Greg Oden was great for the NCAA

The time has now come for Greg Oden to officially leave the college ranks and enter the NBA. If your a college basketball lover this is a sad day. Even though Oden was only with Ohio State for one year he made a significant impact on the college game and TV ratings.

Greg Oden’s NCAA debut footage

It was so much fun to watch this menacing figure tower over and dominate young college guys. Side note: I guess it’s possible Oden is one of those college guys, but come on the guy looks like he’s forty years old.Some of you may think the new rule for NBA eligibility is bad. The new NBA rule states the following:

* All players, regardless of nationality, must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft.

* A player who completed basketball eligibility at a U.S. high school, regardless of nationality, must also be at least one year removed from the graduation of his high school class.

This of course forces a top high school player to play at least one year in college. The freshmen team that Thad Matta had at Ohio State would have never had the season they did without this rule. It made March Madness much more exciting. Everyone was talking about Oden, and if they can make it to the final. Which as we know now the Buckeyes played the Florida Gators. Their youth caught up to them in the National Championship game, but it still was an interesting tournament run to watch. If you take away Oden’s year forget seeing the dynamic of a 7 foot beast against regular college level players. You just gotta love that matchup, it doesn’t happen every day. There are other 7 foot players in college, but nothing compares to Oden in recent years.

It’s to bad that these guys leave so quickly for the NBA, but the money is there and it’s hard to deny them those earnings. It does dull the level of skill in college basketball as well. However the new rules put in place are nice bridge between the NBA and NCAA. It wouldn’t be fair to force these guys to play two years in college, but I don’t think it hurts to have them play one year either. Once you get past one year it tends to seem arbitrary to pick two years as the number. In that one year possibly they would go to a class or two, or even be just a kid for a little while. These are good things to have even if it’s short lived.

Take a look at Peyton Manning, or Matt Leinart. They chose to stay in college because they loved the college life. Hearing them speak in interviews, and how they carry themselves would prove to almost anyone that college helps give a kid a level head. There are exceptions I’m sure, but these types of scenarios slam any argument that playing in college is a bad thing.

Enough of that though back to Oden being great for college basketball. Some of the other things that were nice about him is his quiet demeanor. He’s not a loud obnoxious idiot like Joakim Noah from Florida. Is it just me or did he not look like a jackass when he was drafted by the Chicago Bulls. Bow tie, crazy hair, and that horribly goofy smile. That’s to bad for Chicago because Noah is never going to be a good NBA player. He wasn’t even that good in college, but he played well within the team he was on. Greg Oden would make almost any team significantly better, and he will eventually be loved by NBA fans.

In conclusion thank you NBA for making these new rules, and thank you Greg Oden for giving us one year of high level competition in NCAA basketball. We look forward to watching you in the NBA, but also hope there are more high school kids like you that will give the NCAA at least one year of fun and ridiculous dunks.

How to hit a chip shot

Just to reminisce here is Tiger’s green side chip shot at Augusta in 2005

In this online tip we’re going to discuss a great way to hit a green side chip shot. What I mean by green side is that the ball is either on the fringe, or just off the fringe but in short grass. These are the type of shots that can turn three or four strokes into two around the green.

This is an especially handy shot for an amateur which these tips are geared towards anyway. It’s extremely easy to hit, and can be mastered in only a few practice sessions. We’ve actually seen it done immediately in some cases. So if this sounds like something that might be helpful to you definitely read the simple steps below.

Before you start the steps just a couple of things to point out. First of all only hit this shot green side like I explained before. Secondly you’ll want to use a three wood or four wood to hit the shot. We recommend a three wood based on reviewing this concept with several amateur golfers. Now your all set to make this whole thing happen.

Steps to hitting a green side chip shot:

1) Align your feet exactly how you would if you were putting (this obviously varies per golfer so just get comfortable over the ball)

2) Take out a 3 - wood and choke down on the grip (again where your comfortable)

3) Pick a landing point for the ball (NOTE: it will come off the club face low and go about three to six feet in the air)

4) Align your feet and general direction towards the landing point not the flag (unless it’s a perfectly straight line)

5) Take a few practice strokes to get your rhythm down

6) Now stoke the ball exactly as you would any putt

7) Watch it roll up close to the hole

That’s all you have to do. Does this sound way to easy? Well we’ve actually found it to be easier than putting when it comes to getting your speed down. The initial landing of the ball hits the green and rolls true so just make sure to trust your line.

As always print this out and take it with you to practice, or even your next round. It’s a great little trick to have in your arsenal.

PGA Fan Favorites Compared to the Money Leaders

Taking a look at the money leaders on the PGA Tour it’s an impressive list. The top of the charts right now are the usual suspect of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Vijay Singh.

Some other greats are sprinkled throughout the top twenty as expected. Adam Scott, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald, and Steve Stricker. These guys are incredibly fun to watch, and right now on top of the golf world. The money figures are quite impressive as we approach the mid-year point, and the British Open.

However when reviewing these names you’ve got to imagine a different ranking when taking a fan poll. Taking that a step further what would a player ranking poll look like. We decided to go ahead and place money vs. likability in an effort to see if there is a large difference between the two. Especially in a game when these players are generally seen as good guys across the board. At least when compared to football, basketball, and baseball. That doesn’t exactly apply quite as easily in those sports.

So without further delay lets take a look and see if money equals likeability.

First the current top 10 money list:
1 > Tiger Woods, $4,885,427
2 > Phil Mickelson, $4,120,588
3 > Vijay Singh, $3,719,394
4 > Zach Johnson, $2,985,910
5 > Rory Sabbatini, $2,820,390
6 > Charles Howell III, $2,521,999
7 > Adam Scott, $2,504,266
8 > Jim Furyk, $2,299,698
9 > K.J. Choi, $2,163,629
10 > Aaron Baddeley, $2,145,264

The top fan and player favorites list (out of top 20 money leaders):
1 > Tiger Woods, $4,885,427
2 > Phil Mickelson, $4,120,588
3 > Sergio Garcia, $2,034,446
4 > Adam Scott, $2,504,266
5 > David Toms, $1,952,977
6 > Jim Furyk, $2,299,698
7 > Luke Donald, $2,012,165
8 > Mark Calcavecchia, $1,816,710
9 > Charles Howell III, $2,521,999
10 > K.J. Choi, $2,163,629

Reviewing the lists what are your thoughts? It’s pretty interesting to think about when the importance of a players personality means a lot to the tour. So lets take take a look also at how the personality and money affect advertising revenue for players.

The top PGA Tour players in advertising revenue (this includes retired players and players not in the top 20):

1 > Tiger Woods, $89.4 million
2 > Phil Mickelson, $25.9 million
3 > Arnold Palmer, $23.7 million
4 > Ernie Els, $20.2 million
5 > Vijay Singh, $18.6 million
6 > Greg Norman, $17.6 million
7 > Sergio Garcia, $12.3 million
8 > Jack Nicklaus, $10.4 million

The purpose of this discussion was to mainly compare current PGA Tour money leaders, however I think the overall top players in advertising revenue lend some good insight. It shows that whether a player is likable or not they may still earn high returns in the advertising world. Secondly even if a player is generating little or no playing income, they can still earn a healthy living on their reputation.

If you look at someone like Vijay Singh for example who has been semi-controversial in the past, but then makes a boat-load of money from commercial work.

The great thing about the tour is the number of individual personalities. The fact that they represent themselves as their individual organization allows us to make better comparisons on money vs. sports fame. This definitely can’t be done as easily with other professional sports. Tennis could have similar results, but we’ll save that for another day.

MLB Interleague Play Over-kill

Interleague play has been great for baseball for many reasons. Fans in different areas of the country get to see teams play that they never would have seen play otherwise. The larger US cities that have two professional teams get to city a cross-city rivalry develop. Plus it creates a schedule that is much more interesting than what you would see in the past where teams mainly played within their division.

With all that being said it seems like the interleague games have been going on for months now. That’s a bit of an exauguration, but it has been going on for quite some time. The danger here is getting to much of a good thing, and exhausting the novelty of interleague games. Fans of major league baseball are great, but they will get board easily if the amount of interleague games aren’t shortened by three to five games. Even a little more if possible.

The solution would be simple, the league can just take the best possible rivalries from the past years of interleague play. After they have decided the top scenarios for interesting match-ups they schedule a single four game series. That’s all there would need to be to generate triple the interest of an interleague game. I’d like to see how it effects revenue figures in cities outside of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Plus the regular season games suffer very little, and more divisional games get played. The divisional games are still very important to truly see who the top team should be in each division. This also seems to get lost a bit when interleague play shortens the amount of divisional match-ups.

The argument is that game after game of divisional play is just as boring. My response would be that it generates more fire between these teams, specifically towards the end of the season. Of course the top three teams are where this would have the greatest impact.

So don’t throw out interleague play, but make it more interesting by eliminating some of the games. If it keeps going at this rate there will just be one big league with a very uninteresting World Series. The World Series is so much better when the two teams hardly know each other. There is a lot more thought and scheming going into each series game.

It’s a long baseball season, and that makes it important to keep thinking through the best ways to schedule games each year.

Michael Vick dog fighting

What is the deal with pro athletes not being able to control themselves? These guys are making a sick amount of money, have everything handed to them on a silver platter, and are gifted with ability 99% of the population does not have. Is it really that hard to behave like a civilized human being…really just think about that for a second. That’s all these teams, you know the corporation that these players sign-up to work for ask of them. Obviously they want them to play hard, don’t complain, and all the other stuff that goes along with being on a team as well. It’s just completely ridiculous that these professional athletes continue to get themselves in trouble, and bring down their organization in the process.

This past year their have been a number of incidents amongst top NFL players that brought this issue to the forefront. Guys such as Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson (just released by the Chicago Bears), and of course Michael Vick. Michael Vick is probably the best example of bad decision making. He continues to look like a bad guy, and someone that disrespects his leadership position on the Atlanta Falcons as the franchise quarterback.

The airport incident where Marijuana residue was found concealed on a water bottle, and of course the dog fights being held in his own backyard. Their were numerous dog carcases and treadmills rigged for dog training found on his property. Totally sickening and inexplicable no matter what kind of background you are raised. There is just no excuse for these type of activities.

Can anyone explain why this is happening so much? Is it because the media is more involved in these guys lives, or are they just getting more stupid by the year? Why not travel to some cool beach destinations, take a cruise, go fishing, buy an expensive boat and throw some parties, anything to keep them out of trouble. Well maybe the boat thing isn’t such a great idea. Scratch that suggestion for now. You get my point though, there are way to many things a young rich guy can do to keep himself busy. Why is it so different for Michael Vick?

Part of it is that a lot of these guys end up hanging out with the boys they grew up with. They feel an obligation to help them out, and therefore fall into some of the shady activities they may be involved in. This is just one theory, but the culture they grow up in is hard to break if it doesn’t change. The only thing that is different is they now all have tons of money to play with and spend. This is an extremely bad combination. The teams that give these guys contracts are going to have to be more restrictive. It has to be the all or nothing attitude, and then it has to be enforced without exception.

Example being the Bears releasing Tank Johnson after he was pulled over for suspicion of DUI. They gave him one chance and he blew it, sorry that’s all you get buddy. The same thing needs to happen for Michael Vick no matter how good he is for the Falcons. Personally I think it’s gotten to the point he is more of a detriment than helpful. A guy behaving as he does is not going to lead a team to the Superbowl. It’s not possible to be a leader and have that many off the field issues, especially the type that will get you thrown in jail.

Let this be a lesson to these rich, young, gifted athletes to just stay in line and all will be OK. They will avoid bad press and the media breathing down their neck, and be able to enjoy their youth and riches at the same time. C’mon, it’s time to stop this non-sense.