Bad endings galore

Bobby Bowden's book is out today, and the former FSU coach is not being bashful in his promotional interviews. Bowden tells Sporting News that he was fired as the head coach, and that no one even came to say goodbye to him as he was cleaning out his office. T.K. Wetherell acknowledges the relationship between him and Bowden is no longer good. It can not be ignored that Bowden brought most of this on himself. He brought the program down with his refusal to hire a qualified OC instead of his son Jeff. When it became clear Bowden was putting his personal interests ahead of the program's, people began wondering if he was ever going to retire or if he genuinely believed the job was a lifetime appointment like a Supreme Court seat. It all culminated in the decision not to subject FSU to another year of meandering leadership rather than a plan moving forward, because Bowden refused to take the hints (statue, stained glass window, field naming) that the school was ready to move on. I hope for both sides this doesn't turn out like Tennessee and Johnny Majors, where the bitter former coach still is lobbing bombs at his old school on the airwaves periodically, but if this season isn't a big success in Tallahassee I wouldn't be surprised at all if Bobby has some zingers for them.

Many of the reasons college basketball's recruiting scene became a cesspool can be laid at the foot of one man. Sonny Vaccaro was the one who began the trend of funneling shoe money to coaches and then to AAU and travel team coaches without any regard for what kind of people they were. If they had influence with the potential "next Jordan", Vaccaro wanted them to have the kid in his company's shoes. Eventually Sonny worked his way through three different shoe companies, and he last turned up convincing Jeremy Tyler to leave high school after his junior season to turn pro overseas. Now there's a Chinese shoe company looking to break into the US basketball market, and guess who they're about to let flood the court scene with cash and gear again? This will not end well. Meanwhile, an Indianapolis media figure claims an investigation is underway involving the recruitment of star Kansas signee Josh Selby. Shockingly, Kentucky's name is linked to it. Hard to imagine there's much real danger for them on a kid Cal didn't even get though.

Would have loved to see the looks on their faces at the courthouse in Panama City yesterday when Tiger Woods and Elin roll in to finalize their divorce. Far as I can tell Tiger didn't hit the wet t-shirt contest at the Spinnaker later, but as this whole episode showed you never know. Maybe having this off his plate will finally free up Woods to begin getting his game in some kind of familiar shape again. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo had the line of the day yesterday when he tweeted that Elin's real revenge will be when she shows up as Rory McIlroy's date for the Ryder Cup.

Watch the car crash video from this link. That guy's alive, and after watching him vaporize that automobile I have no idea how.

Good thing they weren't playing the Grizzlies

We're two days from the NFL Draft, and I was trying to figure out where Tim Tebow might have gone this season had he put his name in. We can't know for sure, of course, but I believe he would have been behind the three anticipated first rounders - Stafford, Sanchez and Freeman - but ahead of everyone else at QB. If supposed "draft guru" Todd McShay is right in maintaining Brian Hoyer of Michigan State is currently fourth, there's no other conclusion you can draw. Remember, SI's Peter King has already quoted a scout from a successful franchise who says his team will take Tebow in the first round next year if he's available. I watched Hoyer plenty, and he's a complete stiff - the guy "led" MSU to 12 points on that same UGA defense UF put up 49 on and Georgia Tech destroyed. If a QB with a 51 percent completion mark and nine TD passes in 13 games went ahead of Tebow, it would be a travesty. Either McShay has no clue, or Tebow would have gone fourth at QB. Actually, both those statements could be accurate.

Not news: a star junior basketball player skips his senior year to take his game to the pros. News: it's a junior in high school. Jeremy Tyler, a Louisville commitment who's supposed to be finishing his junior year of high school, has instead left San Diego High and will head to Europe. He expects to make six figures over there for a couple of years and then be the top pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. Sounds like a great plan, as long as...

1. he doesn't get severely injured while playing overseas and become irrelevant to the NBA while being ineligible to play in college
2. he doesn't flop in Europe and wreck his NBA stock like suppposed "lottery pick" Christian Drejer once did
3. he doesn't wind up with a fly by night team that stiffs him on his pay and abandons him somewhere with no notice (as happened to Matt Bonner and tons of other players over the years)
4. he places no value on being around anyone his age who speaks his language and having something resembling a normal social life
5. the NBA doesn't have a massive labor upheaval prior to the year he envisions himself returning which creates a season cancelling lockout, massive salary cuts, etc. - which many people think will happen.

Other than that, it's foolproof. The thing is, this kid may be able to handle it. If he succeeds, how many more will try to follow his path who aren't as gifted and cost themselves enormously? This will not end well. The most predictable thing in the entire story, by the way? Sonny Vaccaro's at the root of the whole thing. No one's done more to profit off young basketball stars for decades than him.

The Atlanta Hawks were such an embarassingly bad organization for years that's it's still hard to believe they're good enough to have home court advantage in the first round of the NBA playoffs. I was at a game when Lon Kruger was their coach where his assistant coach Gar Heard actually got on the PA mic and promised the 4000 or so of us who were about to watch them get killed by the Knicks that the Hawks were going to play really hard that year. It reeked of amateur hour. Last night, we got a reminder of true Hawks tradition: not only did they lose to Miami, but a key factor may have been players getting intimidated by the live Hawk mascot getting loose. Maybe they could make this a selling point for dull games against teams like Memphis or Minnesota - come see if a live hawk will attack you or the players during the game! The Hawk should have stuck to motorcycling.

They're making a movie out of The Blind Side, Michael Lewis's book that told the story of this year's likely first round pick Michael Oher. The big tackle was recruited to Ole Miss by Ed Orgeron's staff, and now Orgeron will be starring as himself in a scene opposite Sandra Bullock in the movie. It's not clear whether all professional actors were too scared of Orgeron to try and portray him, or whether he's just so out there that no one else could. We can only hope the scene includes the immortal line "Tell 'em about it JoJo!"