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Mike Souchak won 15 tour events in a career that lasted over a decade. He was an accomplished college football player and shot the lowest score ever in PGA history for 72 holes at the 1955 Texas Open. That record stood for over four decades. RIP.
DURHAM, N.C. (AP)—Former PGA Tour professional and Duke Sports Hall of Fame member Mike Souchak has died.
The school said the 81-year-old died Thursday in Belleair, Fla.
Souchak won 15 events on the PGA Tour from 1955-66 and had 11 top-10 finishes in major championships. He finished third at the U.S. Open in 1959 and 1960, and played on the winning U.S. Ryder Cup teams in ‘59 and ‘61.
He set a tour record for four-round low score at the 1955 Texas Open, opening with a 60 and finishing a 257. That record stood until Mark Calcavecchia’s 256 at the 2001 Phoenix Open.
At Duke, Souchak lettered three seasons in football and four in golf, helping the Blue Devils win two Southern Conference golf titles.
Jay Bergman was an institution at UCF where he had been baseball coach for 28 years. From the Orlando Sentinel-
The University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because he was accused of sexually harassing a team equipment manager, a university source has confirmed.
Bergman used a bat to simulate raping equipment manager Chris Rhyce in early March, said the university source and two other sources with knowledge of the allegation. The university source asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for UCF.
The three sources said Rhyce told the university in a written complaint that he was held down on the field, fully clothed, by a baseball staff member before a March 7 game while the players watched. Bergman was said to have grabbed a bat and shoved it toward Rhyce’s buttocks.
Bergman coached for almost 26 years at UCF.
File this under embarrassing ways to taint or destroy a long career. The UCF Baseball field is named for Bergman.
I’m inclined to believe the allegations. Bergman was suspended for one game in 2006 for inappropriate behavior towards one of his players. The lawyer for Bergman is denying what happened (of course), and the school is clamming up. (of course) Go to the link and read the Orlando Sentinel article to form your own opinion.
It was broom and dustpan time in Gainesville last Friday.
The Gators’ 2006 BCS National Championship trophy fell off of its stand in Florida’s football offices and broke Friday, Florida’s operations and facilities director Chip Howard said Monday.
Because Florida is preparing to move to its new offices, which are expected to be completed in July, Howard said the trophy was in a temporary location in an open area of one of the stadium’s sky boxes.
“It was on a coffee table, and it was inadvertently bumped,” Howard said. “It doesn’t take much for the top of it to fall off.”
The trophy was insured for $8,000, and the university has already put in an order to replace it. Howard said it should take about 90 days for the new Waterford crystal trophy to reach Gainesville.
At least it was insured. Note also, the trophy was on a coffee table. Was someone using it to store mints?
The owner’s meetings have resulted in various minor tweaks to the rules but the two most controversial, requiring players with long hair to keep it tucked under their helmets and allowing wild-card teams with superior records to have home field advantage over a division winner, were not passed.
Competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay, president of the Atlanta Falcons, was not surprised about the lack of support for reseeding, in which a wild-card team with a better record than a division winner would play at home in the first playoff round. “This idea we wanted to push this year to get the discussion going,” McKay said. “There were not a lot of hands up, so we withdrew the proposal for now. There is the historical idea that a division champion should have a home game.”
That was exactly why Patriots owner Robert Kraft opposed reseeding. “I do believe if you win a division, it’s good for your fans to know you will have a home game,” Kraft said. “To win a division, there is a reward and we wanted to keep that.”
There also remains concern about late-season games becoming meaningless when teams already have secured their playoff positions. Commissioner Roger Goodell indicated discussions of reseeding are not dead. “The focus I said to the competition committee is what are the alternatives we have to make sure every game is as competitive as possible,” Goodell said. “I think the debate was good.”
While I can see wanting teams to play hard in the closing weeks, giving wild card teams superior seeding just flies in the face of tradition. If you’re going to do that, why not just eliminate divisions — and conferences — altogether and simply pick the teams with the twelve best records?
Among the proposals that were passed:
• A recommendation to eliminate force-out decisions on pass completions near the sidelines. Now, officials will only have to decide whether a receiver landed in bounds or not. The intended result is more consistency.
• The “Phil Dawson field goal rule.”. Now, certain field goals can be reviewed by instant replay, including kicks that bounce off the uprights. Under the previous system, no field goals could be replayed.
• Deferring the opening coin toss. This is similar to the college rule. Previously, the winner of the coin toss could only choose to receive or kick off.
• A direct snap from center that goes backward will now be treated as a fumble. Previously, it was ruled a false start.
• Eliminating the 5-yard face mask penalty. Now, only the serious face mask will be called (and will be assessed as a 15-yard penalty). The major foul will involve twisting or grabbing the face mask.
Those all make sense. The 5-yard face mask is just too much of a judgment call and we wind up with too many ticky-tack calls on it. Frankly, I’d like to eliminate most of the incidental contact and “illegal motion” type penalties, which slow down the game and take it away from the players.
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This news comes days after Stanford was eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
The Lopez twins are going pro together. Stanford sophomore Robin Lopez is joining his 7-foot brother Brook in entering the NBA draft. The brothers made their announcement to The Associated Press on Monday through their mother, Deborah Ledford.
It was expected that Brook would declare himself eligible for the NBA, but Robin was not so certain. They were prep stars in Fresno, Calif., and came to Stanford together. Now they will depart as a tandem, too.
“This has been a very difficult decision for me because I really enjoyed my two years at Stanford,” Robin Lopez said in a statement released to the AP. “I have always hoped I would have an opportunity to play in the NBA and I feel now is the right time to make that dream a reality.”
Brook Lopez, a third-team All-American and a first-team Pac-10 selection, averaged 19.3 points and 8.2 rebounds to go with 56 blocks this season. He scored the game-winning basket with 1.3 seconds left in an 82-81 victory over Marquette in the second round of the NCAA tournament to put Stanford in the regional semifinals for the first time since 2001.
Both Brook and Robin will hire agents and thus forgo their remaining two years of college eligibility, their mom said.
Since I rarely follow basketball(Pro or college) I am clueless as to the chances the Lopez brothers have of sticking in the NBA. To be honest, I would stay in college. Especially since its Stanford.
There has been a history of twins, identical and non-identical in professional sports. Hardcore golf fans will know golf Hall of Famer Curtis Strange has an identical twin brother Allen. In the NHL right now there are the identical Sedin brothers, Daniel and Henrik who play for the Vancouver Canucks. In baseball there were the Canseco brothers and the O’brien brothers.
If Robin Lopez can’t make it in the NBA, he can always caddy for Michelle Wie. SI reported recently that the two of them are dating.(Hat tip- ROK Drop)
Say it ain’t so.
The Ivy League and Harvard will review whether recruiting violations were made by the Crimson men’s basketball program.
A story in The New York Times on Sunday chronicled, among other issues, recruiting efforts by a man who is now an assistant coach at Harvard, and how those efforts might have been in violation of NCAA rules.
“We’re going to do what needs to be done, and it’s going to be done in a timely way,” Jeff Orleans, the Ivy League executive director, told The Times for Wednesday’s editions.
Kenny Blakeney, the top assistant on coach Tommy Amaker’s staff, reportedly visited two recruits — Max Kenyi, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard from Washington, D.C., and Keith Wright, a 6-7 forward from Norfolk, Va., when in-person contact is not allowed.
Kenyi told The Times that Blakeney had played basketball with him in June or July 2007. Wright told The Times that Blakeney had visited him at one of his summer basketball team practices in Norfolk, saying, “He actually got to play with us, because he wasn’t actually on Harvard’s staff … He didn’t sign anything yet, so he got to play with us, and we talked and exchanged numbers.”
Harvard announced Blakeney’s hiring on July 2, 2007. In addition, visits such as Blakeney’s may still be a violation, according to NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson, because the rules state, “Should a coach recruit on behalf of a school but not be employed there, he or she is then considered a booster and that recruiting activity is not allowed.”
Should a school be punished for the actions of a coach before he worked for the school? Some NCAA rules seem silly to me.
A Ivy league school being investigated is not unheard of. A google search found this article on Brown. Learn something new every day.
He has been on leave since early November. From AP-
TUCSON, Ariz. - Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson said Thursday night he would extend his leave of absence through the end of this season, citing undisclosed family matters that require his attention.
In a statement released by the university, the 73-year-old Hall of Famer said he plans to return to coach the Wildcats for the 2008-09 season.
“There are personal issues within my family that need to be addressed and I must devote my full energy to that,” Olson said in the statement.
Athletic director Jim Livengood said assistant coach Kevin O’Neill will continue to serve as interim coach for the rest of this season. The 22nd-ranked Wildcats (5-2) are at Illinois on Sunday.
I hope whatever the cause of Olson’s leave isn’t too serious. God bless.
Bobby Bowden has been Seminole head football coach for thirty-two seasons. From the Sun-Sentinel-
Florida State University is close to announcing an agreement that would name offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher the successor to legendary coach Bobby Bowden, a source close to the situation confirmed this morning.
FSU spokesperson Frank Murphy said the school will hold a news conferences at 11:30 a.m. Monday to discuss the coaching situation.
A source said Wednesday morning that “there’s an agreement in principle” but that lawyers representing both FSU and Fisher are still negotiating several details. The source said the deal is not complete, and that it might not be complete until next week. The source also said the possibility still exists that the deal could fall through.
*****
The source also said no timetable will be set for Fisher to take the reins from Bowden, college football’s career Division I victories leader. Bowden last week agreed to a 1-year contract extension that will pay him $2.5 million per season and includes a payment of $1 million bonus upon his retirement. FSU officials have said Bowden can remain FSU’s coach for as long as he wishes.
Fisher, who is FSU’s offensive coordinator, is often mentioned when some head vacancy occurs. FSU looks to be trying to keep Fisher from leaving, which to me appears a good move. Both for the football team’s success and for recruiting purposes. Potential FSU recruits will know what they are getting when Bowden retires.
Another Division I coach is looking for new employment.
ATLANTA - Georgia Tech fired coach Chan Gailey on Monday, two days after a sixth straight loss to rival Georgia ended a disappointing season.
Athletic director Dan Radakovich called an afternoon news conference to discuss the football program. A person familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made, said Radakovich would announce Gailey has been dismissed after six seasons as the Yellow Jackets coach.
The move was widely expected after Georgia Tech (7-5) came up far short of another run at the Atlantic Coast Conference championship one year after winning its division. Also, Gailey never beat the school’s biggest rival, losing 31-17 to the Bulldogs on Saturday.
Gailey was both head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphin Offensive Coordinator before taking his gig at Georgia Tech. Make a bet he is back coaching in the NFL in 2008.
 Matt Mosley says of the Dallas Cowboys’ newly minted $67.5 million man,
You can buy into all this “I’m just happy to be here” Romo storyline or you can know the truth, which is that no quarterback this side of Joe Willie has ever enjoyed the stage like this kid.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
His joy is apparently infectious, which shouldn’t be surprising considering how long the Cowboys have waited for a worthy successor to Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, and Troy Aikman.
In what may have been one of the most surreal news conferences in club history, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announced quarterback Tony Romo’s six-year, $67.5 million contract, and then passed along some time-honored dating advice. Moments after a non-Hashmarks sanctioned reporter interrupted the proceedings with a question about Romo’s alleged run-in with Britney Spears in Los Angeles on Friday, Jones slowly leaned forward and said in his best Arkansas accent, “I’ve told Tony that sometimes they can smell fresh cash.”
The line drew huge laughter, and I turned to my right just in time to see the owner’s daughter, Charlotte, rolling her eyes. Romo was in the middle of answering the next question when he paused, looked over at Jones and said, “That was pretty good.”
Pretty good, indeed. Although this isn’t even close to the most surreal press conference in Jerry Jones’ tenure. There was the awkward announcement of the hiring of Jimmy Johnson in the wake of the firing of the legendary Tom Landry. There was the bizarre announcement that Johnson was leaving after back-to-back Super Bowl wins. Then there was the hiring of Barry Switzer and his histrionics.
A little comic relief is just fine after all that.
You can buy into all this “I’m just happy to be here” Romo storyline or you can know the truth, which is that no quarterback this side of Joe Willie has ever enjoyed the stage like this kid.
As Jones and coach Wade Phillips showered him with praise for about 45 minutes, Romo desperately tried to supress a grin that has contributed mightily to his growing fortune. Repeatedly asked whether the money would change him, he finally deadpanned, “I think definitely I’m a better person now because I have more money.”
And the Valley Ranch press corps roared its approval.
A great line. This is a kid who’s come a long way and knows damned well that this is an absurd amount of cash. But, hey, he’s not going to turn it down.
Both Jones and his son, Stephen, talked about the active role Tony played in the negotiation process. At one point, Stephen told the quarterback he wasn’t willing to concede a certain aspect of the contract. Romo walked down the hall to the elder Jones’ office, and within seconds, had what he was looking for.
“I should’ve dealt with [Jerry] the whole time,” Romo told Stephen, who said he’d never had a player take such an active role in negotiations.
I’m glad this one is in the bag. The Cowboys have plenty of cap room and, while the amount of money is absurd, it’s quite reasonable by elite NFL quarterback standards.
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