By Katie

This is not a picture of me, but I do like it.

I just finished watching Playing for Keeps. Yep, that’s how bored I was this evening. It was so good I immediately logged on here so I could tell you all about it. Oh, I also looked at the last post I wrote to see if by chance there were any new comments (there was! Joy!) and noticed I wrote “new” instead of “knew” in a sentence where it definitely should’ve been “knew”, not “new”.

I love when stuff like that happens. I like to feel like a dipshit at least once a day. Actually that’s not right; if I can get through a day only feeling like one once, it’s a victory.  I average about 4 times…this morning I was driving around trying to find a particular coffee place and I was so lost I had to pull over and call the person I was supposed to be meeting for help. They patiently talked me through my directionally challenged haze, as they watched me through the window of the coffee shop, which I was parked directly in front of. That’s not the worst “I’m lost” story I have, either– the worst was the time I called Batteries Plus to ask directions…from their parking lot. I was so embarrassed when I realized what I’d done, I went right in and bought some batteries. You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you? I needed the batteries, and  I’m too old to care anymore. That’s what freedom feels like.

Back to the movie. Look, I knew it was going to be horrible. We all did, didn’t we, back when Gerard Butler was making radio ads to promote it? “Hi, I’m Gerard Butler and you should see my new movie, Playing for Keeps!” Remember those? What? You can remember all the way back to two months ago? You. You stop with the false modesty, you’re not fooling anyone. But the star of the movie begging people to go see it on local FM is a sure sign of a winner.

Gerard Butler has made exactly one good movie, and that is Phantom of the Opera.* YES IT WAS GOOD, OTHERWISE WHY WOULD I HAVE SEEN IT IN THE THEATER NINE TIMES?

Playing for Keeps. Gerard is an old ex-professional soccer player who used to be all fancy and rich, and now is basically an unemployed bum (there’s lots of funny* stuff about how he has to ditch his landlord all the time because he is dead-ass broke).  He’s got a nine-year-old son and an ex-wife with whom he is naturally still in love, played by the lovely Ms. Jessica Biel (sporting some weird sister wife hairdo*). Gerard has done the still-in-love-with-the-ex-wife thing before, only Jennifer Aniston played the hair last time. I mean the wife.

Anyoots, G. decides to coach his son’s soccer team in an effort to be a better dad (we never know why his wife dumped him or why he was a bad dad to begin with, we just know that’s the case because Jessica Biel has a real sour look on her face and her arms crossed every time she talks to him) so naturally, every kid’s mom starts throwing themselves at him because soccer moms are a horny and dissatisfied bunch! Hilarity ensues as one after the other, Uma Thurman, Judy Greer and Catherine Zeta Jones try to get some of that. That, m’friends, is good comedy. I almost forgot about Dennis Quaid…he plays the douchey guy who bribes G into letting his loppy kid play goalie and  his tone-deaf daughter sing the National Anthem before the games. Is that a thing that happens before 4th grade soccer games? No matter.  Gerard decides he wants to be a sportscaster (isn’t that what he did in that movie with Katherine Heigle?) so he makes a seriously terrible demo tape that Catherine Zeta Jones helps him market in exchange for somethin’ somethin’. Nice to see the woman sexually exploit the man, for once. Am I right, ladies? In the meantime, he starts bonding with his kid and Jessica Biel finally tucks her hair behind her ears and looks a little bit less like that kid from The Ring.

ESPN hires him, he proclaims his undying love to Jessica Biel while she’s trying on a wedding dress to marry someone else, he gets in a fist fight with Dennis Quaid and Judy Greer ends up with his landlord, who finally gets paid. I’m pretty sure it took me longer to write this post than it took to write the script. And yet, I don’t regret watching it. Go figure.

*If you are Gerard Butler, my apologies. Please know that I continue to see your movies and that you are very rich, and those two things should offer some level of comfort. 

* Not funny

*My apologies also to any sister-wives reading this. I think it’s neat that you have 18 kids and only 1/10th of a husband.

Starting Five

1. The University of Akron should win the MAC tournament and should, with a 24-5 record (15-1 in conference) earn a berth in the NCAAs. However, all is in flux now after starting point guard Alex Abreu was arrested and charged with marijuana trafficking. Abreu, who was averaging more than 10 points and six assists per game for the Zips, has been charged with two third-degree felonies and has been suspended from the team.

Anagram alert: “AKRON” becomes “NARKO”

We’ve typed this before but we believe that drug trafficking is the great underreported means with which many scholarship athletes support themselves. Let’s see: You’ve got young men who want spending money, who are not allowed to work, who (for too many) have no financial support from their parents, and who have access to people and materials, especially to people who’d like to get close to them for exploitation purposes. Trust me: there are a few more Alex Abreus out there.

2. New York Yankees: today it’s Mark Teixiera. Eight to ten weeks with a strained wrist. If you’re scoring at home, now Tex is being overpaid to NOT play baseball. When comes the plague of locusts and the parting of the Harlem River? Someone get me Wilhelm on the line. Honestly, even Carl Pavano is shaking his head.

Tex mess

3. Even The Sports Guy loathes First Take. “It’s amazing to me that people get so worked up about ‘First Take’,” Bill Simmons tweeted yesterday. “Who cares? Just don’t watch it. There are like 800 TV channels.”

Simmons’ tweet was aroused by this even-for-First-Take beyond the pale bickerfest between Seattle Seahawk cornerback Richard Sherman and fellow low-blowhard and FT co-host Skip Everhair. Simmons also sent out these two tweets: “I am not defending this segment. I thought it was awful and embarrassing to everyone involved. Seriously.” And this: “But what bothers me about the reaction to this segment is everyone saying that Richard Sherman ‘won.’ Nobody won. Everyone lost. Including ESPN.”

What ever happened to “Let your actions speak for themselves?”

4. So yesterday I penned this column for CollegeSportsScholarships.com on college athletes and travel. Unbeknownst to me a pertinent pilgrimage anecdote was unfolding at the very same time (thanks to @okerland). The University of Maine’s women’s basketball team has, in the wake of a February 26 bus accident that rendered no significant injuries but rattled pretty much everyone, chosen not to participate in the America East conference tournnament this weekend in Albany.

“My recommendation,” said dean of students Robert Dana, “…is that the (team) end its season to spend this time continuing to recuperate. They are back in the UMaine community and that’s what matters.”

Maine stays (see what we did there?)

Who does this Dana guy think he is, acting all sane and stuff? We must note that the Black Bears (4-24) were seeded 8th, and would have been facing No. 1 seed Albany, in the tourney.

5. Reports out of South Bend are that redshirt freshman quarterback Gunner Kiel, the most heralded (and harked) quarterback from the prep class of 2012, is considering a transfer. And why not, if you’re Kiel? He’s sitting behind a QB, Everett Golson, who has three seasons of eligibility remaining and who in his first led the Fighting Irish to the national championship game. There is an incoming QB, Amir Carlisle (my bad: I meant Malik Zaire) who has some serious talent. And, of course, there is always Tommy Rees, who is entering his 9th season at Notre Dame and who will probably still pull out two games for the Irish next autumn.

Kiel over?

Brian Kelly stockpiles QBs. You cannot blame him. As happens at most schools, if they are athletic enough and willing, they find another position. Kiel, a 6-4, 210-pound pro-style QB, could easily bulk up and become a terrific linebacker or tight end if he so desired. If not, he can always go play for Charlie Weis. Or most anyone else. Kiel’s uncle, Blair Kiel, was a four-year starter at quarterback for Notre Dame from 1980-83.

Another era, another major bowl game versus an SEC school with a Kiel in uniform (another Irish loss to said SEC foe)

Also worth noting: This would be the second spring in a row that the Irish lost a player entering his second season who at the time of his recruitment was rated the nation’s top player at his position (Aaron Lynch, DE, now at USF). Lynch left for personal reasons (“Cupid, draw out your bowwwww….”). Kiel, who is a Hoosier native, would be departing for strictly pragmatic reasons. Does he stay in-state and transfer to IU or Purdue? Or does he look around? He still could start for 90% of the schools in the country.

Reserves

This is just awful. A Swiss league hockey player, 33 year-old Ronny Keller, is paralyzed after being checked from behind into the boards.

Kyle Smith of the New York Post is not a fan of my other profession (you know, the one that actually pays). Ignorance and condescension all in one essay. I’d be angry at Kyle, but as someone who has sat in a 9th-floor cubicle of the Newscorp Building (NY Post’s editorial headquarters) and as someone who serves at Manhattan’s top-grossing restaurant, I’ll sate myself knowing that I’m both having more fun and earning more money now.

Kudos to my good friend Jill Montgomery who was dealt a bad hand recently (“Ugh! Men!”) but who is rebounding nicely back in her best time zone. Jilly B., a sideline reporter and studio host who rocked her stint doing sideline work on ESPN’s Big Ten games in the winter of 2011, will be back in the winner’s circle. She’s in the top ten, Roger.

Remote Patrol

Houston Rockets at Golden State Warriors

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

I get excited (okay, not like tail-wagging excited, but at least intrigued) imagining where each of these teams will be in a year or two if they keep their nuclei (Latin, masculine plural “nucleus, nuclei”) together. The Rockets (33-29) with James Harden, Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and the shot-blocking/rebounding potentate that is Omar Asik. And the Warriors (35-27) with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee and Andrew Bogut. Fluid, beautiful hoops the way the game was meant to be played. Enjoy.

As the Rev. Al Green would say, “Let’s stay together…”

-The End (For this week)

Starting Five

1. The Miami Heat win their 16th straight, although this time it was a nail-biter versus Orlando. The Chicago Blackhawks rally from a goal down in the third period versus the Avalanche to win 3-2 and maintain their remarkable streak of recording at least one point in every game this season, through 24 games. Chicago is 21-0-3. Keep on keepin’ on, both of you.

2. So, it turns out that Mila Kunis is every bit as cool as her character from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” The editors of Horse & Hound would be beaming with pride. (“So far you’re doing a great job.” “Really?” “No, but we’ll see what happens.”) (“I should get back to the questions.” “Why? This is WAY more fun for me.”)

She will spend time with the lads at a pub and then watch your football club’s game with you. What’s not to love?

The reward of listening to that video all the way through is that you get to hear Scott ask Mila, “Have you ever dropped trou at a wedding?”

3. Kentucky congressman Rand Paul undertakes a 13-hour filibuster in Congress to protest the administration’s policy on potential use of drone strikes in the United States versus non-combatants. Paul’s address reminds us that once upon a time there was an English band named Talk Talk who released an album entitled “Talk Talk” that had the hit single “Talk Talk.” Hey, it was the height of the New Wave era. Anything with a synthesizer was cool.

Look Who’s Talking

4. So, Sports Illustrated puts out a theme issue, “The 50 Most Powerful People in Sports”, a list that Sports Business Journal has been compiling for years with far less fanfare. A few things:

— Any time you can get Steve Rushin to write your essay, then it was worth the inspiration.

— No. 10 on their list? “Hedge Fund Dude.” I will now spend the next three days in a fit of depression.

— The entire “Game of Thrones” conceit that accompanies the piece was the brainchild of my good friend, terminally hopeless hipster and bonafide good egg Adam Duerson. He is a man of many passions — soccer, RAGBRAI, and the George R.R. Martin series, to name a few– and certainly one of the finest people I have ever met.

You want an Adam Duerson story? Okay. In March of 2004 Adam, writer Jaime Lowe and myself were thrown into an RV and told to travel to as many NCAA (and/or NIT) tournament games as possible for SI On Campus (a great idea with an idiot as its publisher). The pilgrimage took us from Storrs to Spokane to finally, Phoenix (where we had two hours of R&R at my parents’ house, time that was spent with my mom and dad shoveling lasagna down our throats and doing the laundry of two of the three of us [I was the stinky odd man out]).

Adam Duerson: Of course he owns a bear suit. Why wouldn’t he?

Anyway, on St. Patrick’s Day we found ourselves in South Bend, Ind., for an NIT game. Being that it was that day and that McDonald’s serves Shamrock shakes — and that we thought it would be cool to have a non-alcoholic drinking contest — Duerson and I engaged in a Shamrock Shakedown. Now, he’s a lot younger than I am and attended a large state school, so I knew I’d have no chance in this seven-minute, all-you-can-drink battle royale…unless I went tortoise.

Which I did. Adam sprinted out to an early lead, but about five minutes in began grabbing the front of his cranium and moaning, over and over, “Brain freeze. Brain freeze. Brain freeze.” It remains to this day one of my greatest triumphs.

Okay, maybe that was a John Walters story. But I love Duerson.

The people at McDonald’s, by the way, kicked us out.

5. When should you not be allowed to bring a pocket knife to a cabin? When that cabin is part of an aircraft. The TSA has passed a resolution in which small, sharp objects will once more be allowed on commercial flights. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Reserves

The insomniacs’ cut (it’s kind of like the devil’s cut and the angel’s cut, but not really) last night was staying up late enough to listen to the indefatigable, existential Bill Walton do color for Cal-Stanford. First of all, it was a game in which a bench-clearing brawl elicited the ejections of two players and three assistant coaches. Better was listening to Walton berate the lack of traveling calls and wondering exactly why players with the ball in a half-court set are allowed to bull-rush to the hoop without being whistled for an offensive foul. He sounded so old. He sounded…just like me.

As soon as you shoot 22 for 23 in an NCAA championship game, feel free to criticize Big Red. Until then…zip it.

My favorite Walton moment was, when discussing the rule that mandates assistant coaches be automatically ejected for leaving the bench area (even if it is, as it was in this case, to break up a melee), Big Red said, “That’s something that must be discussed at the next measure of evolution.”

Remote Patrol

Today I am devoting this space to the game that should be televised but won’t be. While ESPN –and the WWL does wonderful things with college hoops, I get it– has time to air Penn State at Northwestern (the pair are a combined 5-27 in Big Ten play), it will not air Louisiana Tech (26-3) at New Mexico State (19-10). The Bulldogs boast an 18-game win streak, which I believe is the nation’s longest, while the Aggies are 13-1 in Las Cruces this season, their lone loss coming to ranked in-state rival New Mexico.

Tech’s leading scorer, Raheem Appleby. Who wouldn’t want to watch a dude named Raheem Appleby ball?

Come on, Kerri Potts, throw your weight around. Get this game on the air.

By the way, my MSN Picks page previews tonight’s Thunder at Knicks contest as “a potential NBA Finals preview.” Chico, please.

“It’s hard out here for a pimp…”

Starting Five

1. “In a loss in OKC, the Lakers showed they can compete against the West’s elite…” That’s the subhed on ESPN.com’s lead story this morning. Chico, please. We caught much of last night’s game and here are a few items that may contradict that assertion:

A) Oklahoma City scored a season-high 71 first-half points.

B) From the 3:29 point of the first quarter until the 6:43 mark of the fourth, the Lakers were never within seven points of the Thunder. During most of 33-plus minutes, they trailed by double-digits.

What is the antonym of “symbiotic?”

Valiant comeback? Yes. Dogged tenacity. Uh-huh. But Kobe is now playing hurt (elbow stinger), Dwight Howard either has been playing hurt or he’s chosen to emulate Albert Pujols’ first two months in an Angels’ uniform, and Steve Nash has been reduced to being a spot-up perimeter shooter. He’s not Steve Nash; he’s Steve Blake. And the Lakers already have a Steve Blake. And this isn’t Nash’s fault. You cannot execute the pick-and-roll when no one picks. Or rolls.

You want to know what’s wrong with the Lakers (and this is just one of many problems)? The greatest assist man of the past decade, Nash, had four assists last night — and that still led the team.

2. An “alternative to ESPN”, Fox Sports 1, plans an August 17 launch (which, if you’re keeping score, is one day and 59 years after Sports Illustrated launched, one day and 43 years after Bonnie Bernstein launched, and one day and one year after this site launched). The first name lined up to host a show? Regis Philbin, who will turn 82 in August. This conforms to Rupert Murdoch’s edict that no host of a Fox Sports 1 program be older than he is (Murdoch turns 82 on Monday).

Simply the best female sports broadcaster out there

Again, we implore Fox: Get Paula Faris. Get Mary Carillo. Let Charles Davis be the Charles Davis I know off-camera. Go after John Buccigross and Linda Cohn, who have tremendous chemistry at ESPN and are somewhat taken for granted in Bristol. Have a Party of Five cast reunion (this has nothing to do with sports; I just want to see Scott Wolf and Jennifer Love Hewitt have another deep talk, preferably with one of them wearing a low-cut blouse; also, we’d love to know how our contemporary, Paula Devicq, has aged).

3. The Gaza Marathon, scheduled for April 10, has been canceled. Why? Because Hamas has ruled that women be banned from participating. Rule No. 3 of marathoning: If Hamas has anything to say about how the event is organized, you are better off not registering for it (women were not allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon until 1972,  so the Middle East is not actually “light years” behind the USA culturally but rather 41 years behind).

4. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, 58, succumbs to cancer. Venezuela, which is in South America, which in the southern hemisphere (unless you are a member of Cartographers for Social Equality [Didn’t you love when “The West Wing” got goofy?]) is a leading producer of both oil and Miss Universe pageant winners.

Triple-Crown winner and reigning American League MVP Miguel Cabrera will be sworn in as Venezuela’s next president

5. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches an all-time high , closing at 142543.77 (a quick finance lesson, kiddies: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is nothing more than the sum price of 30 publicly traded corporations that have been chosed to comprise the DJIA based on their size and influence; the choice of companies is mostly arbitrary and it is outlandish that the wealthiest company on earth, Apple, is not among this group of 30. Moving on….) even though unemployment is still hovering up near 8%, there’s a Sequester taking place, and the Angels only gave Mike Trout a $20,000 pay raise this season.

Be very wary.

Reserves

Brian Crashman? It’s just too easy. The Yankee GM broke his leg while skydiving earlier this week. Between this injury and Curtis Granderson’s on his first at-bat of spring training, writing portents of the doomed 2012 New York Yankee season is like looking for phallic symbols in a sausage shop.

Real Madrid (Cristiano Ronaldo’s side) knocks out Manchester United (the Yankees of Europe) in the UEFA Champions League round of 16. For Ronaldo, who started out with Man U., it was a bittersweet homecoming (he vowed not to celebrate if he scored a goal, and he held to that). If you’re not familiar with Champions League, it’s basically a 32-team tourney of the previous years’ European League champions (and a few invited guests) that is conducted around the regular-season schedules of those teams. It’s also a great way for Americans to survive winter afternoons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

This is NOT Ryan Kelly

Suddenly, with the return of Ryan Kelly, Duke looks like the best team in the country.

Justin Timberlake will be hosting Saturday Night Live for a fifth time this week. He’s entering Baldwin/Hanks/Martin territory.

Jack Cooley will never forget his final moments in a Notre Dame uniform at the Purcell Center…

Remote Patrol

Chicago Bulls at San Antonio Spurs

9 p.m., ESPN

No Rose. No Parker. But you do get to see arguably the NBA’s best team and inarguably its most overlooked, plus Tiago Splitter.

.

Starting (Divisible by) Five

1. 55: That is the number of minutes No. 2 Notre Dame senior Skylar Diggins played last night in the Fighting Irish’s 96-87 triple-overtime victory against No. 3 UConn. In other words, all of them. Diggins finished with a game-high 29 points and a team-high 11 rebounds in her final home game in South Bend as the Irish (29-1, 16-0) capped their first undefeated season in Big East play. And yes, it was reminiscent of the men’s five-OT win versus No. 11 Louisville last month.

The Irish have now taken six of seven from UConn, but another encounter in Hartford looms next week.

2. 50: That’s the number of points Baylor’s Brittney Griner scored, a career-best, in the Lady Bears’ 90-68 defeat of Kansas State.  The six-foot-eight leviathan was 21 of 28 from the field (including her first dunk at home since freshman year) and eight of 10 from the free throw line as top-ranked Baylor (29-1, 18-0) extended its home winning streak to 55 games, which is also a multiple of five.

Griner: The Lew Alcindor of women’s college hoops

3. 20: That’s the number of years that have passed since Quentin Tarantino’s classic, Pulp Fiction, was released. Kudos to Vanity Fair for turning over the rock and revealing how the movie got made, how the stars were cast (Matt Dillon: You blew it!), where the name Honey Bunny originated, and why Ving Rhames’ Marcellus had that Band-Aid on the back of his skull (we would have liked, though, to have seen a photo of the actor who played The Gimp). You cannot have everything, alas. Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.

Stay cool, Ringo.

4. 15: That’s the consecutive number of games the Miami Heat have won after last night’s disposal of the Timberwolves in Minneapolis. A thought occurred to me: What if LeBron, just to punk us all, had said, “Milwaukee” instead of “Miami.” If he had said, “I want to play for the Bucks, not the bucks.” (and, yes, we know he could have made more $$$ going somewhere other than Miami). Anyway, it was just a thought. Milwaukee’s actually a really nice city…in the summertime. While the Heat are in the midst of their franchise’s longest win streak, this season’s longest win streak still belongs to the Los Angeles Clippers, who won 17 straight back in December.

5. 5: The letters in the first name of Regis Philbin, who is the first name talent to be associated with the new sports channel, Fox Sports 1, that today Newscorp will announce that it is rolling out in August. Hey, I love Reege, but he turns 82 in late August. A few suggestions for my (one of) my former employer(s): Get Keith Olbermann and make him your flagship anchor (love him or hate him, people will watch him). Bring in my old friend Paula Faris, who is being criminally underutilized at ABC. Behind the scenes, bring in the wizard of producers, Michael Weisman. Make a big push into soccer, and not MLS, but EPL and other Euro soccer. Fox already has soccer and this is a boomtown sport whose demographics include both recent immigrants and dissident white males who are a little fed up with overproduced, over-officiated (Did we really need to stop the game to see if his foot was on the line for that three-pointer…again?) American sports.

Faris: Smart and savvy.

There’s a window here for Fox. You’re not going to beat ESPN…not any time soon, anyway. But with patience and straight sports coverage (i.e., avoid all “First Takery”) you can build a formidable competitor.

Reserves

Six Catholic schools in the AP Top 25 this week, headlined by top-ranked Gonzaga, a Jesuit school. What say you, Seths Davis and Greenberg, Andy Katz and Doug Gottlieb?

So, Tom Petty is playing five dates at a venue that is literally five blocks from my apartment this spring? Well, I’m there.

LATE-BREAKING: Former N.C. State head football coach Tom O’Brien is now an assistant coach at Viriginia. And he had to move some of his belongings from Raleigh, N.C., to Charlottesville, Va. This is how O’Brien told his former employers that they could kiss his ACC.

Remote Patrol

Los Angeles Lakers at Oklahoma City Thunder

TNT, 9:30 p.m.

Kobe is back, but are the Lakers? The Mamba is averaging a shade under 35 points per game in his last five games, four of them wins, as LA returned to .500 for the first time in 30 games or, literally, half a season (they are 30-30). OKC, however, has won 18 straight at home versus Western Conference teams and five in a row at Chesapeake Energy Arena versus the Lakers.

Kobe is averaging his age (34) of late.

(Honestly, this game has more star power but we may be more intrigued by watching Ryan Kelly play his final home game at Duke at 7 p.m. on ESPNU)