SI Extra Newsletter

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I get this from my SI subscription.. thought there might be something of interest for some of you.

 

 

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005

 

In this edition... by Richard Deitsch and David Sabino

MORNING CALL Even with T.O., Michael Silver thinks the Eagles are in for trouble on Sunday.

INSIDE SI It took an all-out effort--and much debate--to rate the nation's top 25 sports bars.

CALL TO ORDER Put these performers in order according to when they played the Super Bowl. THE EXPERT What's next for the Lakers after Rudy Tomjanovich? Jack McCallum weighs in.

GAME OF THE DAY No. 4 Duke visits No. 7 Wake Forest in the latest matchup of ACC powers.

SI TIME CAPSULE Ten years ago Steve Young threw for a record six TDs in a Super Bowl rout.

 

 

In this week's SI: Tom Brady and the Pats ponder the magnitude of the moment. Click here for more.

 

 

 

 

T.O. says he's ready to go, but Silver thinks the Patriots are due for a rout.

Amy Sancetta/AP

 

 

SI senior writer Michael Silver is an old hand when it comes to Super Bowl Media Day. Yesterday in Jacksonville he immersed himself in the cauldron of microphones and notepads for the 12th time. What did Silver consider the most shocking development? Not that Eagles wideout Terrell Owens announced that he would play on Sunday, but that Owens didn't wear sunglasses for his interview. "There wasn't much memorable that went down," says Silver. "I think the Patriots are relentlessly boring by design. They've got the drill down. The Eagles, though, are pretty excited by the environment. Donovan McNabb can say, 'We're here to win,' and, 'It's just another game,' but after what the Eagles have been through the past three years I think they know that just getting here is a successful season for them." Silver says the most interesting news may have been the ! Pats' continued carping over the practice field at Bartram Trail High School, some 31 miles south of Alltel Stadium. Because of heavy rain over the weekend the recently renovated field (for which the NFL paid $250,000 to cover sod and drainage) has been waterlogged. Last year, as some might recall, Pats coach Bill Belichick switched practice facilities from Rice Stadium in Houston to the Texans' indoor field. But Silver doesn't expect the practice-field woes to affect the Pats on Sunday. In fact he's smelling a blowout. "I'd like to see a good game, but I'm getting that old-school Super Bowl vibe from the 1980s," he says. "The Patriots are a very good team, but they've never dismantled an opponent on the big stage. I think they're due and we could see that on Sunday." For more Super Bowl news click here.

 

 

 

 

Fans can get their fill of food and football at Baltimore's ESPN Zone.

Simon Bruty

 

 

In this week's issue SI ranks the top 25 sports bars in America and examines the culture and history of the industry. To handle this spirited assignment, staff writer Chris Ballard visited nearly a dozen watering holes across the U.S., and a nominating committee of some 100 staffers, correspondents and certifiably reliable bar aficionados assembled a list of the top venues. "Today there exist multistory Shangri-las of sport, cavernous, cacophonous places that hum with TVs of all kind: plasma TVs, high-def TVs, flat-screen TVs, miniature personal TVs, giant projection TVs and even TVs in the bathroom so that one can drain one's bladder while watching Ray Allen drain three-pointers," says Ballard. "What surprised me in the course of researching this was how stark the delineation was between the megabar--the gigantic ESPN Zones of the world--and neighborhood places where they might ! have a few TVs and a drink special on Sunday." Among those that made the Top 25: Boston's The Fours, Ricky's Major Goolsby's of Milwaukee and the Three Dollar Cafe in Atlanta. Ballard says he lobbied hard for one of his favorites, the Dive Bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side ("Simply a great place to watch any game," he says), but it just missed the cut. For more from this week's issue click here.

 

 

 

 

Bryant's crew is up in the air with Rudy T likely gone.

Mark J. Terrill/AP

 

 

Just when you thought the Lakers' soap opera couldn't provide any more seismic shocks, reports are swirling that coach Rudy Tomjanovich is expected to resign (or already has resigned). A Lakers spokesman said yesterday that Tomjanovich had not yet stepped down, but that health reasons (as opposed to dissatisfaction with the team) were behind his thoughts of resignation. Assistant coach Frank Hamblen ran the team for the second consecutive time in last night's 92-79 win over the Trail Blazers, as Kobe Bryant missed his ninth straight game with a sprained right ankle. Rumors of replacements immediately swirled, with everyone from UConn's Jim Calhoun to Tomjanovich's predecessor, Phil Jackson, mentioned as next in line. But SI's Jack McCallum expects the Lakers to stand pat for now.! "My best guess is they would make Frank the coach for the rest of the year," says McCallum. "He was Phil Jackson's guy, he was around all those years with the Bulls and was incredibly respected by Michael Jordan, which is always a benchmark. He's perceived as a guy who knows how the league operates. It would be an incredibly display of chaos if they brought Frank in for a week and then all of a sudden went after Larry Brown or somebody like that." However, McCallum says he'd be surprised if Hamblen ended up behind the bench beyond this season. "They'll have to get a big-name guy, and they won't have a lack of candidates," says McCallum. "They still pay among the top teams in the league, and you're coming to a team with a great, though somewhat dysfunctional, player in Kobe Bryant. It's still thought of as one of the magical places in the league. You can draw top free agents, because people always want to play for the Lakers." For more click here.

 

 

 

 

Young savored the sweet taste of a Super Bowl win.

Peter Read Miller

 

 

The final nod to Steve Young's legacy will come on Saturday, when voters will undoubtedly elect him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The on-field validation came 10 years ago. Before Super Bowl XXIX, Young, despite his gaudy passing statistics, had never led his team to an NFL championship. But that night he left no doubt of his greatness, as he finally stepped out of the shadow of Joe Montana. Young completed 24 of 36 passes for 325 yards and broke Montana's Super Bowl record with six touchdown passes in a 49-26 rout of the Chargers. The 49ers became the first team to win five Super Bowls, and Young was named the game's MVP. "Young would throw for a Super Bowl-record six touchdowns," wrote SI's Rick Telander in the Feb. 6, 1995, issue," and the best way to describe the TDs might be to list the scoring receivers! in order: Rice, Watters, Floyd, Watters, Rice, Rice. Sounds almost like a recipe. There was also a nine-yard rushing touchdown in there, by Watters in the third quarter, but it was nearly lost in the Young passfest.... By throwing those six touchdown passes and leading all rushers, with 49 yards on five carries, Young earned the Super Bowl MVP Award and effectively exorcised the Joe Montana ghost that had been haunting him for years. Before every game this season tackle Harris Barton would come up to Young and rub his shoulders and say, 'I'm taking the monkey off your back.' 'Today,' Young noted afterward, 'Harris said, 'I'm taking it off for the last time.' For a long time I tried to pretend it wasn't there. But I guess it was.'"

 

 

Look for another edition of SI Extra the Newsletter on Friday, Feb. 4

 

 

 

 

 

18 Consecutive Big Ten wins for the top-ranked Illinois men's basketball team, breaking the school record from 1914-16. The Illini, 22-0 (and 8-0 in the conference) after last night's 81-68 victory over 12th-ranked Michigan State (14-4, 5-2), are the nation's top-ranked team for a ninth straight week--the longest stretch for any team since 1998-99--and are a unanimous No. 1, the first since Duke three seasons ago. But will they have enough muscle in March? For Grant Wahl's take click here.

 

 

 

Duke at Wake Forest

 

These days every game in the ACC feels like a potential Final Four matchup. Tonight (9:00 ET, ESPN) is no exception as No. 4 Duke (16-1) travels to Winston-Salem to face No. 7 Wake Forest (17-3) in the first of two mega-meetings this month. The teams have split their regular-season series in each of the last two years, culminating with last year's second game in which guard Chris Paul scored 12 of his game-high 23 points over the final 5:10 to help the Demon Deacons overcome a 13-point deficit. Paul, arguably the nation's best player, has been as good as advertised this season, but Wake's hottest player of late is junior forward Eric Williams, who has averaged 26 points while making 75% of his shots (33 of 44) in the past three games. The Blue Devils, of course, have a Williams of their own: Sheldon Williams, the junior forward who's averaging 11.8 rebounds, which ranks in the top five in Di! vision I. How good have these two teams been? Over the last three seasons Duke has won more ACC games (30) than any other team. Wake ranks second with 27.