The escapades of Rajon Rondo.
We took the liberty of mocking up a new, pelican-centric visual identity for the team.
Marc Spears at Yahoo Sports has reported that the New Orleans Hornets will change their name to the Pelicans, possibly as soon as next season. That also means that the Charlotte Bobcats will probably become the Charlotte Hornets once again. We are 100% in favor of both of these changes. And we took the liberty of mocking up a new logo that the Hornets can have, free of charge.
Holler at us, New Orleans.
Those are some cool pelicans.
H/T Marc Spears at Yahoo Sports
Coach Rick Majerus passed away over the weekend. The program he built, Utah, will honor him in the best way possible.
Image by Al Behrman, File / AP
Over the weekend, legendary college coach Rick Majerus passed away at the age of 64. Most famously, Majerus coached an unheralded Utah program into national relevance and an almost-championship — the team led powerhouse Kentucky by 10 points at halftime of the 1998 national title game before succumbing. And though he ended his career at St. Louis University, where he retired after the 2012 tournament, it's for his accomplishments at Utah that he'll be best remembered.
That's why it's fitting that Utah will also be paying him his most touching compliment. The university has announced that a huge replica of one of Majerus' famous sweaters, seen in the picture above, will hang from the rafters of the Jon M. Huntsman Center, where the team plays its home games. (Teams traditionally hang the jerseys of former players from the rafters as tribute, and sometimes use the jersey number 1 for past coaches.)
Majerus and many of his former players had a bond that went past the usual coach-player relationship. At his last press conference, which took place after St. Louis' tournament loss to Michigan State at the end of last season, during the presser, both Coach Majerus and senior Brian Conklin broke down in tears when talking about what they meant to each other. Read Gary Parrish's take on the press conference here, and watch the simultaneously moving testimonials from Majerus and Conklin below.
He will be missed.
H/T Matt Norlander at CBS Sports
Last night the Lakers lost to the Houston Rockets, and Houston's radio announcer made the best call of the year.
Source: youtube.com
This really is the GIF that keeps giving.
Source: @cjzero
An incredibly scientific exploration.
Reddit. It's like the Internet's lost and found.
Image by Chris McKay / Getty Images
Looks like David Beckham has some competition.
It's also the stupidest. But this is sports.
Like many good commercials that have come before it, this new spot for French TV channel Canal+ riffs off of one very simple thing — the soccer goal celebration. The production quality is what makes this simple spot sing and not sink.
Canal+ is industry-famous for their TV ads, like these two award-winning spots: "Closet" and "Bear."
Ad agency: BETC, Paris.
It was on The New Class but I believe it's still canon. 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh was quite the budding little thespian.
Image by Tony Avelar / AP
At 14, Tiger was already plotting world domination.
In 1990, Earl Woods truly believed his son would grow up to be the next Jack Nicklaus. Before Tiger went to Stanford and won the U.S. Amateur three times in a row, Earl knew that as a black player with a Thai mother, Tiger would go on to become a global phenomenon. "He can't lose," Earl said, "unless he doesn't win. And I don't anticipate him not winning." And it's plain to see Tiger didn't anticipate losing much either.
To see Tiger Woods at 14 speak so candidly and confidently on the burden of his own enormous talent, the overbearing expectation of challenging Jack Nicklaus (he had a poster of Jack hanging in his room), and the divisive factor of his own race in a sport governed by old white men is astonishing. Even as a teenager, Tiger possessed the same staggering self-assurance which has defined his career, for better or worse.
“Dashing to the show, so we can entertain. O'er the ropes we go. Hope I land on Kane.” Thanks, WWE. This was very necessary.
Source: youtube.com
Here's why. These pelicans are bad dudes.
Source: s3-ec.buzzfed.com
Like the killer flocks in Hitchcock's classic The Birds, pelicans have descended on the city of New Orleans. They've blocked out the sun. They've incited terror. And they're making a lot of people mad on the Internet.
The New Orleans Hornets will be changing their name to the New Orleans Pelicans before the beginning of next season. "Hornets" was a name inherited from Charlotte, from whence the franchise fled after the 2002 season, and the New Orleans Hornets have never really caught on as a franchise — even during Chris Paul's heyday in the late 2000s, the Hornets rarely left the bottom-third of the league in terms of attendance. And the obvious re-labels for a New Orleans team would be music-related, but Utah retains the "Jazz" moniker it got when the previous New Orleans hoops squad moved there in 1979, despite the fact that there have only been five recorded instances of people playing, or even listening to, jazz music in Utah history. So New Orleans has to look elsewhere for inspiration.
Enter pelicans, flying in squadrons, because that's what flocks of pelicans are called, which of course you knew. A lot of initial reaction to the team's announcement has been incredulous, probably because Pelicans are a little goofy-looking.
Based on the fact that he didn't die of fright after this experience, Pitt couldn't possibly be anything but.
Mike Tyson gave an interview to "In Depth with Graham Bensinger," and in it he tells one hell of an '80s story. In 1989, he was finalizing his divorce from actress Robin Givens. Apparently, they were still, uh, being intimate during the proceedings, though, and one day, Tyson says he got a little more than he anticipated when he showed up at Givens' house.
Via: news.com.au
Why is Brad Pitt the bravest man in the world? Well, listen to what Tyson says next, and check out what he he looked like at that time of his career.
Ohio State assistant coach and former New England Patriot star Mike Vrabel got a little too fired up before the Ohio State–Michigan game.
Image by Mark Duncan / AP
He's “protecting the game he loves.” Oh, so that's what he's been doing.
The question of "How far will Roger go to protect the game he loves?" is a confusing one. Who is attacking football?
Is it the players? Some players don't like Roger Goodell all that much, but that's usually only because he doles out punishments liberally whenever there's a hard hit or whenever James Harrison opens his mouth. They also don't love that concussions are shortening their lives at a massive clip.
So is it the concussions that are attacking football? There were 218 reported, diagnosed concussions suffered by players in 2010, and 190 in 2011 — and those are just reported concussions. Some retired players claim to have suffered thousands of concussions over the course of their careers. Still, Goodell has assured us that the game is becoming safer by year, and that "no sport is 100% safe" anyway.
Is the American public attacking football? Has the media finally drummed up enough concussion hysteria that average parents will no longer allow their child on the pee-wee football team and refuse to watch football on Sundays? Well, NFL revenues have jumped from $6 billion when Goodell took over as commissioner in 2006 to an estimated $9.5 billion this year. Television ratings have been rising every year. America loves football.
So I don't know. Football seems perfect just the way it is, right, Roger?
These guys are all legends partly BECAUSE they were willing to fail way more than anyone else.
You can read John Hollinger's piece here.
Image by Stacy Revere / Getty Images
Source: upload.wikimedia.org
Source: sportsthenandnow.com
In the heroic Time cover story , Roger Goodell's brother Michael talks about how Roger protected him growing up. “It was a lifelong thing,” he said.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell walks on the field before the start of the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins NFL football game in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Oct. 28, 2012.
Image by Gary Hershorn / Reuters
According to Time, the NFL commissioner's younger brother was the target of bullies while growing up. Roger, who was an aggressive kid, channeled his energy into defending Michael.
“Absolutely, he would beat the crap out of people,” said Michael. “Roger was not Atticus Finch.”
Unfortunately, the bullying was something that didn't stop in college. Yet, Roger continued to be Michael's protector.
Michael once visited Roger in college and went to the bar where he worked. “There were these two twins, they were body-builder twins, they were freaks,” said Michael. The meatheads picked Michael up and were about to punch him, until Roger started cursing them from behind the bar. They put Michael down. “So yeah, it was a lifelong thing,” says Michael of the intervention.
It wasn't until after college that Michael came out. He is now married to TV writer Jack Kenny.
Like many gay kids who committed suicide because of bullying, Michael felt that he easily could have been one of them if it were not for Roger.
“I was the type who would have been beat up a lot,” Michael said. “It would have been humiliating. What would that have meant if I did survive it? Would I have done drugs? There are all sorts of things you can turn to just because of self-hatred and loathing. But none of that was even a possibility, because I had this support around me. So, yeah, Roger is very much a hero figure for me.”
The interview Time conducted with Michael was the first time he discussed what it was like growing up — and the first time Roger heard him talk about it.
“Ha,” Roger said with a tear in his eye. “That’s the first time I heard that. I didn’t know it had that much impact on him.”
Michael is pictured front and center with his family on the steps. His brother, Roger, is next to him (with the red arrow). Image courtesy of Time.
BuzzFeed Sports has more on Goodell's cover story here.
Shaq likes three things: basketballs, dungeons, and over-priced accessories.
Price: $149.99
Verdict: It looks like a basketball.
Source: zales.com
Price: $1,699.99
Verdict: It looks like a basketball.
Source: zales.com
Price: $199.99
Verdict: It looks like a basketball.
Source: zales.com
Price: $199.99
Verdict: It looks like a basketball.
Source: zales.com
Oh Andrew…
Via: @AdamReigner
Via: @Lackey13
Image by David Mailetti/Philadelphia Daily News/MCT