Thursday, April 22, 2010

The headline on the internet read "Duke Basketball team to be recognized by Governor Perdue." Why would the Georgia governor be handing out honors to the Blue Devils? The governor of North Carolina is Beverly Perdue.

And speaking of North Carolina, sports cynic Jamie May suggests holding a contest to re-name the Big East should the Big 10 rob them of three or four teams. His suggestions include The Eastern Conference and the Large East.

It was kind of inevitable, but a story appeared in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette this week that the Steelers aren’t actively seeking a trade for troubled quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, but they wouldn’t turn down any team that wants to talk. In a related move, Pittsburgh re-signed former quarterback Byron Leftwich as insurance, obviously anticipating the suspension of their regular starter for some games.

With the NFL draft starting today, USA Today wonders if Jimmy Clausen can break the Notre Dame quarterback jinx? The Irish haven’t had a successful NFL quarterback in more than a generation. In fact, 20 teams, including Fresno State and Houston have had more quarterbacks drafted than the Fighting Irish in that time span.

And speaking of USA Today, their 2010 All-USA Boys basketball team was led by 6-foot-8 North Carolina signee Harrison Barnes. Others on the No. 1 team include 6-9 Jared Sullinger, who’s headed to Ohio State, Duke signee 6-3 Kyrie Irving, 6-4 Brandon Knight who is the newest Kentucky Wildcat and 6-8 Tobias Harris, who’s going to Tennessee.

A couple of short shots: Fred Hill has resigned as head basketball coach at Rutgers . . . The latest word is that the Big 10 may announce its expansion plans as early as July 1 of this year. . . Fair warning, don’t draft a quarterback in the NFL draft. Of the last 22 quarterbacks to have played in the past 11 Super Bowls, only 12 teams drafted and developed their quarterback.

What going on with the LPGA tour? No. 1 ranked Lorena Ochoa, 28, announced her retirement from the pro game this week. This follows the retirement of No. 1 Annika Sorenstam two years ago at the age of 38.

In fact, this gives me a good excuse to run a list of other early retirees from their sport. Bjorn Borg left tennis at age 26; Rocky Marciano quit boxing at 32; Bobby Fischer walked away from chess at 32; Sandy Koufax quit baseball at 30; Jim Brown left football at 29; Barry Sanders left the Detroit Lions at age 30 and Bobby Jones retired from golf at 28.

This is Norman Arey and I’m not even thinking about retiring.