Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
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Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
Neinas tells of one situation — no names, please — in which a school hired the coach that was really its third choice.
“The third guy was highly successful, but they don’t want to know they’re third,” Neinas said. “It can be embarrassing for a sitting head football coach to have his name out there and not wind up with the position. It’s basically to protect all the parties involved from having an embarrassing situation. You can’t always control that because there are leaks. But it won’t come from me.”
Neinas has built his contacts over four decades of work in college sports.
He began in the 1960s as an administrator for the NCAA, where one of his assignments was to organize national championship competition; he oversaw the beginning of the huge growth of what is now known as March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament.
From 1971-80, he was commissioner of the Big Eight. Then he headed the College Football Association. That group is best known for giving college football the expanded TV exposure it had long lacked, but it also played a huge role in setting standards for recruiting and academic eligibility.
It was at the CFA that Neinas worked with Mike Bohn, the new athletic director at Colorado — a search Neinas had a role in.
Neinas said searches for athletic directors are almost always more complex than those for coaches, simply because there are more issues to deal with and more administrators who have a role in the decision.
“He helps with searches,” Bohn said. “But I think many people underestimate his ability to help people understand other issues around intercollegiate athletics. It’s not just the hiring process. He has a keen insight into a lot of other nuances associated with the business.”
In all, Neinas has a list of 51 institutions he has helped in searches for a new coach or administrator.
About half the Southeastern Conference is on the list — Meyer at Florida, Mark Richt at Georgia, Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt, Les Miles at LSU — as are Arizona State, Michigan, Kansas and Neinas’ own alma mater, Wisconsin.
He makes it clear that he’s not a decision maker, “only a conduit” for schools in search of a good fit.
It’s a high-pressure world he works in, but Neinas says the pressure never gets to him.
“I just enjoy it,” he said. “This may be misplaced, but I feel like I’m helping institutions, and that’s what I like to do.”
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.