Weekend winners
The SEC. Wow, each league team got a touch more than $31 million at the SEC meetings. The addition of the SEC Network and the new bowl payouts mean that the increase in rights fees for SEC members was more than $10 million.
Cleveland Cavs. OK, we all know they are in the Finals. But the news Sunday of Kevin Love saying he would be ready for opening day and would be in a Cavs uni next season makes them the favorite again next year.
Josh Hamilton. Man, talk about the value of being comfortable. Dude is back in Texas and back to raking. After a rusty first three games with the Rangers, he went 5-for-11 with two doubles, two homers with three walks and five RBIs in four games against Boston.
Rex Ryan and the Bills. Here's a tip of the visor for the Bills organization for getting everyone on board for the Jim Kelly golf tournament to benefit the fight against cancer. And the reason Ryan and the Bills get the credit is they used one of their 10 full OTA session to make sure everyone was involved.
Harriet Thompson. At 92-years young Thompson completed the Rock-n-Roll Marathon this weekend. Yep, at 92. She started running marathons in her 70s and is the oldest woman to complete a marathon.
Jimmie Johnson. Dude is an all-timer. He won for the 10th time at Dover on Sunday and continues to craft a career that will be on the short list of the best ever.
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Weekend's losers
NASCAR. Speaking of Johnson winning at Dover, man, NASCAR is now on FoxSports1. That's less than good for a sport needing as much exposure as possible and with plenty of good sections available at almost all races. To make matters worse, in the same time slot, the regular Fox channel had some sort of filler program on early Sunday afternoon.
This guy's uniform. Wow. Talk about form fitting. Just Wow.
Johnny Manziel. Johnny Football threw a bottle of water at badgering fan. (No word on whether the water ball was intercepted.) Was he provoked? Yes. Did he handle it poorly? Absolutely. The differing versions give accounts with a fair amount of spin. Still, past performance leads to scrutiny in everything Johnny Football does. He should know that by now.
Soccer. How can you re-elect Seth Blatter as your FIFA president amid two decades of scandal and allegations? Maybe no one else wanted to the job.
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Best of Preps
Congratulations to all the high school standouts and coaches and parents and fans who will be part of the Best of Preps tonight.
It's a really cool event and if you have never been I would encouraging you going. It's awesome and the powers here at the paper do it right.
Tonight John Smoltz will be the featured guest and that should be excellent as well.
Here are the nominees for the best coach, best female athlete, and best male athlete.
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This and that
- Congrats to Nick Saban's daughter for getting hitched this weekend. And yes, the couple tied the knot at Bryant-Denny Stadium, resetting the dream venue for a large part of the south's most passionate fan base.
- Looks like Baylor went big replacing Gene Etter as their baseball coach with Billy Berry.
- This falls in both our Monday categories so we'll put it here. Tom Brady spent a chunk of the weekend playing catch with kids helped by Best Buddies. He also participated in the charity bike ride. He skipped the media session however. We get not speaking before the appeal, but at some point dude just needs to come clean take the suspension and put this in the rearview.
- Summer movie season is here. There have been some impressive remakes (we have heard Mad Max is awesome) and some questionable decisions (do we really need a remake of Point Break). We also have read that instead of remaking Jaws, Hollywood is just re-releasing the original in theaters this summer. That's cool. What other movies should be just re-released rather than remade?
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Today's question
As always, feel free on who won the weekend and who lost it.
Happy 78th birthday Mr. Morgan Freeman, one of the best working actors on the planet.
And maybe one of the best ever.
To think dude started on Electric Company back in the day is stunning.
OK, let's keep this simple: Rushmore of Morgan Freeman movies.
Dude had a pretty stacked four-movie, three-year run from 1992-95 with Unforgiven, Shawshank, Outbreak and Seven.
Add in Glory, Driving Miss Daisy, Lean on Me and The Lego Movie (which is extremely popular in the Greeson household) to name but a few others. Nevermind Million Dollar Baby.
Good luck with that.