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DARRYL STINGLEY, 1951-2007
Former New England Patriots player Darryl Stingley died today at age 55.  He was a rising young star at wide receiver and was tragically paralyzed during a preseason game in 1978 in Oakland when he was hit by Jack Tatum of the Raiders and remained a quadriplegic the rest of his life.  One of the coolest moments you’ll ever see at a sporting event happened during a "Monday Night Football" game between the Patriots and Steelers in Foxboro in 1979 when Stingley made his first public appearance after the accident.  When the public address announcer acknowledged him, the entire crowd plus both teams turned to face him sitting up in the press box and gave him a long ovation in a beautiful outpouring of support.  It was a very touching scene, and even Howard Cosell seemed moved by it all.  R.I.P, Darryl.

EDDIE ROBINSON, 1919-2007
Longtime Grambling State football coaching legend Eddie Robinson also died this week.  I remember back when I was about seven or eight, they used to replay the Grambling games on TV every Sunday morning before the NFL games came on, condensing the game broadcast from the previous day down to an hour, so I became very familiar with his work at an early age.  He also coached one of my favorite Chiefs players of all-time, the late Buck Buchanan.  The man coached for 57 years, won 408 games, and ran a clean program, to boot.  A class act, indeed. R.I.P., Coach Rob.

ON THE OTHER HAND...
One coach who is NOT a class act is Bob Huggins, who is bolting the Kansas State basketball team for West Virgina—oops, Virginia—after just one season in the "Little Apple".  While I don't care all that much for K-State, I think this stinks for them, after all the momentum they'd built up this season under Huggins.  He has a checkered past, but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt before this because it was good to see this program be competitive in the Big 12 again, but now I see him for the horse's ass he really is—I don't care if WVU is his alma mater, either.  Same goes for these other nomadic coaching mercenaries who keep hopping from school to school for more money.  Don't these guys have contracts to honor?

UNFATHOMABLE!
I astounded myself today by actually making it all the way to the end of a column written by conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg in the newspaper, and even more amazingly, I actually agreed with it!  I think I may have a hormonal imbalance or something, because I normally can’t stand this putz.  Believe it or not, I actually do read conservative columnists on a regular basis, like Kathleen Parker, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, and I at least TRY to listen to what the right-wingers have to say, even though I still disagree with a lot of it—now how’s that for fair and balanced?

In Goldberg’s case, I usually wind up tuning him out about three paragraphs into his columns, but I went the distance for the first time ever in his column about windbag Rosie O’Donnell’s idiotic comments about Iran, 9/11, et al, on "The View" last week.  I thought that vapid show was supposed to cater to the Martha Stewart crowd anyway—since when did it suddenly morph into "Face The Nation"?  Please don’t misunderstand me—I’m not trying to sound sexist and say that a woman’s opinion doesn’t matter, or that she shouldn’t be outspoken.  My issue here lies more with credibility, and to me, Rosie has very little in the political realm.  To me, her wacked-out comments were almost as asinine, in their own way, as those of the very wrong Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the aftermath of 9/11, claiming that we (as a country) had it coming to us because of all "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians, the ACLU," et al "trying to secularize America".

And what is Rosie, anyway?  A mediocre stand-up comedian/actress and former daytime talk show host whose main claim to fame is merely being a lightning rod for controversy.  Rosie is to politics what the proverbial armchair quarterback is to football.  She has opinions, just as I do, but that hardly makes either of us political experts.  And not unlike her polar opposite Ann Coulter, she’ll say outrageous crap like this because she’s so desperate to keep her name in the papers.  So, like I said to Ann a while back, put a sock in it, Rosie!

Now, if and when I ever make it all the way through one of that wing-nut Michelle Malkin’s columns, then you’ll know for sure that I’ve gone over to the Dark Side!

AND KATRINA WENT TO NUMBER 1…
Will these stupid countdown shows ever stop?  Now even The Weather Channel is getting in on the act with their upcoming "Top 100 Weather Moments".  I’m growing really weary of this genre of TV show, with the likes of "Top 100 Celebrity Oops", "Top 100 Botched Celebrity Boob Jobs" (Jenny Jones was #1 there, I think), etc., which I like to call "Drive-by TV".  These travesties are nothing more than cheaply-produced collections of video clips and snarky commentary from the same ten hack comedian wanna-be’s and/or D-list celebrities making inane remarks throughout these pointless countdowns, and they’re basically just an excuse to recycle old video footage and re-hash old controversies, etc.  And a weather countdown?  What are they going to rate, which tornado was everyone’s favorite?  Which ice storm caused the longest power outages?  Between this crap and their fear-mongering doomsday programs like "It Could Happen Tomorrow" and "Storm Stories", I long for the simpler times not so long ago when TWC just did the weather 24/7 and I would lust after my favorite weather girl Kristina Abernathy on the days when she wore short skirts...