Saturday, November 27, 2010

Cam Newton's status, and his talent, remains the main topic surrounding this week's Iron Bowl. (AP photo)

The news from the Cam Newton investigation has been quiet this week. Bill Littlefield turns to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports for the latest on that and other NCAA football developments.

When this college football season began, UNC football was ranked in the top 20 and were picked by some to play in a BCS bowl game. But, allegations of agent payoffs and academic fraud led to the suspension of more than a dozen players, seven of whom missed the entire season. North Carolina Public Radio’s Dave DeWitt has the story.

Brad Childress became Minnesota’s fall guy this week when he lost his job coaching the Vikings. CBS Sports national columnist Gregg Doyel chats with Bill about that and other NFL news.
In this country, black and Latino children are three times more likely to die from drowning as white children. When Cullen Jones was five years old, he narrowly avoiding become part of that statistic. Today, he’s an Olympic gold medalist in swimming, and he travels the country encouraging minority kids to learn how to swim. Only A Game’s Karen Given joined Jones at a recent stop in New York City.

Bill Littlefield sifts through some recent listener letters.

Bill and Only A Game analyst Charlie Pierce discuss: impending NBA and NFL lockouts, patriotic NCAA violations, and Kobe Bryant’s unlikely mentor.

Politics? Technology? Romance? According a new book, every fundamental shift in human experience can be explained through the game of ping pong. Roger Bennett and Eli Horowitz join Bill to discuss, Everything You Know is Pong.

Gary Wagner

I listened to Mr. Littlefield and Mr. Pierce discuss the low ratings for the MLS cup, held on November 21, 2010. I felt that they would like us to think that the low ratings are a result of the United States’ indifference to Soccer. While Soccer has never been the darling of the US market, you might have wanted to mention that the a game start of 8:30 and competition with the Sunday night NFL game served as added factors that worked against increased viewership.

That said, it was pretty clear that neither of “Only a Game’s” commentators had watched the game. If they had, they might have mentioned that the match was fast paced, exciting, and demonstrated that the level of soccer in this country continues to improve markedly. I was flipping back and forth between the MLS cup and the Sunday NFL game but settled on Soccer as I found the Eagles and Giants to be ultimately quite dull. Too bad you guys didn’t do the same thing. You missed a great game
Bill Littlefield

Gary,

Good on you for defending soccer. I have no idea what the numbers from the final portend. I do follow MLS as well as soccer elsewhere. But I have to disagree with you about the final, much of which I did see. It was a physical game, certainly, and exciting in the sense that it was close. But it seemed to me short on the passing skills, patience, and imagination that characterize the game at its best, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere.