It’s ESPY day!

The self-proclaimed “world wide leader” will take a break from LeBron James and George Steinbrenner coverage the evening to celebrate its sporting version of Oscar night.

It’s ESPY Awards time again. Check it out on the mother ship at 8 p.m. to see if the following Alabama nominees take home another “real, positive form of self gratification,” as Nick Saban would call it.

Best team:
Chicago Blackhawks
Connecticut women’s basketball
Alabama football
Los Angeles Lakers
New Orleans Saints
New York Yankees

Best coach/manager:
Geno Auriemma, Connecticut women’s basketball
Joe Girardi, New York Yankees
Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke men’s basketball
Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints
Nick Saban, Alabama football

Best college male athlete:
Blake Geoffrion, Wisconsin hockey
Mark Ingram, Alabama football
Evan Turner, Ohio State basketball
John Wall, Kentucky basketball
Garrett Wittels, Florida International baseball

Best upset:
Frankie Edgar over B.J. Penn, MMA
Hawaii softball upsets No.1 Alabama, NCAA softball
Northern Iowa shocks No. 1 Kansas, NCAA men’s basketball
Y. E. Yang stuns Tiger Woods, PGA Championship

UPDATED: A proud newspaper tradition continues

Let’s just say I was more than a little proud to work for the Decatur Daily when I found my paper waiting outside my door this morning. 

The spashy A1 headline (the courthouse one) was all I needed. Here is the first few paragraphs from reporter Holly Hollman who channeled her inner Sid Finch working on this story:

ATHENS — Entrepreneurs sell items on eBay ranging from lost Wiccan spells to astronaut ice cream.

Seeing what people will sell and buy can be funny unless you are local Limestone officials who learned a 16-year-old girl sold the courthouse to a foreign dignitary as a practical joke. 

Thattis Bogaus, a parliamentary deputy from Greece, bought the courthouse from local teenager Ima Lyon two weeks ago for $2 million. 

“I thought it was a great deal,” Bogaus said. “I could work and live in Athens, Greece, and vacation in Athens, Alabama.”

Read the rest by following this link. I would advise reading the entire story before phoning elected officials and have a happy April 1.

In a related story, LSU is installing purple turf in Tiger Stadium. 

UPDATED 5:11 p.m.: 
Shame on you ESPN and CBS Sports. You officially sold April Fools Day. They wrote fake stories, just like the Daily, but the sites did it with a sponsor. A certain shoe company partnered with the now laughable sites to write advertisements into the tales. Read ESPN’s explanation here and one of these pathetic excuses of faux journalism here.  

Shame, shame. 

Big week for Tide basketball

Facing a cross roads with a 1-2 SEC record, Alabama will see two of the league’s better teams this week in Coleman Coliseum. Read more in Tuesday’s paper, but the Tide will host No. 8 Tennessee on Tuesday on ESPN followed by a 11 a.m. Saturday visit from No. 23 Mississippi State.

Two straight losses won’t help Alabama’s momentum entering this big week. It blew a 10-point lead in the Vandy loss and lacked focus against Arkansas, coach Anthony Grant said today.

Like I said, this is just a teaser. Read more tomorrow morning.

Miss. State kickoff time set

And the Crimson Tide will meet the Bulldogs at 6 p.m. on Nov. 14 in Starkville. The SEC just made the announcement although the final television assignment won’t be determined until after this Saturday’s games.

It will be either ESPN or little brother ESPN2. The Georgia/Auburn game is the other game stuck in limbo. But since the game time is the same either way, there isn’t much of an issue.

MEDIA DAY 1: Mike Slive brags on SEC

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive just gave the opening address. The photo is courtesy of the Associated Press. Here are the highlights:

• There is no other media day like this anywhere in the country,” he said.
• More than 1,000 credentials were issued compared to 836 last season.
• Of the 24 sports sponsored by the conference, 11 SEC schools were either national champions or runners-up.
• At the 2008 Summer Olympics, SEC athletes won 51 medals. If the SEC were a country, it would have been fourth-best in the medal count.
• ESPN execs also took a turn at the podium to brag on their offerings. They also love the SEC for reasons found in the following note.
• 77 million people watched SEC football on the ESPN family of networks.
• There will be 23 more SEC football games televised in 2009 than 2008.
• They even produced a video hosted by Chris Fowler to repeat nearly every point made by the exec who chose not to identify himself.
• In summation, the SEC loves the SEC just about as much as the ESPN loves the SEC.

Fox Sports joins SEC broadcasting deal

SEC sports will now be seen on Fox Sports as well as CBS and ESPN according a news release just received. Seven SEC football games will air on Fox SportsSouth although which games have not been announced.

Read this portion of the release for more details:

FOX Sports Net (FSN), the nation’s leader in local sports, today announced a new multi-year television rights agreement with ESPN that expands its long-time partnership with the Southeastern Conference (SEC). ESPN secured the rights of Southeastern Conference content in August 2008.

Beginning with the 2009-10 academic year, FSN’s three regional sports networks serving the SEC territory – FOX Sports South, Sun Sports and FOX Sports Southwest – will be the outlets for a minimum of 91 SEC athletic events each year. Events will include:

· Seven live, exclusive football games

· 20 men’s basketball games

· 24 women’s basketball games (16 regular season, eight tournament)

· 16 baseball games (10 regular season, six tournament)

· 24 additional Olympic sporting events (softball, volleyball, soccer, gymnastics)

FSN will distribute these events to more than 24 million cable and satellite households across the SEC coverage area.