Fast Break
NFL
Lions to retire ‘93’ for season
The Detroit Lions will retire the number 93 for the 2009 football season in memory of player Corey Smith, one of three men lost when their fishing boat capsized off the Florida Gulf Coast three weeks ago.
Lions player development director Galen Duncan told several hundred mourners in Smith’s hometown church Saturday that Smith’s number would be retired for a year in honor of a player of extraordinary heart and competitive drive.
“You’re not supposed to have a favorite player when you are a coach, but he was the one who got under your skin. He was a great football player but he was an even better man,” Burden said. “Tonight, when I say my prayers, I will ask God to assign me a guardian angel and he’ll be wearing number 93.”
The Coast Guard rescued one man, Nick Schuyler, who was clinging to the 21-foot boat’s overturned hull, on March 2, two days after it overturned in stormy seas. The bodies of Smith, Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, and former University of South Florida player William Bleakley have not been found.
Many of Smith’s teammates from the Lions and from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers where he played his first four NFL seasons attended the memorial service.
Basketball
President rallies in bracket
President Barack Obama won a little game of pickup.
Off to a slow start in his NCAA tournament bracket, the president’s picks fared a lot, lot better Saturday.
All eight of the teams he chose to reach the round of 16 – North Carolina, Connecticut, Duke, Villanova, Memphis, Oklahoma, Purdue and Gonzaga – wound up winning.
President Obama correctly predicted only 19 of 32 first-round games, leaving him in the bottom 5 percent of the 5-plus million fans who entered ESPN.com’s pool. But with his success Saturday, he’d outpicked 40 percent of the people.
A pair of his choices to make the round of 16, Wake Forest and Florida State, already had lost in the first round.
NHL
Talk about some bad luck
Brad Richards returned to the Stars’ lineup after missing 15 games because of a wrist injury, but the former playoff MVP then broke his other hand in the third period of Dallas’ loss to host San Jose.
The center again is out indefinitely with a spiral fracture in his left hand, dealing another heavy blow to the Stars’ fading playoff hopes. The eighth-year pro is Dallas’ third-leading scorer with 48 points despite his five-week absence.
Richards had 16 goals and 32 assists in 55 games this season before breaking his wrist during a game at Columbus on Feb. 16.