2012 January at LinesMaker

Knight Calls Paterno His ‘Hero,’ Blasts Media and Penn State Trustees

Well, we know this much: Phil Knight still has Joe Paterno’s back. A lot of people-prominent people-turned their backs on Paterno when the coach was fired in the wake of the Jerry San­dusky sex scandal. But Knight cer­tainly could not be counted among that group. At Paterno’s memo­r­ial ser­vicee, held ear­lier this week at Penn State’s Bryce Jor­dan Cen­ter, Knight both hon­ored and defended his long­time friend-a man he called his “hero.” But Knight didn’t stop there; he also launched pointed attacks at the media (for rush­ing to judg­ment on Paterno) and the Penn State... 

SunTrust Out, Gainsco in Trouble at Rolex 24

By JENNA FRYER Auto Rac­ing Writer DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — One for­mer Grand-Am cham­pion was knocked out of the Rolex 24 at Day­tona less than an hour into the race, and another lost sev­eral laps a quar­ter of the way into the twice-around-the-clock event. Max Angelelli took the No. 10 Chevro­let to the garage with an engine issue 25 min­utes into the race. The team sent the car back out after a few min­utes, but Angelelli was back in the garage for good moments later in the 50th run­ning of the pres­ti­gious sports car event. About five hours later, Alex Gur­ney took... 

Cards WR Coach McNulty Was Top Choice of Bucs for OC

The Ari­zona Car­di­nals denied a request this week for wide receivers coach John McNulty to inter­view for the Tampa Bay Buc­ca­neers’ vacant offen­sive coor­di­na­tor position. McNulty was the Buc­ca­neers’ top choice for job. The Bucs requested per­mis­sion to speak to McNulty on Fri­day and it was promptly denied. Lom­bardi: Prod­ucts of environment McNulty was the right-hand man of new coach Greg Schi­ano, who was hired on Thurs­day, for years at Rut­gers and the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor at a time when the pro­gram fea­tured an elite offense. McNulty was almost... 

USC WR Prater Transfers to Northwestern

EVANSTON, Ill. — Wide receiver Kyle Prater has trans­ferred to North­west­ern from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, the Wild­cats said Saturday. A Chicago-area prod­uct, Prater red­shirted as a fresh­man and had just one catch for 6 yards last year in an injury-plagued season. “This is one of the best days in my life for me and my fam­ily and I’m just happy to be back close to home, my fam­ily and my sup­port group,” Prater said. “This North­west­ern degree will take me far and help me become a bet­ter per­son. The dynam­ics of the school and the team have shown me a lot and... 

Goal Leader Stamkos Prevails in Elimination Shoot Out

KANATA, Ont. - It had been a while since Steven Stamkos scored dur­ing a shootout — two full sea­sons to be exact. The NHL’s lead­ing goal-scorer has been strangely unre­li­able dur­ing the post-overtime com­pe­ti­tion. He’s 0-for-3 this sea­son after going 0-for-7 last sea­son. His last shootout goal came near the end of the 2009-10 season. But Stamkos more than made up for it dur­ing the Tim Hor­tons NHL Elim­i­na­tion Shoot Out. He went 3-for-3 in the con­test, beat­ing Montreal’s Carey Price twice and Boston’s Tim Thomas once to win the event against 23 other shooters. The... 

Azarenka Claims 1st Major, No. 1 Ranking

Updated Jan 28, 2012 5:59 AM ET MELBOURNE, Aus­tralia Vic­to­ria Azarenka routed Maria Shara­pova 6–3, 6–0 to win the Aus­tralian Open women’s title and secure the No. 1 rank­ing on Sat­ur­day night, all in her first Grand Slam final. The 22-year-old Belaru­sian dropped her open­ing ser­vice game and was down 2–0 after a ner­vous start before win­ning 12 of the next 13 games to take the match away from Shara­pova, a three-time major win­ner and the 2008 Aus­tralian champion. She became only the third woman to earn the No. 1 spot after win­ning her first Grand Slam... 

Chris Weidman Takes UFC on Fox 2 Split Decision

RT @danawhite: The score on the Maia vs Wei­d­man fight was wrong. It wasn’t a split dec, Wei­d­man won all 3 rounds.BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more UFC news see: Chris Wei­d­man takes UFC on Fox 2 split deci­sion.  

Rachel Alexandra, Foal Taken to Hospital

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A spokes­woman says Rachel Alexan­dra, the 2009 Horse of the Year, and her new­born colt have been taken to an equine clinic for pain man­age­ment related to the birth. Spokes­woman Car­o­line Shaw said in an email Fri­day that Rachel Alexan­dra and the colt are expected to return to Ston­estreet Farm in a cou­ple of days, bar­ring unfore­seen issues. They were taken to Rood and Rid­dle Equine Clinic in Lex­ing­ton “as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure,” the email said. The 6-year-old Rachel Alexan­dra is owned by Bar­bara Banke, who is also major­ity... 

Bears Bring Emery Back to Organization as General Manager

The Chicago Bears con­cluded their search for a gen­eral man­ager Sat­ur­day, agree­ing to hire Kansas City Chiefs direc­tor of col­lege scout­ing Phil Emery for the position. Emery was a final­ist for the open­ing along with New Eng­land Patri­ots direc­tor of pro per­son­nel Jason Licht. Both can­di­dates had sec­ond inter­views with the Bears this week. The Bears fired long­time GM Jerry Angelo shortly after fin­ish­ing an 8–8 sea­son. The team will intro­duce Emery, the organization’s fifth GM in team his­tory, as Angelo’s suc­ces­sor at a 2 p.m. ET news con­fer­ence... 

Cousins, Wilson Throw TDs in Senior Bowl

MOBILE, Ala. — Isa­iah Pead took a stut­ter step for­ward, then raced to the left side­line and trav­eled 60 yards up the field before finally get­ting tripped up by a leg tackle. The for­mer Cincin­nati run­ning back fol­lowed that nifty punt return with a 38-yarder a cou­ple of min­utes later, late in the first half, to play a star­ring role Sat­ur­day in the North’s 23–13 vic­tory over the South in the Senior Bowl. The first one set up a field goal and helped Pead out­shine big­ger names to earn Most Valu­able Player honors. “(Coach) told me what the punt return call...