stole a bike, then rode it around the same block three times and allowed the owner to catch up to him), I attempted to grow a Rudy Fernandez beard (unsuccessfully), and was once again beaten by my dad at tennis (he's crafty). Let's catch up on what we missed in the past week.

-Fire Joe Morgan was back, and guest-edited Deadspin today. You won't have more fun reading someone deconstruct poorly-written sports columns. God, I missed these guys.

-Yesterday, ESPN columnists chose to rag on things I enjoy. Greg Easterbrook said The Dark Knight was an awful movie (some people just have no fun), and Paul Shirley, the musical connoisseur that he is, said The Beatles were "simple." Next week, Marc Stein makes a crack at freshly ironed shirts, and Jamele Hill compares Apple Pie to Japanese internment camps.

-Rumor has it that John Stockton's son, David, is walking-on to the Gonzaga men's basketball team. No word yet on whether this will make John actually smile for once.

-The Blazers signed Jeff Pendergraph to a three year deal. Pendergraph, if you remember, just underwent hip surgery and will be sidelined the entire 09-10 season. Years 2 and 3 are unguaranteed. Year 2 becomes guaranteed if Pendergraph plays in at least 10 games this season, something that is unlikely to happen. This is an example of the Blazers covering themselves in case the injury is worse than it appears, or as Paul Allen calls it "The Darius Miles Corollary."

-In sadder news, NCAA president Myles Brand passed away today after losing his fight with pancreatic cancer.

I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Brand once for a Gonzaga Bulletin article, and I was very surprised that he actually got back to me. This was the President of the entire NCAA, and yet he took the time to answer every one of my questions on the recent release of NCAA Graduation Success rates, a subject he seemed very proud of.

One of Brand's biggest goals was to improve the graduation rates of student-athletes, something he set out to do through the Academic Performance Program, which rewarded or punished schools based on graduation rates. It was his effort to let it be known that these student-athletes were there to do more than just play a sport, and that schools and the NCAA needed to do everything they could to help these young men and women graduate. He had set a goal of an 80 percent graduation rate for all Division-I athletes, and last fall the recent results showed that they had reached 79 percent.

At the time, Brand said he was pleased with the results, but not satisfied. He recognized that there was still work to be done with individual sports that were struggling, and that the NCAA shouldn't stop in this effort to help all of its student athletes succeed in the classroom.

He had the perfect mindset for student-athlete academic success, and a great vision. I hope that whoever takes over the job can continue the great things that Brand had started.

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.

Weekly Sportscamp - August 30

-My dad has always maintained that the NBA is fixed. He thinks that home teams are rewarded and big-market teams always end up winning, in order to draw in more fans and money. While his theory may not be entirely true, it's appearing that certain aspects of NBA games are fradulent.

Deadspin's Tommy Craggs wrote a fantastic article about the life of an NBA scorekeeper, in which this person reveals to him that the home scorekeepers are basically an extension of the team's PR staff, and are often encouraged to pad stats. These are the official stats that the NBA keeps, and scorekeepers are regularly adding more rebounds or assists to a player's total. Not only does Craggs get great quotes from his subject, he also brings out home and away splits to go along with it.

Amazingly, this article has gotten no play outside of Deadspin. None. The national media has completely missed it. Here is an article that could open up a can of worms with the NBA, which is already fighting for credibility, but no one has taken the next step and gotten the league's thoughts. Someone needs to throw that article at David Stern and say "explain that."

-Garrett Ross, an old high school chum of mine, is an Art student at Southern Oregon University, where he dabbles in 3D and Animation. He recently took my up on an offer to design a Sandberg On Sports logo. Here's what he came up with:
Pretty damn good, I'd say. As I figure out a way to incorporate it, you should check out the gallery on his Web site.

-For the right perspective on David Kahn's quest to free Ricky Rubio from Spain, we turn to The Matrix's Agent Smith:

Smith: Why, Mr. Kahn? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Kahn? Why? Why do you persist?

Kahn: Because I choose to.

-D-Generation X + Teaming with Vince McMahon & John Cena + this being marketed as a good thing = loss of whatever appeal WWE had left.

-No wonder Sergei Monia and Viktor Khryapa didn't pan out. Just look at their entourage on draft night.

-The Little League World Series is over? Does this mean I have to wait another year to laugh at the failure of children?

Weekly Sportscamp - August 24

-I've been wondering, since the announcement came down that Memphis would have to vacate their 39-win season in 2008 because of Derrick Rose's phony SAT scores, has any media outlet bothered to talk to Rose? I don't remember seeing a single quote from Rose this entire week. It seems to me that it would be worthwhile to talk to the main figure in this case, if only to ask him why he cheated, how it happened, and why he can't figure out analogies. Sure, Rose probably doesn't care one bit about what happened at Memphis, and most likely wouldn't comment about it, but it's still worth a shot to see what he says. I think the media has been dropping the ball on this issue.

-Uh oh. Adrian Peterson went duck hunting. Although in actuality, he missed the ducks with his three shots, and was laughed at by his dog.

-You can tell it's a slow news day at ESPN when they've run out of Vick and Favre news and are forced to rehash the old "Pete Rose is banned FOR-EV-ER" story.

That's the tough part of covering sports in late august: there's really not a whole lot to talk about. Baseball hasn't hit its stretch run yet, football is deep enough in the preseason that the hype has worn off and the hype of the regular season hasn't heated up yet, and basketball is still months away. At this point, I'm sure most sports news outlets will take anything they can get their hands on.

-Was it because of the mysterious baggies in the background of his Twitter picture? Michael Beasley apparantly checked into rehab this week, according to Slam. This isn't what you want from one of the futures of your franchise.

-The Blazers just signed second-round draft pick Dante Cunningham. I like the move. I think Cunningham can be an effective backup small forward/power forward, like a Travis Outlaw who doesn't take bad shots. He's got the range to shoot from the outside and the size to be a good power forward. The only thing I want to see him improve on is his inside game, because Portland has enough shooters. Here are some highlights of Cunningham from the Blazers' Summer League, although you might want to watch it with the sound turned off to get rid of the annoying techno music.

-Look, I'm a Cubs fan. But with that being said, even I think that it's time to pack in this season and look to 2010. Give it up, Lou.

Weekly Sportscamp - August 16

-Tomorrow I will be posting the winner in baseball of the World Championships of Fictional Sports teams, so if you want to have your voice heard on the subject, be sure to send me an email or leave a comment saying who you think should win and why. The final two teams are the Angels from "Angels in the Outfield" vs the Indians from "Major League."

In case you missed any of it, catch up quickly:
Rules and Overview
First Round
Semifinals
Championship Game

-Kevin O'Brien goes through blogs like the Denver Broncos go through running backs. As part of his summer pledge to cover the San Francisco Giants every day before he heads off to start his ministry studies, Kevin started a new blog: Remember '51, dedicated to covering the Giants and the game of baseball. It's a must-read for all baseball fans, and especially for those in the Bay Area.

-My friend (and huge Chicago Cubs fan) Jessica Michaels is a news photographer for KOAA in Colorado Springs, and has been chronicling her experience in her blog "A Year in the Life of a News Photographer." It gives a great look behind the scenes at the things that make newscasts run. Her last post touches on how the departure of two reporters changes the role of everyone else in the newsroom. As her blog proves, there's always so much more than what you see on TV.

-Well, finally, Gonzaga is adding more big-name teams to their season schedule. Too bad most of those teams lost most of their star power to the NBA draft. But still, maybe this is the start of better things, where the Kennel will actually have some top-tier teams visit the McCarthey Center on a regular basis.

-Right on cue, EA Sports is quickly adding Michael Vick to the Eagles' roster in Madden '10. Gamers everywhere are rejoicing at the fact that they can now dominate the game again.

-The Blazers will be loaded at every position this season, which raises the question: whose minutes get cut down?

-If you are looking for good college sports news, sometimes a good place to look is at the school newspaper. A lot of times, those reporters can find access to teams and write stories from angles that aren't being presented anywhere else. The Gonzaga Bulletin just posted it's first issue of the year, and Zags beat writer Zach Stratton has a look at some of the team's incoming players.