A gentleman never tells

Pro football stars get a lot of women. Normally they don't get accused of sexual assault afterward, so it's safe to assume not everyone is operating out of Ben Roethlisberger's off field playbook. If, as the AJC reports, another female on a completely different evening was treated to Ben pulling his pants down and telling her she could "do what she wants", he's even more loutish than we already knew. There's been a lot of speculation in the media about whether Pittsburgh might try to trade Roethlisberger, but after reading the documents about his behavior the night in question you have to wonder what team would want him? There's always the Raiders I suppose, but when a guy's become toxic in the city where he won two Super Bowls it's hard to imagine he's going to be a big hit somewhere else. Roethlisberger looked slovenly when he met the press earlier this week, and he's never been considered an especially hard worker or a great locker room guy. He's got strong physical tools and has shown an improvisational ability that's served him well, but none of that makes up for the deficiencies at the moment. We'll see how long Roethlisberger's suspension is for, but there's clearly going to be one.

It turns out that athletes on a college campus also get lots of women. This shocking news is brought to you by Ray Shipman, who inexplicably decided to share his sexual exploits with the entire world via an article in the Alligator. Especially for a guy in the middle of transferring, this does not strike me as a terribly bright thing to do. If I'm Frank Haith deciding whether I want to offer Shipman a scholarship to transfer to Miami, the idea that if I do the phrase ”the Caucasian girls tend to notice the basketball players more” may turn up in my student newspaper would definitely give me pause. Meanwhile, should certain football players be so inclined, they could top Shipman's career total in 24 hours by posting a casting call message on Facebook.

A Stewart Mandel post to Twitter yesterday clued me in to something I was unaware of regarding college football. The Emerald Bowl is no more! No, it didn't suffer the sad fate of the International Bowl. Instead, the game's name has been changed to the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, and they're going to play it January 9th. No, seriously, they are. They should have made it the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Bowl and given all the bowl scouts a Velveeta orange colored jacket. The worst bowl game in America, Birmingham's Papa John's Bowl, announced yesterday that they'd play their game Jaunary 8 at 11 AM local time. So, just to make sure I'm clear on the BCS arguments, we can't have a playoff because it would last too long into the school year and creating one would cost us the opportunity to have these great games? Riiiiiight.

With the NFL Draft six days away, I'll be spending time this weekend going over the Pro Football Weekly guide and getting a look online at what the latest buzz is on certain players. What I won't be doing, and you shouldn't either, is spending any time on rumors like Cleveland possibly trading for the draft's top pick. Every team floats this stuff out to try and disguise their true intentions this time of year, and in our 24 hour news cycle we're going to hear more of it than ever. Assume nothing's going to happen tradewise prior to the draft and you will be right 999 out of 1000 times. Once it gets going and some surprise players are chosen causing others to fall, then the real movement through trades will begin. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday - remember to follow the Twitter feed at heathradio if you want to know what's got my attention between now and than.