Quote of the Day/Week-Larry Bird

First of all thanks to those of you in Armenia?!*, Nigeria and Venezuela who are checking out our blog today. In honor of the upcoming 2012 London Olympics, we are quoting American athletes who won gold or silver medals at previous Summer Olympics. Last month, we did quote athletes from other countries, just ask Belarusian gymnast Svetlana Boginskaya. (**and***).

We are going with NBA Boston Celtics great Larry Bird, 55, of French Lick, Ind., because he won a team gold as a member of the Dream Team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics; he is also one of the two subjects in a brand-new Broadway play called "Magic/Bird," which depicts the rivalry and friendship between Bird and Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson.

In an excellent April 23rd article in "The Washington Post" by Preston Williams, Tug Coker, 34, who plays Bird on stage was profiled. The native of Stafford, Va., relatively close to Washington, DC, and even closer to the historic city of Fredericksburg, Va., actually briefly played college basketball at William and Mary. Coker also had aspirations of being a big-time basketball player as a youth, so in a fitting irony, he ended up on Broadway instead.

As for Bird, he won won three NBA titles with the Boston Celtics during his career (1979-1992), including championships in 1981, 1984 and 1986. Bird is now an executive with the Indiana Pacers, a team that lost to the Miami Heat recently in the NBA playoffs. But, his old team, the Boston Celtics fared better as they won in Game 7 over the Philadelphia '76ers by an 85-75, with Rajon Rondo of the Celtics scoring 18 points. They will now face the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals.

Here is Bird's quote:

"It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer."

*-I am a Turkish-American, and there is a bit of a row between Turks and Armenians. I would go into more details, but I am not a history professor at Princeton University.

**-Yes, we seriously doubt that Boginskaya has time to read our blog; she is now reportedly a gymnastics coach in Houston, Texas.

***-We believe, however, that we did actually spell her name right!

Quote of the Day/Week-Bruce Jenner

This month in honor of the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics in London, we are quoting American Olympic medal winners with an emphasis on gold medal winners.

On our other blog "The Daily Vampire," we quoted Alicia Sacramone, 24, a silver medalist and former Brown University gymnast over Mary Lou Retton, who won two gold medals in women's gymnastics the year that Sacramone was born...oh well!

Here, we are quipping Bruce Jenner, 62, who won a gold medal in the decathlon during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Jenner may have become a forgotten seventies star, like Marie Osmond, but he happens to be the step-father of Kim Kardashian and her sisters: Kim and Khloe.

Here is his quote:

"First of all, I try to be a positive role model."

Both Jenner and Retton appeared on Wheaties cereal boxes after winning their respective gold medals.

SIDEBAR: We had prematurely said that the men's basketball team from Harvard was the Ivy League champion yesterday. But, now we can say that as Princeton downed Penn 62-52. If Penn had won the game, they would have played Harvard in a one-game playoff for the league title.

Casualties of Modern Technology (7 of 12)_ TV Antennas

35 years ago, during the two years I was living in Turkey as a child (1977-79), we literally depended on the bulging outdoor antennas to get signals from the TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) which at the time was showing one channel of programing throughout the entire country. This meant that people living in Istanbul saw the same shows as people in eastern Turkish cities, such as Sivas and Erzurum, which are a good 15-20 hours by bus from Istanbul. The TRT began broadcasting television in 1968.

Many years earlier, American inventor Philo Farnsworth (1906-1971) sent out the first American television transmission at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1934. Some 20-25 years later, Uncle Miltie (Milton Berle) aired a popular variety show across the country and Ed Sullivan also became popular especially when he introduced The Beatles on his tv variety show in the 1960s. And, by the 1960s, the tv sitcom, which included "The Honeymooners" with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney also became popular.

The tv antenna was specifically designed to air in the broadcast range from 41 to 250 MHZ on VHF, and the wavelength equaled the speed of light. The higher the placement of the antenna, which can reach up to 40-feet on rooftops, the better the reception.

Today, since all broadcasts in the United States are digital, the outdoor tv antenna is a definitive endangered species though I did see on just last week!

SIDEBAR: Since we are not specifically a sports blog, perhaps it was a bit of a huge mistake to go into men's college basketball. But, since we've started this mess, let's finish it!

A few days ago, we made reference to the American University Eagles' home game in Washington, DC, versus the Bucknell Bison on Thursday night. The game was one in which the school gave away Jeff Jones bobblehead dolls in honor of AU's coach Jeff Jones to the first 1,000 fans.

Well, we imagine that created considerable enthusiasm, but the Eagles (18-10, 9-4 in Patriot Conference play) lost to the Bison (21-8, 11-2) by a score of 55-50. Mike Muscala lead the visitors from Lewisburg, Pa., with 26 points and 14 rebounds. While Daniel Munoz lead the Eagels with 15 points. Both schools have important final regular season conference games this afternoon (Saturday).

SIDEBAR 2: Even though Harvard University may have just finished their home game with the Pennsylvania Quakers this afternoon, we are going to focus on their 67-64 home win over Princeton last night.

The Crimson's win allowed the team (24-3, 10-1) to avenge their only Ivy League loss of the year at the hand of the Tigers in Princeton, NJ, two weeks ago tonight.

Kyle Casey lead the Crimson with 20 points and eight rebounds. Other top scorers for the Crimson included Brandyn Curry (15 points), Oliver McNally (13 points) and Keith Wright (12 points). Harvard has also been in the news because one of their recent alum, Jeremy Lin has become a media sensation in the NBA.

For the losing Princeton side, Ian Hummer and Douglas Davis scored 14 points each for the Tigers.

Here is a wrap-up of Friday scores in the Ivy League:

*-home teams

*Yale 75 Columbia 57
*Harvard 67 Princeton 64
Penn 57 *Dartmouth 54
Cornell 69 *Brown 53

Sports Desk: Princeton Beats Harvard 70-62

It is a very rare occasion when an Ivy League men's basketball is nationally televised, but since then 21st ranked Harvard University had won nine basketball games in a row, it's road game with Princeton on Saturday night set up a pivotal match-up.

And, the underdog Princeton Tigers (13-10, 4-3 in Ivy League play) prevailed with a 70-62 win thanks in large part to Ian Hummer's (pictured) 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists.

Other players for the Tigers who scored in double figures were T.J. Bray (12), Brendan Connolly (11), Denton Koon (10) and Mark Darrow (10).

In defeat for the Crimson, Keith Wright scored 16 points and Brandyn Curry, of Huntersville, NC, scored 15 points.

Harvard did prevail in the team's road game against Pennsylvania by a 56-50 score on Friday night with 17 points from freshman Corbin Miller.

On Friday night, Princeton won its home game over struggling Dartmouth, a team with a 4-20 record, by a 59-47 margin.

Like Princeton, Cornell also had a triumphant homestand over the weekend in the Ivy League. The Big Red (10-12, 5-3) went on a 15-1 run in the second half to defeat Brown 72-63 on Saturday night. The night before, the team won an overtime thriller over Yale 85-84 in overtime.

For the Big Red, Chris Wroblewski, a senior from Highland Park, Ill., was named Ivy League Men's Basketball Palyer of the Week.

In other Ivy League sports, Harvard's women's hockey player Jillian Dempsey was named the school's athelete of the week as she scored five goals, one short of an NCAA record, in the team's 10-1 victory over Princeton.

And, in women's gymnastics, Cornell, one of four Ivy League schools with women's gymnastics teams (Yale, Brown and Penn are the others) came in second at the team's Big Red Invitanial.

The school in Ithaca, New York, came in second behind Southern Connecticut in the four-team meet. Lexi Schupp of Cornell won bars and her teammate Maelanie Stanrdige won beam.

The final score of the meet was: Southern Connecticut 190.05, Cornell 189.55, Ithaca College 187.250 and West Chester 185. 750.

Here is the full scoreboard in men's basketball for the Ivy League, which traditionally plays its games on Friday and Saturday nights.

Friday:

Cornell 85 Yale 84, OT

Harvard 56 Penn 50

Princeton 59 Dartmouth 47

Columbia 86 Brown 60

Saturday:

Cornell 72 Brown 63

Princeton 70 Harvard 62

Penn 58 Dartmouth 55

Yale 59 Columbia 58

This and That- Apparently Smart People Have Intimacy Issues

I was thumbing through the current issue of "Psychology Today" this afternoon in a public library when this article caught my attention. The headline read something like: "Why Smart People Have Less Sex."

I did not take any notes from the article, but my assumption is that if a guy is reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in its entirety, well yes, it might well take precendent over other things.

The article did mention (I believe) that if men make more money, they are more likely to have more sex. I did not see any mention in the article of how income levels affected women's sex lives.

But, I found out tonight, that this matter has been discussed for a while. In a Sept. 2008, a blogger from Palo Alto, Calif., where Stanford- a smart school-is siad that a recent test had found that teenagers with low iqs in the 100 range were up to five times more likely to be sexually actually than teens with high iqs in the 1200-1300 range.

The blogger later mentioned that only 56 percent of undergrads at Priceton University were having sex while only 65 percent of MIT grads had found time to make love and presumably kick butt on their final exams.

All of this could be argued though I suppose, as everything these days seems to be argued irregardless if it is from the ACLU or the Tea Party (editorial comment: we prefer the ACLU). And, there is the case of Karen Owen, a Duke University student who made a Powerpoint presentation on her thesis in 2010 about her college romps which included having sex with 13 male Blue Devils athletes, most of whom were reportedly lacrosse players. Maybe, those guys weren't reading Tolstoy.

Special Quote of the Week- Bill Bradley

While the Republicans like Newt Gingrich are having their brewhaha this weekend in New Orleans, we thought we'd quip the NBA legend and former Democratic New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, who was among the first to endorse Barack Obama in his party nomination bid (I actually backed Hillary Clinton!).

While researching this piece, we learned that Bradley has a new book called "The New American Story" and he hosts a Sirius Satellite Radio show called "American Voices." Bradley is also the corporate director of Starbucks; we wonder if he has dropped into the Starbucks in Front Royal, Va., but he is probably a bit too busy for that.

Though he grew up in Missouri, Bradley came to prominence in New Jersey early in life as a member of the Princeton University Tigers. He won a team gold medal for the United States at the 1964 Olympics, and he was named NCAA player of the year in 1965.

Bradley then went on to play for the New York Knicks where he helped win NBA titles in 1970 and 1973, with teammates such as Walt Frazier and Willis Reed. Bradley's number 24 was also retired by the Knicks.

He was a senator for New Jersey from 1979 to 1997, and he unsuccessfully sought the 2000 Democratic nomination which went to Al Gore. Bradley was endorsed by none other than Michael Jordan, who is featured on our other blog "The Daily Vampire" today.

Here is the quote from Bradley who will turn 68 on July 28th:

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Bill Murray

We thought we'd feature an image of a famous Irish-American for St. Patrick's Day. When my mom told me she was going to go to Dublin a few years ago, I thought she meant Dublin, Va., where Pulaski County High School is, as opposed to Dublin, Ireland!

One of Murray's most famous films "Ghostbusters" will be on Nick-TV tommorow night at 9 p.m., New York time.

We had initially hoped to see how far apart Lexington, Ky., where the University of Kentucky is, from Priceton, NJ, where Princeton University is, were. But, yesterday's blog entries were quite time-consuming! We assume if they weren't playing at a neutral site that the respective team bus drivers would know the way. That game is currently underway, and at last report (well, it was about 30 minutes ago) Kentucky was winning 11-4.

We also wish the University of Asheville (NC) Bulldogs well as they face the top seed Pitt Panthers today as well. If they win, perhaps that means that one day, I might just be able to go on a Starbucks coffee date with Uma Thurman.

Lastly, we want to make readers that many NPR stations are having fund-drives. We are especially concerned about the plight of excellent small market stations like WMRA in Harrisonburg, Va., and KUNC in Greeley, Col.

That Colorado town is also home to the 'other UNC,' the University of Northern California Bears who are in this year's NCAA field. They will play the two-seed San Diego State Aztecs in the opening round.