Anyone up for a STATE Q&A? I’ll be nice – it’s sports people, everyone has an opinion. So I’m going to ask you a few questions and you reply with some answers.

Will standout junior high school quarterback Chris Garrett out of Tupelo sign with Mississippi State? He’s been a STATE fan and season ticket holder for as long as he can remember. Will his presence at STATE make fans happier and sell more season tickets? We’ll have to way a year to find out.

Also in a year we might see a lot of changes at STATE – like a new head coach possibly? Sylvester Croom has had a real go ofg it the last three years. He’s been optimistic, and yes he has to be, but with only nine wins in the last three years things have been tough. This year we'll see if it’s a glass half full or a glass half empty. So do you think his promise of making it to a bowl game this year will really happen?

Also, being new to the state of Mississippi, I’m new to this whole cowbell thing. And apparently I won’t get introduced to the MSU cowbell because no “artificial noisemakers” are allowed anymore at games. How can this be? The cowbell is the STATE noise or something right?

Look... ff nothing we write gives you reason to comment this – the extinction of the cowbell – should give you something to write about.

USM, Ole Miss, Jackson State, Alcorn State…your Q&A will come.

Christi

With all of the bad news surrounding professional sports - indictments for vicious dog-fighting, mob-related gambling, questionable steroid use, and engine rigging - I think we’re in need of a feel-good story from the game of golf. No, not another story of a young guy beating the odds and shooting 20-under par to win his first Major, but a story of a senior female golfer from Meridian, Mississippi.

This Friday, Lou Weddington Hart will join her dad, H.D. Weddington in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and become the first father-daughter duo inducted into the Hall. Hart has had a stellar golf career, winning more Mississippi Women’s Golf Association State Amateur titles (9) than any other woman in state history.

Before Annika Sorenstam played with the men on the PGA Tour and before Michelle Wie was even born, Hart was playing on the men’s golf team at Meridian Community College. Twenty-six years later she went onto coach the men’s golf team.

Thanks to the coaching she received from her father at an early age she can add another honor to her scorecard and share a Hall of Fame victory with him.

And we all lived happily ever after. The End.

37 days until college football starts!!

Christi

The tennis ball won’t be the only thing that will make your head turn at the high school All-Star Tennis match on Friday, keeping up with which Vinson triplet is which might just make you dizzy.

Identical triplets Jason, Jody and Jonathan Vinson of Tupelo are playing their last high school tennis match on Friday at the Bridges Tennis Center in Jackson. The #3 combo will represent the North and could bring with them a strategic game plan.

Jason has the best serve so he could come in at the top of the match, during a water break Jody could come in provide a great backhand and for the final trick play Jonathan could finish off the opponent with his strong forehand and quickness. How sweet would that be?

Imagine the possibilities of having two siblings that look just like you! I have a twin sister, Amy but unfortunately we don’t look alike. I had always wished we were identical so we could be a dominant duo on the softball field with a double duty performance. Even though we don’t look alike we still cause double trouble – just as I’m sure the triplets will cause a triple threat on the court.

Play begins at 1:00PM on Friday

Christi

It’s a question that can’t be answered until the NCAA clears Jerrell Powe’s academic eligibility, but it’s a question many schools in the SEC would like to answer. Or would they? Ole Miss signed the standout phenom defensive tackle as a sure thing, only to be faced with academic accusations that put the school in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Will they take a third chance or will another SEC school sign the 6-foot-3, 345-pound blue-chip player?

These days university’s are less willing to take on controversial cases like Powe’s that might give the NCAA watchdog reason to bark. Oklahoma is a prime example. The football program had to dismiss its wins from the 2005 season and lose two scholarships for the ’08 and ’09 seasons after two players were kicked off the team for being paid for work they never performed.

It’s unfortunate that players and programs alike are receiving more press for their actions off the field or in the classroom than on the field.

I hope wherever Powe goes that he will get to play and put up great numbers, and even better grades.

As my grandmother used to say, “One thing that can never be taken away from you is your education.”

Christi

Oh yes the day has finally come…David Beckham has arrived in America! Oh and that posh girl came with him and brought their adorable boys who were all dressed the same. So cute it’s nauseating.

The Beckham family is now the American royal family. They bring star status, designer clothes and immediate exposure to the US Soccer league. The Beckham Brand will turn anything into gold. They will bring worldwide marketing to a whole new level with Beckham’s new Adidas deal and many others.

Soccer moms adore him, kids want to play like him and every tabloid wants a piece of him. And this is all before he even steps onto the soccer field!

The question among many is… Will he produce more than just tabloid headlines? What are the chances the LA Galaxy wins the MLS Cup this year? Will his $250 million contract then be validated? What if he gets injured and can only sit the bench?
Well, I guess he still has his wife who moonlights as a spice girl to carry the family name!

Tell me what you want, what you really really want!

Christi

Today’s sports headlines were filled with lots of numbers. Not scoring averages, number of homeruns hit at the Homerun Derby or NASCAR points, but dollar amounts.

$100 million 5-year potential extension for Ichiro with the Seattle Mariners.
$43.5 million 5-year extension earned by Sidney Crosby from the Pittsburg Penguins.(He’s a hockey player in case you didn’t know)
$55.63 million is now the NBA salary cap, up $2.5 million from last year.
$250 million in 5 years is what David Beckham will earn with the LA Galaxy soccer team this year. That’s approximately 1 million a week!
That is a lot of zeros…a lot

It’s interesting when you look at it.
Crosby will earn almost 9 million a year... that's $110,000 a game!
In the same amount of time (one year) Beckham will earn more than twice as much as Ichiro. And in my lifetime I will never earn as much as any of them!

It really does Pay to Play! So what do you think, do these athletes really deserve that kind of money? Does their talent match their paycheck?

It really does pay to play!

Christi

I read many hours and researched strenuously for this posting…in the recent US Weekly and People of course! Too much surprise they actually contain sports news, really guys they do! I mean Tiger Woods became a dad the day after he placed second in the U.S. Open and NBA Champion Tony Parker is getting married to Eva Longoria this weekend in France. WWF wrestler Chris Benoit is on the cover of the next People magazine after the horrific family murder-suicide and Alex Rodriguez and his wife can’t seem to stay off the front page of the NY Post. See sports and Hollywood do go together…kinda.

ESPN is trying to make the connection with their series “Who’s Now?” It’s a viewer voting competition of sports figures that are popular on and off the field. In my opinion it’s also a way to fill the summer broadcast. There’s already an hour worth of Baseball Tonight and you’re always guaranteed the Top Ten so they had to create something to keep it interesting. I almost want Barry Bonds to hit number 755 just to create some headlines. I bet he’ll make it into the next US Weekly, just not in the ‘Stars, they’re just like us’ section.

What sports headlines would you like to see this blockbuster summer?

Do you consider sports athletes as celebrities?

Christi

Mississippi State softball head coach Jay Miller has been a busy traveling man. He’s gone from Starkville, Mississippi to Tucson, Arizona to Enschede, The Netherlands and back. In The Netherlands he picked up some extra baggage – a Gold Medal!

Miller coached the U.S. Junior National team to a Gold Medal victory over China in the Junior Women’s World Championship! It’s the first Gold medal for America since 1995. That’s something to celebrate on this July 4th!

Freedom to Play! It’s a freedom we share with countries all around the world. From the soccer fields in South America to the basketball courts in Russia, play is free. At any age or any nationality play can be expressed in many ways; chase, go fish, bridge, tennis, softball, cricket, racket ball, or chess. What do you play? What freedom is most important to you? Feel "free" to express yourselves…it’s a freedom many don’t have.

Tell us all about it…whatever "it" may be.

Christi