Happy Thanksgiving From Walker Sports

From all of us here at Walker Sports, we want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.  Enjoy your time with loved ones, family and friends.

And since we are in a giving mood, here are some special NFL picks for the Thanksgiving Day Football games.

Detroit +7 to cover again the Green Bay Packers

Dallas -7.5 to cover against the Miami Dolphins

San Francisco +3 to cover against the Baltimore Ravens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lee Corso Says "Ah F@ck It" On College Gameday

Here at Walker Sports we love ESPN's College Gameday. To be honest it's our favorite show on the network.  Saturday our love for the show reached new heights thanks to Lee Corso, and his on camera gaffe.

Joe Paterno Fired in Wake of Penn State Child-Sex Scandal

After days of speculation, it was finally announced, Penn State has fired head football coach Joe Paterno.  The firing comes as part of the fallout from a sex scandal that rocked the college football world, and destroyed the reputation of the town known as Happy Valley.

There has been plenty of speculation about Joe Paterno's future after the news of the scandal hit.  Earlier today, Paterno released a statement stating he would retire when the season was over.  However, that was not soon enough for the Penn State board of trustees who held an emergency meeting that resulted in Joe Paterno and Penn State president Graham Spainer being fired.


In their statement, the board announced, "The Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees and Graham Spanier have decided that, effective immediately, Dr. Spanier is no longer president of the University. Additionally, the board determined that it is in the best interest of the University for Joe Paterno to no longer serve as head football coach, effective immediately.

"The board has named Dr. Rodney A. Erickson, executive vice president and provost, as the interim president of the University. Tom Bradley, assistant coach, has been named interim head football coach."

Despite falling all over themselves, it finally appears that Penn State has done the right thing by removing the cancer from the university, and trying to take the first steps down the long road to recovery.  Now with the distraction of Joe Paterno and football out of the way, perhaps we can finally focus on what really matters.  Rebuilding the lives of victims who suffered at the hands of former coach Sandusky.  

Joe Paterno Retires as Penn State Head Coach

The scandal at Penn State is spiraling out of control, and the biggest name of all is set to fall.  Penn State football coach Joe Paterno officially announced he will step down as the head coach of Penn State university.

The following is an official statement released by Paterno and his people:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Nov. 9, 2011 -- I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.

I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: To serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care. I have the same goal today.

That's why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.

My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination. And then I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to help this University.

 While this is a decent first step it is obviously not enough.  It will be one of the biggest travesties in sports if Joe Paterno is allowed to step onto the sidelines for Penn State on Saturday.  

Penn State Prepping for Joe Paterno to Step Down

After four days of the worse PR spin since Hurricane Katrina, it looks as though Penn State is finally trying to make the right moves in handling the recent sex scandal that came to light.  Thanks to Mark Viera and Pete Thamel of the New York Times, we now have reports that Penn State is making moves to prepare for the departure of Joe Paterno, thus ending the longest running coaching regime in college football.

The board of trustees has yet to announce when they will have Joe Paterno step down, but it is clear that he will not be around for another season in Happy Valley.  The news of the sex scandal hit papers over the weekend, and has rocked the sporting world.  Joe Paterno, the patriarch of the Penn State football and the man largely associated as the face of the university is now being offered up to take the fall for the terrible situations that took place under his watch.

Currently the Penn State board of trustees is still working through how to handle the details of releasing Joe Paterno, but it can be confirmed from two sources, that the school is ready to part ways with the long time head coach.  Paterno would be the third member of the Penn State athletic depart fired in the wake of the current scandal. Paterno was scheduled to have his weekly press conference today, but that was canceled just moments before by school officials.

Harrisburg Pa. Paper Takes Joe Pa, and Penn State to Task

By now unless you're living under a rock, you've heard about the horrible crimes that have taken place at Penn State University over the last two decades.  While, we've avoided talking about those crimes here, we want to recognize those who have taken a stance and done what is right, unlike the Penn State officials.  The Patriot-News ran the following article on the cover of their paper today. Things are not good at Penn State, and that's a good thing.  Those who were in charge abused their power and should be taken to task and held accountable for the lives they ruined. er of their paper today. 

Shaq Tells All About Why He and Kobe Bryant Fought

It's no secret that Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal do not like each other.  From 2003 to 2007 the feud between the two NBA superstars ruled the television airwaves.  After 2007 the two men seemingly put their differences aside, for the good of the NBA, but from time to time the fans were still exposed to bad battle raps, and thinly veiled insults during interviews.

Now with Shaq retired from the NBA, and heading to the announcers booth, O'Neal felt it was time to pen a tell all book.  The new biography which is co-written by Jackie MacMullan is set to hit stores soon, and the portions of the book that have hit the internet are sure to make headlines.  One thing is apparent Shaq is not done with his feud with Kobe Bryant.

So I'm on edge because I don't have a new deal, and Kobe is on edge because he might be going to jail, so we're taking it out on each other. Just before the start of the '03-'04 season the coaching staff called us in and said, "No more public sparring or you'll get fined." ... Phil was tired of it. Karl Malone and Gary Payton were sick of it. ... So what happens? Immediately after that Kobe runs right out to Jim Gray and does this interview where he lets me have it. He said I was fat and out of shape. He said I was milking my toe injury for more time off, and the injury wasn't even that serious. (Yeah, right. It only ended my damn career.) He said I was "lobbying for a contract extension when we have two Hall of Famers playing pretty much for free." I'm sitting there watching this interview and I'm gonna explode. Hours earlier we had just promised our coach we'd stop. It was a truce broken. I let the guys know, "I'm going to kill him."
Kobe stands up and goes face-to-face with me and says, "You always said you're my big brother, you'd do anything for me, and then this Colorado thing happens and you never even called me." I did call him. ... So here we are now, and we find out he really was hurt that we didn't stand behind him. That was something new. I didn't think he gave a rat's ass about us either way. "Well, I thought you'd publicly support me, at least," Kobe said. "You're supposed to be my friend."
Brian Shaw chimed in with "Kobe, why would you think that? Shaq had all these parties and you never showed up for any of them. We invited you to dinner on the road and you didn't come. Shaq invited you to his wedding and you weren't there. Then you got married and didn't invite any of us. And now you are in the middle of this problem, this sensitive situation, and now you want all of us to step up for you. We don't even know you." ...
Everyone was starting to calm down when I told Kobe, "If you ever say anything like what you said to Jim Gray ever again, I will kill you."

Kobe shrugged and said, "Whatever."
[...]
From that day on, I was done dealing with Kobe. I was done dealing with Jim Gray, too. What goes around, comes around. When he got fired, he actually had the nerve to call me and ask me to help him out. What, did you lose Kobe's number?

 Shaq goes on to add;

He was so young and so immature in some ways, but I can tell you this: everything Kobe is doing now, he told me all the way back then he was going to do it. We were sitting on the bus once and he told me, "I'm going to be the number one scorer for the Lakers, I'm going to win five or six championships, and I'm going to be the best player in the game." I was like, "Okay, whatever." Then he looked me right in the eye and said, "I'm going to be the Will Smith of the NBA."

My first Lakers season we had a couple of rookies, and we hazed them pretty badly. We were dogging them out constantly. It was "Go get my bags, go get me something to eat." It was kind of a rite of passage in the NBA that a lot of teams do, but we probably went a little too far with it. One of the rookies—Derek Fisher(notes)—just took it. The other rookie—Kobe Bryant—ratted us out to Jerry West.

It's pretty obvious that this feud is nowhere near an ending.  One thing is for sure, Shaq knows how to snag a few headlines, and with stories about the rivalry between himself and Kobe, this new tell all is sure to move a few copies.