John Walters

Buzz Bissinger takes on Will Leitch, the New York Daily News takes on Roger Clemens' life in between starts, and Tyler Hansbrough commits news without announcing for the NBA draft. Just another weird week.

The Buzz bin
Appearing on "Costas Now," Pulitzer Prize-winning author H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger uses the terms "full of (bleep)," "(bleeps) the (bleep) out of me," "bull(bleep)," "(bleepin') clever," "(bleep) around" and "c'mon, my ass" while excoriating Deadspin founder Will Leitch for the crude nature of his site.

On the other hand Bissinger, while unhinged, was honest. Leitch might have come off better if he'd simply said, "If it's funny, I'll post it, and I really don't give a hoot about the collateral damage."

And then he tilted his head in the direction of State College and rolled his eyes
Speaking at a Gettysburg, Pa., Notre Dame Alumni Club event last week, Fighting Irish head coach Charlie Weis told the audience, "I could get hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow. I won't do it that way."

A few days later a Deadspin contributor -- but not the one who is, you know, really full of feces -- phoned the local alumni club prez, Brendan Cushing-Daniels. The Deadspin writer inquired as to whether he thought Weis' quote was racist. Cushing-Daniels should have replied, but did not, "Do you know what irony is?"

Weis was speaking, by the way, just 132 miles south of Penn State University, whose football program has had more than 50 players arrested in the past seven years. And who spanked the Irish last September, 31-10. Probably just a coincidence.

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Last week the University of Buffalo suspended basketball player Andy Robinson, the team's leading scorer in 2007-08, for academic fraud. This after Robinson, a junior, posted the following message on his Facebook page:

"I am paying anybody who have read the book 'there are no children here' by Alex Kotlowitz $30-40 which in some classes you have to read at UB (even more money if you have to read the book a little more!!) to write a 3-4 page paper, on a couple of questions which was assigned."

Hold your self-righteous harrumphs, please, at least for the moment. Notice that Robinson's sentence features not one but two errors in subject-verb agreement. Now read the statement the university released on Robinson's behalf, purportedly in his own words:

"I realize I made a mistake for which I take full responsibility and realize I must regain the trust of my teammates, fellow student-athletes and coaching staff. I have brought disappointment in myself and the university and for this I am truly sorry."

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Baseball cover up, NBA faux pas, tennis nap, and more. more photos

Surely, Andy Robinson should not be admonished for a little academic misstep; he should instead be commended on how quickly he has improved his grammar.

Tyler Hansbrough's vertical is off the charts
Some people look at this photo of college hoops Player of the Year Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough and worry that he might have endangered an NBA career (and UNC's shot at a national title in 2009) by leaping from the terrace of this frat house into a pool.

That is so racist.

Obviously, Hansbrough is a superior athlete with mad hops who simply was showing off his vertical to the brothers at Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Chill out, America.

There Will Be Blood
Track and field can be a contact sport. Just ask Stanford's Alicia Follmar, who fell during the Penn Relays last Saturday in Philadelphia and, while on the ground, took a spike to the head. Follmar did not go the Mary Decker-Slaney "Why me?" route, choosing instead to rise up and help the Cardinal to a third-place finish.

Obama plays pick-up game with Heels, declares self eligible for NBA draft
One day before Tyler Hansbrough did his best impersonation of Flubber-soled Tommy Kirk in "The Absent-Minded Professor," he and his Tar Heel teammates played a little full-court hoop with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. (The game was entirely impromptu and spontaneous, of course. Why would the members of a D-I hoops team all gather at the gym at the same time in basketball gear during finals week? That would be like ... practice.)

Clemens does not appear on "Oprah;" still has affairs revealed
Oprah Winfrey dug up more sexual tryst dirt this week than the New York Daily News. First, in an episode that will air next Thursday, Cher revealed that she had a date with Tom Cruise, who is 16 years younger, back in the mid-'80s. "Oh, that was a long date," cooed Cher, 61. Barbara Walters, in an episode that will air on Tuesday, confessed that in the 1970s she carried on an affair with then-married Massachusetts senator Ethan W. Brooke.

All of these revelations paled, of course, in comparison to the news that Roger Clemens may have had liaisons of questionable merit with an underage Mindy McCready as well as John Daly's ex-wife. Of the relationship with McCready, the Daily News reports that the pair once "holed up in the trendy SoHo Grand and later partied with Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan."

Which could make for an unforgettable Hanes commercial down the line.

Tempe tantrum
On Thursday evening Arizona State University announced the dissolution of its competitive cheer program. Earlier that day six of the squad's 16 members were featured in this photo (potentially NSFW) on locally-based lust site TheDirty.com.

"We are not eliminating our cheer programs," spins associate athletic director Steve Hank. "We are strengthening our presentation ... We have decided to combine the strengths of these organizations under one central leadership group, thereby creating a unified spirit squad."

The photo, according to the cheerleaders, was taken two years ago at a party. A Sun Devil spokesperson insisted that the photo had no bearing on the decision to eliminate the cheerleading squad. The six scantily clad women will not be suspended, but they will be required to read "There Are No Children Here" and write a "3-4 page paper."

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