Culture

http://www.2theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/19447999.html There is always work to be done. LSU won its regional with an 11-4 victory Sunday night against Southern Miss, and LSU pitching coach Terry Rooney had another job on his hands. His wife wanted photos of her with Paul Mainieri’s wife and the girlfriend of assistant coach Javi Sanchez. He obliged. Click. Click. “My duty,” Rooney said. “Honey-do list.” The camera was soon replaced in his hands by sheets of paper representing the labor of his pitchers during the regional, including the starting point of his agenda for the week. “Our relief pitching for the last few weeks has been very good,” Rooney said after watching Paul Bertuccini slam the door and Jared Bradford put a chair against it. “I thought this weekend our starting pitching was average.” Ryan Verdugo and Blake Martin did their jobs, giving the Tigers a chance to win, but they’ll need better command in the super regional against UC Irvine. The Advocate.com 6/2/08

http://www.kmsstv.com/sports/19448499.html The crowd crammed into old Alex Box Stadium rose to its feet in anticipation, chanting, "L-S-U!" as sweet-swinging Blake Dean stepped into the batter's box with the bases loaded. "I got the chills, goose bumps, whatever you want to call it," said LSU third baseman Michael Hollander, who was on second base. "There was no doubt in my mind Blake was going to get the big hit. ... I know the pressure was on, but he's come through so many times." The Tigers' leading hitter gave the purple-and-gold clad fans the moment of rapture they sensed was imminent, clobbering an 0-2 pitch on one bounce to the right-center field wall for a bases-clearing triple, which Dean celebrated by pumping both fists as he came up from his slide at third. Dean's crushing blow and Leon Landry's early two-run homer highlighted yet another impressive triumph for the sizzling Tigers, who beat Southern Mississippi 11-4 Sunday night to wrap up the Baton Rouge regional and extend their winning streak to 23 games. KMSS-TV.com 6/2/08

http://www.leadercall.com/sports/local_story_150105530.html?keyword=topstory Guess who was the last non-SEC team to beat LSU? Would you believe UNO? In fact the Privateers have knocked off the highly touted Tigers twice this season, the last victory coming April 16 in a 6-5 triumph in New Orleans. LSU had to rally late to take a 7-6 win over UNO in mid-May to keep their 20-game winning streak in tact. “We’ve had three games decided in the last at-bat against them this season,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “They’re as good a hitting team as there is in the country.” UNO coach Tim Walter knows his team is good and will let the world know about it. “This is a signature statement for our program,” said Walter, whose squad received an at-large bid and faces Southern Miss Friday at 6 p.m. in the Baton Rouge Regional Laurel Leader Call 5/29/08

http://www.al.com/sports/mobileregister/thicks.ssf?/base/sports/1212398149262080.xml&coll=3 Last season, for the second year in a row, a SEC team won the national championship. Florida quarterback Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy, the first sophomore to ever win the trophy, and the league posted a 7-2 record in bowl games, including impressive wins by Georgia over Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl and LSU over Ohio State in the BCS national championship game. The league held the top two spots in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll, with LSU at No. 1 and Georgia at No. 2, and placed three other teams — No. 12 Tennessee, No. 13 Florida and No. 15 Auburn — among the top 15 spots. It was quite a season for the league considered by many to be the best football conference in the land. So, what does the league do for an encore? How could it possibly improve on that kind of success? Some of the SEC's coaches think it's possible. Talking about the upcoming season during the league's recent spring meetings, some of the coaches said, in short, hold on to your hats because this season might be even better. al.com 6/2/08

http://www.nfljuice.com/2008/05/31/favre-gets-gym-lockerliterally/ One day after the future of Brett Favre’s locker became a national issue, the team said it will take the locker he dressed in, out following the mandatory minicamp in June and give it to Favre. A new cherry wood replacement locker will then be installed at the entrance of the locker room in time for training camp at the end of July. “Obviously, I didn’t realize it was going to get this kind of attention,” Packers general manager Ted Thompson told theWisconsin State Journal Thursday. “We talked to Brett and (his wife) Deanna several weeks ago, and we thought that anybody who played 16 years here as well as he did might want his own locker. I think it makes it a little easier, quite frankly, for the next guy to go into there.” [USA Today] nfljuice.com 5/31/08

http://www.rockytoptalk.com/2008/6/2/543855/are-the-georgia-bulldogs-o College football pundits, emerging sliggishly from their hibernation and with their pupils still adjusting to the sun, are already uttering bold predictions for the coming season. What are they saying? Woof! Woof! Woof! According to Lindy's, the Georgia Bulldogs are preseason No. 1. Georgia appears to be the first team that SMQ addressed in his excellent Contenders series. Athlon and Football Time have the Dawgs ranked No. 5, and even my local paper is mentioning the Red and Black as a preseason favorite to win the national championship. Really? Well, with apologies to my friends in the Bulldog football blogosphere, I'm just not seeing it. Most-Cited Reasons for Georgia's Preseason National Championship Hype Momentum The argument goes . . . no team finished the 2007 season on a more convincing run than did Georgia. The Bulldogs, after losing two of their first six (to South Carolina and Tennessee), and after barely beating Vanderbilt 20-17, rode the much-publicized entire-team-on-the-field celebration penalty against Florida not only to a convincing win over the Gators but to a seven game winning streak. During that time, they averaged almost 38 points per game, including absolute thumpers against Auburn in their black jerseys and Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. rockytoptalk.com 6/2/08