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Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP
PARIS - Imagined conversation between literary agent and retired tennis megastar with a dirty secret: “You want to get richer with me?”
“How?”
“With ker-plunk.”
“What the hell’s ker-plunk?”
“A tell-all autobiography.”
“Why do they call it ker-plunk?”
“Because that’s the sound the dollars make as they drop into our bank accounts.”
Should we be surprised that Andre Agassi now tells us, 12 years after the fact, that he snorted crystal meth when his life and tennis were at a low? Absolutely not. You could fill a rehab center with all the top athletes who succumbed over the years to cocaine, weed, alcohol, binge-eating and the rest.
But we are entitled to feel manipulated by the manner in which Agassi’s sordid confessions are being dished out — in tantalizing — even addictive? — little doses that will likely have readers, mugs that they are, heading for stores and hungry for more.
Was that taster good? Now buy the whole dose.
In the same way that Agassi’s assistant Slim cut and readied “a small pile of powder on the coffee table,” choice morsels from “Open: An Autobiography” — on sale Nov. 9, folks! — have been sliced, diced and pushed on us.
“Andre Agassi reveals his drugs shame,” “sensational confession,” the Times of London trumpeted, among four publications that paid for rights to headline-grabbing excerpts.
“Slim is stressed,” read the juiciest part of the Times’ extract. “He says, ’You want to get high with me? On what? Gack. What the hell’s gack? Crystal meth. Why do they call it gack? Because that’s the sound you make when you’re high ... Make you feel like Superman, dude.”’
Get that, kids?
Agassi took crystal meth and still won five more Grand Slams, reclaimed the No. 1 ranking, wed Steffi Graf and tugged heartstrings with his tearful 2006 adieu to pro tennis at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
So either counselors have been overdoing their warnings that crank, ice — call it what you will — is one of the most addictive and ruinous drugs out there. Or, more likely, it’s simply easier to kick the habit when you’re rich enough to hire personal trainers to beat you back into shape and not living in misery with no future beyond your next high.
In short, was Agassi’s drug-taking really worth sharing because it offers a universal and valuable lesson about how mistakes can be corrected? Or, mindful of its potential impact on those who look up to him, should he have kept this to himself?
The Times’ excerpts don’t really allow us to answer those questions. Guess we’ll have to buy the book. Instead, the message that comes across loudest is that crystal meth seems pretty fabulous. Too bad it makes your teeth fall out.
“A tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy,” Agassi says.
Perhaps recalling this high was cathartic for Agassi, but lacing his account with a bit more soul-searching might have been more educational.
As International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge noted, “If his admission would go together with the message to young athletes that it should not be repeated, then that would be useful.”
Equally disturbing is Agassi’s revelation that he failed a drug test but escaped sanction by telling a dog-ate-my-homework lie to the ATP that he “drank accidentally” from a beverage that Slim had spiked, “unwittingly ingesting his drugs.”
Question for those who run tennis: How many other stars were let off the hook like this? If Agassi, by then a three-time Grand Slam winner, hadn’t been such a crowd-pleaser, would he have been punished?
The year Agassi snorted was also the first to see a tennis player suspended for drug use. But who had ever heard of Ignacio Truyol of Spain, ranked No. 127 and convicted for a steroid and a stimulant?
Given retired players’ subsequent autobiographical confessions about how they toked and sniffed, it now seems a glaring failure that the sport didn’t clean house as vigorously as Agassi says he did on meth’s high, tearing around dusting his furniture, scouring his tub and making his beds.
Bidding among publishers competing for Agassi’s memoir reportedly topped $5 million — more in line with what a former U.S. president might expect — when Alfred A. Knopf acquired the rights in 2007.
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Now drip-drip-dripped excerpts are creating pre-sale buzz.
Maybe money from the book will go to one of Agassi’s philanthropic endeavors. Having earned more than $31 million in career prize money, perhaps cash wasn’t his motivation for this at all.
But if not, then, as with drugs, don’t be taken in.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
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Hoda, Kathie Lee on Agassi’s book Oct. 28: TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford discuss the day’s hot topics, including tennis star Andre Agassi’s revealing new book. |
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NBCSports.com |
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
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