After Atalanta

So the Big Ten is being the Big Tease these days after announcing, this past winter, it's thinking about adding another team to the conference. Note that the conference already has 11 teams which sets off my OCD tendencies a little and, of course, that adding another makes 12. There's a already a Big 12 Conference! Makes me want to grind my teeth. Anyway, besides the obvious counting issues, there is the issue of which team to extend the invite to. It's pretty much all about money and which team could lead to some nice(r) television contracts. Also there's supposed to be a commitment to strong academics and athletics. But then the (in)famous Joe Paterno, of Penn State, the 11th Big Ten team added in the early 1990s, said this : "It's not a question of just bringing somebody in that you're just going to kick around. It's a question of bringing someone in who can handle the academics, the research, AAU schools, people with a commitment to the women's ...

This is a smorgasbord post of little things from the past few days I have come across. Venus Williams's Wimbledon win made the cover of TIME magazine's Best moments of 2007. Pretty impressive given that tennis doesn't get all that much attention in the US. Former national champion Christopher Bowman died from an apparent drug overdose. Bowman "the Showman" was always a little bit of the wild child on the ice skating scene and had drug problems after his skating career ended. Last I had heard though he had straightened out a bit when he became a coach. Seems the former child star syndrome strikes athletes as well (though Bowman was also a child actor--he had a part in Little House on the Prairie .) A commercial for the Big Ten Network--on a Massachusetts radio station. I live far outside Big Ten country now and was quite surprised to hear the network advertised out here. Of course the commercial was touting all the men's basketball you could ever want to watch...

{I was going to run one post about all the columns, articles, etc. that reflect on 2007 or predict 2008 but there are so many--not even including all the ones local papers are running about people and events no one outside these small towns and cities know or care about. So I am dividing this up into two posts.} 'Tis the season for trotting out predictions, reflecting on the past year and wondering exactly how current players, teams, athletes, conflicts, etc. will play out. In other words there are no shortage of sports writers (and others) playing Nostradamus and patting themselves on the back for how well they did as Oracle of 2007. I am not going to do that. [Well a little bit I am.] Mostly I am going to comment on what everyone else thinks will happen because it's easier to critique than to come up with some grand predictions on my own. (It's lazy, I know. But I have ^%$# to get done this break.) In the International Herald Tribune , Christopher Clarey has some thoughts...

One of the major complaints by women's sports advocates is the lack of media attention women's sports get. It is a source of major frustration when media owners/administrators charge that people are not interested in women's sports and they don't cover them and we counter that how can they be interested when they are not covered. The newly formed, to be launched in August, Big Ten Network is saying it is committed to providing equal coverge to men's and women's sports. Jim Delany, Big Ten commissioner said the plan is to achieve equal coverage in three years. If it's a brand new network why don't they just start it up with equal programming? Why ease into it? As positive as this committment is, there have been some controversies around the network. First, the network wants cable providers in Big Ten states to add the network to their basic cable packages. The providers are not having it calling the network a "niche" channel that will show secon...