Manziel first freshman to win Heisman Trophy

award in New York December 8, 2012. Manziel was awarded the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, …more
(Reuters) - Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel was awarded the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, making him the first 'freshman' to win college football's top honor.
Manziel, nicknamed "Johnny Football", beat out Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein at the swanky ceremony in New York.
"This is a moment I've dreamed about since I was a kid running around the backyard pretending I was Doug Flute throwing 'hail marys' to my dad," the first-year player Manziel said.
"To be invited into this fraternity, what a pleasure it really is.
"I wish my whole team could be up here with me tonight especially my whole offensive line."
The Texan Manziel finished the regular season with 3,419 passing yards and 1,181 rushing yards to set a new total offense record for the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in 12 games.
Manziel, who is not eligible for the NFL draft for at least another year, also broke the 1969 record held by Archie Manning, father of Peyton and Eli Manning, for total offense in a game with 557 yards against Arkansas.
He later bettered that with 567 yards against Louisiana Tech.
Marqise Lee from USC was fourth and Braxton Miller from Ohio State was fifth.

Read More..

Seven Big East basketball teams leaving conference

(The Sports Xchange) The seven Catholic schools in the Big East that do not have Football Bowl Subdivision teams unanimously voted Saturday to take their men's basketball teams out of the conference, ESPN reported.
St. John's president Rev. Donald J. Harrington scheduled a news conference for 4:30 p.m. ET.
DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall and Villanova will leave the Big East on June 30, 2015. They will pursue another framework for their basketball teams.
The conference future of remaining Big East members Connecticut, Cincinnati and South Florida -- which have FBS programs -- is uncertain.
"Earlier today we voted unanimously to pursue an orderly evolution to a foundation of basketball schools that honors the history and tradition on which the Big East was established," the seven presidents said in a joint statement. "Under the current context of conference realignment, we believe pursuing a new basketball framework that builds on this tradition of excellence and competition is the best way forward."
The Big East will have 12 teams in its conference for football starting next season. Boise State and San Diego State join the Big East in football only next season. Rutgers and Louisville are leaving the conference after next season.

Read More..

Pennsylvania suit against NCAA a long shot: experts

(Reuters) - Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett faces serious obstacles to winning his antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA over the harsh sanctions it imposed on Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal, legal experts said on Wednesday.
While targeting the National Collegiate Athletic Association may be popular politically in a state where Penn State football is widely loved, the federal court handling the case might rule that the state lacks standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place, experts said.
Moreover, the state of Pennsylvania must demonstrate the NCAA penalties harmed consumers and constituted a breakdown in the competitive marketplace.
"It's not a frivolous lawsuit - there are real arguments to make - but, boy, is it weak," said Max Kennerly, a lawyer with the Beasley Firm in Philadelphia who has been following the case closely.
The sanctions the NCAA imposed on Penn State in July included an unprecedented $60 million fine and the voiding of all of the football team's victories over the past 14 seasons.
Corbett's lawsuit was distinct in that, unlike the university, the state of Pennsylvania was not a party directly affected by the sanctions. Instead, Corbett brought the suit on behalf of third parties such as stadium workers, shopkeepers, hoteliers and others whose businesses were disturbed because of the NCAA's penalties.
The obstacle Corbett faced was "converting what may be real and perhaps significant harm" to Penn State students and athletes and local businesses into an antitrust violation, said Gabriel Feldman, a professor at Tulane University Law School.
"This is an extremely uphill battle for Pennsylvania," Feldman said.
The NCAA has been sued on antitrust grounds fewer than 10 times over the past five years, estimated Matt Millen, a professor at Marquette University Law School and director of the National Sports Law Institute. Most of those cases were settled or dismissed because courts often defer to the NCAA when it comes to matters of rules and enforcement actions, Millen said.
Past antitrust suits against the NCAA that have been successful tend to involve operations such as marketing and licensing because the body has "a stranglehold" over those spheres, Kennerly said.
The Supreme Court ruled in the 1984 case of NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's policies on television broadcast rights to college football games violated federal antitrust laws. Former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon led a class-action suit against the NCAA in 2009 that is still pending over the use of student-athletes' images and likenesses without compensation.
In contrast, antitrust lawsuits over NCAA sanctions have been less successful in court. In the 1988 case of NCAA v. Tarkanian, the Supreme Court ruled the NCAA was a private entity not obligated to abide by due process considerations when it hands down sanctions, Kennerly said.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Steve Orlofsky)

Read More..

Te'o sees career end with BCS title-game loss

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — One of the last things Manti Te'o remembers Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly telling his team before the BCS title game was about the importance of four particular segments of play.
—The first two minutes of the game.
—The last two minutes of the first half.
—The first two minutes of the second half.
—The last two minutes of the game.
Of those, only one was not wrought with disaster for the Fighting Irish — and by then Te'o had left the field for the last time as a Notre Dame player.
Overmatched from the very start, Notre Dame's hopes of going from unranked to undisputed this season ended in a crimson-and-white display of precise football. The Irish were beaten by Alabama 42-14 in the title matchup on Monday night, the only loss in 13 games for a Notre Dame team that few thought would be a championship hopeful when the season began.
"I'm obviously disappointed, not necessarily all that we lost, but just we didn't represent our school, our team, our families the way that we could have," Te'o said. "So in that aspect it's just disappointing. But at the same time I'm proud to be a part of this team. What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."
Cliche, sure.
But if anyone can live by those words, it's Te'o, particularly after what he endured over the course of his final college season.
Alabama set the tone in the first two minutes, starting the game with an 82-yard march in only five plays to take a 7-0 lead on Eddie Lacy's touchdown run, the first of his many highlights on this night. With 31 seconds left in the half, Lacy caught a touchdown pass for his second score — one that made it 28-0 and had Kelly cracking a joke at his own expense in a televised halftime interview.
"All Alabama," Kelly said at the time. "I mean, we can't tackle them right now. And who knows why? They're big and physical — I guess I do know why."
Anyone who was watching knew why.
So the first two minutes were all 'Bama, the last two minutes of the half went the Tide's way as well, and the first two minutes of the third quarter ended with Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson throwing an interception near the goal line, a sensational play made by Alabama's HaHa Clinton-Dix to come up with that turnover.
Alabama scored on the ensuing drive, and Te'o stood perfectly still as he took a long look at one of the giant video screens in Sun Life Stadium, studying the replay of that touchdown.
It was a pose that Notre Dame repeated way, way too often.
"We just needed to execute better," safety Zeke Motta said. "It was just a matter of execution and playing the right way."
Missed chances on offense, missed tackles on defense. Kelly didn't pinpoint reasons why for either — months of agonizing over film will tell that story — but some in the Notre Dame locker room insisted that the final score didn't accurately show how far the Irish have come this season.
"They didn't dominate us," Notre Dame nose guard Louis Nix said. "We missed tackles."
The numbers sure suggested domination.
By halftime, the Irish had already given up more points than they had in any game this season, the previous high being 26 in a triple-overtime win over Pittsburgh.
The most yards Notre Dame gave up this season was 379; Alabama cracked the 500 mark early in the fourth quarter. The Crimson Tide finished with 529 yards, converted 8 of 13 third downs, got five touchdowns in five trips to the red zone and became the first team since Stanford in 2009 to score at least 42 points against the Irish.
"Pretty darn good football team, but not good enough," Kelly said, assessing his team as Alabama's victory celebration was wrapping up on the field. "So it's clear what we need to do in the offseason."
What they do next will come without Te'o, the senior linebacker who was widely considered the nation's top defensive player this season.
He was a nonfactor early with a couple of missed tackles — rare for him — and that foreshadowed how the rest of the night would go for the Fighting Irish.
"The best thing about this experience is it creates fire, it creates fuel, for both the guys staying here and the guys leaving," Te'o said. "Everybody here tonight will be better because of it."
Te'o leaves as an absolute surefire Notre Dame fan favorite, for both what he did on the field and how he handled things away from the game.
He's a Mormon from Hawaii who spurned USC to sign with Notre Dame. He was one of the biggest sparkplugs for this current revitalization of Irish football, and saw his personal story become one of the more compelling parts of this Notre Dame season — when he mourned the deaths of both his girlfriend and his grandmother by playing perhaps his best game, a 12-tackle show against Michigan State.
He wound up finishing second in the Heisman Trophy race.
The Irish wound up finishing second in the national title chase.
And when it was all over, Te'o showed absolutely no regrets. He was subbed out of the game with about 2:15 remaining, shook some hands and started saying his farewell to the college game.
"Obviously we wish the night could have ended in a different way," Te'o said, "but the season, the year, my career here, I've been truly blessed to be at Notre Dame.
"And I'll forever be proud to say that I'm a Notre Dame Fighting Irish."

Read More..

BCS title game's TV rating hurt by rout

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — The BCS title game's television rating was up from last season, but the lopsided score kept viewership down.
Alabama's 42-14 rout over Notre Dame drew a 15.1 fast national rating Monday on ESPN, the network said Tuesday. The 26.4 million viewers were up 9 percent from last year's game, another blowout Crimson Tide victory, 21-0 over LSU.
But that's down from the 27.3 million for ESPN's first BCS championship two years ago, Auburn's win over Oregon that was decided in the final seconds. This year's game posted the second-largest audience in cable history behind the 2011 championship.
The matchup between traditional powerhouses in Alabama and Notre Dame created the potential for a record-setting audience. But once the Crimson Tide went up 28-0 by halftime, viewers had reason to skip the second half. Ten previous BCS title games drew a higher rating.
Ratings represent the percentage of U.S. homes with televisions tuned into a program. The game was on in 17.5 percent of homes that get ESPN.
The first half was watched by 20.4 percent, significantly higher than 17.9 for Auburn-Oregon. Typically viewership increases throughout a game if it is competitive. But on Monday, the rating peaked between 9 and 9:30 p.m. EST — midway through the first half — and decreased from there as Alabama pulled away.
ESPN executives were hopeful of a massive audience but warned that it probably wouldn't happen without a close game. CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves acknowledged that reality at a media day Tuesday about the network's upcoming Super Bowl coverage.
"Hopefully we don't have a game like they had last night," he said.

Read More..

Valderrama course creator Ortiz-Patino dies aged 82

MADRID (Reuters) - Jaime Ortiz-Patino, a Spain-based golf promoter who created the famous Valderrama course and who was one of the driving forces behind the growth of the sport in the Iberian nation, has died at the age of 82.
"Jaime Ortiz-Patino...passed away this morning in the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella," the Spanish golf federation (RFEG) said in a statement on their website (www.rfeg.es) on Thursday.
Born to Bolivian parents in Paris in June 1930, Ortiz-Patino created the Valderrama course, designed by Robert Trent Jones, in the mid 1980s and was able to lure the Ryder Cup there in 1997, the first time the competition has been held outside the British Isles.
The course was the home of the Volvo Masters between 1988 and 1996 and from 2002 to 2008 and has also hosted the Amex World Championships and the Andalucia Masters.
Known as "Jimmy" to his friends, Ortiz-Patino, whose grandfather was a fabulously wealthy Bolivian tin magnate, amassed a collection of golfing memorabilia that captured the history of the game over 500 years.
It included clubs, balls, prints, books and manuscripts, ceramics, photographs and paintings and was auctioned at Christie's in London last year.
"All the members of the Spanish golf federation would like to express their deepest condolences to family and friends," the RFEG said. "Rest in peace.

Read More..

Stricker headed for semi-retirement

At the end of another long year, and only a month away from the start of another season, Steve Stricker quietly posed a question that sounded out of place for a guy with more than $25 million in PGA Tour earnings over the last six years.
"What if I went to Kapalua to defend and didn't play again the rest of the year?"
When he arrived on the shores of Maui for the season-opening Tournament of Champions, he had reached a compromise. Stricker, who turns 46 next month, is going into semi-retirement. When he leaves Kapalua, he won't return again until the Match Play Championship at the end of February.
He'll play the majors and World Golf Championships that are held in America, maybe a few other tournaments to get ready for the majors, and the John Deere Classic, which has become his hometown event ever since the Greater Milwaukee Open went away.
"I've proved to myself I could come back," said Stricker, once mired in a slump so severe he was voted PGA Tour comeback player — two years in a row. "I had a great run the last six years. I think it's just the travel, the time away. When I get home, I'm not there. I'm focused on where I go next. When I do something, I'm in it. I've had enough of being totally focused on golf and my life. And I wanted to not have it be about me anymore."
Stricker is wired differently from most. He gets as much pleasure taking his kids to school in Wisconsin as winning golf tournaments. He would rather spend his fall in a deer stand with a bow than on the practice green with his putter.
He has been thinking about cutting back for the last few years, only the decision was never easy. Not when he was as high as No. 2 in the world, a regular on U.S. teams in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup.
Even with some winter stubble after nine holes of practice on the Plantation Course at Kapalua, he looked fresh and ready to go.
"I'm excited about the year because I finally made this decision to scale back," he said. "You know me. I've been this way since Day One. I've never played a lot. I enjoy my time at home, and I've tossed around this idea with my family the last couple of years. Finally making a decision to scale back has lifted a little bit of a burden from me. I'm just as excited to play this week as I've ever been."
Stricker won the Tournament of Champions a year ago for his 12th career win, although that turned out to be the highlight of his year. In one of the more peculiar trends, he became the third straight player to win the PGA Tour's opener and not win again the rest of the year.
He faces a 30-man field of PGA Tour winners that is missing some of the top stars, no longer unusual in this global landscape of golf with Europeans competing deep into November and some international players, such as Ernie Els, starting next week in South Africa. Among those absent from Kapalua are Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Luke Donald and Justin Rose, the top four players in the world ranking.
Stricker won't see many of them until he gets to Arizona for the Match Play Championship.
At least he's not walking away entirely. Over the last few weeks, he looked at the schedule and didn't feel he could miss the big events, particularly the majors. He hasn't set a number of events he wants to play, but it will be somewhere around 10.
What to do with all that free time? It won't be limited to a car pool or a deer stand. Stricker is forming a foundation with a new sponsor, American Family Insurance, with the goal of helping adolescents. The seed money comes from the charity donation he received for winning the Payne Stewart Award and playing on the Ryder Cup team.
His other sponsors — Titleist, Avis and the New York Stock Exchange — are behind his decision to cut back. Stricker has restructured his endorsement deals because he is playing less, and he plans to do more personal days with clients.
"I was prepared to lose all that, I really was," Stricker said. "For the most part, they're happy for me."
He still hasn't talked to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. Stricker is one of the most popular figures on tour because of the way he treats people. For now, this semi-retirement does not include The Players Championship or even the FedEx Cup playoffs, even if he has a reasonable shot at the $10 million bonus.
He would play the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup if he qualifies. With his limited schedule, he would be playing some good golf.
And yes, he'll still practice. His 14-year-old daughter, Bobbi Maria, is a natural athlete who is getting into golf. There were a few times last year she wanted to go to the golf course with his dad, but Stricker feared he wouldn't get any work done on his game.
"Now I can put in some time with her," Stricker said. "She's talked about hitting more balls in the winter. I can spend more time with her doing that, and playing with her in the summer if she wants to."
The strongest part of her game? Stricker smiled.
"She putts good," he said.
Part of Stricker wishes he had done this sooner, but the time didn't seem right. He would emerge from his fall break to play in the World Challenge hosted by Tiger Woods, and then Greg Norman's Shootout in Florida, and he found himself not wanting to leave.
"The coolest part is I'm playing as good as I ever have," Stricker said. "I've accomplished a lot of things. I proved to myself I can come back from where I was and I played great for an extended period of time. The major thing is missing, but that's not hugely important to me. I don't have to win a major. Obviously, I'd love to. But it's not going to define who I am. It's all good. I feel like I'm doing this for the right reason.
"I felt like it would be a bold move a couple of years ago, and I think it's a bold move now," he said. "Some people might think it's not a good idea. But I think it is for me."

Read More..

PREVIEW-Golf-Players in paradise for PGA Tour season opener

 If winning breeds winning, then the picturesque Hawaiian island of Maui is a paradise in more ways than one for the select group of players competing at this week's $5.7 million Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
The only way to qualify for the elite field of 30 in the PGA Tour's season-opening event was through victory on the U.S. circuit last year and, with no cut and a guaranteed cheque after Monday's final round, the pickings are certainly favourable.
"It's always great to be here," American Hunter Mahan, a twice champion on the 2012 PGA Tour, told reporters at the Kapalua Resort while preparing for Friday's opening round.
"Obviously you won on the PGA Tour the year before so it's a great start and every player enjoys coming here and wants to start here.
"It's exciting but it's also crazy ... I feel like the year never really ended last year, it just kind of keeps on going. But it's certainly fun to be here."
Masters champion Bubba Watson agreed.
"Who would not want to come to Maui and play golf?" the American left-hander smiled.
"Ride in a golf cart in the pro-ams and practice rounds wearing shorts and then the tournament starts and you have to walk. But other than that it's great.
"A great time for the family, hanging out with friends and seeing the scenery. Playing the golf course is a challenge," Watson said of the par-73, 7,411-yard Plantation layout, "but it's a fun time to start off the year here in Maui."
DOWN TIME
Many of the players competing at Kapalua make the most of what time they have away from the golf course by surfing, swimming and taking the ever popular whale-watching cruises but Mahan said he was unlikely to follow suit.
"I don't particularly like the water that much," Mahan said. "I get seasick pretty easily, so I won't be out in the water too much.
"There's a hundred different things you can do here. At the same time, this is great weather and I'm trying to work on my game a little bit and make sure I get enough time for that."
While the Maui attractions are certainly plentiful for the competitors and their families, seven leading players who had qualified for the PGA Tour's season-opener have opted not to travel to Hawaii, mainly for tournament scheduling reasons.
Those notable absentees are world number one Rory McIlroy, second-ranked Luke Donald and Justin Rose (fourth), along with former Kapalua winners Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia.

Read More..