Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Turns out that former Pittsburgh All-Pro quarterback Terry Bradshaw and current Steeler signal-caller Ben Roethlisberger don’t care for each other even a little bit. Said Bradshaw: "He doesn’t like me and I’m learning not to like him." I’ll bet it’s a short learning curve.

Think how Clemson must feel. When basketball coach Oliver Pernell left to take the head job at DePaul, Georgia’s Mr. Basketball Marcus Thornton asked for and was granted a release from his letter-of-intent with the Tigers. Since then, Thornton has had heavy interest or offers from no less than 10 schools including Georgia, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Alabama, Texas and Florida. . . Meanwhile, Clemson hired Wright State coach Brad Brownell as its new coach. Brownell has won 20 games in each of his last six seasons.

In an article on SI.Com, a story suggested that a lot of schools were going to be sorry they passed on former Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong as head coach material before he was hired by Louisville. Cal, East Carolina, Kansas, Vandy and Minnesota are among the schools who passed on Strong. He may or may not succeed, but isn’t it a little early to be scolding other schools?

The two Mississippi schools in the SEC signed their basketball coaches to extended contracts this week. Rick Stanbury got a four year extension at Mississippi State after turning down overtures from Clemson and Andy Kennedy’s deal was renegotiated to go through 2014 at Ole Miss.

Former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow has turned down an invitation to come to Radio City for the first night of the NFL draft. In fact, the league has had a lot of turndowns. A total of 16 players will be on hand, which is considerably below the number of first round draft choices. Two Georgia Tech players, however, have accepted invitations - Damaryius Thomas and Derrick Morgan. Former Oklahoma star Sam Bradford is the lone quarterback planning to attend.

A surprising name mentioned in the hunt by Oregon for a basketball coach is Georgia’s Mark Fox. The job formerly held by Ernie Kent has been open for 27 days. Fox is desirable because he’s a good coach and because he has great west coach ties.

And finally, one more note about Ben Roethlisberger after the district attorney in Milledgeville announced no charges would be filed after a 20-year-old college student accused the player of sexual assault. Big Ben said he was sorry. Do you think the charges would have been dropped if the quarterback had not been a famous pro player? I think not.

This is Norman Arey saying they’re all sorry, but only after they get caught.