The Debriefing: SchruteBucks XXXI

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



+50 SchruteCents, Roger Clemens

Roger Clemens is either really adamant that he was wrongly named in the Mitchell Report, or he really wants it to look that way.

First, he took the fight to YouTube, and now he's hired private investigators to poke holes at the credibility of Brian McNamee, the guy who says he shoved performance enhancers into Clemens' tushie (said tushie pictured above).

If the investigators are looking to discredit McNamee, it could be really, really difficult for them ... they might have to go so far as reading ESPN.com or FanHouse. I don't know what they're hoping to turn up, but if their goal is to expose McNamee as a shady character, I think most people already put that together from the fact that he was injecting steroids into people's asses in hotel rooms.

But McNamee being shady and McNamee lying about Clemens are two different things. Maybe McNamee has an agenda, and Clemens certainly has an agenda, but one guy who remains agenda-free is George Mitchell, and he was confident enough about his findings to put Roger Clemens' name into his final report.

I'm not saying that you should blindly trust any of the above, but I have yet to hear anything from Roger Clemens that makes me want to believe him any more than any other accused user. To me, the only difference between Clemens, Barry Bonds, Shawne Merriman, or Rafael Palmiero is that Clemens is a little more aggressive with his spin.

-4,000,000, Rich Rodriguez

West Virginia University would like to extract the same amount from Rodriguez, except they'd like it to be in actual legal tender. They're suing Rodriguez for the $4 million that was supposed to be his buyout.

Rodriguez (pictured to the right, next to a guy with a t-shirt reading "I'm With ---hole") doesn't want to pay, for several reasons ... one, he alleges that WVU breached his contract by not meeting certain demands. And two, his wife spends nearly that much money in a given year on makeup in the feeble hope that she could one day be as attractive as Brenda Warner after a fiery car accident.

That was a cheap shot, and completely inappropriate. I apologize.

Eventually, WVU's going to get the hang of this "buyout" business. Former head basketball coach John Beilein was able to get out of paying his full $2.5 million buyout, because WVU forgot to specify in the contract that Beilein had to pay the $2.5 million in a certain amount of time. Coach Beilein theoretically could have paid $1 a year for 2.5 million years ... so he was able to get the number down to about $1.5 million.

I don't know how the thing with Rodriguez will play out. He's expected to countersue, and I honestly couldn't tell you if there was any contract breach or not. You'd think, however, after the systematic rape of West Virginia's athletic department, that Michigan would at least be good enough leave $4 million on the dresser.

+35,000, Evonne Goolagong

1976 was the year of Evonne Goolagong (who must've really been something before electricity), but no one knew it. Evonne was, for a two-week stretch, the top-ranked player in women's tennis, but because of an inability to properly transfer computer records (it was 1976, after all, this might have taken over 100 people), she was never properly recognized.

But today, with all of our eBays and Googles and fancy addin' machines, Goolagong finally got that recognition. The WTA Tour sent her a big trophy to commemorate her world's #1 ranking.

In April 1976, she leapfrogged Chris Evert by .8 points after winning the Virginia Slims (that's the name of a tournament; Miss Goolagong did not actually win a carton of cigarettes). Evert jumped back on top on May 10th.

It probably works out better this way for Goolagong, honestly. In 1976, computer rankings didn't mean much (which, incidentally, means that women's tennis in 1976 was more highly evolved than college football in 2007). It wouldn't have made her any more or less famous back then, and if this hadn't happened today, I'd have never heard of the lady, and she'd be short 35,000 mythical SchruteBucks.

+14,000, Marvin Harrison and Terry Glenn

Week 17 is shaping up to be the week of the aging wide receiver who might also make a substantial playoff impact. Marvin Harrison, 35, and Terry Glenn, 33, are both old as hell -- not for the earth, but for football -- and they're not done contributing in '07.

Harrison hasn't played since October 22nd, and is expected to see some playing time for the Colts, while Glenn, who hasn't played since last year, will be in the line-up for the Cowboys. They're both nice little aces-in-the-hole for their respective teams to play ... depending on their health, they're both good enough to add a whole new wrinkle to a playbook.

I don't think it's crazy to wonder, even, if Harrison missing all that time was a good thing for the Colts. When he first went out with the knee injury, the Colts looked more screwed than the team in Air Bud: Golden Receiver if the Russians had been successful in actually kidnapping Bud (perish the thought).

In Harrison's absence, though, Anthony Gonzalez was forced to become a playmaker, and Peyton Manning was forced to develop a little chemistry with the rookie. Now, they add Harrison back into the mix, and they're a stronger team than they were before they lost him.

+1,000, Gigi Becali

My thanks to Frank Deford for alerting me to the presence of The Observer's World's Oddest Soccer Owner award. Deford uses the award as a jump-off to name Jim Dolan the World's Oddest Owner, period, but I'd like to go back and examine some of the other candidates for the oddest soccer owner.

The winner, Gigi Becali, owns a Romanian team, and is widely thought of as the most homophobic man in his country (it's always good to excel at something) and he once commissioned a painting of himself in the middle of Da Vinci's Last Supper, with his team surrounding him like the apostles.

This beats out a fellow named George Reynolds, an ex-safe cracker who was also did time in 2005 for fraud. It also tops Vladimir Romanov, who personally owns a nuclear submarine, and once wrote this letter to the press covering his team:

Dear Monkeys. Look in the mirror. You are one step away from becoming human beings. Your leader Mowgli is greedy and makes you collect rotten stories from cesspits and poison readers with them. This is unworthy even of a monkey.

And Michael Roth, who once expressed a desire to kill all of his players:

'I have a gun. I have a licence. I would be very interested in blowing their brains out.' Roth's colleague, club director Edgar Geenan, added: 'You players are s---. You are the scum of the earth. You are the leprosy. Go f--- yourselves. If I had the choice I would punch you all in the head.' 'Geenan is a motivator,' said Roth.

Geenan is a motivator. I'd like to see him get into the race for the head coaching position at West Virginia.

For the Scrapbook ...

Yesterday's MVP

Jamaal Charles. And no one finds Charles more valuable this morning than Chris Jessie, a member of Texas's football operations staff and head coach Mack Brown's stepson.

Charles, who ran for 161 yards and 2 TDs, was a big part of the reason that Texas was able to overcome Jessie's colossal mental breakdown in the 2nd quarter. Observe:



After the game, Jessie said that he never touched the ball, and that this "could have happened to anyone." The first part, I can believe ... the second part, not so much.

There were quite a few other dudes over there on the sidelines, and none of them -- perhaps astutely realizing that they are not active participants in the game at that moment -- reached down to pick up the ball. Check out the guy in the background in this picture, who appears to be looking at Jessie and thinking, "WHAT THE ****, MAN?!"

If this is something that could happen to anyone, I'd think it would happen more often. It might be more accurate to say that this could happen to anyone who isn't paying attention, and maybe shouldn't be on the sidelines to begin with. If you want to be that close to the field, you have to be operating at a mental level slightly above, "Look, there's a football ... I think I'll grab it."

Jessie also said that he thought it was a forward pass, which is either something he's making up, or he's not quite as sharp and observant as Brent Musburger, who knew right away that it was a live ball. Either way, it's not a good sign for Chris Jessie.

Yesterday's Sad Sack

KTHV Little Rock. Via Sports by Brooks, this report surfaced yesterday about Arkansas running back Darren McFadden being seen driving a new Cadillac Escalade.

What's the big deal about McFadden in an Escalade, you might ask? Nothing, really ... unless you want to assume that McFadden obtained the car as a gift from an agent, and thus jeopardized his bowl eligibility.

Why anyone would jump to that conclusion, I really don't know ... but KTHV in Little Rock is at least considering it. The more likely assumption is that McFadden's smart enough not to take a gift from an agent before his college career is over, and was able to purchase the car on the promise of future earnings ... and if he wasn't that smart, certainly some compliance officer at Arkansas would have been.

You can't expect a guy to drive a Ford Crown Victoria rolling on 24s forever, you know.

For Those Who Admire the Female Form ...

Just for the record, it's the woman on the right whose form we're admiring. I hope there's no confusion about that.

The Evening's Agenda

Deserving Of Your Full Attention ...

9:00, ESPNU. College Basketball. Butler @ Southern Illinois. It's hard to ignore the prestige and pageantry that comes with a bowl game played at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday, but you can never really go wrong with Butler vs. Southern Illinois.

Other Stuff ...

5:00, ESPN. College Football. Champs Sports Bowl. Boston College vs. Michigan State.
8:00, TNT. Movie. The Replacements.
8:00, Fox Soccer. MISL. Detroit Ignition @ Chicago Storm.
8:00, NFL Network. College Football. Texas Bowl. Houston vs. Texas Christian.
8:30, ESPN. College Football. Maryland vs. Oregon State.