Ring It In

You know those New Year's Resolutions, that list you draw up after two or nine glasses of champagne, wherein you pledge to drop ten pounds, publish a novel, learn how to play guitar, and adopt an orphan from Serbia? I have the same problem with those lists as I do with "Year In Review" pieces that make predictions - no accountability. Where are those authors twelve months later? Do they ever grade themselves?

I do. Why? Because I'm like that. You want payoff, I bring payoff.

Last December, on the old Sunshine Network website, I offered my Fearless Predictions for 2005. Here are some of the bold visions I laid out in the first week of '05, complete with harsh grading for accuracy:

"The New York Yankees will not win the World Series. Hardly going out on a limb here - it's a one-in-thirty chance - but let's just take a deep breath. The signing of Randy Johnson guarantees them absolutely nothing. All we know is, the Yankees just committed $48 million dollars to a player with no cartilege in his right knee, who will be 43 years old at the end of his contract."

Remember, this was written in January of 2005, when the baseball world was still atwitter over the Big Unit moving to New York. Johnson went 17-8 with 211 strikeouts. The Unit turned 42 in September and made over $15 million last season. And the White Sox won the World Series. Score: 1-0, Whitster.

"Neither the Phoenix Suns nor the Seattle Sonics will win the NBA title, but the Miami Heat just might. Check back with me on that one. Shaq will earn his second MVP award, Amare Stoudemire will edge Dwyane Wade for Most Improved Player (and Amare better give half the trophy to Steve Nash), and Emeka Okefor will beat out Ben Gordon and Dwight Howard for Rookie of the Year."

Miami came within two minutes and one Dwyane Wade hamstring of reaching the NBA Finals. Shaq lost the MVP vote to Nash, who I at least credited with leading the renaissance in Phoenix. Okefor was indeed the Rookie of the Year, but Bobby Simmons was named Most Improved. Giving myself half a point for putting Miami that close to the Finals, score that one 1.5 right, 2 wrong.

"Tiger Woods will win the Masters, Retief Goosen will defend his title at the U.S. Open, Sergio Garcia will break through at the PGA Championship, and somebody out of left field - I'm thinking a Craig Parry or Zach Johnson-type - will win the British."

Let's see - Tiger won the Masters, Michael Campbell took the U.S. Open, Mickelson won the PGA, and Tiger doubled his pleasure at the British. One up and three down. Starting to lose steam here.

"Florida, FSU, and Miami will lose a total of five football games between them. UCF will win more than two but less than five. USF will finally get a bowl bid. FAMU and Bethune-Cookman will once again go to overtime in the Florida Classic."

Okay, so the Big Three lost nine games, not five. UCF won more than two, and more than five. In my defense, nobody foresaw either scenario. South Florida did indeed get the bowl bid, and the FAMU-BCC matchup at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando did, in fact, go to overtime. Give me three wins and 2 losses there (I count "more than 2 wins" for UCF as correct, and "less than five" as incorrect).

"In college hoops, Florida's men will not make the NCAA Tournament, but Florida's women will. Miami will finish its inaugural ACC season with a .500 record. Florida State won't. The best record among Florida's division one men's basketball teams will belong to UCF, the program that has won more games over the last two years than any other D-I team in the state. They will not win the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament, however."

I flipped the Gators - Florida's men reached the Dance, but the women did not. Miami finished its first ACC season with a losing record, but barely (and they had every chance to beat Duke late in the year and keep hope alive for a .500 ACC season - I listened to Joe Zagacki's call of that game in my rental car during a business trip to South Florida, pounding my dashboard all the way up the Turnpike). Florida State also finished with a losing record in the conference - my first win here. Florida won 24 games last season, compared to 16 for Miami, 12 for the Seminoles, and 24 for the Golden Knights of UCF, who proved me wrong by beating Gardner-Webb for the A-Sun Conference title. Giving myself a half-point for UCF's tie with Florida in total wins, that's 1.5 up and four down. Yuck.

"There won't be any hockey this season for the Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning, or anyone else in the NHL. They will, however, start a new season in the fall of 2005, with a salary cap, and without a few dozen players who elect to stay in Europe."

Ka-ching. Add one to the "W" column.

Adding it up, that's 9 correct predictions and 11 incorrect. Honestly, why do I bother? I could flip a coin and get the same results. Needless to say, past history is no indication of future success, so here we go for 2006:

1. The Orlando Magic will reach the playoffs, aided by a nose dive from Indiana, Philadelphia, and/or Washington. Miami will make it as well, but won't get past the second round. Dwight Howard will not win Most Improved Player - they'll give that to Boris Diaw, Mehmet Okur, or Gilbert Arenas - but Howard will capture the NBA rebounding title, thanks in no small part to the inevitable Marcus Camby knee or shoulder injury. Chris Paul wins Rookie of the Year in a runaway. Flip Saunders wins Coach of the Year, but the Pistons lose to San Antonio in the NBA Finals.

2. Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods each win another major this year. Sergio is left out, again. Chris DiMarco wins something, somewhere. Of the 32 players who earned their cards at Q-School this fall, the best shot at a win in 2006 comes from Frank Lickliter, or maybe Bill Haas.

3. The football Gators will go 10-1 next season, losing either at Auburn on October 14th or at Florida State on November 25th. The UCF game in Gainesville will be much closer than Gator fans would like. Florida State's biggest challenge will be Florida or Miami - win one, lose one. Miami will win 9 games and again be forced to defend Larry Coker, which is ridiculous. UCF and USF will again obtain bowl bids, and you'll all be calling them the "Big Five" by this time next year. Remember where you heard it first. Florida International or Florida Atlantic will record a winning season, but not both. Bethune-Cookman and FAMU will go triple-overtime, and the game will be decided by a blocked field goal attempt returned for a touchdown. Sure, it's preposterous, but given their recent history, don't bet against me.

4. In college hoops, the Florida men will become the next national media darlings, reaching the Sweet Sixteen and prompting dozens of comparisons to both their own Final Four team from 1994 and Billy Donovan's 1987 Providence Friars. UCF will have a down year, failing to reach their conference final, while Matt Doherty's FAU squad will sneak up on somebody - I'm looking hard at the Gardner-Webb game on January 15th. Watch for the FSU women to make the most noise in the postseason, skating into the NCAA tournament and shocking a favorite in the first round.

5. Having already disposed of the freaks from Harvard in the ECAC tournament, the Cornell hockey team will reach the Frozen Four in Milwaukee in April, where they will beat Minnesota and Boston College to claim the national championship. That one is for me, and only for me. Don't bother to argue. You want a drought? Cornell's last hockey title was 1970, when the Big Red capped a perfect 29-0 season with their second, and last, national title. The Red Sox and White Sox have had theirs, and Lord Stanley's Cup currently resides in Tampa. It's my turn, dammit.

Win or lose, of course, you know I'll own up to it twelve months from now. Happy New Year from all of us at Sun Sports.

Road Diaries

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY - New York

The last time I tried writing a travelogue, it was a basketball play-by-play assignment in Gainesville, followed by a shark-fishing trip with Rick Murphy on the flats of Florida Bay. This time, it's a two-game road trip with the Orlando Magic, as I play the role of pregame and sideline host for Sun Sports broadcasts in New York and Dallas. The common denominator to both trips: my gastrointestinal system.

Last February, as I drove from Hogtown back to Orlando and then hopped a flight to Miami, I did so under the influence of a vaguely fluish ache. This time around, my stomach was just freaking killing me. Advil then, Pepto now. What is it about road trips? I soldier on, of course. Warrior-Broadcaster.

Fortunately, because the Magic are at home before and after these two games, I have been granted a spot on the team plane for the duration of the trip. I must admit, if one must travel, doing so with an NBA franchise is the way to go. After parking my car in a private lot at Magic Carpet Aviation, on the quiet side of Orlando International Airport, I walk 100 yards to the plane. Total time from car to seat: 120 seconds. I think I could get used to this.

The broadcasters sit on couches that face each other in the rear of the plane - a fourth compartment that was once known as the "Homeboy Lounge" back in the days of Shaquille O'Neal and Dennis Scott. In front of us are four seats reserved for Brian Hill and his coaching staff. They spend most of the flight comparing notes and watching scouting tape on their laptops.

Ahead of the coaches, the main cabin, where the players can spread out with their headphones and video games and do, well, whatever it is that young millionaires do to kill time. The front compartment has another five or six seats that are typically occupied by sponsors or team guests. I should point out that every seat on the plane, from front to back, is larger than a first-class seat on a commercial airliner, and wrapped in leather. That is, every seat that's not a plush sofa, like the one I sat on. Like I said, one could get used to this.

The New York team hotel is the Trump International, on Central Park West. Sumptuous. My room overlooks Broadway at Columbus Circle. Lincoln Center to my right, Carnegie Hall down the street to the left. The curtains are operated by remote control. The only downside to this trip so far is the temperature, which is hovering close to Steve Francis's scoring average. In fact, it is prohibitively cold, but that hasn't stopped the waves of tourists from descending upon the city. They are everywhere. As I walk to dinner with Jeff Anbinder, a college buddy of mine, he points out Times Square. Instinctively, I avoid it. An Orlando kid knows better.

On game day, we spend a few minutes taping some introductions in front of the Christmas tree and the famed skating rink at Rockefeller Center. I must admit, the holidays are sheer magic in New York. The tourists be damned, I am struck by the number of parents I see walking with their children, and the number of smiles returned by total strangers - some of whom, by process of elimination, must be native New Yorkers. Yes, the place is in a hurry, and no, I could never live there. But when the lights are on the tree and a holiday chill is in the air, it is, as the teeming masses in front of Radio City Music Hall prove, a great place to visit.

Traveling with the team means the rare treat of riding the team bus from the hotel to the arena. The Magic rent two busses for each trip, generally separating the basketball ops personnel from the broadcasters and sponsors. On game day, however, those two busses are separated by time of departure to the arena - a "first bus" and "second bus." Anyone in the travel party is welcome to take whichever bus fits his schedule, and I'm on the first bus with just about everyone else, including the players. They are quiet. I never played professional sports, but the ride dredges up old memories of baseball road trips in high school. Game faces are being applied, silently.

Grant Hill, sitting three rows in front of me, is back in uniform tonight for the first time since the preseason, so we are interviewing him for the pregame show as well as the second segment of the game itself. Having come to the Garden earlier in the day for shootaround, I have a least a passing idea of where I'm going, but to be sure, I follow David Steele.

Grant is talkative and thoughtful, as always. I tell him that I am happy to see him in short pants and sneakers as opposed to a suit, which I thought was a friendly and clever line prior to the interview, and now regard as pretty dopey. One thing I have noticed already on this trip - as a member of the travel party, I am regarded with just a hair more trust by the Magic basketball people. It helps that Sun Sports has carried Magic games since the team's inception, and it's even more convenient that I'm known to many people on the bus - including Brian Hill - as a former Magic employee myself, but today's players probably don't know that, nor would they care if they did. The simple fact that I was on the plane, in the hotel lobby, at shootaround, and on the same schedule as the rest of team relaxes them around me. For once, I'm something other than another "media guy." I make a note to myself to guard that access carefully, and never, ever abuse it.

My press seat for this game is about as close to the Magic bench as I can get without actually wearing those short pants and sneakers. This, I will soon learn, is an excellent circumstance, not because I have a good view of the game, but because I am close enough to hear all of Keyon Dooling's trash-talk.

First off, Dooling does not just stand up at time-outs. As a veteran, the injured guard requires rookie Travis Diener to give him a hand out of his seat. Diener, to his credit, does so with a mildly amused look on his face. It should be noted that Travis Diener was a two-time all-conference player at Marquette, leading his team to the Final Four in 2003. Tonight, he's helping Keyon Dooling stand up. Welcome to the NBA, rookie.

As for the chatter from Dooling, it is both non-stop and exquisite. To Knicks rookie Channing Frye, after getting dunked on by Dwight Howard: "You better get used to that, Channing! It's gonna happen all night!"

To the entire Knicks lineup, after a touch-foul sends Grant Hill to the free throw line: "You can't touch Mr. Hill! Don't you know who that is?"

To Jamal Crawford: "Jamal, as soon as you get it, shoot it, baby. Just put it up. Don't even hesitate. We WANT you shooting it."

Dooling also calls Dwight Howard "Thundercat." See the things you learn on the bench? Imagine how much more ammo Dooling will have once he's actually playing.

The Magic look as good on this night as the Knicks look bad. Stephon Marbury, the alleged leader of this team, reverts to every bad habit he's ever had, taking bad shots and generally compelling his teammates to hate him. Nobody on the floor for the Knicks knows his role, nobody trusts anybody, and a simple screen and roll by the Magic turns into a potent (and embarassingly repeatable) weapon. Pat Garrity scores a season-high 17 points on 5-7 shooting from three-point range - most of those wide-open. Hill plays 23 huffing and puffing minutes in his first game in two months (I thought that my halftime interview might kill him, so I limited myself to one question). Steve-O had a poor scoring night but a memorable highlight-reel dunk. Thundercat adds 23 points and 13 rebounds, with the Magic bench imploring him to "Work!" every time he touches the ball on the block - in other words, they want Howard to remain aggressive and take the ball to the hole, which he does. The kid is an absolute monster, and he only gets better with each passing day. As David Steele would say on the bus back to the airport later that night, Howard "is going to save the franchise."

The Magic win going away. How wonderful it would be if every night looked like this, when all the pieces are working and nothing can go wrong. It never happens that way, of course.

And all that stuff I just wrote about how cool it is to fly on the team plane? None of it applies when flying from New York to Dallas into a 110-mph headwind. Four hours plus. Every Homeboy Lounge resident is beyond punch-drunk by the time we touch down in Texas. Somewhere, there is sleep, I just know it. It won't come until 4 a.m. Dallas time, or five a.m. on our body clocks.

So far, I have flown to New York on a privately owned 727, stayed at one of Donald Trump's crowning achievement hotels, walked through the masses at Rockefeller Center during Christmastime, broadcast an NBA game from Madison Square Garden, and checked into a four-star hotel in Dallas, all in the course of 48 hours. I also watched a mean game of Scrabble in the back of the plane, nearly put Steve Francis on the injured list by failing to hold a heavy glass door, got recognized on the streets of Manhattan by a tourist from Jacksonville, and got the inside scoop on how Betsy Steele was recruited to play volleyball in college. This is turning out to be a pretty good trip.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY - DALLAS

Wake up at the Crescent Court, in the Uptown district of Big D, with a jet-lag headache. The Magic are practicing at noon, just an hour from now, but the broadcasters are not required, so I wander through the neighborhood and find a burger joint. The sky is impossibly blue, with temperatures hovering around 45, but it feels like Orlando in July compared to last night. Dennis Neumann, the Magic's radio announcer, was supposed to play golf today with color analyst Will Perdue, who arranged a round for the two of them at a new course nearby. Their tee time was 11:15. I wonder first, if they made it in time, and second, if they packed their windbreakers. A little chilly for golf, even for me.

The Mavs dominate the sports section of the Dallas Morning News. They beat Phoenix last night with another huge outing from Dirk Nowitzki and a workmanlike effort from Josh Howard, their young forward who is regarded by the local press in much the same way we in central Florida speak of Dwight Howard. I'm already looking forward to seeing them on the same floor tomorrow night.

I go to the Orlando Sentinel's sports section online and read Brian Schmitz's game story from New York. Brian was sitting next to me the entire game, and I peppered him with observations, some of which he actually wrote down. Sure enough, there it is, in print - Grant Hill's first bucket of the 2005 season came on a goaltending call. I gave him that one.

It's interesting to note how two people can sit in the same spot and see a different game. In fairness to me, I am watching the game with an earpiece, hearing the play-by-play call from David and Matt as well as the commands from producers Tye Eastham and Kevin Patterson in the Sun Sports production truck. It's like watching a game in the stands while listening to a phone conversation at the same time, paying attention in case your name comes up. Multitasking, I guess. Luckily, I have Brian's story to read the next day to catch what I missed while preparing for my next sideline report. Warrior-Broadcaster, that's me.

When in Dallas, try the Mexican food. It doesn't matter where. Also, my TV cohorts tell me that the Sixth Floor Depository museum, where JFK was shot, is worth a trip. I chose to stay in the hotel room and catch up on sleep.

On game day, I ride the bus to the American Airlines Center, which has just jumped up my list of the best buildings in the NBA. Clean, spacious, dripping with every amenity one can imagine. Best of all, it's three minutes from the hotel. We catch Mavs head coach Avery Johnson for some interviews, then say hello to former Magic favorite Darrell Armstrong, now a Maverick. We plan to interview him for the pregame show, so I start digging up my favorite Darrell memories.

Here's one: remember the All-Star Game in San Antonio, where Darrell was entered in the Slam Dunk contest? Shaq lobbied hard to get Armstrong in, having seen the little guy throw it down many times, but Darrell pretty much bombed under the bright lights. Here's what you don't know - when Armstrong arrived at the Alamodome before the contest, he opened his bag to find that someone had packed the wrong shorts. I think they belonged to Dennis Scott - they were at least five sizes too big for the wiry Armstrong, who goes maybe 165 soaking wet. He had no other shorts, and no other choice, so out he went. Personally, I blame the extra weight and wind resistance for his rough outing in the contest.

I asked him about that during the interview, and he said he didn't remember them being the wrong shorts, just too big. Trust me, somebody packed the wrong shorts.

The Magic played their guts out in Dallas. My seat was at center court, one row behind the television play-by-play position, and from that vantage point, I saw a glimpse of what this team could be. Grant scored 28 points in just his second game back, looking every bit the perennial All-Star, but the Magic just didn't have enough arrows against a potent (and very tall) Dallas lineup. Josh Howard was brilliant, much more so in this game than Dwight Howard, who registered a quiet double-double. I was a little disappointed, if only because the Dallas PR staff had told me that Dwight is a topic of conversation everywhere in the league, and I was pulling for him to blow up and add to the growing legend.

The Magic have their flaws - a lack of big men, a tendency to over-dribble, a paucity of offense when Francis and Hill are off the floor - but they looked pretty good. Damn, they could have had this game. There are no moral victories, but this one felt like it.

The bus ride back to Love Field is quiet, but not morose. Without a headwind, we make about 530 miles an hour back to Orlando, a two-hour jaunt. Everyone on the plane is exhausted, and this wasn't even a long road trip. Honestly, I don't know how they do it year in and year out.

Four nights, two cities, one win, one loss. The Magic will catch a huge break in the schedule now, with six home games during a 17-day stay in Orlando. Next road game is January 3rd at Detroit, and I will once again join the meandering road show in February, for a road game in New Jersey on Sun Sports. Plenty of time to rest up.

Warrior-Broadcaster, that's me.

Hoop It Up

Full disclosure: last summer, as the 2004 NBA Draft approached, I was terribly concerned about the Magic's position as keeper of the top pick. Given the paucity of talent available in that draft - remember, that was the summer when Pavel Podkolzine was the most intriguing name on the board - I opined more than once on Sports Talk Live that the Magic should seriously consider trading the pick. Coming off a 61-loss season, my reasoning was sound: unless they could get a franchise-changing player with that number one overall pick, they should deal it for sheer numbers. Lose one top pick, get three guys who could actually play. Rock-solid, right?

More disclosure: I watched Dwight Howard's private workout with the Magic. I also saw Emeka Okafor go through the paces at the RDV Sportsplex. Don't ask me how I came to witness the workouts - I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. Point being, it wasn't even close.

Howard blew the roof off the gym. He was a monster then, and he's a monster now. Couple his breathtaking physical skills with a well-grounded support system behind him, a humble but confident demeanor, and a body still growing at age 20, and you have a player that the Magic can build around for the next decade. Watching him play through the first two months of his second NBA season has only reaffirmed that stance. He will record a 30 point-30 rebound game sometime in the near future. Write it down.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is this: thank God the Magic didn't trade that pick.

Second point on the Magic - I'm sure as hell not backing off my statement from a column after that same 2004 Draft in which I argued that "five years from now, 'Jameer Nelson at 20' will be regarded as the draft-day steal of the decade." As a second-year pro, Nelson has earned the confidence of a veteran head coach in Brian Hill, so much so that Nelson is now regarded as a "closer." Bring in the kid in the fourth quarter, let him fire a few fastballs, and pull the "Mariano Rivera Circa 2001" on the bad guys. Criminy, he even added a three-point shot over the summer. I'm even more mystified as to how he dropped to 20. Never underestimate the power of a short kid with a chip on his shoulder. As I recall, Doug Flutie won a Heisman Trophy that way.

Meanwhile, in Miami, Shaq is still limping, and Antoine Walker is still shooting. The Heat's early-season struggles have brought the average teams in the Southeast Division (read: Orlando and Washington) much closer to the top than they have any right to be. Dwyane Wade is doing all he can, of course, to the tune of 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists per game in 39 minutes a night, but at times the Heat look like those mid-90's Golden State Warrior clubs, when Mullin and Richmond had left Tim Hardaway all by himself by the bay. While I sometimes struggle to remember my kids' birthdays, I can clearly recall seeing the Warriors clear out for Hardaway at the top of the key, leaving him on an island as he attempted to bring his club back to within 17. That's the vibe I get right now from Miami. A bunch of players in cool uniforms with a great view of Wade as he goes one-on-five.

Of course, now that Shaq Is Baq, all bets are off. Miami is more than capable of ripping off a ten-game win streak with the Big Fella in the middle. Alonzo Mourning provided heroic effort in Shaquille's absence, and Lord knows Walker thinks he's helping, but this team was built for the Diesel. Jason Williams-to-James Posey ain't gonna get it done, not even in the Southeast. My advice to the rest of the division: get your licks in while you can, because this train is coming to a halt. Atlanta, you are excused from this conversation.

This week, I am heading off with the Magic on a two-game road trip to New York and Dallas, during which time I will be playing the role of Paul Kennedy as the Sun Sports pregame host and sideline reporter. Among the story lines we will follow is the return of Grant Hill to the Magic lineup, which should take place on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. I don't think you can overstate how big that will be for the men in blue. Hill's offense is a given - what does not show up on the stat sheet is his leadership and sheer presence. Grant Hill makes his teammates better, through clever passing and timely scoring, and by remaining calm when the situation is dire. He's younger than I am, but he's the sagely grandaddy on that roster. It will be interesting to see how the team responds with Hill on the floor for these two road games, followed by a season-high six-game home stand. If the Magic can emerge from December somewhere close to the top of the Southeast Division, with all hands healthy and on deck, this NBA season takes an intriguing turn for NBA fans in Central Florida.

One more reminder - keep an eye on Sunsportstv.com for the upcoming ballot for the All-Florida College Football Team, the results of which will be announced on the final Rec Warehouse College Kickoff show on January 6th. Fans can vote in a number of categories, all of which were listed here in a previous entry. Vote early and vote often. Talk to you from the road.

52 Things And A Big Five

Okay, so everyone in the Western Hemisphere has forwarded me the blog entry regarding my former employer in Bristol. If you missed it, do a Google search for "52 Reasons ESPN." You can figure out the rest of the title, I'm sure. Put it this way - it's not a love letter.

Without devoting too much time to a competing blog (or a competing network, for that matter), there are a couple of points I'd like to make:

- I happen to agree that Keith Olbermann is missed. Never mind that we are both Cornell alums and both worked for WVBR, the student-owned radio station in Ithaca - I just think the man is funny. There is nothing wrong with being smart, either. Make sure your kids know that.

- Keith Jackson can stay on the air as long as he likes. He's earned it.

- Sports IS entertainment, folks. What else could it be? We're not solving the problems of the modern world out here. We're providing a diversion and highlighting rallying points for schools and communities - their teams. It's supposed to be fun.

- Chris Berman, Bob Ley, and Dan Patrick are Bristol's version of The Untouchables. Save your energy.

- On "making the story, not reporting it," I'll add two more words: Mark McGwire. Ask me about that one someday. Still not over it.

- No, Suzy Kolber is not.

- John Clayton and Sean Salisbury actually do get along.

- You can rip the Dale Earnhardt movie as long as you leave his SportsCentury episode alone. One of my best friends at the network helped produce it, and I was one of the interviewees. It's my only entry at IMDB.com, so toss me a bone here.

- Love him or hate him, Mark Shapiro made that company a lot of money.

- Mike Lupica invited me to play in his charity golf tournament a couple of times, so I'm on his side. However, I agree that he should watch more than two college football games a year before firing a head coach.

Other than that, a reminder that television sets come with a remote control, and Sun Sports is available on most basic cable systems in Florida.

Back to work.

During Sports Talk Live last Monday, I commented during a package of UCF highlights that the Golden Knights should abandon their white-on-white uniform combination. See, I have this thing about white-on-white - nobody wins with that color scheme, unless you're the Indianapolis Colts.

Anyway, we received an e-mail from a man we'll call "Carlos," because that's his name. Carlos pointed out that Miami dismantled Virginia Tech a couple of weeks ago while wearing the hated white-on-white. "Not only that," he wrote, "but they looked awfully fast!"

Is that our criteria for uniform selection now? "They looked awfully fast"? Nobody looks good in all whites. Terry Norvelle will back me up on this - the moment that Florida stepped onto the field against South Carolina this season, I muttered to nobody in particular, "white on white. They're dead." And they were. Blue shirt, white pants. White shirt, blue pants. Orange pants don't inspire me, but I'll take them over the all-whites any day.

Florida State looks especially awkward on those rare occasions that they go all-white. The garnet pants aren't much better. Gold pants, alternating between white tops and garnet tops, fine. Miami may indeed have beaten Va Tech while wearing the matching white jerseys and pants, but when I think of Miami, I think orange shirts or green shirts. Preferably green, because the shade they use is unique. The orange tops remind me too much of Florida, or perhaps the Denver Broncos, with all the swoopy stripes.

Back to UCF for a minute - I saw a couple of notes on the message boards suggesting that the Knights adopt black tops. To this I say, bravo. The gold jerseys, which the school has been pushing hard across all sports, are just a hair too close to Georgia Tech. Of course, being a Florida native, I know full well that black shirts during a day game in September (or even October) is potentially suicidal. I might accept white shirts and black pants - a Southern Miss or New Orleans Saints vibe - but the gold jerseys bug me. Sorry, had to get that out of my system.

UCF is one of five schools in the state of Florida going bowling this season. A "Big Five," if you will. No other state can make that claim - Texas and California are next with four bowl teams each. Of the five, the University of South Florida might seem like the weak link at 6-5, but I think the people at the Meineke Car Care Bowl did a smart thing (as opposed to the actual naming of the bowl itself, which is atrocious). They invited North Carolina State to come to Charlotte, thereby ensuring something close to a sellout, so they could afford to roll the dice on the opponent. Why not take one of the Florida schools? Someday, when USF is indeed competing with the Big Three on a level playing field, the Bulls may remember the largesse of the nice folks in Charlotte. Perhaps they'll accept a return trip, turning down a bigger bowl in the process, and bring a little of that Big Five hype with them. The Meineke organizers have planted a seed that could someday bear fruit. Good move.

UCF, meanwhile, loses the Conference USA championship game and gets booted from the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Their penance? Spending Christmas in Hawaii. Go back and read that again. Yes, they probably deserved a chance to play a bowl game close enough to Orlando to actually bring some fans, but come on. You want Memphis over Hawaii? Get the flowered shirts, don the lei, sip a fruity drink with an umbrella poking out, and enjoy the ride. If you're finally going to a bowl game after 26 years of football under the radar, you may as well do it in Paradise. Your fans will forgive you for playing at 8:30pm eastern time on Christmas Eve.

Last point: in the coming days, Sunsportstv.com will open the balloting for our All-Florida Team, to be announced on January 6th during our final Rec Warehouse College Kickoff show of the season. Terry, Brady and I will put our heads together and come up with our picks in each category, which we'll compare to the results of fan voting on the website. The preliminary categories, subject to revision:

Best Quarterback
Best Running Back
Best Wide Receiver
Best Offensive Line
Best Defensive Line
Best Linebackers
Best Secondary
Best Special Teams Player
Offensive MVP
Defensive MVP
Newcomer of the Year
Coach of the Year

Also, we plan to provide our choices for Game of the Year, Play of the Year, and Hit of the Year - the last of which should be called the "Greg Jones Trophy," in honor of the current Jaguar and former Seminole who de-helmeted North Carolina safety Dexter Reid in a game two years ago, a play that remains the best hit I have ever seen in three seasons of "Chevy Tailgate Saturday."

Anyway, start thinking about your votes, and check the website next week. We'll update the balloting on Sports Talk Live and announce the winners on Rec Warehouse College Kickoff on Friday, January 6. Let the arguments begin.

Dollars and Sense

Anybody catch this piece of news regarding NASCAR's television contract?

According to Mediaweek, the racing series has reached eight-year deals with ABC/ESPN and Turner Sports, and is expected to finalize an agreement with Fox, the parent company of Sun Sports, in short order. Under the new deal, Fox will air 13 races to start every NASCAR season, including the Daytona 500, which they shared with NBC in the previous contract. Turner gets six Nextel Cup events, and ABC/ESPN gets 17 in the second half of the season, including the final ten in the "Chase for the Championship." In between the financial terms ($350 million dollars per year for Disney and Turner's share, plus an expected $200 million per annum from Fox once they pony up), the part that caught my eye as a former ESPN employee was this:

As part of the ABC/ESPN agreement, all ten of the "Chase" races will be televised on ABC. Having ESPN back in the racing game is one thing, but I was mildly blown away to see Disney's broadcast network get involved.

When NASCAR left ESPN after the 2000 season, the rumor around the building in Bristol was that NASCAR wanted races on broadcast television, not just cable, and that Disney, owners of ABC and ESPN, wouldn't guarantee it. Never mind that roughly two-thirds of all television households in this country now have at least basic cable - those 74,000,000 homes were not enough for NASCAR, which fancied itself a direct competitor to the NFL, and still does. They wanted the whole enchilada - the 110,000,000 U.S. households with any kind of TV. Disney wouldn't give up the time on ABC, the story went, so NASCAR went. Now, they're back.

If there's one thing I've learned in my fifteen-plus years in broadcast media, it is this: be nice to everyone, because you never know who you'll be working for someday. The production assistant you pass in the hall could well end up becoming your boss at your next gig. Clearly, this lesson was not lost on ABC/ESPN.

Who gets the better end of the deal? Fox, and not because they keep a roof over my head. The Daytona 500 is the Super Bowl of motorsports, and now they don't have to share it. While the year-end Chase did create a whole new stream of media coverage for the series, it was still a slog to the end, and decidedly anticlimactic.

Want to make the Chase interesting? Reset the ten "playoff" drivers to zero, just like they do in baseball, the NBA, the NHL, and every other sport that conducts an honest-to-goodness playoff - even the mighty NFL, the benchmark against which NASCAR measures itself. Odds of this happening are also "zero," because the drivers and teams would absolutely despise it, but we'd sure watch, wouldn't we?

Speaking of money, and theories: my Big Five Theory, which, I've noticed, has now been comped by many in the state media, received a healthy boost last week when the University of South Florida announced that it had extended head coach Jim Leavitt's contract through 2012.

Under the terms of the new deal, Leavitt, the only coach USF has ever known, will nearly double his annual salary to one million per, and more importantly, his buyout is raised from $50,000 dollars to half a million. Take that, Kansas State. Leavitt commented that he had been saying all along that USF was one of the best jobs in the country. Well, it is now.

With Leavitt locked up, the Bulls no longer have to worry about losing recruits to the prospect of a regime change - the sort of tactic that many schools (allegedly) use against Bobby Bowden at Florida State or Joe Paterno at Penn State. I've seen comments on the boards from Gator and Seminole fans opining that USF can compete against UF and FSU for top recruits "somewhere down the line." That line just got a little closer. The first shot has been fired in the creation of an honest Big Five.

The second volley will come when UCF athletic director Steve Orsini huddles with George O'Leary, the Conference USA Coach of the Year, and takes a gallon of White-Out to their contract. O'Leary arrived in Orlando with a five-year deal through 2008 that pays him $700,000 dollars in base salary, with incentives that can push him over a million per. Since then, all O'Leary did was shake off an 0-11 season, put UCF into the Conference USA championship game, preside over the announcement of a new on-campus football stadium, and win two national Coach of the Year awards (and counting). More importantly, he's created a nationwide buzz around this program for the first time since the Daunte Culpepper years - consider the staggering ticket sales for the C-USA title game, and the votes the Knights received last week in both the coaches' poll and the AP poll.

Rumblings from east Orange County suggest that UCF is already considering re-writing O'Leary's contract to keep him around even longer - perhaps as long as Leavitt's deal in Tampa. Just rumor for now, but if it happens, UCF can shoo away O'Leary's suitors just as USF did with Leavitt. And then, sports fans, the Big Five is yet another step closer to reality.

See you after Championship Saturday.