"It was really david chases joke on all of us: nothing happened ... you can imagine [Chase] sitting at home chuckling." -- Carol Joynt, summarizing for the Washington Post the thoughts of many of us on series creator Chases final episode of The Sopranos.
Teaching a 'greasy job'
Derek and Aaron Boogaard, the battling brothers from Saskatchewan, performed a tremendous public service last week when they conducted a fighting camp for hockey players ages 12-to-18 at the Puckmasters training center in Regina. More than 30 registered players attended.
"We're out here to show kids how to look after themselves when they're on the ice," Derek told the Regina Leader-Post. "We're showing them the little things that would help them out, rather than them learning the hard way and getting hurt."
Derek is the Wild's enforcer at 6-7, 260 pounds. Younger brother Aaron is 6-3, 245 and recently signed with Pittsburgh. He was among the most prolific fighters in the junior Western Hockey League.
"It's a greasy job, but somebody has to do it," Aaron said.
Derek has a more serious issue that involves fighting: He faces a June 18 trial in Regina on an aggravated assault charge stemming from a fight outside a nightclub last Aug. 12.
Bad review for Jirsa
Ron Jirsa, the No. 1 assistant for new Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith, was the subject of an extra-negative report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in October 2006.
Jirsa was an assistant to Smith at Georgia, then became the head coach in 1997 when Tubby headed for Kentucky. Jirsa lasted two seasons with a 35-30 record.
Last fall, the Atlanta newspaper was expanding on an NCAA report that showed Georgia had a 9 percent graduation rate (the second lowest in Division I) for athletes who enrolled between 1996 and 1999.
Robb Dryden, a former Georgia center, told the Journal-Constitution that Jirsa came to him in December 1998 and advised Dryden to change from an engineering major to the cushier child and family development program.
"He said, literally, verbatim, 'You need to get your priorities right; you need to change your major," Dryden said.
Dryden said when he refused he was dismissed from the team, but then reinstated after a meeting with Dick Bestwick, a now-retired associate athletic director. Bestwick confirmed Dryden's account of the situation to the Journal-Constitution.
Jirsa denied tossing Dryden from the team. He couldn't deny greatly reducing the playing time for the 7-foot Dryden, who had scored 22 points against Texas a week before the run-in over his major.
"I think there's [times] when both sides need to work together to get what each wants," the coach told the newspaper.
New standards for talent
The above scenario would indicate the new basketball regime has no plans to change the Gophers' long history for substandard academic performance. There are signs, though, that Smith will upgrade the standard of talent necessary for a player to be offered a scholarship that existed during the Dan Monson era.
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