The Sports Truth

Once again, Sports Illustrated has ignored the most dominant player in all of sports.

While the various merits of Roger Federer’s career have been debated ad nauseum (Is Federer more impressive than Tiger Woods?, Is Federer better than Pete Sampras?, or is Federer even human?) no one disagrees that Federer has been a worthy candidate for the number of end-of-year achievement awards handed out by a multitude of sports journalist entities.

Roger Federer’s amazing achievements, year after year, continue to get ignored.

None is more acclaimed than Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award, an award Federer has astonishingly never won. 2008 proved no different with Brett Favre’s admirable year garnering him the award over another ho-hum dominant season from Federer.

Consider his 2008 athletic achievements alone: In 2007 he set the alltime record for consecutive weeks ranked No. 1 at 205 and counting; he won a record fourth consecutive U.S. Open; a fifth consecutive Wimbledon; and three of the four grand slam events. His off the court efforts as a UNICEF international Goodwill Ambassador is well-documented and he was awarded the Laurenus Sportsman of the Year Award. As amazing as all of this is, it’s Roger’s second consecutive year of all of these achievements.

No one is saying he needs to win the award ever year, but how has he not won it once?

Chris Bosh wants your vote.

Will you vote for him?

Former New York Yankee Jim Leyritz was arrested on Friday after a car accident he was involved in resulted in the death of a 30-year old woman. Leyritz has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and is also being held on suspicions of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Former New York Yankee Jim Leyritz was a part of the 1996 and 1999 championship teams.

Witnesses of the accident said that Leyritz drove through a red light in his 2006 Ford Expedition and collided with the 2000 Mitsubishi Montero being driven by 30-year-old Ann Veitch. Officers who arrived at the scene of the accident around 3:20am, said that Leyritz has an alcohol odor. Leyritz refused a breatherlizer test requested by the arresting officers. Because Veitch, who was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car, died, a blood test of Leyritz blood alcohol level was taken without his consent and results have not returned yet.

It was not a good 2007 for the New York Yankees and apparently the year can’t come to a close fast enough.

The Sportstruth’s senior editor, Lucas Dwyer, provides his observations and thoughts from the weekend that was.

On Saturday, one of the greatest days of television programing ever was aired. Starting at noon, ESPN2 ran the following college basketball games back to back to back (to back to back to back): Wisconsin vs. Texas, San Diego University vs. Kentucky, Tennessee vs. Gonzaga, Oklahoma vs. West Virginia, Pittsburgh vs. Dayton, and capped off the night with Memphis vs. Arizona. Wow. If anyone caught all six games, we need to hear about it.

Unranked Wisconsin shocked No. 9 Texas 67-66 on Saturday off of Michael Flowers’ game-winning three at the buzzer

Speaking of those games, here are a few thoughts from what I caught during the day:

- Kentucky is a mess and we now know why Tubby Smith abruptly left to go coach Minnesota. First-year coach Billy Gillespie said before the game that he felt San Diego did not have anyone who could take his defenders off the dribble. Gillespie’s team is worse than he thought - Brandon Johnson attacked the basket whenever he pleased.

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Australian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong knew she was playing a high level of tennis in 1976. However, until 2007, she had no idea just how well she was playing.

Two weeks ago, the now 56-year old Goolagong was given a trophy by the WTA bestowed upon her for being the world’s No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player for two weeks in 1976. Goolagong was told by the WTA that an error in transferring some tournament records to a computer resulted in an inaccurate count of the points she accumulated during that season. The WTA recently noticed a gap in paper records between April and May 1976.

Former Australian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong was recently awarded the No. 1 world ranking from 1976 which had not been noticed until 2007 due to a computing error.

When the missing paper records were recovered, it was discovered that Goolagong overtook American tennis star Chris Evert by 0.8 points after Goolagong won the Virginia Slims tournament in late April 1976. Evert officially regained the ranking on May 10th, though until 1976 she was listed as the No. 1 player througout that period.

“I’m very proud of the achievement,” Goolagong told The Associated Press. “I was on a roll for that stretch in 1976. It was a great surprise to hear after all these years.”

The WTA has corrected its records and now lists Goolagong as the 16th player in women’s tennis history to achieve the world #1 ranking since the introduction of tour rankings in 1975.

Here’s a passionate denial from Roger Clemens about his alleged steroid use:

Do you believe him?

Jessica Simpson is being blamed for Tony Romo’s poor performance last Sunday and Terrell Owens wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. When asked about his opinion on how Tony Romo’s new girlfriend should be viewed Owens said “Right now, Jessica Simpson is not a fan favorite — in this locker room or in Texas Stadium.”

Honestly, a pink football jersey? As if Jessica Simpson wasn’t annoying enough already…

The Cowboys lost 10-6 to the Philadelphia Eagles and Romo had what was statistically the worst game of his career, all while Simpson sat in a luxury box wearing a pink No. 9 jersey she proudly showed off for television cameras.

While the demerits for wearing a pink football jersey can be debated elsewhere, Simpson’s big problem is that Romo floundered the last time a well publicized girlfriend attending a Cowboys home game, also against the Eagles. Last December, at home vs. the Eagles, Romo had his previous worst game with then-girlfriend Carrie Underwood in attendance.

“With everything that has happened, obviously with the way Tony played and the comparison between her and Carrie Underwood, I think a lot of people feel she has taken his focus away,” Owens said, mimicking the sentiment held by many Dallas fans. “Other than that, she was high on my list until last week.

“Oh, I got a message for her when we make the playoffs. Just stay tuned.”

To view the Colin’s first March Madness bracket, click here

East (Charlotte)
(1) UNC
(16) Sacred Heart/Texas Southern

(8) Ohio State
(9) Villanova

(5) West Virginia
(12) UMASS

(4) Indiana
(13) UC Santa Barbara

(6) Wisconsin
(11) Dayton

(3) Duke
(14) Winthrop

(7) BYU
(10) Virginia

(2) Arizona
(15) Hampton

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The Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association has removed Roger Clemens as the keynote speaker at its state convention next month, citing Clemens’ inclusion in the Mitchell Report for having allegedly taken steroids and human growth hormone from 1999-2002. The association concluded that Clemens “was an inappropriate influencer to baseball coaches and students alike.”

Ironically - and certainly not coincidental to his dismissal from the state convention - the topic of Clemens’ speech was to be “my vigorous workout, how I played so long [in professional baseball].” Considering that Clemens’ alleges that his continued success in the twilight of his career is due to his work ethic when the Mitchell Report claims it is due to steroid and human growth hormone use, it is not surprising that he will no longer be speaking.

Sports legends Chris Evert and Greg Norman are engaged!

The couple got engaged last Sunday while traveling to South Africa from the U.S., Chris Evert, 52, revealed to reporters while announcing a new tennis center she is building.

Asked about wedding plans, she said, “Well, it is an engagement ring. … We don’t know when and where we’ll be married though.”

Greg Norman, 52, declined to add anything extra, leading Chris Evert to joke, “Why don’t you say something to them? Gee, you’re a big chicken!”

Greg Norman and Chris Evert, both 52, got engaged this weekend.

Evert, a former tennis champion, and Norman, a top pro golfer, both split from their longtime spouses within the past year - Chris Evert from her husband of 18 years, skiing champ Andy Mill, and Greg Norman from his wife of 25 years, Laura.

With all the scandals going on in the sports world (the Mitchell Report, Tony Parker possibly having an affair), it’s great to see a nice story such as this.