1,000: with a home-court victory over UGA on Thursday, Pat Summit became the first Div I basketball coach to click the odometer over to four digits.

posted by lil_brown_bat to basketball at 03:40 PM - 6 comments

Drainage luge? Wrestle ball? Freestyle snowshoe boulder jumping? : The results of the 2008 Horny Toad Invent-A-Sport contest are in, and there are some beauties.

posted by lil_brown_bat to extreme at 02:50 PM - 6 comments

"Papa, I gotta go potty. Hold my fishing rod." : Man lands record catfish with daughter's Barbie fishing rod.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 08:28 PM - 11 comments

I was robbed: : James Blake knocked out of Olympic final by Fernando Gonzalez, complains about contested point.

posted by lil_brown_bat to olympics at 12:22 PM - 9 comments

It's a sister slam! : Venus and Serena Williams cruised through the Wimbledon women's singles semifinal with straight sets victories over Elena Dementieva and Zheng Jie, to advance to their third straight all-Williams Wimbledon final.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 01:09 PM - 10 comments

Henin retires. : Number 1 ranked Justine Henin has announced her immediate retirement from professional tennis.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 10:30 AM - 14 comments

US claims the crystal globe: : US skiers Lindsay Vonn and Bode Miller took the women's and men's overall World Cup Sunday, claiming the highest honors in one of the world's most challenging athletic competitions. Miller and Vonn each also claimed a discipline World Cup, in super combi and downhill respectively. The US total of five crystal globes (Ted Ligety of the US won the men's GS World Cup) was the most of any competing nation.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 08:27 AM - 6 comments

If it's not one thing, it's another. : Curt Schilling isn't just wrassling with Congress, he's now engaged in a dispute with his employer, the Boston Red Sox, over his readiness to start the '08 season. The issue: a bum shoulder. The disagreement: what to do about it -- and whether Schilling's condition would allow the Red Sox to void his one-year contract.

posted by lil_brown_bat to baseball at 04:48 PM - 10 comments

The mighty hath fallen: : Novak Djokovic knocks out Roger Federer in a straight-sets victory in the Australian Open semis.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 04:55 PM - 13 comments

Giants down Cowboys 21-17: : in the day's second upset, the fifth-seeded Giants defeated the top-seed Cowboys in Dallas.

posted by lil_brown_bat to football at 07:33 PM - 84 comments

Last of the ironmen: : James DeAngelis, the last surviving member of Yale's 1934 "Ironman" football team, died Wednesday at age 97. The Yale team earned their nickname in an upset victory over Princeton on November 17, 1934 that ended a two-year, 15-game winning streak. The 11 Yale players (yes, that's 11) all played the game's full 60 minutes, the last time any college football team was to do so.

posted by lil_brown_bat to football at 06:22 PM - 3 comments

"If you're not confrontational, you're not doing your job." : Due to step down as head of the World Anti-Doping Agency at the conclusion of this week's Third World Conference on Doping in Sport, Dick Pound offers some parting remarks in the Telegraph.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 08:00 AM - 12 comments

Shades of Litvinenko! : When Tommy Haas fell ill and had to concede his Davis Cup semifinal match to Mikhail Youzhny, he (and everyone else, including the team doctor) assumed it was a simple case of a stomach virus. Now, thanks to a remark from a Russian trainer to a member of the German team, Haas's illness is being investigated as a possible poisoning.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 04:27 PM - 7 comments

"I expected it to be kind of a factory setting...and what I found was a very loving, somewhat casual environment...they weren't factories, they were more like gardens.": On NPR's Only a Game, Daniel Coyle talks about where great athletic talent comes from, as further described in his article How to Grow a Super-Athlete (NY Times Play magazine).

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 11:34 AM - 6 comments

Auntie Em! It's a twister! : Saturday's running of the 2007 Mount Washington Hillclimb, considered the toughest hillclimb in the sport of cycling, was cancelled due to weather.

"We have agonized over this decision," said Howie Wemyss, the general manager of the Mt. Washington Auto Road, noting that some of the volunteers staffing the finish area at the 6288-foot summit were being blown to the ground by the winds.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 12:50 PM - 3 comments

Five is a magic number: : Roger Federer won his fifth consecutive Wimbledon championship Sunday, tying Bjorn Borg's record for most consecutive Wimbledon championships. The win over Nadal also marked the first time that Federer has needed five sets to secure a championship.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 12:12 PM - 10 comments

Two years ago : Venus Williams became the lowest-ranked player to win the Wimbledon championship in thie history of the tournament. Today she did it again, beating 18th seed Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-1 to claim her fourth Venus Rosewater Dish after entering the tournament seeded 23rd and ranked 31st.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 04:28 PM - 8 comments

LeMond lets it all hang out: : Greg LeMond's testimony at the Floyd Landis doping trial takes a turn for the bizarre, to say the least.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 09:25 PM - 33 comments

Bode goes indy: : after 11 years as a member of the US Ski Team, Bode Miller elects to compete as an independent.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 05:21 PM - 10 comments

Possession gets you life: : on Wednesday, 4/25, the IOC announced a lifetime ban of six members of the Austrian cross-country and biathlon teams, making them permanently ineligible to participate in the Olympics in any capacity. The ban marks a double first: the first ever lifetime Olympic ban, and the first ever ban resulting not from any missed or failed tests, but for possession of blood doping equipment.

posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 09:32 AM - 8 comments

"It's not drunken driving in New Jersey if it involves a Zamboni."

posted by lil_brown_bat to extreme at 11:53 AM - 40 comments

"The guy said, 'Hit the net like any Negro would.'" : Serena Williams battled both Lucie Safarova and a racist heckler to win her third-round match at the Sony Ericcson Open on Monday, before going on to hand Maria Sharapova a 6-1, 6-1 defeat in the final on Tuesday.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 08:26 AM - 41 comments

Better late than never: : the 2007 French Open becomes the last Grand Slam tournament to extend equal prize money to women.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 03:18 PM - 37 comments

One and done: : Roger Federer exits after the first round at Indian Wells. Federer's 41-match winning streak was terminated by Guillermo Canas (7-5, 6-2); ironically, Canas had lost in qualifiers but backed into the tournament when Xavier Malisse withdrew with an injury.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 09:39 AM - 2 comments

Equal pay for equal play: : the All England Club announced plans to offer equal prize money across the board for men and women at this year's Wimbledon tournament. Of the four Grand Slams, the Australian Open and US Open also offer equal prize money; the French Open offered equal prizes to the men's and women's champions in 2006, but does not offer equal prize money throughout the tournament.

posted by lil_brown_bat to tennis at 08:25 AM - 18 comments