Say What?
A very Petty comment: Danica can’t race
Danica Patrick won the pole at last year’s Daytona 500 and finished eighth in the race, but Richard Petty was not impressed. Asked about Patrick’s prospects for the Feb. 23 race, the retired NASCAR superstar said the only way she could win “is if everybody else stayed home.”
King Richard said that while Patrick can run fast, she doesn’t know how to race. In his view, her role is to provide publicity for the sport, which he acknowledges she does very well. But driving ability? “If she’d have been a male, nobody would have known if she’d showed up at a race track.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he thought Petty was being “a little rough.”
Petty, 76, insisted he wasn’t being sexist, but he once said, “I just don’t think this is a sport for women.”
About to resign, Mack advised recruits to look elsewhere
As he was about to resign as head coach to accept a job as “special adviser” for the U of Texas — at $500,000 per year — Mack Brown was advising recruits to consider other options than Texas.
In an interview with KTRK TV in Houston, safety John Bonney said: “I was at my official visit when Mack Brown resigned, and he told us to go look around, he’ll even talk to other coaches for you because he really just wanted the best for us as players.”
Bonney, a 3-star recruit, took Brown’s advice and visited some other schools, but he ended up signing at Texas.
Phillips advised Texans owner ‘to take Johnny Football’
Wade Phillips, former defensive coordinator and then interim head coach of the Houston Texans, saw a connection between his endorsement of Johnny Manziel as the overall No. 1 draft pick and his firing by owner Bob McNair. In an interview with Houston’s 610 SportsRadio, Philllips said: “When I did the interview (for head coach) with the McNairs, I told them they ought to take Johnny Football. That’s what I told them, and I’m sitting here without a job.”
Dear Wade: Your defense ranked 23rd against the run and allowed 29 touchdown passes while intercepting 7. You went 0-2 as interim head coach, got outscored 53-23. Don’t blame Johnny Football, who is an Aggie, as is McNair. You were pandering to the owner, and it didn’t work.
Houston’s Royce White was worst draft pick ever
Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey drafted Royce White in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft despite the player having a severe anxiety disorder. White was cut by the Rockets and then by Philadelphia and has yet to play a minute in the NBA.
“You could argue,” Morey said, “that Royce White is the worst first-round pick ever.”
Commenting on Oregon’s failure to sign any 5-star recruits, coach Mark Helfrich said, “I’m sure my wife wishes she married George Clooney. She moved on. We will too.”
The fiancée of Miami Heat All-Star Dwyane Wade, actress Gabrielle Union, is insisting on a pre-nuptial agreement. “I’ve never seen Dwyane balance a checkbook,” she said. “So I gotta protect myself.”
LA Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax told the Los Angeles Times that the team’s right fielder Yasiel Puig has arm strength comparable to Roberto Clemente. But Koufax added, “I’d like to see him throw it to the right place all the time.”
Dockett calls Chris Rix ‘Bowden’s biggest mistake’
Arizona Cardinals defensive lineman Darnell Dockett is an active tweeter (@ddockett) and created controversy with his rankings of Florida State quarterbacks. “Best FSU QB’s: Charlie Ward, Chris Weinke, Jameis Winston, EJ Manuel.”
Asked where his former teammate Chris Rix would rank, Dockett tweeted: “Worst QB in FSU history, Bobby Bowden’s biggest mistake, main reason we lost our swag.”
There is some history here. Rix infuriated Dockett by saying on a radio show last year that the team questioned Dockett’s sexuality and made jokes about it.