Duke thinks it’s royalty
John Walters of sportsillustrated.cnn.com engaged himself in a devilish debate on whether one should love or loathe Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke men’s basketball program.
“Duke has been the class of college hoops since 1980,” Walters wrote. “But they’re just so arrogant.
“That sneer Coach K gives the refs whenever a call goes against him? I expect him to pull the receipt out of his pocket and say, ‘I paid for these calls two hours ago.’ “
No love lost
It should come as no surprise that New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was not invited to a roast this weekend for former Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer, considering that the pair had a falling out.
But the war of words between the two seems to be escalating.
Zimmer told a New York reporter that he would leave the charity benefit, scheduled for Saturday in Connecticut, if Steinbrenner were there. A Steinbrenner representative said the owner would be busy the night of the roast, “whatever night it is.”
Sneak attack
Sports Illustrated’s Bill Scheft, on USC’s surviving a scare last week at Oregon State: “It was so foggy in Corvallis the Trojans could have gotten Mike Williams in for a series.”
Food for thought
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler on the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Latrell Sprewell citing the need to feed his family as a reason to renegotiate his contract:
“I’ve checked with financial experts and they tell me that if a player has made at least $30 million and hasn’t saved any of it to feed his family, an increase in pay wouldn’t help the situation because the athlete would be too stupid to find the nearest Safeway.”
Wizards cast love spell
The NBA’s attendance-challenged Washington Wizards have apparently decided that since they are not No. 1 in the hearts of D.C. fans, they will try to use the hearts of fans.
The Wizards held the first of five Singles Nights recently. The game yielded dates with Wizards center Brendan Haywood, Baltimore Ravens safety Will Demps or a Wizards dancer. The $50 tickets also got fans into pregame and postgame parties.
The promotion apparently worked. The Wizards had an announced crowd of 15,042, about 5,000 more than their average this season.
No fear factor
A German has become the first person to cross Australia on a skateboard.
Dirk Gion covered the 1,850 miles on his kite-powered skateboard in 17 days, ABC News Online reported.
Gion said he was already working on his next challenge.
“Actually, now that I saw that you can really go far ways, you can make up to 300 kilometers a day if you have wind with a kite on a board like this, and I want to build a special boat for the water and do it all around the world.”
Look for that in the next X Games.