Check It Out: Americans Have Their Priorities Straight

The answer seems easy. Would you give up sex for a year to get a tee time at Augusta National? Sadly, one in three men and women would actually give up getting off to get on the famous golf course. I wonder how the people surveyed answered that question. Was it an emphatic yes? Did they deeply ponder the answer? Those crazy guys at Golf Digest, always making us think.

With all of the success straight-from-high school stars Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett have had in their NBA careers, we tend to forget the sad stories. Jonathan Bender, just 25, is being forced into retirement citing chronic knee problems. The casual basketball fan probably thinks nothing of it, but Bender was special. Some considered him a more athletic version of Dirk Nowitzki. The guy broke Michael Jordan’s McDonald’s All-American game scoring record. He had all the talent in the world and great head to go with it. One of the ultimate “what could have been” guys of all time.

ESPN the Magazine decided to go with Reggie Bush and Vince Young on the cover of its annual “Next” issue. Good for those guys. They should be aware that Kaz Matsui was once featured, making for one of the biggest “couldn’t have been more wrong” projections of all time.

David Harrison goes for a career high fifteen points to help Indiana hand Detroit its second loss in four games. This is a bad loss for the Pistons. The Pacers are not a very good team and the player they just traded for, Peja Stojakovic, scored just eight points. In other news, Ben Wallace managed to score zero points for the second time in three games. But it’s okay because he does other things.

More than 75% of my readers are from my town in Connecticut, so when a kid from here does something special, he deserves props. Geary Claxton dropped 20 points to lead Penn State to a come from behind victory over sixth ranked Illinois.