• After 10 years spent in the University of Kentucky's basketball pressure cooker as coach of the school's men's basketball team, Tubby Smith probably is going to enjoy getting out from under it in his new job as coach of the University of Minnesota's Golden Gophers. Smith had the misfortune, if you want to call it that, of taking Kentucky to a national championship in his very first season in Lexington. That set up unrealistically high expectations in a state where many people don't suffer even just good teams lightly. In Minneapolis, though, fans should be happy with any incremental improvement after Minnesota won just three of 16 Big Ten Conference games this season and was 9-22 overall.

• By writing blogs, athletes can exercise their own power of the press and go right to the people, essentially bypassing reporters, who may misquote them or take their comments out of context. In Boston, some sportswriters are wary that Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling may be using his "38 Pitches" blog to circumvent the local beat writers and columnists and better control his image and relationship with the fans. Be that as it may, Schilling claims he's not trying to sanitize what people say about him on "38 Pitches," and professes to let people even rip him on the site, so long as they don't use foul language.

• In a revealing story about college basketball team managers, Pete Thamel of The New York Times notes that the three managers at the University of Memphis make themselves available to the coaches 24/7 by living in the team's practice facility. Sleeping on couches in the players' lounge might not be ideal, but there's no rent and ready access to a big-screen TV and pool table.

• The women's basketball Final Four doesn't start until Sunday in Cleveland, but I think we can already pick the player with a name that most belongs in the city's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Epiphanny Prince of Rutgers. If the name sounds familiar it may be because the talented freshman scored a national high school record 113 points in a single game last year while playing for Murry Bergtraun High School in Brooklyn.

• Harvard University couldn't have been too pleased with the Boston Globe article that pointed out that the school doesn't have a single black coach in charge of any of the school's 41 varsity teams. That could change any day now, since Harvard has reportedly interviewed two African-American candidates for its  men's basketball head coaching vacancy: Tommy Amaker and Mike Jarvis. Amaker's previous stops have been at Seton Hall and Michigan, which just fired him. Jarvis's head coaching jobs have been at Boston University, George Washington, and St. John's. He's the local guy made good, having started out just blocks from Harvard at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, where he coached future Georgetown and New York Knicks star Patrick Ewing.

• Any hopes for an orderly succession in the New York Yankees' hierarchy have hit a major bump in the road. The guy whom owner George Steinbrenner had previously mentioned as his likely successor is Steve Swindal, Steinbrenner's son-in-law. But Swindal's wife has just filed for divorce. Steinbrenner's two sons reportedly haven't been interested in assuming the reins, but one or both of them may be forced into taking a more active role soon.

• I think it's safe to say that if freshmen had been eligible to play when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) entered college, UCLA's monopoly of the NCAA men's basketball championship wouldn't have been interrupted. UCLA won back-to-back titles before he arrived, and began a streak of seven straight in his sophomore year. In 1965-66, however, Texas Western (Texas-El Paso today) came out of nowhere to beat Kentucky for all the marbles while Alcindor bided his time on the Bruins' freshman team. When he became eligible the following season, he launched his varsity career by scoring 56 points against crosstown rival Southern Cal. UCLA went on to a perfect 30-0 season and another NCAA championship. Abdul-Jabbar, who is now a special assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers, is the co-author of a new book, "On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance."

• If North Carolina and Kansas had reached the Final Four, instead of losing in the regional finals, there was the possibility for a 50th anniversary rematch of their famous 1957 showdown, in which the Tar Heels outlasted Kansas and super soph Wilt Chamberlain in triple overtime.

• Even if swimmer Michael Phelps comes up short in his quest to win eight gold medals at the current world championships in Australia, you've got to give the guy a lot of credit for sticking around after a spectacular effort at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where he won eight medals, including six gold.  After that, you might have thought he'd lose his hunger to compete.

• According to Wikipedia, and I have no reason to doubt it, the term March Madness far predated its current association with the NCAA men's basketball tournament. An Illinois high school sports official is credited with coining the term in 1939 and, years later, a book about the state's basketball tournament took "March Madness" as its title. Broadcaster Brent Musburger, who spent his early years in the business in Chicago, is credited with helping to identify the college tournament season as  "March Madness"  in the early 1980s.

• Correction: A few blogs ago, I said that CBS college basketball commentator Billy Packer would be working his 25th Final Four. While he's been the lead analyst for the network that long, this actually will be his 33rd consecutive year dissecting Final Four action, having done his first star turn for NBC in 1975 alongside Curt Gowdy. That was a historic occasion to be breaking in, since it was the last season for UCLA coach John Wooden. Packer was at the mike for the final, in which the Bruins beat Kentucky for their 10th title under the Wizard of Westwood. Packer has been a broadcast voice for so long that many viewers probably know nothing of his credentials. The son of a college coach in Pennsylvania, Packer was an all-Atlantic Coast Conference guard at Wake Forest, where he helped lead the Demon Deacons to the Final Four in 1962. Besides his on-air work during the basketball season, he spends most of his time as a real estate developer in North Carolina, although at various times he has organized bicycle races, including the Tour DuPont on the Atlantic seaboard and the Tour of China.

• You've got to love the ingenuity of zealous sports fans like Aaron Goldsmith, who rushed into new Busch Stadium last year in search of several "firsts," including first hot dog sold at the park. He had a friend videotape him running up to an outfield concession stand as soon as the gates opened, then managed to sell the hot dog for $270 to a Tampa, Fla., radio talk show. It cost $77 to express-mail it in dry ice, but regardless of the profit, it makes for great storytelling. Goldsmith, a huge Cardinals fan, also claims to have been the first to sit in many of the bleacher seats, zig-zagging his posterior over rows at a time. Maybe best of all, he left a record of his historic visit, using duct tape to adhere a custom-designed logo to commemorate the occasion on a hidden part of a steel support beam.

• If anyone knows of a more sensational effort in a basketball championship game than Anthony Atkinson's, please speak up. Atkinson scored 10 points in the last 39 seconds to lead North Carolina's Barton College past Winona State of Minnesota in the Division II men's title game. These points were critical in Barton's 77-75 win, since Atkinson's next-to-last basket, on a driving reverse layup, tied the game with 11 seconds remaining, and his final basket came on a layup after a steal and pass from teammate Bobby Buffaloe as time expired. The stunning loss snapped the two-year, 57-game winning streak of the defending-champion Winona State team.

• Imagine getting fined $30,000 for carrying on a conversation with the spectator sitting next to you. That's what happened to Danny Ainge, the executive director of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, when the NBA disapproved of his chatting with the mother of University of Texas freshman phenom Kevin Durant during this month's Big 12 Conference tournament. The NBA deemed this excessive contact with a player who hasn't yet declared himself eligible for the NBA draft. So the Celtics are out 30 grand, but what gets overlooked here is how an NBA executive winds up in the middle of the Longhorn rooting section. It's possible somebody with the university may be partly responsible for this costly outcome.

• Greg Oden, Ohio State's All-American freshman center, is almost certain to head for the NBA next season, but until then he's a student, right?  Well, up to a point. Sports Illustrated says he's only taking two courses this quarter, sociology and the history of rock and roll.

• The last time Ohio State won the men's Final Four, in 1960, the star of the team was Jerry Lucas. But while Lucas led the Buckeyes over the University of California in the championship game, with 16 points, Ohio State got 15, 13, 12, and 10 points from its remaining starters, who included John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried, who both went on to play for the Boston Celtics. Bob Knight was an Ohio State reserve who took one shot, but didn't score.

• A "We're Just Fans" reader wrote in to question my opinion that women's basketball doesn't have enough depth to put on a competitive 64-team NCAA tournament, and that this leads to more lopsided games than in the men's bracket. She cites this statistic from the current tournaments: First-round blowouts, decided by 20+ points: men (11), women (13). "Maybe neither tournament should be at 64," the fan concludes.

• New York Giants All-Pro defensive lineman Michael Strahan needed an appellate court ruling to put a hold on his $6.5 million in divorce payments to his ex-wife, all of which makes me wonder how many athletes get their future spouses to sign prenuptial agreements.

• During March Madness, the ball can't be brought across midcourt without millions of eyes noticing the blue center-jump circle emblazoned with the letters "NCAA." Increasingly, courts are treated as huge billboards, causing some to wonder about visual clutter, says the in-house NCAA News. Rules prevent commercial logos from being any larger than 8 ft. x 10 ft., but there's a trend to supersize school names and icons. At the University of Kansas, for example, the Jayhawk mascot that's painted at center court measures  28 ft. x 31 ft.

• Subscribing to the theory that it's always better to play before a packed smaller house than a half-full larger one, I'd urge organizers of the women's NCAA basketball tournament to rethink where they hold games before the Final Four. During game telecasts over the weekend, there definitely were way too many empty seats visible in the background, even in a basketball hotbed like Greensboro, N.C. I'd suggest seeking out mid-size cities willing to virtually guarantee sellouts in mid-size arenas.

• In the National Football League, where spectating opportunities are limited to once a week, ticket demand is high for most games. Surely, this has been the case of late. The league just announced that it set a paid attendance record for all games for a fifth straight year in 2006. Average regular-season attendance was 67,738, with the Washington Redskins topping the chart with 87,631 per game. That's nearly capacity at 91,704-seat FedEx Field, the league's largest by far.

• Even if you're not a college hockey fan, you've got to love a sport that provides a showcase for the Universities of North Dakota and Maine, which join Michigan State and Boston College in this season's Frozen Four. If you name where the former two schools are located, go the to top of the class. The answer: Grand Forks, N.D., and Orono, Maine.

• For Duke's top-ranked women's team, losing to Rutgers 53-52 in a NCAA regional final was especially heartbreaking for two reasons: 1) Duke had beaten Rutgers in New Jersey by 40 points in December, and 2) the captain of the Blue Devils, senior Lindsey Harding, missed two free throws with one-tenth of a second left. Both clanged off the back of the rim as she made sure not to come up short. Ironically, she wouldn't have been on the line at all if she hadn't made a sensational steal at midcourt with five seconds left and been fouled after a heroic drive to the basket.

• Little-known Marist College is out of the NCAA women's basketball tournament now, but, hey, it's not too late to place an online order for Marist "Sweet 16" T-shirts and other apparel. The Red Foxes had their Cinderella run in the postseason ended by Tennessee.

• Tiger Woods said he expects the PGA Tour will fine him for letting tennis player Roger Federer, his new friend, follow him from inside the gallery ropes during a practice round in Miami for the CA Championship. Clearly, this sort of thing could quickly get out of hand if you let it, with all sorts of tag-along cronies and VIPs, including sponsors, garnering fairway-access privileges. Federer's case does raise some interesting questions, however, among which is how does a celebrity golf fan avoid being hassled by the crowds?  Maybe every player should be allowed one premium pass for a walk-behind fan who must abide by certain rules.

• In all my years watching college basketball, I never saw two teams play with more defensive zeal and ball-hawking skill than UCLA and Kansas did last Saturday. There were an amazing 32 steals, with Kansas enjoying a slight 17-to-15 edge, even though UCLA won to advance to the Final Four.

• Do you think more college basketball recruiters may start booking flights to Cameroon, given the presence of two key players from the African republic on UCLA's current roster – sophomores Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Alfred Aboya?

• Correction: A few blogs ago, I said that CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer would be working his 25th straight Final Four. He's been the leading analyst for the network's college basketball coverage that long, but his work at the Final Four dates back even further, to 1975, when he joined with Curt Gowdy on NBC to call John Wooden's swan song game at UCLA, the Bruins' victory over Kentucky. That means Packer will be working his 33rd straight NCAA championship game next Monday night (April 2), which must be some sort of record.

• That team that you hear screaming "Argh!" must be the University of Massachusetts men's hockey squad. It beat the University of Maine four times this month (twice in back-to-back games that closed out the regular season and twice in Hockey East tournament action) only to lose their fifth meeting Saturday, 3-1, in NCAA tournament play.

• Now that former NFL running back Emmitt Smith has won ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" competition, the pressure is on for other athletes to do well. The latest three to make the show certainly are an interesting group: speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno, boxer Laila Ali – the daughter of Muhammad Ali, and former NBA star Clyde "The Glide" Drexler, whose nickname hints at a certain lightness afoot. Of course, if Laila Ali can "float like a butterfly," as her dad might suggest, she should be formidable on the dance floor.

• Hockey is not known for its racial-ethnic diversity, which makes Julie Chu's selection as this past season's best player in women's college hockey notable. A senior co-captain at Harvard, Chu became the first Chinese-American to play on a US Olympic hockey team, winning medals in both 2002 and 2006. She finished out her collegiate career by tying for the national lead in points scored with 66 and was the heart and soul of a team that took eventual national champion Wisconsin to four overtimes before finally losing in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. She plans to continue playing through the 2010 Olympics.

• It sounds hard to believe today, but the national powers of women's college basketball during the 1970s were Immaculata College of Malvern, Pa., and Delta State of Cleveland, Miss.

• The University of Illinois won't be using a new mascot any time soon to replace the now retired Chief Illiniwek, says Kent Brown, the school's sports information director. As for my recent suggestion that the university, which essentially was forced by the NCAA to drop the chief, use an Abe Lincoln-like "Railsplitter" mascot, well, Brown says Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Ill., already uses Railsplitters as their nickname. That's too bad, because I'd love to see a whole cheering section of beard-wearing Lincoln lookalikes.

• And speaking of nicknames and mascots, I didn't realize that Syracuse had dropped Orangemen and gone to "The Orange" two years ago in a nod to gender equity.

• Until Kobe Bryant scored 50 or more points earlier this week in back-to-back games, no Laker since Elgin Baylor had accomplished the feat since 1962. So what about Wilt Chamberlain, you may be asking. Well, once Wilt joined the Lakers in 1968 he reined in his offense for the good of the team and never averaged more than 27.3 points per game for a season, far below the incredible 50.4 average he had in 1961-62 while with the Philadelphia Warriors.   

• Perhaps inspired by the success of ESPN's fast-paced "Pardon the Interruption" talk show, the New England Sports Network (NESN) has just announced that it's creating a show that sounds somewhat similar to be called "The Globe 10.0".  The significance of the name is that the Boston Globe sports department is supplying many of the sportswriters who will appear on the show, in which the format calls for debating the top 10 issues of the day in New England sports. That might be OK for a weekly program, but speaking  as someone who lives in New England, I don't think there are 10 issues worth discussing on each successive day of the show's Tuesday-through-Thursday schedule. I'll tune in, though, and let you know if I change my mind. "10.0" begins in June.

• The way it appears now, three losing teams will make it into the National Basketball Association playoffs. I'd say the league needs to trim the size of its postseason field.

• Roger Clemens undoubtedly is one of the greatest pitchers of all time, but if he's going to play, shouldn't he go through spring training like everybody else and not decide at midseason that he's suiting up again, as he did last year?

• Mark Johnson may have grown up playing hockey in Wisconsin, but some of his fondest memories were inscribed in Lake Placid, N.Y. Last weekend, the University of Wisconsin women's team he coaches at his alma mater won the NCAA championship in Lake Placid, defending its title by defeating Minnesota-Duluth, 4-1. Twenty-seven years earlier he was a member of the US men's "Miracle on Ice" hockey team that won the Olympic gold medal in Lake Placid.

• You probably won't find Energy Solutions, the energy services company based in Salt Lake City, plugging its core business – nuclear waste disposal – at Energy Solutions Arena, the home of the NBA's Utah Jazz.

• As a native of southern Indiana, I was particularly interested in what the the late Terry Friedman, a local rubber industry magnate, did to build one of the country's premier golf courses. Friedman, who died before the Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Ind., was able to host last year's USGA Senior Amateur Championship, wanted not a Top 100 course, but a Top 20 layout. At great expense, he built one by converting abandoned stripper-pit coal mines. The course has a rustic quality to it, with no houses, swimming pools, or tennis courts in sight. And the clubhouse, which was built to resemble an old mining building, picks up on the land's heritage. Although the course is championship quality, it is designed for average club members too, which is reflected by the one hole that has nine tee boxes.

• Something I didn't learn until recently is that House speaker Nancy Pelosi's father was the mayor of Baltimore when the Colts were the toast to the town. According to Tom Callahan, author of "Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas," Tommy D'Alesandro ("Big Tommy") championed the Colts when he was in office from 1947 to 1959.

• Sadly, indoor track has almost become an "underground' sport, it receives so little attention.  The current indoor circuit, which ended last month, consists of just four meets and two of those are in Boston's Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center, which holds only 3,500 spectators.

• According to Golf Digest, Grammy-winning saxophonist Kenny G is almost a tour-ready golfer, based on his subpar shooting average. The magazine is so impressed that it ranks him as the No. 1 golfer in its list of top 100 players from the music world. Country artist Vince Gill is No. 2, Snoop Dogg No. 44, and Celine Dion No. 62, right in front of Bob Dylan. "With the sax," the jazz artist told Golf Digest, "I learned technique well enough so that it feels like part of may body and I just express myself. That's where I want to get in golf."

• Whether or not UCLA's men's basketball team wins its 12th national championship this year, it has a strong, extra incentive for doing so. The next UCLA team in any sport, men's or women's, to win a championship will bring the school a record 100th NCAA title. And since the men's basketball team has long been thought of as UCLA's marquee sport, even though the men's volleyball team has more championships (19), the Bruins figure cutting down the nets in Atlanta on April 2 would be the perfect ending. They lost in the final last year to Florida and have been rather erratic since spending six weeks earlier this season ranked No. 1. Still, Coach Ben Howland is a preparation fanatic, watching 15 to 20 hours of video a week, and should have UCLA schooled on what to expect against any opponent, including the University of Pittsburgh, which is next up.

• I've come to the conclusion that the hardest pass to make in basketball is from out of bounds, along the sideline, after a timeout. The defenders all have an opportunity to strategically position themselves, the passer has little room to operate and is often confronted with a long-armed defender, and there are precious seconds in which to inbound the ball.

• CBS lead basketball analyst Billy Packer has become an institution of the men's college game. He's scheduled to work the Final Four for the 25th straight year, but I'd argue that it's time for a change. Not that Packer does a poor job, because he doesn't. He knows the game backwards and forwards, makes his points clearly and succinctly, and works well with play-by-play man Jim Nantz. Still, I'm ready for a change, and would be happy to see Len Elmore, another regular tournament analyst, get the nod this year, just for his different insights.

• And speaking of basketball analysts, I'd rank ESPN's Doris Burke among the best in the business. She's very versatile, too, and does well as a commentator, sideline interviewer, or studio analyst, working both men's and women's games.

• At this point in the development of women's college basketball, a 64-team tournament may be a stretch in terms of across-the-board quality. Nine first-round games were decided by 30 or more points, including one by 57 points and another by 49.

• For all us underdog rooters, there hasn't been enough madness this March. The lowest-seeded team still alive is UNLV, but my heart's with the Butler Bulldogs. And if not them, let it be Southern Illinois or Vanderbilt.

• I realize that organizers of the women's NCAA tournament would like their event to stand apart from the men's as much as possible, but playing games on Monday and Tuesday nights before reaching the Final Four doesn't seem like a formula for success.

• Wouldn't it be something if Florida and Ohio State met for the national championship, just as they did in football Jan. 8 in the BCS Championship Game? It could happen. In case you forgot, underdog Florida crushed the Buckeyes in Arizona, 41-14.

• Give All-America freshman Kevin Durant credit for trying to help the University of Texas win a first-ever basketball championship, even if the Longhorns bit the dust against Southern Cal in the second round. After all, in playing his high school ball in Suitland, Md., he was right under the noses of all those powerful ACC teams that have won national championships in recent years – Duke, Maryland, and North Carolina. Durant appears a cinch to turn pro, since he's a coveted pro prospect, but who knows, maybe he'll surprise all the experts again.

• Since basketball uses a shot clock, shouldn't the men's game also have an official timekeeper to determine if a team gets the ball over mid-court in the allotted 10 seconds? Referees have plenty else to watch for. They shouldn't be burdened with counting the seconds. Somebody at the scorer's table, with a clock of some kind, should be able to handle this duty.

• Among the 48 games played in the first two rounds of the men's tournament, four went to overtime, including one to double overtime, yet none was decided by just a single point.

• I confess to being confused in watching Texas A&M-CC play in the men's NCAA basketball tournament. What were those CC initials for? Surely not "Community College." I'd never heard of Texas A&M at Corpus Christi. Some of these branch campuses are beginning to feel their oats in basketball, and I suspect that a satellite campus will end up in the Final Four before too long.

• Some excitable college basketball coaches are bad about standing on the court while the game is in progress. Shouldn't they be warned, then given a technical foul if they persist?

• If the University of North Carolina men's basketball team wins the NCAA championship, which is a very real possibility, it would be significant for two reasons. First, it seems a certainty that no other team would have ever won two championships in the space of three years with no carryover starters. And second, Roy Williams would become only the third head coach in history to win twice at his alma mater. The only coaches who've ever done that were Indiana's Branch McCracken in 1940 and 1953 and Cincinnati's Ed Jucker in 1961 and 1962.

• I'd like to know when and how basketball free-throw shooters got into the habit of hand-tapping with their teammates in the lane after the first of two foul shots. It seems to defy the conventional wisdom that would say shooters should maintain their focus on the basket. As for another oft-seen habit, that in which players wipe the soles of their sneakers with their hands, well, I think we can attribute that routine to Larry Bird.

• From watching NCAA basketball tournament action, it's safe to conclude that the three-point shot and shot clock have done more to enhance fan enjoyment than any other two rule changes – in any sport. In combination, the rules keep the door open for teams to quickly erase what once were insurmountable late-game deficits.

• The University of Illinois, I suspect, will eventually get over having to retire mascot Chief Illiniwek. In the short term, though, the college is disappointed that the NCAA has forced it to drop a symbol that might be offensive to native Americans. Meanwhile, Florida State has permission to remain the Seminoles and San Diego State the Aztecs. The University of Illinois can go on calling themselves the Fighting Illini, a name inspired by the Illinois Indians who once populated the state, but it could be hard pressed to come up with an alternative mascot. Syracuse University, after all, already owns maybe the most logical option, Orangemen. But, wait a minute, as the flagship university in the Land of Lincoln, would it be so politically incorrrect or insensitive to look to Abe Lincoln? Maybe Little Abe, a fictitious junior Lincoln, could be enlisted as a mascot. Or how about utilizing one of Lincoln's nicknames, "Rail-Splitter,'" to create a mascot that at least bares a faint resemblance to the 16th president?

• If you're like me, you scratch your head trying to figure out why the men's NCAA basketball tournament starts with 65 teams and a preliminary play-in game to determine the 64th and last team in the final field. All I can assume is that it's a pressure-release valve to take the heat off the tournament selection committee.

• If the University of Florida can defend its basketball title, that will give it the ultimate in tripledecker championships – a football championship sandwiched between two basketball titles.

• Anyone who's ever been to Storrs, Conn., which is pretty much a one-stoplight town, has to be amazed that UConn is such a national powerhouse in basketball. Just how long the school can keep it up, in my mind, is a question, given the growing popularity of urban schools. The school wisely is addressing this challenge for the overall good of the university by drawing up a plan to essentially build a small town center near the campus. It might not get built fast enough, however, for the Huskies men's team, which was a lackluster 17-14 this year after winning NCAA championships in 1999 and 2004.

• It has always seemed strange to me that the Los Angeles Dodgers have continued to hold spring-training in Vero Beach, Fla., decades after the team's move from Brooklyn. That, however, will end after the 2008 season when the team has made plans to move from its Dodgertown complex on Florida's Atlantic coast to a new facility outside Phoenix. The new Arizona facility, to be shared with the White Sox, will be far more convenient for Californians who'd like to drive to Cactus League games.

• You're no doubt familiar with the Sunday columns in which beat writers unload oodles of facts, rumors, and opinions about major pro sports. I'd always wondered where these writers got all their leads and tidbits. The answer, I learned in a story about alleged plagiarism involving a Boston Globe NFL columnist, is from a notes exchange in which writers from around the country pool their stories and findings. Sadly, in the aforementioned case, the writer, apparently under deadline pressure, was accused of lifting  "extensive passages" word for word from a Tacoma, Wash., reporter.

• To date, little is known about the sports backgrounds of the growing flock of 2008 presidential candidates. Surely, more will come out as the primary season approaches. What is know is this: Barack Obama met his future brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, while playing in a pickup basketball game in Chicago. Robinson, a former star at Princeton University, gave up a corporate career, which included a job as a vice president at Morgan Stanley, to coach basketball, first at University of Chicago High School, and then as an assistant coach at Northwestern. Robinson moved on to Brown University this season, where he just completed his first year coaching the men's varsity and where he was named the Ivy League men's Coach of the Year. Although the team's 11-18 record was only a small improvement from the previous season, the Bruins submitted some impressive efforts against notable opponents. They held Michigan State to 45 points, the Spartans' lowest point total of the season, and produced a stunning 51-41 upset of Providence College. Robinson also helped junior guard Mark McAndrew, who averaged only 1.2 points per game as a sophomore, develop into a high-scoring, all-Ivy selection who averaged 18.6 points per game.

• No one would ever say that University of Nebraska-Kearney women's basketball coach Carol Russell wasn't dedicated  to her team. Some, in fact, might say she's a little too dedicated. Earlier this week, only five hours after giving birth to her first child, she showed up for the Lopers' NCAA Division II tournament game against North Dakota. She sat on the bench during the 108-75 loss, letting an assistant handle the actual coaching duties. The game and birth both occurred in Grand Forks, N.D. In case you're wondering, by the way, Russell's doctor gave her permission to attend the game. Word has it that Russell and her husband are considering "Dakota" as a middle name for little Isaac.

• Given the popularity of football's shotgun formation today, it's odd that so little is made of its origin and short-lived first incarnation. Red Hickey, the San Francisco 49ers' coach, came up with the idea in 1960 as a way to give his team a strategic edge. By placing the quarterback five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the backs to the sides, the Niners were well positioned to run pass plays. As a country boy with a hunting background, Hickey thought that "shotgun" was a good name for this spread formation. Once the novelty wore off after the 1961 season, San Francisco dropped the formation, but the Dallas Cowboys began using it successfully with Roger Staubach at the controls.

• Make of it what you will, but baseball's rulebook now carries a disclaimer that references "to 'he,' 'him,' or 'his' shall be deemed to be a reference to 'she,' 'her,' or 'hers'" where applicable. Sounds like Major League Baseball is serious about distancing itself from the old boy network. Or, just maybe, it's paving the way for women to someday suit up.

• I was interested to read on ESPN's website that Martin Luther King III, when asked what would disappoint his father about sports today, said the "outbursts" by professional athletes.

• Camel racing, in and of itself, sounds pretty offbeat. But what makes it even more unusual are the robotic jockeys. Writing about Qatar's national sport, Danna Harman, a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, explains how the sport resorted to robots when human rights activists began decrying the use of child jockeys, some only 5 or 6 years old. The robots weigh roughly seven pounds and have a speaker so trainers, riding in four-wheel drive vehicles next to the track, can urge on the loping animals.

• No one could be happier, and perhaps relieved, to see Wimbledon finally decide to award women the same prize money as men than Billie Jean King. She railed against pay inequities decades ago and threatened, with other players, to boycott the traditional tournaments if changes weren't made.  Starting next year, Wimbledon will finally join the other Grand Slam events in offering equal prize money. Actually, the French Open isn't fully liberated, since it doesn't offer equal pay except to those in the championship round, but it appears on the verge of becoming so.

Some might argue, as Wimbledon long did, that the women are on court far less while playing best-of-three-set matches than the men are with their best-of-five format. Equal pay for equal work is the principle, of course, but as Billie Jean pointed out to the BBC, it's been Wimbledon's decision to have shorter women's matches, and, besides, the important issue is not the length of time on the court but the entertainment value. "Entertainers don't get paid by the hour," King observes. "They get paid, period." Maybe a compromise worth trying would be to have the women use a best-of-five format from the quarterfinals on, even if just as an experiment.

• Sure, those end-of-season men's conference basketball tournaments are great fun for spectators, cash cows for the schools, and welcome last-chance opportunities for teams to make their mark, but they also may be killers, too. I sense that some teams wear down their batteries trying to win these conference tournaments, leaving them vulnerable to being upset when the NCAA Tournament starts this week.

• Want to see a panoramic spring training photo that tempts you to drop everything and head for Tempe Diablo Stadium in Arizona? Then click on this ESPN link. The picture captures the essence of a perfect spectator experience in the desert, with ballgame, geography, and weather combining in a striking tableau.

• The way for soccer goalkeepers to influence where opponents aim their penalty kicks is to stand imperceptibly off center in the goal mouth, according to research first reported in the journal Psychological Science. Surprisingly, most players seem to detect when there's even a 3 percent, or 8-inch, difference in the space on either side of the goalie and shoot for the more open side. If you're like me, this seems to a little far-fetched, but I guess it's hard to argue with the findings.

• Here's a telling fact showing how the National Hockey League has changed: There hasn't been a Stanley Cup Final between two Canadian cities since 1989, the year Montreal and Calgary squared off. When the league plays two regular-season games in Europe for the first time to begin the 2007-2008 season, it won't be old guard Canadian clubs, but a couple of Sun Belt franchises that will do the honors in London – the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks.

• It's too bad that there aren't any new major-league ballparks scheduled to open this season, because Ken Griffey Jr. needs a new long-ball challenge. Last year, Cincinnati's veteran slugger homered in the only ballpark he hadn't hit a home run, the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis. That ties him with now-retired Fred McGriff, who also homered in 43 different ballparks, some now demolished. The next new park won't come on line until 2008 in Washington, with five more either under construction or tentatively planned in subsequent years, including two in New York.

• A major-league team is scheduled to return to Brooklyn during the next few years, but it won't be in baseball. The Nets, who began on Long Island in 1967, will be moving into a $4 billion mega real estate development in Brooklyn. Some residents, who feel the character of the old neighborhood is threatened, are up in arms. The move, however, should quiet the critics who've mocked the Nets' current no-man's-land location, calling the team the Exit 16W Nets, a reference to the nearby Jersey Turnpike in the New Jersey Meadowlands.

• When I think of Pat Summerall's sportscasting career, I think first and foremost of his work on NFL telecasts. But as he reminds us in his autobiography, "Summerall: On and Off the Air," he did a lot of work in golf. He says that broadcasting a major tournament like the Masters, which he did for many years, is the toughest assignment for many in his profession. Part of the challenge, he notes, is all the down time between shots. Another is the unpredictability of who might emerge in any given round, making it hard to bone up for every eventuality.  Then, too, Summerall worked for exacting producer Frank Chirkanian, who emphasized that television is a visual medium that requires announcers to avoid talking about things viewers can see for themselves. "People can see that a golfer made the putt," Chirkanian once told Summerall, warning him that "If I ever hear you say, 'He made the putt, I'll fire you on the spot."

• For a fascinating look at some of college basketball's famous and not-so-famous arenas, check out Bob Ryan's recent story in the Boston Globe about his visits to 161 such venues. He calls Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum the best-kept secret and Rice University's Autry Court as a "really cool place you don't know about." The most overrated tag is attached to Syracuse's Carrier Dome ("too big and not really, you know, a gym"), with the biggest disappointment label reserved for UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, because theres no lobby and the crowd "isn't exactly what you'd call lively." What Ryan doesn't mention is that Pauley will soon undergo a major overhaul.

• For fans who like the painted-face look without the hassle, there's now an alternative: breathable, temporary adhesive face "tattoos." The price is right, too, 94 cents for those sold at Indiana Pacers games.

• If Hank Luisetti, an All-America basketball player at Stanford in 1938, hadn't popularized the running, one-handed shot, I wonder how long the game's evolution would have been stalled? Besides moving basketball away from earthbound set shots, Luisetti also was the first player to ever score 50 points in a game.

• Record-wise, the Caltech men's basketball team may be nearly as bad as Charlie Brown's baseball scrubs, but the Pasadena, Calif., program is a model of athletic virtue nonetheless. That point comes through clearly in an article about the team written by Dan Wood of The Christian Science Monitor. It notes that the players are serious about learning precision, teamwork, self-discipline, and loyalty against such incredible odds that they haven't won a conference game since 1985, and notched just one win (against artsy Bard College of Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.) all this past season. Clearly, these are genuine student-athletes with heavy academic demands and even challenging summer jobs. Coach Roy Dow illustrates this by citing how he urged one player to follow a certain practice regimen during his school vacation. The young man reminded him, however, that he was set to work at the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory, the nation's top-secret nuclear facility, which meant that he'd have little time for polishing his basketball skills.

• During a spring training game the other day, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays threw the crowd a curve when they handed the ball to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a fan of the visiting Philadelphia Philliles. Alito graciously wore a green Devil Rays jersey to toss out the ceremonial first pitch, and his throwing motion was impressive. The high court's newest justice has rooted for the Phillies since they played in Connie Mack Stadium and still likes to take in Philadelphia games in Citizens Bank Park when he can.

• The US Olympic Committee has a tough choice to make in picking between Los Angeles and Chicago as its candidate to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. If I were on the selection committee, I'd give the nod to Chicago, only because LA had the Games in 1932 and 1984 and it would be nice to see what another city could do with the opportunity.

Los Angeles certainly did a splendid job in '84, as I can personally attest, having covered those Olympics as a reporter. But Chicago, I'm convinced, would do a bang-up job, too, as it did as the host for one of the great world's fairs – the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The city, which is as international as any in the country, is already exhibiting a fair amount of Olympic spirit, with Olympic messages projected on downtown buildings at night and a new slogan, "Chicago 2016 – Stir the Soul," in the leadup to the April candidate selection.

My concerns are with busy O'Hare International Airport, which might groan under the weight of so many overseas visitors added to the heavy domestic air traffic, as well as the lack of a ready-made main track-and-field stadium. Local officials are confident, though, that the city can meet the challenges and also put on a more compact Olympics, which would be concentrated along the lakefront, than Los Angeles could.

Of course, whichever city is chosen as the US candidate on April 14 has only taken the first step. That would put it in a pool of global finalists that could include Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, and Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee doesn't pick the ultimate winner until 2009.

• Hats off to the Boston Bruins for inviting the fathers of its players to come along during a five-game Southern road trip. Turns out the idea isn't new. One of the dads told Boston Globe hockey columnist Kevin Paul Dupont that he'd been on similar trips when his son played for Nashville and Detroit. Besides sharing time in all the usual travel venues – hotels, restaurants, and buses – the group enjoyed a deep-sea fishing outing in Florida. This seems like a great way to build a family feel on a team, reward the dads for many years of parental support, and break up some of the monotony of road trips. Teams in other sports would do well to copy this concept, and perhaps expand it to include mothers as well.

• You can feel a sports movie coming on (think "Cool Runnings") when you read about what's happening to bring two disparate high school football communities together, one in Alaska's Arctic Circle region and the other in Jacksonville, Fla. Cathy Parker, who has three sons who play high school football and a husband who coaches it and serves as an assistant parks and recreation director in St. John's County, Fla., saw a story on ESPN's "Sports Center" last year about a newly launched football program in Barrow, Alaska, that played its first season on a heavy-equipment lot strewn with rocks and gravel. Inspired by the grit and determination of the northernmost high school football team in America, Parker has mounted an effort to raise $250,000 to buy the school an artificial turf field and deliver it, perhaps with the help of the Air National Guard and Navy, since the town is only accessible by boat or plane.  There's also a move afoot to bring the Barrow boys to Florida this spring for spring football practice in order to give them a taste of football Florida style. And, yes, word is circulating that a movie producer is already exploring the cinematic potential of this heartwarming story.

• Baseball card collectors must be curious about what the sale of Topps Co. will mean for the product, especially when former Disney CEO Michael Eisner is a member of the buyout group. It's not yet clear whether the $385.4 million takeover will go through, but assuming it does, Mr. Eisner knows a thing or two about family entertainment, and I wouldn't be surprised to see cartoon characters enlisted in some way to revive interest in the hobby among young collectors.

• And speaking of baseball card collecting, opening a pack got a little more thrilling last month when reports surfaced that someone at Topps had a little fun with Derek Jeter's 2007 card. Mickey Mantle is seen holding a bat in the dugout behind the Yankee shortstop, and President George W. Bush is looking on from the stands. The company says it caught the gag in proofing, but decided to print it anyway.

• The possibility of any men's basketball team winning back-to-back NCAA championships almost seems nonexistent now that star players are so tempted to leave early for the NBA. This point was underlined two years ago when North Carolina's championship roster was gutted by pro defections. It was surprising, therefore, when all the key players from the University of Florida decided to return this season to defend the Gators' title. Although Florida has not looked invincible, the team still could deliver what many predicted before the season: a second straight championship, something last accomplished by Duke in 1991 and 1992. For the record, five other colleges have accomplished the feat, Oklahoma State (or Oklahoma A&M as it was known in the 1940s), Kentucky, the University of San Francisco, Cincinnati, and UCLA on two different occasions.

• For the second time this season, the Lakers' Kobe Bryant has been given a one-game suspension for striking an opponent with an odd follow-through after releasing a shot. The NBA has determined that the arm motion in each case was an unnatural basketball action.  If this happens again, the league has hinted a multigame suspension might be in order. This is all pretty strange in a game where hard defensive fouls don't usually bring such punishment. Bryant, it seems, may be taking in-your-face offense to new heights, or perhaps new lows. 

• It sounds like Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania isn't going to let the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins go easily into the night. But if the team does wind up relocating to Las Vegas or Kansas City, where it's been promised a sweetheart deal to play in a brand new arena, let's hope the name Penguins doesn't go with the franchise. Neither Kansas City Penguins nor Las Vegas Penguins sounds half as good.

• Every time you turn around it seems that former Celtic great Bill Russell pops up in some different context. The other week he appeared alongside Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett at a statehouse hearing in Olympia, Wash., sharing plans for a new $500 million arena in Renton, Wash. Russell, a longtime resident of Mercer Island, which is east of downtown Seattle, coached the Sonics from 1973 to 1977, which was the longest of his three NBA coaching stints, the others coming in Sacramento and Boston, where he succeeded Red Auerbach and became the NBA's first-ever black coach (actually a player-coach) in 1966. If the Sonics don't get the state legislature to approve at least partial public funding for a new arena in the suburbs, the team might be forced to move out of town since KeyArena is the NBA's smallest venue and presumably one of its least lucrative.

• By the way, I can't remember the last time I heard anybody call the Sonics the SuperSonics. Even the team's website makes scant mention of the full name, although the web address is supersonics.com.

• Would you care to venture a guess as to which year an Ivy League basketball team last made it to the Final Four? A hint: It occurred after Bill Bradley led Princeton to a Final Four berth in 1965. The answer: 1979, the year of the famous championship game that pitted Magic Johnson and Michigan State against Larry Bird and Indiana State. The University of Pennsylvania, long an Ivy League power, filled out the dance card along with DePaul. No Ivy school has ever won the NCAA title and only one other league member ever made it to the Final Four, Dartmouth, which did it in 1942 and 1944.  Of course, some would argue that Duke, which has made a number of Final Four appearances in recent decades, is close to being an Ivy academically.

• Resourceful climbers have taken to scaling ice-covered grain silos in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Is that what you'd call a feed-lot pastime?

• Ferocious isn't an adjective that I associate with many basketball players, but it seems to fit Tyler Hansbrough, the University of North Carolina's intensely focused sophomore forward, whose teammates call him"Psycho T." He reminds me a lot of Dave Cowens, the undersized center for the Boston Celtics. Cowens brought so much grit and determination to bear on his job that he was physically intimidating. He also was one of the NBA's most individualistic stars, once leaving the team to refresh his mental batteries by driving a cab.

• I grew up in Indiana and know firsthand how big high school basketball is in the state, but it wasn't until recently that I learned that all but one of the 10 largest high school gyms in the country is in Indiana. The largest, in New Castle, Ind., has a seating capacity of 9,325. While state tournament games are played in these gyms, the finals are held on a neutral court in Indianapolis. The finals of this season will be played March 24 at Conseco Fieldhouse, which is the home of the Indiana Pacers. It is the first retro-styled arena in the NBA and was designed to resemble Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the state finals were played for many years, including when tiny Milan High School won the 1954 tournament. By the way, the only gym outside Indiana to crack the Top 10 list of largest high school gyms is 7,500-seat Alfred J. Loos Fieldhouse in Dallas.

• Is there a better rivalry in pro sports these days than the one between the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns? I don't think so.

• No doubt looking to sell more licensed merchandise, Major League Baseball teams are now eagerly marketing batting practice jerseys.

• Women's collegiate hockey, the NCAA News reminds us in its "Defining Moments" series, got its start at Brown University in the 1960s, when the team, which called itself the Pandas, practiced against men who used brooms instead of hockey sticks. Preliminary to this, the school's men's hockey coach had disguised Nancy Schiefflelin, an experienced hockey player, in full uniform during a practice to prove how well women could play.

• For a team that was rocked by a major scandal that canceled most all of last season, Duke's men's lacrosse squad deserves credit for its strong comeback. For the first time in school history, the team is top-ranked in the nation. It's as if the players not charged with sexual misconduct at a team party are determined to write a new, happier chapter to their careers.

• It's not often that two athletes enjoy a career performance in the same game, but that's essentially what happened when the Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks 126-121 in overtime last Sunday. Milwaukee's Michael Redd scored 52 points and Chicago's Ben Gordon 48. Two NBA players have combined for 100 or more points only eight times in the last 30 years, which an ESPN.com statistician says is as rare as a perfect game is in baseball or one in which a batter hits four home runs.

• You're guilty of memorizing too much "inside baseball" knowledge if you can name the only three shared spring training stadiums. The answer: Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria, Ariz., which is home to the Padres and Mariners; Tucson Electric Park, which is shared by the Diamondbacks and White Sox; and Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Ariz., where both the Rangers and Royals train. As for the oddest named spring training parks, well, I have three candidates. Take your pick: HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Ariz. (Chicago Cubs); Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, Fla. (Tigers); and Knology Park in Dunedin, Fla. (Blue Jays).

• A two-year ban from track-and-field competition for doping offenses may send a message, but European officials have concluded it isn't strong enough. And I'd agree. In proposing the adoption of  a four-year punishment to the sport's international governing body, European Athletics seeks to ensure that the one goal that really drives many track-and-field competitors – the Olympics - will be off the table, as will the world championships and any other major events during the four-year cycle.

• That a smallish playmaking guard from Canada (Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns) should be zeroing in on a possible third straight National Basketball Association MVP award is truly one of the most amazing stories in league history. By copping the honor again, Nash would join a very exclusive fraternity, which currently has only three members: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird. Absent, among other greats, are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan.

• The recent passing of Lamar Lundy brought back memories of one of the greatest pass-rushing defensive lines in NFL history, the Fearsome Foursome of the Los Angeles Rams. Reading his obituaries, I was pleased to learn that Lundy, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones remained close friends over the year, but I was surprised to be reminded that they only played as a unit from 1963 to 1966 and never played on a winning team during that time.

• The visit by the Miami Heat to the White House this week produced a hilarious moment. The expression on President Bush's face was priceless enough as he stood shoulder-to-stomach with Shaquille O'Neal in the East Room, but it only got better when Shaq handed him a ball. The president went to dribble it, but the ball thudded on the floor without a bounce. That cracked everybody up, and was reminiscent of the sort of gags the Harlem Globetrotters are famous for. Only nobody confessed to a practical joke, so presumably some aide or equipment manager just forgot to check the air pressure. By the way, it'd be nice if championship teams could visit the White House before so much time has elapsed. The Heat won their title last June, but have been struggling to play .500 ball this season.

• Kudos to the Heat, by the way, for using the team's website for an interesting educational feature. In connection with just-ended Black History Month, the Heat site ran a daily profile of a black history maker. Compiled from various online sources, the series features only one athlete, Magic Johnson, while spotlighting achievers in many other fields, from such well known figures as Colin Powell, entertainer Josephine Baker, and writer Langston Hughes to abolitionist Harriet Jacobs, blues musician Professor Longhair, and black feminist scholar Bell Hooks.

• Maybe college football should take a page from the NFL's hiring playbook and urge that at least one minority candidate be interviewed whenever there's a head coaching vacancy. NCAA programs are way behind the NFL when it comes to sideline diversity. Among 119 Division I-A programs, only six currently have black head coaches. This fact was much discussed at a congressional hearing this week at which NCAA president Myles Brand said that if the pace of progress remains the same, it will be 80 years before the percentage of black head coaches assumes a proper level.

• I loved the way University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in college basketball, slipped out of her taskmaster persona long enough to delight the fans and TV viewers at this week's UT-Florida men's game. Reciprocating a good turn done by men's coach Bruce Pearl, who once showed up bare-chested and decorated in orange body paint to cheer on the women's team, Summit slipped into a cheerleader's outfit and feathery hat to lead a home crowd in singing "Rocky Top" and a cheer.

• How has the University of Nebraska's women's softball team already managed to play a dozen games?   Scheduling, scheduling, scheduling. Seven of those games were played in the Paradise Softball Classic in Honolulu, and the rest at the Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Ga. Next up are five games in Las Vegas. Nebraska won't play its first home game until March 16, when it hosts the Big Red Tournament.

• In researching the PGA Tour's record for most consecutive victories (11, by Byron Nelson in 1945), my eyes fell on the next entry in the tour's record book: most victories in a single event. The record holder is Sam Snead, with eight championships at the Greater Greensboro Open. That's impressive, but what's even more so is that long before there was seniors circuit, Snead won his last Greensboro title 27 years after his first, the longest such span ever recorded. His first win came in 1938 and his last in 1965.

• In very uncharacteristic fashion, Tiger Woods committed a mental error at the recent Accenture Match Play Championship that he blames for ending his bid to win his eighth straight PGA Tour event. The mistake was made on the first hole of a sudden death playoff against Aussie Nick O'Hern. Woods could have won with a very makeable, four-foot birdie putt, but he neglected to repair a ball mark on the green. His putt caught the mark just enough to send it slightly off line, and O'Hern proceeded to take the next hole and their third-round match.

• If you like to incorporate sports into your travels, I suggest checking out the possibilities offered by Interstate 90. That's what ESPN has done on its website with a map illustraing what it calls the I-90 Hall of Fame corridor. Between South Bend, Ind., and Springfield, Mass., it identifies nine sports halls of fame, some only minutes off the highway and none more than a 100-mile detour away. From the college football hall in South Bend, you can tick off visits to shrines for pro football, hockey, boxing, baseball, soccer, horse racing, volleyball, and basketball. My only suggestion would be to keep going, since the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. is not far beyond Springfield, within 40 miles of the interstate. It's housed in a classic, turn-of-the-century complex that's near the famous Newport mansions.

• You know baseball's Opening Day can't be far off when at 6 a.m., enroute to work in Boston on the Massachusetts Turnpike, you see the Fenway Park scoreboard illuminated and being tested.

• Here's a surprising fact: Seattle was the first US city with a Stanley Cup-winning hockey team. In 1917, which was just one among equal fledgling leagues, the Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association beat the Montreal Canadiens, champions of the National Hockey Association, in a cup series played entirely in Seattle.

• Thank you to "We're Just Fans" reader Warren Olandria for setting the record straight. I had assumed the Baltimore Ravens were the only NFL team with a marching band, overlooking the fact that the Washington Redskins have long had a band, too.

• If the NBA raised eyebrows by hosting this season's All-Star Game in Las Vegas, what should the reaction be to the placement of this year's Atlantic 10 men's college basketball tournament in Atlantic City, N.J., the Eastern seaboard's gambling capital? Just as the NBA doesn't have any teams on the Strip, neither does the Atlantic City have a college on the Boardwalk.

• Even though Norv Turner has had a losing record at his last two head coaching stops (in Washington and Oakland), the San Diego Chargers have hired him to take over the team with the NFL's best record in 2006. The explanation: He knows the Chargers' system from having been the team's offensive coordinator in 2001 and he was once instrumental in quarterback Troy Aikman's development at Dallas.

• I'm not a fan of corporately named stadiums, but one exception is Cracker Jack Park at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. On the other hand, Dunkin' Donuts Center, the basketball home of the Providence College Friars in Providence, R.I., just sounds way too commercial, partly because, unlike Cracker Jack, the product isn't associated with the sport.

• I've got to give the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez for being forthright with the press in explaining that he and Derek Jeter aren't bosom buddies anymore, but also making it clear that that doesn't mean they aren't still friendly. With New York's aggressive media pack, it's not always easy to make such a distinction, but Rodriguez at least has tried.

• ESPN basketball analyst Dick Vitale, I've concluded, is not always an easy listen, not because of his super-octane enthusiasm, but because his voice tends to get lost in the crowd noise when he's working in a loud arena. As for his contention that Indiana University should place Bob Knight's name on a new proposed basketball development center, well, I can't imagine that happening, since IU fired Knight. Yes, Knight led Indiana to three national championships and naming the facility for him would be a nice way to extend an olive branch, but sometimes it's better for both parties to just move on without looking back.

• Winter keeps getting taken out of winter sports. The latest example is at the current Nordic World Ski Championships in Sapporo, Japan.  For the first time, a few races were held indoors in the 30,000-seat Sapporo Dome, home of baseball's Nippon Ham Fighters. The facility didn't exist in 1972 when the city hosted the Winter Olympics. In 1988, in Calgary, Alberta, Olympic speedskating moved indoors, where it's remained. And what many don't realize today is that Olympic figure skating only moved indoors in 1960 at the Squaw Valley Games in California.