It’s not going to happen right away, said Texas Rep. Joe Barton. But the promise of renewed television riches that persuaded the Big 12’s major football members to reject overtures from the Pac-10 has shone the spotlight on the huge financial jackpot awaiting a playoff.

“The reason the Big 12 stayed together is the commissioner was able to put together a deal that enabled Texas and Texas A&M to go from about $8 million-$12 million a year to around $20 million a year” apiece, the Republican said. “I don’t really have a dog in the hunt as to how the conferences ought to be aligned. But I do think this moves us toward a playoff because we now know where the money is.”

After Colorado announced it was going to the Pac-10 and Nebraska agreed to become the Big Ten’s 12th member, the Pac-10 made a bid for all Big 12 South schools except Baylor. As Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott flew from campus to campus in Texas and Oklahoma making his pitch, the Big 12 teetered on the brink.

Momentum seemed to be building toward a handful of 16-team mega-conferences.

As the drama unfolded over several rumor-filled days, BCS haters took heart that a historic, tectonic shift in the collegiate landscape would naturally result in a championship tournament among four or five super leagues.

But after the Big 12 elected not to disband, only two other schools switched leagues, Boise State (Mountain West) and Utah (Pac-10.)

“I think what happened with the Big 12 staying together maybe postpones the creation of a playoff system,” said Barton, who has introduced anti-BCS legislation in Congress. “But it doesn’t eliminate it.”

BCS executive director Bill Hancock said he wasn’t worried.

“The fact is, the consensus of all of the schools in the 11 conferences support the BCS,” Hancock said. “There are some who have said they would rather do something else. But it’s a small percentage because the presidents of those schools know the BCS works. It does match the top two teams in a bowl game and it does preserve the importance of the regular season. And it does preserve the bowl system that so many people enjoy.

“I don’t see the universities changing their minds about a playoff or about the BCS system.”

Hancock refused to speculate on how long it might be before conference expansion again jumps into the headlines.

“The fact is, nobody knows. As of today, we have six automatic qualifying conferences.”

That number, however, could change in two years. The Mountain West, especially after adding two-time Fiesta Bowl winner Boise State, could gain an automatic BCS entry when the current four-year evaluation period ends after the 2011 regular season, though it lost Utah, which has won two BCS games.

“The official data won’t be compiled until after the four years, but intuitively looking at what they’ve done the last two years, we know the Mountain West is off to a good start,” Hancock said.

Another sign of the long-range health of the BCS is its new four-year, $495 million contract with ESPN. But Barton isn’t buying it.

“All those contracts have a kickout clause. They could go to a playoff and modify the contract,” he said.

Awaiting action by the House Energy and Commerce Committee is a bill that Barton introduced that would make it illegal to market something as a national football championship unless every eligible team was given a fair opportunity to win it.

“If we’ve learned anything through the basketball and baseball playoffs, it’s this: When you have a true playoff, the underdogs do stand up and bite every now and then,” Barton said. “It would be more fun and exciting and now we know for sure that it would also generate a lot more money.”

USC was penalized for a lack of institutional control in the ruling by the NCAA following its four-year investigation. The report cited numerous improper benefits for Bush and former basketball player O.J. Mayo, who spent just one year with the Trojans.

The coaches who presided over the alleged misdeeds — football’s Pete Carroll and basketball’s Tim Floyd — left USC in the past year.

“I’m absolutely shocked and disappointed in the findings of the NCAA,” Carroll said in a video statement produced by the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, who hired him in January. “I never thought it would come to this. … I’m extremely disappointed that we have to deal with this right now.”

The penalties include the loss of 30 football scholarships over three years and vacating 14 victories in which Bush played from December 2004 through the 2005 season. USC beat Oklahoma in the BCS title game on Jan. 4, 2005, and won 12 games during Bush’s Heisman-winning 2005 season, which ended with a loss to Texas in the 2006 BCS title game.

Bill Hancock, the executive director of the BCS, said a committee will meet to consider vacating USC’s 2004 championship. While no action would go into effect until USC’s appeals are heard by the NCAA, Hancock said there would be no 2004 champion if USC’s victory is vacated.

The NCAA says Bush received lavish gifts from two fledgling sports marketers hoping to sign him. The men paid for everything from hotel stays and a rent-free home where Bush’s family apparently lived to a limousine and a new suit when he accepted his Heisman in New York in December 2005.

The rulings are a sharp repudiation of the Trojans’ decade of stunning football success under Carroll, who won seven straight Pac-10 titles and two national championships before abruptly returning to the NFL. Floyd resigned last June, shortly after he was accused of giving cash to a middleman who helped steer Mayo to USC.

The NCAA found that Bush, identified as a “former football student-athlete,” was ineligible beginning at least by December 2004, a ruling that could open discussion of the revocation of the New Orleans Saints star’s Heisman. Members of the Heisman Trust have said they might review Bush’s award if he were ruled ineligible by the NCAA.

“I have a great love for the University of Southern California, and I very much regret the turn that this matter has taken, not only for USC, but for the fans and players,” Bush said in a statement.

“I am disappointed by (Thursday’s) decision and disagree with the NCAA’s findings. If the University decides to appeal, I will continue to cooperate with the NCAA and USC, as I did during the investigation. In the meantime, I will continue to focus on making a positive impact for the University and for the community where I live.”

USC plans to appeal some of the penalties it believes are excessive.

“There is a systemic problem facing college athletes today: unscrupulous sports agents and sports marketers,” Todd Dickey, USC’s senior vice president for administration, said in a statement. “The question is how do we identify them and keep them away from our student-athletes?”

The NCAA took no further action against the men’s basketball team, which had already banned itself from postseason play last spring and vacated its wins from Mayo’s season.

The women’s tennis team also was cited in the report for unauthorized phone calls made by a former player, but the NCAA accepted USC’s earlier elimination of its wins between November 2006 and May 2009.

“The general campus environment surrounding the violations troubled the committee,” the report said.

The report also condemned the star treatment afforded to Bush and Mayo, saying USC’s oversight of its top athletes ran contrary to the fundamental principles of amateur sports.

“Elite athletes in high profile sports with obvious great future earnings potential may see themselves as something apart from other student-athletes and the general student population,” the NCAA report said. “Institutions need to assure that their treatment on campus does not feed into such a perception.”

USC’s saga reached its climax on a tumultuous day in college athletics, when Colorado’s defection to the Pac-10 from the Big 12 provided the first steps in what could be a radical nationwide conference realignment threatening to change the nature of amateur sports.

Although the bowl ban is the most damaging to new coach Lane Kiffin, who will have to ratchet up his formidable recruiting skills to tempt players with no hope of postseason play before 2012, USC also will lose 30 scholarships over a three-year period, 10 annually from 2011-13.

“It does stink to possibly not play in a bowl game,” said USC quarterback Matt Barkley, a freshman starter last season. “But at the same time, I came here to get a degree from one of the best universities in the country and to win football games. If we play 13 instead of 14, then we’re going to try to win all 13 of those.”

USC had long been known for its lenient admission policy at football practices, which during Carroll’s tenure were open to almost anybody from movie stars to regular fans.

Although Kiffin tightened the rules shortly after taking over, the NCAA also prohibited all non-university personnel, except media and a few others, from attending practices and camps — or even standing on the sidelines during games, a favorite pastime of Will Ferrell and other wealthy USC alumni.

The Trojans barely avoided further punishment that would have removed one of the sport’s most popular teams from television. The committee discussed a TV ban, but decided the penalties handed down “adequately respond to the nature of violations and the level of institutional responsibility.”

USC is the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to be banned from postseason play since Alabama served a two-year ban ending in 2003. The NCAA issued no bowl bans during the tenure of late president Myles Brand, but the NCAA reportedly regained interest in the punishment over the past year.

The Trojans have been under suspicion for years. The NCAA, the Pac-10 and even the FBI conducted investigations into the Bush family’s business relationships and USC’s responsibility for the culture around its marquee football team.

USC officials including Garrett and Kiffin appeared before the NCAA infractions committee in February to argue the school’s ignorance of Bush’s dealings.

The report also criticized “an assistant football coach” known to be running backs coach Todd McNair, putting him on a one-year “show-cause penalty” prohibiting him from recruiting, among other sanctions.

The NCAA condemned McNair’s professed ignorance of Bush’s dealings with sports marketers Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels. Each sued Bush in attempts to recoup nearly $300,000 in cash and gifts they say were accepted by Bush’s family during his career with the Trojans while they attempted to sign him as their company’s first client.

“I know they did a very, very thorough investigation,” said Brian Watkins, a San Diego attorney who represented Lake in a lawsuit against Bush. “It surely wasn’t a rush to justice.”

Watkins said he spoke with Lake after the sanctions were announced.

“He was sad. He wished that wouldn’t have happened,” Watkins said.

The Fastest Ways to Die in Professional Sports

It is often said that in order to succeed in a sport that you must devote your entire life to eating, breathing, and drinking its fundamentals. Many people argue that the athletes today would never give their life, body, mind or soul to the games they love so much. However, if you look at the long seasons, injuries, surgeries, and even deaths involved in the sports there is no way you can argue that they don’t care. Although the fundamentals of sports will never change, great strides have been taken to ensure that no athlete will ever have to give their lives in competition again. This article will not look at which sports “kill the fastest” or “are the deadliest”, but rather it will look at how the deaths or near deaths of these athletes have acted as a catalyst for officials to save the lives for others.

HOCKEY

Hockey poses the most gruesome instance of giving your life to play the game. Thankfully, this accident did not result in a death. However, it did open the eyes of the NHL commissioners and spark a series of equipment changes and safety overhauls. The date was March 22, 1989 and the Buffalo Sabers were taking on the St. Louis Blues. In the blink of an eye, St. Louis right winger Steve Tuttle broke loose with defender Uwe Krupp following close behind. As the Blues player blew by him, Krupp grabbed Tuttle, who then lost control as his feet left the ground. Standing in front of Tuttle’s flailing skates was the Saber’s goalie Clint Malarchuk. The image that unfolded was ghastly, heart wrenching, and would be burned into the minds of hockey fans for the rest of their lives.
Tuttle’s skate met Malarchuk’s throat mercilessly. The result was a gushing wound with blood spewing from his carotid artery. Malarchuk collapsed to the ground. The announcers stumbled to come up with words, three of his teammates vomited on the ice, and the scene induced heart attacks in two fans. It seemed like the end for Malarchuk, as everyone watched helplessly as he stumbled across the ice on hands and knees. Luckily, his trainer, a Vietnam veteran, ran onto the ice to pinch off Malarchuk’s artery and save his life. If it were not for the trainer, Malarchuk would have died in less than 3 minutes from loss of blood. In a post interview, Malarchuk added, “All I wanted to do was get off the ice. My mom was watching on TV, and I didn’t want her to see me die.” His determination and the help from the trainer is what saved is life.

Because of this accident, NHL officials sanctioned throat protectors to be worn by all NHL goalies. It was no longer the era of the “Jason mask”, but rather an era of putting an increased focus on safety . . . of the goalies. Similar incidents have happened to forwards and defensive men within the last decade. Bengt Åkerblom of Sweden died on the ice in 1995 from a laceration and earlier this year Panther’s forward Richard Zednik lost 5 units of blood as his artery was sliced. Although much could be done to increase the safety in hockey, not enough has been done to protect those “putting their necks out” besides the goalies.

NASCAR

Growing up in North Carolina, I would argue the death that had the most impact of any sport would be the passing of Dale Earnhardt during the 2001 Daytona 500 race. On the final lap of the race, Earnhardt was sideswiped and hit the wall head on at nearly 150 mph. The result was devastating as the “The Intimidator” lost his life on the track. The public was in shock, as we had just lost one of the all-time most influential figures ever in any sport. In what was known as the “Final Ride”, Earnhardt’s hauler made the long trip from Daytona back to Kanapolis, NC down I-85. Not one car dared to pass the hauler the entire trip, as traffic was reportedly backed up for 2 miles with all headlights on full beam.

The death of Earnhardt was not for granted, however. Shortly after his death NASCAR officials called for research to be completed on possible head restraints. Speedway physician Steve Bohannon stated that the cause of Earnhardt’s death was a faulty seatbelt, which caused his head to violently strike the steering wheel. Later that year, Nascar began mandating the use of the HANS device (Head and Neck Support Device), which has been saving lives since.
Like the Malarchuk accident, NASCAR officials realized that there was a danger that needed to be addressed and completed a safety overhaul before any more athletes were killed. Although the number 3 car will be missed sorely in the racing world, his death resulted in safer racing for future cars and drivers. These two examples show the proper response to accidents and the administration’s willingness to overhaul “tradition” for the safety of their athletes.

BASEBALL

When most people think about the dangers in baseball, the most common perception is the risk of getting hit in the head by a pitch. During the early days of the game, getting beamed in the head by a pitcher did cause a number of deaths in the sport. The commissioners responded by requiring batters wear helmets to reduce the chance of injury and death. However, a known but rarely addressed danger in the game has increasingly been brought to the spotlight in the realm of college baseball.

College baseball players are just as big, strong, and fast as the professionals. The only difference is the bats they swing. The collegiate athletes swing bats with sweet spots and recoil that could never be produced by their wooden components. In 2000 the NCAA authorized that the maximum ball speed for any ball leaving the bat was 97 mph, 1 mph slower than a wooden bat. This was done to address the dangers in pitchers getting lined by the batter following a pitch. But on July25, 2003 one game proved that this was not enough.

On this day, Brandon Patch was taking the mound in what would be his last game ever. During this game, his opponent was the much-anticipated cross county rivals, which boasted many D1 athletes or prospects. Brandon was just the average player on a team that would likely just end the season and their baseball careers. The opposing team featured Quinn LeSage, a 6’5’’ slugger that Brandon had managed to strike out earlier in the game. LeSage approached the plate and Patch gracefully began his windup. The pitch was delivered and all that was heard was a “ping” followed by a “thud”. Brandon collapsed back towards second place. He pulled himself into a sitting position and joked about how he “should have kept it down”. Soon after, Brandon collapsed and became unconscious. He would later die from swelling of the brain as a result from being hit on the temple.

This just goes to show that the athletes are growing stronger while the bats are growing more responsive. Everyone in attendance or saw the video of Brandon’s accident knew it was the speed and force of the ball coming off LeSage’s bat that resulted in his death. The NCAA and other baseball leagues have done nothing to address the dangers in aluminum bats other than making the “maximum” speed. With an enormous sweet spot and growing strength, today’s batters have much better chances of crushing the ball, in some cases at the pitcher’s head. This recently happened to Notre Dame pitcher Wade Korpi as he took a 100 mph line drive off his head. Yes, the gun clocked the ball at 100 mph as it came off the bat . . . not the “maximum” 97 mph.

Wade was hospitalized by made a full recovery. The same cannot be said about Brandon Patch. His mother and father remain in the fight to outlaw the use of aluminum bats. Unlike the Malarchuk and Earnhardt incidents, the baseball officials have been reluctant to address this safety issue and properly form a solution to increase safety for the throwers.

FOOTBALL

When it comes to playing a sport and head on collisions, nothing is as dangerous as a 250 lb beast with a 4.45 40 time running at you at full speed.  According to The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury, 325 men and boys have died either directly or indirectly from playing football at the high school and college level between 1982-2008 (26 years). Direct injuries are defined as those fatalities which resulted directly from participation in the fundamental skills of football (such as tackling and blocking). Indirect injuries are those injuries that are caused by systemic failure as a result of exertion while participating in football activity or by a complication which was secondary to a nonfatal injury (such as heart failure and heat stroke)

A few examples:

Chuck Hugues, a wide receiver with the Detroit Lions, died of a heart attack during a game against the Chicago Bears on Octiber 24th, 1971.

James Victor Cain, a tight end for the St. Louis Cardinals, died of congenital heart failure during training camp in 1979

More recently, Korey Stringer, offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings died during training camp after his core temperature rose to 108 Degrees!! Dying within 24 hours of severe heatstroke

Proffesional Wrestling

One does not have to look far in the history of professional wrestling to find tragedies and death. The life of a professional wrestler, despite all the showmanship, leaves the wrestler tired, hurting and in need of rest they will never get. The wrestling season is all year, with Monday Night Raw being the longest lasting weekly show on cable, with wrestlers being on the road 300 days a year. The culture and the leaders of professional wrestling turned a dangerously blind eye to the use of illicit drugs in the sport which made drugs commonplace and early death likely. Linda McMahon, however, is currently facing the music in her campaign for a Senate seat from Connecticut as former wrestlers blast her work with the WWE and their treatment of the wrestlers.

A few examples:

Eddie Guererro- Died in 2005 at the age of 38 of acute heart failure. Guererro throughout his career had suffered from alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers which was caused by the grueling WWE schedule. He also has been mentioned in steroid allegations by SI dating back to the early 2000s, before the WWE began testing wrestlers for steroids

Umaga- Died in 2009 at the age of 36 from an overdose of muscle relaxers, painkillers, and tranquilizers. All of which he picked up during his career as a wrestler.

Chris Benoit-  Maybe the most tragic instance of any sport was the double murder-suicide that Chris Benoit committed in 2007. Chris, his wife Nancy, and their son were all found dead in their house with Chris hanging from a weight machine, and the other two murdered. The reports say that Chris and his wife Nancy were heavily under the influence of drugs and Chris had drugged his son before strangling him. Further studies after Benoit’s death revealed that his brain had been so heavily beat up by years of wrestling, that it resemble the brain of an 85 year old Alzheimer’s sufferer.

WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate.

The bill, which faces long odds of becoming law, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless that title contest is the result of a playoff. The measure passed by voice vote in a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee, with one audible “no,” from Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga.

“With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on,” Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn’t like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.

The bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, said the BCS system is unfair and won’t change unless prompted by Congress.

The vote came three days after the BCS selections were announced, including the Jan. 7 national title game between No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas.

In a statement before the vote, BCS executive director Bill Hancock said, “With all the serious matters facing our country, surely Congress has more important issues than spending taxpayer money to dictate how college football is played.”

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Yet Barrow wasn’t alone in criticizing his colleagues’ priorities; Reps. Zach Space, D-Ohio, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., made similar arguments. Space said that with people facing tough times, the decision to focus on college football sends the “wrong message.”

The bill has a tough road ahead, given the wide geographic representation of schools in the six conferences — the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC — that get automatic BCS bowl bids.

“The schools in those six conferences, which have such a huge financial benefit from the system, have enormous clout,” said Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and a sports law expert. “I don’t see anything coming from this.”

The current college bowl system features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer rankings. Eight other schools get the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowls.

Under the BCS, the champions of those six big conference get automatic bids, while other conferences don’t.

Although Alabama and Texas finished with undefeated seasons, so did several other teams that will not get a chance to play for the title game, including TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State.

Each will get to play in a BCS bowl: Cincinnati is the Big East champ; TCU, champion of the Mountain West, gets a bid awarded to a nonautomatic qualifying conference that meets certain criteria; and Boise State, winner of the Western Athletic Conference, gets an at-large bid.

At a May hearing, Barton warned college football officials that unless they took action toward a playoff system within two months, Congress probably would act. It took a little longer, but the timing of this week’s vote isn’t exactly a coincidence.

“Part of it is because BCS is in the news,” Barton said before the meeting.

There is no Senate version, although Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has pressed for a Justice Department antitrust investigation into the BCS.

Shortly after his election last year, Obama said there should be a playoff system.

“I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit,” Obama said at the time. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

2. You have absolutely ZERO depth perception:

3. You think the trampoline is a great place to dunk from:

4. You had to enlist in the military instead of the NBA . . . and still can’t dunk:

5. If you think Sir Isaac Newton’s laws do not apply to chairs and dunking off of them:

6. The high school asked you to be the mascot instead of the center:

7. They ask you to put on a Scream mask before attempting a dunk:

8. You’re fat, dunking depends on your life, and there’s only a bucket:

9. See (5) and apply to shopping carts:

10. You’re a nerd and you have a dunk called “the Spidey” involving wall climbing:

11. If your friends convince you to jump off their backs . . . from 10 ft out:

12. You don’t believe in the slippery powers of freaking ICE:

I have taken the time to edit the real conversation for those of us that didn’t have a chance to read it.

Q: What is your favorite passing route?

A: I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite pass route, but you know what’s nice? When you can hit a guy in stride on a bomb, 50 yards, he doesn’t stop, and he scores with it. That’s nice. … The best is when you see a guy beat a guy, and the guy is trying to catch up, and you hit him in stride. There’s nothing prettier than that. You know what else is pretty? Greg Paulus. That mother fucker came in here trying to take my job after never touching the field for FOUR, count them . . . FOUR fucking years. He even had K lobbying for his sorry ass. If I spent as much time on the floor as Greg Paulus . . . you’d have to wipe me up with a shamwow. Bad analogy. That shamwow guy beat a stripper right? Shit. That doesn’t go over well in Durham. 

Q: What would it mean to you to help lead this team to a bowl game?

A: It would mean everything. But it just wouldn’t be enough to just get there. If I get there, I want to win it. It would mean so much because when I was recruited I was told we weren’t very good and I was told I was part of a change. … It’s only eight seniors that will be able to play this season. For us eight to be remembered as the eight that led this football team to a bowl game … would be tremendous. It’s not how you came in, but how you leave a place. … It would be big. But shit, half the bowl’s that we would be invited to would leave us in debt anyways. Know how much the Papajohn.com bowl payed out? Yeah, $350 K. The Wolfpack weren’t the only team leaving in the red by just GOING to that bowl. Their asses were red too. Because they got spanked. So was their bank account, which is what I was alluding to anyways. 

Q: What would you say you learned about yourself since your enrollment at Duke?

A: I can do anything. I can do anything I put my mind to. … A lot of people don’t know that my freshman year, halfway through the semester, I was failing. Thought I was going to fail out of Duke. Picked it up, and I finished with a 2.5 [G.P.A] that semester. The next three semesters I went 3.4. … I look at it now that I’m about to get a degree in December from Duke University. That’s big.

Coming out of Opa-Locka I didn’t think about getting in Duke, didn’t really know much about the academic standards, what the degree is worth. Now I’m in that elite company with a [degree]. … I didn’t just come to college to play football. I was able to manage both. If I can do it, anybody could do it. Sheldon Williams did it, and look where he’s at in life. He married a hot-ass giant WNBA all-sat . . . has a kid . . . ALL while everyone thought he was retarded. We both majored in sociology. It’s the geography of Duke University. Michael Jordan was a geography major . . . and look how rich he became! To us athletes, our degrees mean all the shit in the world. You’re my sociological hero, Sheldon Williams. Shit yeah.