Cracking the Lottery for Sport? An Insightful View by Jonah Lehrer

Jonah Lehrer reports at Wired on

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code

It is amazing what people will come up with.

We DO NOT recommend trying this.
It looks like something for math buffs.
Get rich schemes are almost always follies for the players.

Husker College Football News: Tim Beck is the New Offensive Coordinator for the Big Red Plus 4 Other Changes on the NU Cornhusker Coaching Staff

Something that we have urged to our friends in Huskerland since the beginning of the NU Big Red Cornhusker football head coach Pelini era has taken place as the last holdover Husker football coaches from the forgettable Callahan period at the University of Nebraska are now finally gone. Shawn Watson is to go to Louisville as quarterbacks coach and wide receivers coach Ted Gilmore is departing the program but it is not yet known where. See Brian Christopherson of the Lincoln Journal Star at Watson Officially Takes New Job.

The new coaches added to the Nebraska football staff pretty much keep things in the family, as is Cornhusker tradition. As reported at Steven M. Sipple: Pelini personality permeates revamped staff, Shatel:Fore! As Bo swings, he confirms his staff moves, referring to the changes announced while Bo Pelini was on or near his golf vacation in Palm Springs, California), Sports Illustrated, AP, Husker Junction, ):

• Tim Beck (went to the same high school in Youngstown, Ohio as the Pelinis) will be the new offensive coordinator (see Tom Cudd at Big Red Network in Beck Is Where It's At). Beck is an original Pelini staff member from the beginning who tutored the running backs last year. Beck was very successful at Kansas in the Todd Reesing era (a QB who was less than six feet tall) as Jayhawks' receivers coach and pass-game coordinator under Ed Warriner (now with Brian Kelly at Notre Dame) and a potent spread offense (43 points and 480 yards per game). It seems safe to say that the Huskers next year will probably play a diversified running and passing offense and that Notre Dame, with their tremendous coaching staff, including coaches like Chuck Martin, will be tough to beat in 2011.

• Indiana assistant Corey Raymond, will be coach of the secondary. Raymond was with Pelini at LSU when the Tigers won the national championship in 2007.
  
• Ohio assistant and Lincoln, Nebraska native Ross Els, coach of the linebackers (replacing Mike Ekeler, to be co-defensive coordinator at Indiana). Els was very successful in tutoring the linebackers for Bobcat head coach Frank Solich, showing that the Solich-Nebraska connection still exists.
  
• Rich Fisher, former Colorado player on a national championship team and Massachusetts football prep school coach and successful golf instructor, will coach the wide receivers. As written by Dirk Chatelain and Jon Nyatawa at the Omaha World Herald, Big Red Today, in Fisher surfaces as NU assistant: "According to Bill McCartney, Fisher's former coach at Colorado, Pelini's new hire is a 300-yard drive down the middle: "“Solid. Whole-hearted. Genuine. Talented. Likeable. Team guy. Highly motivated. Disciplined. Organized. Humble. What else you want? That'll put (Nebraska) over the top. They've always needed a Buff."" Mover over, Obama.
  
•  John Garrison, a football intern the last 3 years for Pelini, will serve as assistant offensive line and tight ends coach.

Tom Osborne Q&A with ESPN's Adam Rittenberg on Husker Move to the Big Ten - Superb!

A very top level ESPN college football Q&A by Adam Rittenberg with Nebraska AD Tom Osborne at Tom Osborne Reacts to Conference Change. A wonderful job on both sides.

Rory McIlroy keeps ahead in Dubai chased by a resurgent Tiger Woods | Sport | The Guardian

Rory McIlroy keeps ahead in Dubai chased by a resurgent Tiger Woods | Sport | The Guardian

Legal Issues and the NFL-CBA Negotiations : Is a Lockout Imminent ?

Law Professor Gabriel A. Feldman, Director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, has an article at the Huffington Post titled NFL Lockout: The Legal Issues Behind the NFL-CBA Negotiations.

What fascinates this observer about the entire field of "amateur" (tongue-in-cheek term) and professional sports is the special niche that the legal system in America has -- in our opinion, erroneously -- carved out for sports, which, no matter how attracted one may be to sports, are still essentially business operations at their core. That is why there are talks about a possible NFL lockout upcoming, which has nothing to do with sports but a lot do with business.

We really think that the courts need to review their holdings in this area of law and to reconsider the obvious state of affairs that professional sports leagues serve as institutions of "monopoly" rights, that exercise those rights with all the negative aspects that attend to them.

We think that all players in sports should have full freedom of contract, that things like the NFL draft are monopolistic per se, violating all the basic principles of antitrust law, and that salary caps, if instituted by anyone, should be passed by legislatures for ALL professions, eliminating the salary and gouging practices -- outright theft in many cases -- which characterize executive compensation in modern corporations.

Why salary caps only for professional athletes in monopolistic sports leagues?

Las Vegas sports books take a hit on Super Bowl action - latimes.com

Las Vegas sports books take a hit on Super Bowl action - latimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Packers Down the Steelers 31-25 in Super Bowl XLV (45)

Three turnovers were the difference as the Steelers fell to the Packers 31-25 in Super Bowl XLV (45) in spite of leading in total offense 387 to 338 yards and 19 to 15 first downs.

The Steelers punted only 3 times compared to 6 punts for Green Bay.

Pittsburgh should not have lost this game, but they did.
Maybe they did not want the win as badly as Green Bay did.

The Steel Curtain defense allowed 6.1 yards per play, much above their season (4.5 ypp) and playoff average (3.8 ypp prior to this game) and early miscues by the offense put the Steelers in a hole to start the game and that is where they stayed.

The defense allowed the Packers to march down the field with 7:29 to play, giving up a 31-yard pass on 3rd and 10 and the Green Bay 25, an inexcusable lapse on a play where everything should have been thrown at the Green Bay quarterback to prohibit a pass completion but that was not done. You have to want to win and do what is necessary to win, including the taking of risks to get that win.

Even so, the Steelers got the ball back with 2 minutes to play but could go nowhere.

One must applaud the Packers who did more with less.

Stanford Cardinal Has Some New Coordinators for the Football Team

Shaw Reveals Coaching Changes -- Who Are the New Coordinators?

The above post at BleacherReport.com has the Stanford school's press release appended.

The Publicly Owned Green Bay Packers: A Model for Professional Sports ?

We have been Steeler fans for many years but if the Green Bay Packers should win the upcoming Super Bowl, they would, in a sense, be the "people's" champion.

Patrick Hruby has a great article at ESPN.com on the unusual status of the publicly owned Green Bay Packers in professional football at
Super Bowl: The publicly owned Green Bay Packers could be the model for a better way to organize and administer professional sports. - ESPN