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The NFL, which found itself on the receiving end of protests and controversy after it objected to churches showing the Super Bowl on big-screen televisions, has reversed course and will now permit the viewings.

In a letter to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would not object to “live showings — regardless of screen size — of the Super Bowl” by religious organizations.

In response to questions from Hatch, Goodell said in the letter, dated Feb. 19, the NFL will implement the policy starting with next year’s Super Bowl.

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The Patriots’ pattern of illicitly videotaping the signals of opposing N.F.L. coaches began in Coach Bill Belichick’s first preseason with the team in 2000, a former Patriots player said. The information was put to use in that year’s regular-season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Belichick’s debut as New England’s coach.

The secret taping of signals, which is against league rules, continued at least through three championship seasons to the 2007 season opener against the Jets, when the Patriots were caught and subsequently sanctioned by the league.

As coaches and executives gathered here Thursday for the N.F.L. scouting combine, many saying they were satisfied with the league’s investigation and ready to move on, new details were emerging about the history of the Patriots’ videotaping.

According to several executives in the league, the season opener against the Jets was not the first time the Patriots had been spotted taping another team’s defensive coaches at Giants Stadium. In the final preseason game of 2006, the Patriots were caught taping a Giants defensive assistant giving signals, the executives said.

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There are few more devoted followers than NASCAR fans, whose fervor rivals — and sometimes exceeds — their Christian faith. So it should come as no surprise that a college lecturer has made their twin passions the subject of a new book, Godspeed: Racing Is My Religion.

“You can’t separate them,” says the author, L.D. Russell. “A race is a kind of morality play in which fans witness the drama of human existence. We live in the face of unbeatable odds. The ultimate defeat is waiting for us.”

Without question, he writes, “Racing is a religion, a cult of true believers with their own rituals, myths and a system of ethics that rival Confucianism.” Russell compares the NASCAR rule book with the Bible’s book of Deuteronomy.

Today, like millions of NASCAR fans, Russell, 52, expects to be glued to his television.

“I never miss the Daytona 500,” he says, but at the same time he’ll also be going over papers from the course he teaches on racing and religion at Elon University in North Carolina.

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Bill Belichick has been illegally taping opponents’ defensive signals since he became the New England Patriots’ coach in 2000, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him that during a meeting Wednesday.

“There was confirmation that there has been taping since 2000, when Coach Belichick took over,” Specter said.

Specter said Goodell gave him that information during the 1-hour, 40-minute meeting, which was requested by Specter so the commissioner could explain his reasons for destroying the Spygate tapes and notes.

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The walls of the jail cell were built from stone, providing the perfect place for David Tyree to hit rock bottom. Arrested for drug possession after the police found half a pound of marijuana in his car, caged between stone walls and steel bars, Tyree covered his face with his hands.

Those hands, with awkwardly bent fingers and mangled knuckles, grabbed national attention years later. During the Giants’ improbable Super Bowl victory over the undefeated Patriots, Tyree caught a desperation pass on the winning drive by pinning the ball against his helmet.

The catch introduced the 28-year-old Tyree to the world. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated and flew last week to Los Angeles to appear on national talk shows.

“What looked to be the lowest point in my life ended up being the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Tyree, speaking of his arrest in 2004, said Saturday morning while sitting at his kitchen table.

From special-teams demon to Super Bowl deity. From moonlighting drug dealer to born-again Christian. From a child who drank alcohol and smoked marijuana with his family to a sober father and husband who started his own nonprofit organization.

This is Tyree’s version of his transformation.

Read the whole article.

Here is one picture as a sample.

If you wish to see more go to this website. Then click on 2008- February 2&3 USEA Horse Trial (top left). Look for Selimah Harmon’s name (alphabetical–right column). When you get to the set of pictures her pictures actually begin at about number 7.

Ugh.

We have a Duke Blue Devils basketball nut in our house and last night Duke beat North Carolina.

Watch it all.

Enjoy it.

What a lot of fun.

Watch it all.

The Giants were not even supposed to be here, taking an unlikely playoff path through the behemoths of their conference and regarded, once they alighted on Super Bowl XLII, as little more than charming foils for the New England Patriots’ assault on immortality.

But with their defense battering this season’s National Football League’s most valuable player, Tom Brady, and Giants quarterback Eli Manning playing more like Brady than Brady himself, the Giants produced one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history Sunday night, beating the previously undefeated Patriots, 17-14.

The Giants had seemingly been enlivened for the postseason by a 3-point loss to the Patriots in their regular-season finale on Dec. 29, a game in which the Giants had nothing on the line but pride and competitive spirit. A little more than a month later, they topped themselves, winning the franchise’s first championship since the 1991 Super Bowl.

Back then, Bill Belichick was the Giants’ defensive coordinator. On Sunday, he was the coach who had led the Patriots to the brink of a historic 19-0 perfect season, had survived a spying scandal that cost him money and his team a first-round draft pick, had weathered whispers in recent days that a previous title might be tainted. But he could only watch as it all collapsed under the weight of the Giants’ ferocious pass rush. For another year, the 1972 Miami Dolphins will stand alone with the only perfect season in N.F.L. history. The Patriots are, in the end, only almost perfect.

“It’s the greatest victory in the history of this franchise, without question,” the Giants co-owner John Mara said, his voice hoarse. “I just want to say to all you Giants fans who have supported us for more than 30 years at Giants Stadium, for all those years in Yankee Stadium and some of you even back to the Polo Grounds, this is for you.”

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A defensive battle so far, and still anyone’s game.

For years, as many as 200 members of Immanuel Bible Church and their friends have gathered in the church’s fellowship hall to watch the Super Bowl on its six-foot screen. The party featured hard hitting on the TV, plenty of food — and prayer.

But this year, Immanuel’s Super Bowl party is no more. After a crackdown by the National Football League on big-screen Super Bowl gatherings by churches, the Springfield church has sacked its event. Instead, church members will host parties in their homes.

Immanuel is among a number of churches in the Washington area and elsewhere that have been forced to use a new playbook to satisfy the NFL, which said that airing games at churches on large-screen TV sets violates the NFL copyright.

Ministers are not happy.

“There is a part of me that says, ‘Gee, doesn’t the NFL have enough money already?'” said Steve Holley, Immanuel’s executive pastor. He pointed out that bars are still allowed to air the game on big-screens TV sets. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

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Does this sound familiar, Patriots fans?

A team that came out of nowhere, beginning the season at 0-2.

They have a coach who didn’t make a lot of friends in his previous job.

They are massive underdogs for the Super Bowl against a recent champion.

If you said the 2001 New England Patriots, you are half right. If you said the 2007 New York Giants, you are half right.

The point is the Giants have a lot in common with the Patriots’ first championship team.

Read it all. I am just wishing for a competitive game, which in a number of Super Bowls has not happened–KSH.

This is a super report–watch it all.

There is no sauna, no heated pool, no chauffeur or sommelier. In fact, no alcohol is allowed on the premises, and guests share a bathroom with their next-door neighbor.

But for $250 a night in a city where Super Bowl rentals are topping out at $250,000 a week for a mansion in Scottsdale, the sisters at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery figure they have an offer that cannot be beat.

In debt from the recent purchase of a nearby parcel, the Benedictine nuns are hoping to make a dent in their mortgage by converting their 10-bedroom spiritual retreat into a crash pad for Super Bowl fans this weekend.

“A Super Bowl doesn’t happen in a city very often,” said Sister Linda Campbell, the prioress of the monastery where rooms usually go for $105 a night. “Then we heard of all the folks that were renting out homes and we thought, wow, that would be something that would be beneficial to the monastery and help us to help others.”

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This is just marvelous.

With all due respect to Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry and Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick is the genius coach of all time.

His New England Patriots have taken on all comers and triumphed over all styles. In this salary-cap era, when players move from team to team, Belichick has managed to stay one step ahead of the competition.

On Sunday, for the 18th time this season, Belichick entered the interview room and gave a monologue about another game his team had won. The victories have come in all shapes and sizes: late-game runaways, out-and-out routs, flaw-ridden nail-biters.

Yesterday, New England tripped, stumbled and willed itself to its fourth American Football Conference championship under Belichick.

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The Chargers gave it a valiant effort, but they couldn’t score touchdowns in the red zone and the Patriots are just too good.

Interesting that all 4 games this weekend were such good games.

The difference between running and delivering a sermon or leading a flock is …
I might come at it in terms of similarities than in terms of differences. Similarities: there’s some preparation, but most of the work happens when you’re doing it. There’s training to get ready, but most of the work and ministry happens in the middle of it.

You said you like to run on trails. Anything interesting that might have happened in the woods?
Well, you get to see animals if you’re not too noisy. Deer and rabbits and birds and turkeys

Where is the most beautiful or inspiring place you’ve run and what made it so?
I’ve been a couple times in the last few years to Healdsburg, California. There’s a retreat center there where I’ve been to meetings. The places where the trails go in the coast range there are quite beautiful.

Do you have a favorite Bible passage that inspires you to get out and run?
There’s a wonderful passage in the Psalms that says, “Beautiful are the feet of one who brings good news.”

Do you have any favorite pre- or post-run meal?
Well, back in the days when I was training for things, a good, long Saturday-morning run was followed by a refrigerator-drawer omelet. Everything that’s in there in terms of vegetables and leftovers.

And cheese?
Absolutely.

What do you like the most and dislike the most about running?
Well, it’s hard work, but you feel great afterwards, or even in the midst of it.

Read it all.

Here is one:

Once upon a time, some 60-odd years ago, I was a baseball fan. It was a time when we called baseball players “heroes,” before we really knew the definition of the word. And yet, fielders showed up for every game, pitchers occasionally pitched complete doubleheaders, and all were available to sign autographs free for kids after the game was played.

As television came upon the scene, so did money ”” big time! This changed America’s pastime forever.

No longer did the average players earn 50 or 60 times the wages of ordinary Americans, but were being paid much more ”” almost 1,000 times the pay of an ordinary worker. By that time, my interest in the game started to wane.

It should be no surprise to anyone still interested in baseball today to witness the expected results of the Mitchell report on steroid use. Why did players use these substances? For money ”” to hit the ball farther, to throw a ball harder, to run a little faster or to negotiate a better contract after their improved performance.

I abandoned the game with the baseball strike in 1994, when both sides minimized the impact on fans of the game in pursuit of wealth and greed. I do not regret my decision to leave what was once a wonderful game.

James D. Cook

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Four hundred and nine pages.

Eighty-six players.

One fatal injection into the heart of a national pastime’s history.

Baseball will survive the steroid-bloated Mitchell report, which was released today with countless stories of cheating by players, compliance by owners and protection by the union.

Baseball will survive, but Roger Clemens will not.

If Barry Bonds is going to be shunned from Cooperstown and our hearts, then so must Clemens, a Hall of Fame arm who will now forever be remembered for his butt.

“McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks four to six times with testosterone,” reads the report.

Baseball will survive, but Andy Pettitte will not.

Read the entire piece.

Roger Clemens, who won the Cy Young award a record seven times, and seven players who won baseball’s most valuable player award were among dozens of players named Thursday in the former Senator George Mitchell’s report on his investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport.

“For more than a decade there has been widespread anabolic steroid use,” Mitchell said in a news conference announcing the results of a 20-month investigation he led at the behest of Major League Baseball. He said the use of performance-enhancing substances “poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game.”

Clemens was the most prominent name in the report, along with the Most Valuable Player award-winners Barry Bonds, Ken Caminiti, José Canseco, Jason Giambi, Juan Gonzalez, Mo Vaughn and Miguel Tejada.

The report also includes the names of three of the top 10 home-run leaders of all time: Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmiero.

Clemens was among several players named in the report from the Yankees championship teams of the late 1990s, which put together one of the most dominant performances in baseball, winning three consecutive World Series from 1998 to 2000. Others from those teams included Andy Pettitte, David Justice and Chuck Knoblauch. Other players named included Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Lenny Dykstra, Denny Neagle, Todd Hundley, Mike Stanton, Paul Lo Duca and Eric Gagné.

“Each of the 30 clubs had a player or players involved in taking illegal substances,” at one time or another, Mitchell said. He called the years on which he focused his investigation “the Steroids Era.”

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Roger Clemens turned out be Exhibit A in the long-awaited Mitchell report, an All-Star roster of players linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that put a question mark — if not an asterisk — next to some of baseball’s biggest moments.

Barry Bonds, already under indictment on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, Miguel Tejada and Andy Pettitte also showed up Thursday in the game’s most infamous lineup since the Black Sox scandal.

The report culminated a 20-month investigation by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, hired by commissioner Bud Selig to examine the steroids era.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,” the report said. “Widespread use by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of baseball records.”

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Thank you, graduates. Please be seated. It’s an honor to address the college athletes who are going on to the pros this year. If I may, I’d like to offer just a few pieces of advice.

Every now and again turn off Nintendo, shut off Spectravision and open a book. We already have enough jocks who think the Brothers Karamazov are the WWF tag-team champs.

If you ever hear yourself saying, “They offered me $81 million? That’s an insult!” find a tire iron, go into a quiet room and hit yourself very hard on the shin.

Marry someone who has never heard of you.

Now that you’ve made it, practice twice as long as you did in college. The hardest worker in the NBA is Michael Jordan. What does that tell you?

If you write a book, read it before it comes out.

Be careful with your money. Write your own checks. None of this power-of-attorney crap. Get an agent and a lawyer, and tell each the other’s a crook.

Shock the world: Apologize when you screw up.

Read it all; this was also used in yesterday’s sermon by yours truly.

The game against Missouri just ended. What a season–tonight #2 West Virginia lost to Pittsburgh. My goodness.