Rutgers' disastrous decision to rescind an offer for Eric LeGrand to speak at commencement, the Clippers and Wizards start off the NBA conference semifinlas with a bang, the Giants and Buccos play over five hours of baseball, and an incredibly disturbing rape story emerges with top Oregon Ducks players, all today on the sports page.
Rutgers withdraws commencement invitation for Eric LeGrand
Days after Rutgers gave an invitation to paralyzed football player Eric LeGrand to speak at commencement, they pulled it out from under him to let a political figure speak.
LeGrand announced on Twitter last night and spoke to multiple media outlets on his displeasure that athletic director Julie Hermann called him on Monday to say that they moved in a different direction for a commencement speaker -- former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean.
This apparently happened just days after he got a call from Rutgers chief of staff, Gregory Jackson, who offered LeGrand to speak at the commencement after Condoleezza Rice opted out.
To put it simply, Hermann's first year as Rutgers AD has been nothing short of a disaster, and that just piles on to this huge list in a damning article by Brian Hamilton at Sports Illustrated last month which highlighted her comments that she'd be happy if the The Star-Ledger newspaper just went ahead and died. She showed no remorse for the many people that got laid off a week prior.
There was a clear disapproval of who should be Rice's replacement as the commencement speaker at the school. There's nothing wrong with having Kean speak at the event, but it looks incredibly bad when you announce that he will speak moments after you tell somebody else that they were invited.
Double-down on the terrible when the school shuns LeGrand, a big figure at Rutgers who remains the only player to have his football number retired and is an inspiration to many people. Instead of pulling out the rug from under him, is it hard to have two speakers at this event and just roll with it?
Apparently so. God forbid these graduates and their parents stick around for 15 more minutes at commencement. Time is valuable, and they would get nothing out of anything LeGrand has to say, right?
Other Headlines
The Kings were dead tired as they clinged to a one-goal lead in the 3rd period, but Dwight King quickly stole the puck when the Ducks pulled their goalie and slammed in the game-ender with 58 seconds left for a 3-1 final. Marian Gaborik scored his sixth goal of the playoffs just 34 seconds into the contest to put the team up early and they didn't look back.
Jonathan Quick continued to be vintage, and the team has killed off 22 of their last 23 power plays against them. They went into last night's game killing 19 straight. Of course, a fight broke out between the fans after the game, resulting in one of the fan's apparent girlfriends taking a throwdown, but got back up and continued to break up the fight. Because she's a hockey fan.
Paul had 32 points and 10 assists, including shooting 8-of-9 from downtown in a 122-105 dominating victory on the road. OKC had 17 turnovers (6 from Russell Westbrook) and the game got out of hand early with the Clippers outscoring the Thunder 39-25 in the first quarter.
Both teams combined for 21 runs, 36 hits in nearly 5.5 hours of action. Reliever Jean Machi picked up his fifth win of the season, and did so by landing a sacrifice bunt on offense that resulted in the Pirates' reliever to send a throw wide and giving Hunter Pence the go-ahead run.
The Giants rebounded from an 8-2 deficit after five innings with a 5-run sixth inning to get back into it. Hector Sanchez recorded four hits and three RBIs and the top three in the order -- Angel Pagan, Hunter Pence, and Buster Posey -- had three-hit games but just a combined two RBIs, both from Posey. Even more impressive, SF went 8-for-18 with runners in scoring position.
Page 2's
Speaking of first quarter disasters, the Pacers were down big against the Washington Wizards. Roy Hibbert had zero points again, and Tracy McGrady makes a pretty good point afterwards.
Manning went on the Late Show with David Letterman and announced that he still wasn't fully recovered from his surgery. He sure looks pretty good considering, and I'd still take a sub-100 percent Manning over many other QBs in the league.
Something did happen to the victim, but the conflicting statements by her leaves the case falling flat. But Brandon Austin, Damyean Dotson, and Dominic Artis to likely all be history, with Artis already transferring. The story is pretty sickening if true. Potentially, all three players had sex with her at a house party, performed oral sex, forced her into a cab, and then did more stuff with her at an apartment leaded to Dotson and Artis. All three players contest that it was consensual.
But Winston still denies stealing the butter and claims he put it in a sale bin, like that should redeem him a little. All of this screams a non-traditional way of handling grocery shopping, because a whopping zero people would ever walk out of a grocery store without intent of shoplifting.
Today's Slate
Central times listed.
ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Hull City at Man United - 1:45 NBCS
STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS - ROUND 2
Bruins at Canadiens (Tied 1-1) - 6:00 NBCS
Blackhawks at Wild (CHI 2-0) - 8:00 CNBC
NBA PLAYOFFS - ROUND 2
Nets at Heat (Game 1) - 6:00 TNT
Blazers at Spurs (Game 1) - 8:30 TNT
MLB
Giants at Pirates - 6:05 CSBA/RSPT
Dodgers at Nationals - 6:05 SNLA/MASN
D'backs at Brewers - 7:10 FSAZ/FSWI
Rangers at Rockies - 7:40 FSSW/ROOT
Royals at Padres - 9:10 FSKC/FSSD
No comments:
Post a Comment