SHORT TERM MEMORY…..PREDS REBOUND
A night after dropping a tough one to division rival Detroit, the Preds answer with a 4-0 win over Columbus. The win puts Preds four points ahead of the Red Wings who were idle Thursday. Up next, the Preds host Chicago Saturday night at 7pm.
We’ve come to know the Preds as a very good team. Very good teams don’t let losses bother them. The Preds took care of business tonight.
Oh, and by the way,,,,,,,,,,the Ducks lost tonight. That means the Preds lead the NHL in points for the first time in franchise history.
Benny Parsons 1941-2007
Benny Parsons made a career of beating the odds, rising up from a childhood of poverty in the North Carolina foothills to a job as a Detroit cabbie, and eventually, becoming a NASCAR champion.
When he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Parsons had every reason to believe he would beat that, too. But despite a battle that saw “BP” carrying an oxygen tank around the race track, Parsons couldn’t win this fight.
He died Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C., where he had been hospitalized since Dec. 26 because of complications from his treatment. He was 65.
“Benny Parsons was a true champion _ both on the race track and in life,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said. “Benny loved our sport and the people that make it up and those people loved him. He will be remembered as being a great ambassador for the sport.”
The 1973 NASCAR champion, Parsons was a member of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers and a lovable fixture at the track. He won 21 races, including the 1975 Daytona 500, and 20 poles. He was the first Cup competitor to qualify for a race faster than 200 mph, going 200.176 mph at the 1982 Winston 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
He retired from racing in 1988 and entered broadcasting, where his folksy style and straight-shooting manner endeared him to fans and drivers. Sometimes referred to as “The Professor” because of his relaxed ability to deliver information, Parsons spent the past six years as an NBC and TNT commentator and continued to call races from the booth during his treatment.
“When you talked to him he brought out the human element,” said Michael Waltrip, who tested this week at Daytona International Speedway in a car that had “We Love You, BP” painted on the side.
Parsons was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung in July. Parsons, who quit smoking in 1978, underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments and was declared cancer-free in October. But the treatment cost Parsons the use of his left lung, and he was hospitalized last month when doctors found a blood clot in his right lung. He was placed in an induced-coma.
Known throughout NASCAR as “BP,” Parsons hosted a weekly radio program and kept fans updated on his condition in a blog on his Web site.
“As my radiation oncologist told me today, John Wayne lived and had a great career with one lung. There is no reason why I can’t do the same.” Parsons said in a Dec. 18 entry after learning of the damage to his left lung.
“If given a choice between cancer or losing a lung I would say that I got the right end of the deal,” he added.
That feisty spirit was one of Parsons’ trademarks, carrying him from a poor childhood in Wilkes County, N.C., to a job driving taxis and then to the top of NASCAR. Long after his retirement, he was a popular figure with the fans and driving community.
“Benny Parsons was the kindest, sweetest, most considerate person I have ever known,” said Darrell Waltrip, a three-time NASCAR champion. “He was almost too nice to be a race car driver, and I say that as a compliment. In my 30 odd years of racing Benny Parsons, I never knew of anyone being mad at Benny.”
Parsons was always on the lookout for new talent, and proved to have a keen eye when he discovered Greg Biffle and urged car owner Jack Roush to hire him sight unseen. Biffle went on to win championships in NASCAR’s Truck and Busch Series and is now a top Nextel Cup driver.
“It’s obvious he’s the only reason why I am here in this sport,” Biffle said. “I would still be in Washington racing local stuff if not for BP.”
Parsons’ death comes eight days after former Truck Series champion Bobby Hamilton lost his battle with cancer.
Born July 12, 1941 at a rural home that lacked running water and electricity, Parsons was raised by his great-grandmother near the community called Parsonsville. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he worked at a gas station and a cab company owned by his father. After winning ARCA titles in 1968-69, he returned to North Carolina in Ellerbe to become a full-time racer, often listing “taxicab driver” as his occupation on entry forms.
Parsons made 526 starts from 1964 until his 1988 retirement. He ended his career with 283 top-10 finishes, led at least one lap in 192 races and finished no lower than fifth in the points from 1972 to 1980 while earning more than $4 million.
His 1973 championship season was built on endurance and consistency: He won only one of the 28 races that season while second-place finisher Cale Yarborough won four times and David Pearson won 11. But Parsons finished the most miles that year to claim the crown.
Most Top-10 Finishes:
Cup Series, 1971-1985
Driver Top-10s
Richard Petty 320
Bobby Allison 297
Benny Parsons 243
Darrell Waltrip 239
Cale Yarborough 220
He was honored as one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998, and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994. He was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association’s Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame in 1995.
Parsons began broadcasting in the 1980s as a pit reporter for ESPN and TBS, when he was still racing a partial schedule. He moved into the booth for good in 1989 for ESPN and won a Cable ACE Award for best sports analyst in his first season in the booth. He also created the popular ESPN segment “Buffet Benny” on food available at race tracks.
Survivors include wife Terri, sons Kevin and Keith, a former sports writer for The Associated Press, and two granddaughters. Parsons was preceded in death by his first wife, Connie.
AP
YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE 1973 NASCAR CHAMPION
VANDY’S LOSS IS TENNESSEE’S GAIN
Memphis native and former Arizona Wildcat J.P. Prince will finish out his college career at the University of Tennessee. Reports out of Knoxville are that the versatile player will enroll into classes this Wednesday. Originally Prince wanted to enroll at Vanderbilt, but the admissions department had a problem with him transferring during the middle of the year.
Vanderbilt admissions policy is that freshman and transfers have to enroll at the beginning of the fall semester. Prince could have waited to enroll at Vanderbilt in the fall, but decided instead to go ahead and resume his basketball career in Knoxville.
Hard to believe that an exception couldn’t be made to allow Prince admission into Commodore land. Vanderbilt’s loss is Tennessee’s gain!
JP Prince will be eligilble to play next season at mid-term and have 2 1/2 years of eligibility remaining.
L.T. Rips Patriots…
Chargers star Ladainian Tomlinson ripped the Patriots and their head coach Bill Belichick. According to Tomlinson the Patriots did a little too much celebrating after their 24-21 win over the Chargers Sunday night. Tomlinson thought they were being disprectful and said so in his post game presser. But what blew my mind (small explosion) was L.T. saying the class-less act came from Belichick. He was insinuating that Belichick is class-less and his team just feeds off that.
Help me out here. Am I missing something? To me Belichick is working on being one of, if not the greatest, big game coach in NFL history. I don’t think we’ll see L.T. playing for the Patriots or Belichick anytime soon.
…..’How Bout them Predators!?!?!?!’
The Preds made the front page of the paper on Friday and led off a bunch of local newscasts but to the Preds players, they could have cared less.
Preds owner Craig Leipold said he wanted to sell as much as 40% of the team. He cited lagging attendance and the business community of Nashville isn’t helping out.
We could argue for days about this but there is a group of guys who really don’t want the spotlight, they want the Stanley Cup. That would be the Preds players. All they do is win on a regular basis. Sure they will get beat from time to time by a Columbus or Phoenix, but that happens. But they are 2nd in the Western Conference and are one of the best teams in the NHL.
They are 5 and 1 in the new year and face a tough test in Detroit on Wednesday. So while their owner seeks more money or whatever, his players just do what they do best, play hockey and win.
NCAA Women’s scores
#4 Tennessee 80
Florida 58
#12 Vanderbilt 67
South Carolina 66
#21 MTSU 78
Florida Atlantic 48
Stetson 47
Belmont 73
Austin Peay 63
Murray State 64
Mercer 50
Lipscomb 79
Samford 68
Tennessee State 51
Bethel 64
Trevecca 83
SEC THRILER. WATCH HILITES AND POST GAME.
Vanderbilt beat Tennessee Wednesday night 82-81. Memorial Gym nearly blew it’s top when Shan Foster scored the winning basket as time expred. Derrick Byars put the Dores up 80-79 with 14 seconds to go, but Duke Crews dunk with 4.7 seconds on the clock put the Vols up 81-80. 4.7 seconds was plenty of time for Vanderbilt who gave the ball to Derrick Byars. Byars missed an acrobatic lay up but Shan Foster was there for the put back.
Both team are now 1-1 in the SEC. Vandy’s win ended Tennessee’s 9 game winning streak.
You can watch the hilites and post game by clicking on them just to right of this blog. Enjoy.
GATORS PROVE BCS NEEDS OUSTED!
This BCS Championship has finally sent me over the edge when it comes to college football. I’ll start out by saying that there is not a team in the country that would have beaten Florida Monday night. With that out of the way let me tell you why I’m disgusted with the NCAA’s inability to figure out a playoff system for 1-A football (yes they have one for 1-AA, Division II, and Division III).
1. Florida would not have even played Ohio State Monday night if USC had beaten UCLA in November.
2. Florida beat the likes of Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Florida State on the road. How much injustice would it have been for the Gators to be kept out of a title game because of one loss at Auburn? Thankfully for the Gators UCLA helped them by beating USC. This is why I am so outdone with the current system. Give the top teams a chance to play in a playoff. Did Florida show there are the best? Yes. But they almost didn’t even play.
3. Both Florida and Ohio State were off several weeks. How can you expect to play your best football after a five week vacation? How do you feel after a week off? How great would it be for the NFL to hold the playoffs until Late February? Are you kidding me!!! What if Ohio State and Florida played in the first round of the NCAA Playoffs back on December 9th? Do you think the score would be 41-14 Florida? It is so ridiculous to make these athletes and coaches wait weeks between their biggest games of the year.
4. The NCAA maintains that they don’t want these athletes to miss school for a playoff system. Oh, do they not care about Division 1-AA education? Please. Most colleges are out for at least 3 weeks during the holidays. December is the best time of year for a 1-A playoff.
I could go on and on. Here’s my simple solution:
There are 12 Division 1-A football conferences including 4 schools who are independent. Take the champion from each conference and seed them like they do in NCAA basketball. Give the top 2 seeds a bye the first week. Give the top seed a bye the second week. After two weeks of playing you have a football final four. After the final four you have your national title game. It would take 4 weeks and could be completed by the second week of January. What night did they play the title game this year? January 8th. I believe that is the second week of January.
What do you think? Would this system work. You wouldn’t have to worry about rankings until the end of the season when they seed the teams. The conference champs, plus an independent and let ‘em play for the title on the field.
BOBBY HAMILTON 1957-2007
Middle Tennessee and Nascar lost a fan favorite, a good driver and more importantly a good man. Bobby Hamilton passed away on Sunday afternoon after an 11 month battle with head and neck cancer. Here’s a look back at Bobby Hamilton accomplishments on the track.
Bobby Hamilton, the 2004 Craftsman Truck Series champion and a four-time winner in the Cup Series, died Sunday. He was 49.
Hamilton, a native of Nashville, Tenn., had been battling cancer for nearly a year. He announced in March 2006 that he was undergoing treatment for neck cancer. He immediately turned over his driving duties in the Craftsman Truck Series to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr.
“He will be greatly missed as a husband, a father, a grandfather, an owner and a friend,” Hamilton’s family said in a statement. “We want to thank everyone for their love and support of our racing operation and the outpouring of care and concern during his cancer battle. One of Bobby’s greatest loves in life was racing and we will continue on in his honor.”
Bobby Hamilton made three Truck Series starts in 2006 before announcing he had cancer. Liz Allison, a family friend who co-hosted a radio show with Hamilton, said he was at home with his family in Mount Juliet, Tenn., when he died.
In addition to Bobby Jr., Hamilton is survived by wife Lori and a granddaughter.
Jim Hunter, NASCAR’s vice president for communications, saw first-hand the unlikely procession of Hamilton’s career from Nashville short track champion to multiple winner in NASCAR’s top series.
“He meant an awful lot. He was old school and one of those guys that did it his way,” Hunter said. “He was very popular in the garage area and in the industry because he worked real hard. He didn’t believe anyone was owed anything.”
Hunter said the news hit the sanctioning body especially hard.
“It came as a real shock. We knew [the cancer] was serious, and we knew he was fighting it, but you just never know these things,” Hunter said. “He will be missed. He was a tough, tough guy.”
Truck Series driver Brendan Gaughan recalled a day last fall when Hamilton took him aside and asked him to drive for his team.
“It floored me,” said Gaughan, who eventually decided to turn down the offer. “He asked me to drive for his team, and it was quite an honor. That day will always sit in my head.
“He was a great driver and a great owner. My heart goes out to the BHR organization.”
Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February after a malignant growth was found when swelling from dental surgery did not go down.
He raced in the season’s first three events, with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before turning over the wheel to his son.
“I love what I do; I love this business,” Hamilton said when he disclosed that he had cancer. “NASCAR has been good to me, and I just don’t feel comfortable when I am not around it.”
Hamilton quit driving in the Cup Series after the 2002 season to focus on his thriving Craftsman Truck Series team. He went on to win the Truck Series title in ‘04.
“It is a terrible loss to us,” said Larry McClure, Hamilton’s team owner from 1998-2000. “I will miss him. I always thought of him as my friend.”
McClure said he had talked to Hamilton just a few weeks ago.
“I asked him how he was dong and he said, ‘Pretty good,’ ” McClure said. “Just amazing how it can turn like that.”
Jeff Purvis, a fellow Tennessean and a close friend of Hamilton’s, was shocked at the news of Hamilton’s death. A longtime Busch Series regular whose career was curtailed by a 2002 crash, Purvis visited with Ken Schrader on Friday and they had discussed Hamilton’s progress.
“We went to lunch and talked about Bobby,” Purvis said. “[Schrader] had just left Bobby’s shop and came from there to my house.
“[Hamilton] was kind of what racing was supposed to be about. He was a racer’s racer. You could talk to him about chassis. He understood racing and the racecars, the event. He really understood racing itself.”
Nextel Cup driver Sterling Marlin, a fellow Tennessee native, said a lot of people didn’t know Hamilton well even though he was generous enough to give someone the shirt off his back.
“He always had a good vision,” Marlin said in Daytona where testing begins Monday. “He always wanted to do things his own way, so he became his own boss, got into the trucks, and it worked out well for him.”
Though he made his Cup debut in 1989 — a one-race deal at Phoenix on Nov. 5 — Hamilton probably is best known for the unusual way he broke into NASCAR’s top series. He served as a stunt driver for the 1990 movie Days of Thunder, performing so well that he was soon hired to run the Cup Series full-time. He went on become rookie of the year in 1991.
His big break, however, came in 1995 when Hamilton was hired to drive the No. 43 of Petty Enterprises. He resurrected the ailing team with 10 top-10 finishes in 1995, and in ‘96, he won at Phoenix, which helped him finish a career-best ninth in points.
After winning at Rockingham in 1997, Hamilton moved to Morgan-McClure Motorsports for the 1998-2000 seasons. His only win during that time came in ‘98 at Martinsville.
“He was a good driver and a good businessman,” McClure said. “We spent three years with him and it was great. He got us our last win. It was probably the last time the team was competitive, and he kept getting better and better.”
Hamilton wrapped up his Cup career with a two-year stint driving for Andy Petree. Hamilton won at Talladega in 2001 — a thrilling race that went green the entire way — for Petree’s first victory as a car owner, and Petree celebrated by diving across the hood as Hamilton drove into Victory Lane.
“He definitely raced hard,” Gaughan said of Hamilton. “I remember that race when he won at Talladega when everyone was falling out of the seat [from the oppressive heat]. That was a testament to how tough he was.”
Allison, the widow of former NASCAR star Davey Allison, said, “The thing I loved about Bobby Sr. so much is that he treated everybody the same. It didn’t matter if you were one of the drivers he competed against or a fan he’d never laid eyes on before.
“He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body. I think that’s why people were drawn to him. He was just very real and had a way of relating to everyone.”
**COURTESY NASCAR.COM**
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Vokoun to Start Tuesday
The Titans season is over, so we turn our attention to Nashville’s other professional sports team, the Predators. In case you’ve missed it, the Preds are having possibly their best season since coming into existence eight years ago. They are atop the Central Division of the Western Conference, four points ahead of nemesis Detroit. Tonight, the Preds won another hard fought game over the Blues. I was in the locker room after the game, and Jordin Tootoo said St. Louis was ragging him as soon as he hit the ice. After a previous matchup between these two teams, Blues goalie Manny Legace said Tootoo is only on the ice to enforce a physical presence. Well, he brought that tonight, taking the Blues out of the their game and winning a lengthy battle with the opposition.
The competition gets much tougher Tuesday as Anaheim comes to the GEC sporting the second most points in the league. Goalie Tomas Vokoun is slated to start the game. Vokoun has been out for the last 20 games due to a thumb injury. In his absence, backup Chris Mason has done an admirable job. Mason has the second best goals against average in that time span, and you can bet other teams will be looking at him in the offseason as their possible number one goalie. Myself and Brandon Fisher spoke to Mason earlier this week, and he knows that Vokoun is still the number one. He has a wonderful outlook on the situation, and there is clearly not a controversy in goal for the Predators.
Hear from Mason tomorrow night on Sunday Sports Extra. Also, we’ll talk Titans with a special guest.
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