Still crazy after all these years

… currently first in the NEC  Joe Haigh is Notre Dame through and through, but he now also bleeds red and white. For the past eight years, Haigh has been a coach of the St. Francis women's basketball team, the past four as head coach. As an assistant to Susan Robinson Fruchtl, Haigh saw the Red Flash women return to the NCAA tournament twice, in 2010 and 2011, their 10th and 11th trips to the big dance. Then, in his first two seasons as head coach, Haigh's teams advanced to the Northeast Conference (NEC) title game, only to come up empty. Jessica Kovatch While enduring a sub-par NEC season in 2014-15 with a 5-13 record, Haigh discovered a real gem in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Her name is Jessica Kovatch, and after a sensational season as a freshman last year, Kovatch is currently the 13th leading scorer in the country with 21 points per game. She has tallied 90 3-point field goals thus far this year. In addition, the Red Flash are 18th in the country ...

… Happy Birthday, Babe!  Some children just cannot deal with freedom. George Herman Ruth, Jr. was one of them. Born on February 6, 1895, making him 122 years old today, the Babe -- as he was later nicknamed -- experienced a tough life as a youngster. His father owned a bar and had little time to spend with Babe or his siblings. Consequently, Babe grew up on the streets of Baltimore. "The youngster found his fun in the rough-and-tumble world of the Baltimore harbor, where he was a quick study. He learned the street skills of rowdiness and petty larceny, running and romping with older boys, breaking windows, and engaging in other high-spirited (but largely harmless) hijinks." one biography noted. St. Mary's School While more mischievous than criminal, George H. Ruth Sr. and his wife, Kate, turned their eldest child over to the care of the Xavierian Brothers, who operated a home called the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, which had 800 students in it...

… quietly endured a horrible 2016  Many men who watch football think that those sideline reporters, always attractive females, are just window dressing, people who know nothing about the game and could not secure a job like that without their looks and gender. They may look at Erin Andrews a little differently after the recent reports of what she endured in 2016. First, she went through a horrible civil case that she filed against a predator who had stalked her and had taken nude photos of her in her hotel room almost a decade ago. Then, in October, she had to deal with cervical cancer, a battle that she kept quiet from most people because she wanted her privacy. That cervical cancer required surgery, but she was back on the sideline with her Fox TV crew five days later, despite the warnings against doing so by her physician. "Should I have been standing for a full game five days after surgery? Let’s just say the doctor didn’t recommend that,” Andrews told Sports Illustrat...

… violations need not be criminal  The National Football League has attempted to protect its brand, and in doing so, it has made clear to employees -- players, coaches, front office personnel, and others -- that they must behave themselves. The league has thus devised what it calls the "Personal Conduct Policy" that is intended to prevent “conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the National Football League.” The rationale for the policy is clear. "Illegal or irresponsible conduct does more than simply tarnish the offender. It puts innocent people at risk, sullies the reputation of others involved in the game, and undermines public respect and support for the NFL." [In reality, the NFL does not always live up to its own policy. Hence, the embarrassment of Spygate and Deflategate. But, I digress.] The interesting part of this is that it does not include just the conviction for a criminal offense. Embarrassing the league it...

… embarrass Steelers -- again  A column by former KDKA-TV sports anchor John Steigerwald earlier this week made some damning allegations about Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and assistant coach Joey Porter. This had nothing to do with their roles as football coaches. It had to do with their roles as parents -- and decent human beings. Background Sometimes, I wish that Catholic schools would get back to teaching good religious and moral beliefs and focusing on the classroom, not on the fields and courts. Failure to do that landed Pittsburgh North Catholic High School in hot water, and they are now receiving negative national publicity because of it. First, they hired former Steeler Jason Gildon as their football coach. After two years, they fired him, but did not comment on why that occurred. Steigerwald's column helped illustrate why that may have occurred. The case against Tomlin is not as bad as that of Porter, whose action -- confirmed by police -- has emb...

… humble, boring, strait-laced, and quiet  They met in a weight room, certainly not the most romantic place to start a relationship. Yet, that is how life has been for Matt Ryan. He says that he is "boring," and that is probably why so many in the media have been ignoring the quarterback who will be named as NFL 2016 MVP and will lead the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl on Sunday. Still, Matt met Sarah Marshall in the weight room at Boston College, and they are now a power athletic couple in Georgia. Sarah, a starting point guard on the Lady Eagles women's basketball team for three seasons, happened to lock eyes with the quarterback who led the football team to national prominence in the late 2000s. Sarah followed Matt to Atlanta and they married. She is now employed by the WNBA Atlanta Dream basketball team while her husband pursues his dreams with the Falcons. Ryan's humility However, when people at Boston College remember Ryan, they often talk about int...

… many do not realize his Pa. roots  Can you imagine going into a bar in Beaver Falls in 1968 and not seeing a picture or jersey of hometown hero Joe Namath? He was the hero who led his Beaver Falls High School team to a championship of the Western Pa. Interscholastic Athletic Conference [WPIAL] championship in 1960, and the fans followed him through the University of Alabama and then to the New York Jets. Yet, when a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine visited Exton, Pa., in Chester County, to see how the local residents were enjoying the fact that an area hero was leading his team into the Super Bowl on Sunday, he found something interesting: Absolutely no interest in Matt Ryan. "The locals in Exton – not a town, in fact, but a quiet, small census-designated place that is composed of two malls, a few small businesses and a bunch of humble houses – appear ambivalent about Ryan playing in the Super Bowl for the Atlanta Falcons," Rolling Stone writer Jason Diamond not...