Gang, excellent week and thanks as always for the questions. We'll kick around a bunch of this craziness on our radio show Press Row later today with our man David Paschall on ESPN 105.1 FM and simulcast here on timesfreepress.com.
Also, want to extend a SAAALLLLL-loot to BWill8 and tmbwlfofnga, two first-time contributors this week. Well done and pull up a chair and stay a while.
From the "Talks too much" studios, let's drop some science.
From TR
Was clicking channels and saw Ferris Bueller on cable the other day and my buddy mentioned that it also was a TV show. I couldn't believe it so I looked it up and it was. What is your Rushmore of movies that became TV shows? The 5-at-10 is a lot of fun, and I read it every day. Thanks.
TR -
Jennifer AnistonYes, Ferris made a brief appearance on the small screen - it even was one of the first vehicles for Jennifer Aniston, so there's that. Ferris the movie is brilliant and surprisingly underrated kind of like Tim Duncan is underrated - when we see it we recognize how great it is, but it's seldom mentioned off the top of the head as an all-timer.
As for your Rushmore, TR, well, Ferris can't make the cut. The Bo Jackson of this category has to be M*ASH, which was a good movie and a Hall of Fame TV show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer made a nice transition. Know some folks who liked the Stargate TV series. From there, it's pretty sketchy. We've got a couple more but maybe someone else wants to take a swing at completing the Rushmore.
The list is much better on TV shows that later produced movies. Star Trek, The Simpsons, X-Files, all the super hero stuff to name a few and that's not even adding in the campy and fun 1970s spoofs of Starsky and Hutch, The Brady Bunch, The Addams Family, etc.
And if we're talking TV shows that produce movies, we owe SNL a paragraph here. Blue Brothers, Wayne's World, the surprisingly rewatchable Coneheads and a slew of others
Great question TR.
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From Chas9 -
Former great dad Boomer has stepped in it, saying if a player's wife is due around opening day, she should schedule a C-section so her husband doesn't have to miss his opening day game. Question for Friday: What would be the conversation between Jay and Mrs. Jay if he suggested such a thing?
Chas9 -
We were there shotgun when each of the 5-at-10 tots were introduced to the planet. "Kids, the world. The world, meet the kids."
Phil Mickelson of the United States holds the Claret Jug trophy as he is driven away in a buggy from the press conference after winning the British Open Golf Championship at Muirfield, Scotland, Sunday July 21, 2013.Interesting topic and we'll get her input here too.
Opening day is an interesting starting point for the discussion. We say go and be at the birth. It's a regular-season game.
But what if this were the playoffs? Or the Super Bowl?
What if it was the situation Phil Mickelson faced in the late 1990s when he was among the leaders at the US Open at Pinehurst and his wife was about to pop (think she went into labor the Monday after the final round when he finished second)?
Is there a point - Mickelson said he was prepared to leave in the middle of the final round, which would have cost him a shot at what at the time would have been his first major and roughly $1 million - where, as John Goodman's character in Raising Arizona said, "Works comes before family" and if there is when is it?
We'll be back with the Mrs. 5-at-10's view.
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From Junior Fan
I am so excited about the best of preps -- already got tickets and everything. I was wondering something about the speaker, though. How did you guys get Dale Jr. and how do you decide on who the speaker is going to be?
Junior Fan -
Super glad you're super stoked. Since our president Jason Taylor has supersized this thing we try to get the hottest name in sports for that year.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., will be the featured speaker at this year's Times Free Press Best of Preps banquet.Dale Jr. has always been super popular, not only in NASCAR but across the entire sports landscape. With his victory at Daytona and leading the points, he's atop his realm right now so that helped too. Plus, we like to mix things up and now we've had a swimmer, tennis players, Super Bowl winning QBs a future baseball Hall of Famer and NASCAR's most popular driver.
As for making it happen, in previous years, our marketing and events ace Lyndsi Lane makes the magic happen. (And not unlike the only dating advice we can give, the biggest hurdle is asking. The worst they can say is no.)
This time, however, all-around TFP sports ace Stephen Hargis used some connections with some of Dale Jr.'s peeps and did a lion's share of the heavy lifting on this one.
We're stoked too. Also, we're planning on giving away some seats here and hopefully on the radio show in coming days, so keep your eyes peeled. (What in the name of Hanna Barbera Montana does keep your eyes peeled mean? Do our eyes have an extra skin on them we are not aware of? Peeled? Whatever.)
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From Jomo
For your Friday mailbag - Jadevon Clowney is that rare breed that goes from being the #1 High School prospect to being the #1 NFL prospect. What other athletes can you put in that category ? Bryce Harper comes to mind, but so do so many other top High Schoolers who FAIL to be the best in the big-leagues, after high school hype i.e. UTK's Bryce Brown, Ohio State's Gerg Oden, Miss St. Renardo Sidney was a #1 High School b-baller. . . .give us some others on both ends of the spectrum.
Jadeveon ClowneyJomo -
Excellent question.
Let's go straight to the breakdown. Since Rivals only went back into the early 2000s, we decided to use the USA Today listing of the high school players of the year. From that football list, No. 1 overall high school players who went on to be No. 1 overall picks were Jeff George (1985 player of the year, No. 1 overall pick in xxx) and Tim Couch (1995 xxxx.
The most accomplished NFL career for a former USA Today player of the year belongs to Emmitt Smith. There are a ton of guys that never made a lasting mark in the NFL, but Ryan Knight (1983 running back to USC) and Dan Kendra (1994 QB to FSU) are the two that never even sniffed a career in pro football.
The basketball list is much more impressive. Guys like Kevin Garnett and LeBron James, Kenny Anderson and Alonzo Mourning and Chris Webber and Jason Kidd were all players of the year and later very high NBA first-rounders and future all-stars.
There are some busts - Delray Brooks was the player of the year, as was Damon Bailey and Samardo Samuels - but the basketball list of players of the year is much more accurate.
The baseball players of the year have some Hall of Fame names - Joe Mauer (who was USA Today player of the year in football and baseball as a senior), Jeter, Clayton Kershaw and A-Rod were all there - along with major busts like Brien Taylor, Ben Davis (no the other one) and the infamous Todd Van Poppel.
Great question, hope we answered it how you posed it. If not, let us know.
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From sportsfan
Jay - Mrs. Sportsfan and I have been watching clips of old Tonight Show interviews with Johnny Carson on TCM on Monday evenings. It's a great show hosted by Conan O'Brien. I just saw that David Letterman, Johnny's original heir apparent, is retiring next year. For the mailbag, what's your Rushmore of late night talk show hosts and guests. Still can't get my schedule to match your show on 105.1 but I understand it's great. Maybe I'll call in sick next week and listen in or even call in and ask a silly question. I can't collect any more points in my bracket. I got no one left in the final four. Stupid bracket contest...
David Letterman appears during a taping of the "Late Show" in New York.Sportsfan -
Amazingly, this was almost our Rushmore on Press Row on Thursday. (We went with Rushmore of Murphys since Eddie Murphy turned 53 yesterday. So it goes.)
So it's awesome that you asked this.
And to do Dave justice (did we just use Dave Justice in the a non-proper noun sentence? Yes we did.), we'll break this down into a few categories and we'd love some of you folks' input"
Rushmore of late night talk show host - Ted Koppel, Carson, Letterman and Jon Stewart.
Rushmore of Dave's best guests - Bill Murray, Julia Roberts, Super Dave and Howard Stern
Rushmore of all-time memorable guests - Hugh Grant on Leno; the animal trainer on Carson; Super Dave on Carson and then on Letterman, Justin Timberlake on Jimmy Fallon
Great question as always sportsfan, and if your schedule ever allows you to listen to the show, give us a call.
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From Stewwie
Jay, I love the radio show when I'm able to get off of work in time to catch at least a couple of the segments. Can you give us a list or Rushmore of the craziest things that you've heard so far on the show? Anything from idiotic comments from callers, to bad predictions, to wild/funny stories.
The one that takes the cake though is what I heard one caller say a couple of weeks ago:
"I'd let Jerry Sandusky watch my kids before I let Todd Grantham coach my football team."
What is the world coming to? Incredible.
Stewwie -
We actually started this adventured almost a year ago, with the "Special Feature" two-week trail last April. We did a couple of months from 1-3 p.m. as Press Row in the fall and then in December moved to 3-6. It's been fun. And crazy. And the feedback and interaction with readers and listeners has been awesome.
And sadly, someone did utter that awful sentence you mentioned. So it goes.
As for Rushmore of crazy stuff, well, it's hard to remember them all, but here's what we brainstormed:
• We spent a majority of a show talking about whether people peed in the pool. And one of of soon-to-be regulars named Chris called in and shared that he did pee in the pool and even offered up that he did No. 2 at the lake at Chester Frost Park. Yes, he is known as Chester Frost Chris on Press Row.
• There was the time the blockheaded TFP sports editor had to sing (brutally bad by the way) the FSU fight song after the BCS title game went sour
• We had a caller saying Andrew Luck is so overhyped that he's really not better than Jake Locker, which seem comical and crazy at the time and now seems
• And we normally end the show with a "Full Court Press" where Paschall and the TFP sports editor go-back-and-forth with rapid-fire questions. We let UTC football coach Russ Huesman play along one time, and we asked him what his favorite movie was. He could not think of the title, and tried to explain it by saying something along the lines of "You know it was one of those great ones that after the movies your standing in the urinal and you look over and say, 'Man that was a great movie.'" Which then caused us to ask him how often he had side-urinal conversations and movie reviews.
Good times.