Morning briefing
They can’t dig short shorts
Daisy Duke and Wilt Chamberlain were not on the U.S. men’s volleyball team last anyone checked, so the players no longer want to wear uniforms featuring shorts some have likened to those worn in “The Dukes of Hazzard” and by 1960s basketball players.
International regulations require teams to wear shorts with four-inch inseams. That leaves a little too much leg showing for guys as tall as 6 feet 9, so the team produced a tongue-in-cheek video -- complete with a guest appearance by Misty May-Treanor -- about how to raise money to pay a $10,000 fine for wearing longer shorts.
“Volleyball is a European-dominated thing and they really like these fitted, cute little outfits, so that’s what we have to wear,” outside hitter Reid Priddy told the New York Times. “But our style is more X-Games, beach kind of stuff. I have tan lines past my knee to prove it.”
Trivia time
The U.S. men’s volleyball team has qualified for every Olympic Games since 1984. When did it last win a medal?
Can’t stand it
Jeffrey Flanagan of the Kansas City Star reported that the Chiefs recently unveiled a fan conduct policy that prohibited fans from standing during games.
The policy stated, “the Arrowhead Stadium staff will proactively intervene with fans who are standing and/or obstructing the view of other fans.”
“Hmmm. No standing during a football game? Ever? Is that even possible?” Flanagan wrote. “Well, maybe it is, considering how dull the Chiefs’ offense was last season.”
The policy was quickly amended to read that there should be no “continuous standing and/or obstructing the view of other fans.”
Playing favorites
Dwyane Wade returned from Team USA mini-camp last week and one of his first orders of business was to call Michael Beasley, the Miami Heat’s first-round draft pick, and welcome Beasley to the team.
The problem is, Beasley never returned the call.
“He big-manned me. He didn’t call me back,” Wade told the Miami Herald. “I know it’s very hectic for him right now. His voicemail is very full. . . . Everyone’s calling and wanting to talk to him. He’s got a lot going on. But he kind of big-manned me a little bit.”
Maybe Wade should put Beasley in his Fave 5.
Making a splash
Darren Taylor, whose stage name is Professor Splash, set a world record last week by doing a belly flop from 35 feet 5 inches into one foot of water, according to Denver television station KUSA.
The video, available at YouTube, shows the leap into a padded baby pool.
Taylor said his technique is to “skip across the water” on landing and that “experience and research” are vital to his success.
Still, he said, it takes nerves of steel to leap from three stories up into a shallow pool.
“I’m nervous, it’s a good thing,” he said. “I’m always on the ball to make sure you don’t do anything wrong,” he said.
Trivia answer
The team’s last medal was a bronze in 1992. It also won gold in ’84 and ’88. In 2004, the U.S. finished fourth.
And finally
Tiger Woods was a 5-2 favorite for the British Open at Royal Birkdale after winning the U.S. Open, but his season-ending knee surgery has cast Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els as co-favorites at 12-1.
“But if they do win, there will be an asterisk because Tiger wasn’t there,” Hunter Mahan said. “They’re going to be the Houston Rockets of the mid-’90s when they won back-to-back titles after Michael Jordan retired.”
--