Free Republic

Less than two years ago, Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn announced the firing of coach Jim Caldwell. Quinn’s reasoning was that Caldwell wasn’t delivering enough victories and the Lions were stalled out as good, but not great. “I think we have more than a competitive team to be competing for championships,” Quinn said. “… At the end of the day, it’s wanting to take this team to the next level … To me, that’s winning championships, that’s winning playoff games and that’s winning the Super Bowl.” Bold talk. Unapologetic talk. This is the NFL, not Pop Warner, so demanding...

Police in riot gear flooded the field of a youth football game in Southern California to stop a brawl that involved dozens and possibly hundreds of adult spectators. Chino police told the San Bernardino Sun they received several calls saying a melee had broken out amid a crowd of hundreds of parents who were watching a Pop Warner playoff game at the city’s Ayala Park on Saturday. Sgt. Frank Mena said ..... one of the teams was from Alhambra, but did not know the hometown of the other. Chino is in San Bernardino County 35 meals east of Los Angeles.

A 13-year-old football player faces possible paralysis after suffering a spinal injury in a Pop Warner football game. Donnovan Hill fractured his spine Sunday during the Midget Orange Bowl championship game. The star running back for the Lakewood Lancers dropped to the ground after hitting his head while trying to block a play. Hill’s mother, Crystal Dixon, says Hill loves football, and was being recruited by two private schools to play for them. She says he is being strong for everyone. Dixon says Hill told her, “be strong, I’m alright, this is part of football.” Family, friends, and teammates say...

Established coaches in the elite Eastern schools like Army, Harvard, Pennsylvania and Yale failed to embrace the pass. It was also a gamble. Passes couldn’t be thrown over the line on five yards to either side of the center. An incomplete pass resulted in a 15-yard penalty, and a pass that dropped without being touched meant possession went to the defensive team. “Because of these rules and the fact coaches at that time thought the forward pass was a sissified type of play that wasn’t really football, they were hesitant to adopt this new strategy,” says Kent Stephens, a historian...

WHO LET THE DOGGS OUT?:Someone, somewhere, has gotten something drastically wrong. "Snoop Dogg has just inked a deal to coach football..." Saying it out loud doesn't make it sound any better. The rapper and "music" star turned convicted felon turned movie star turned T-Mobile spokesperson has reached a deal to star in and executive produce a feature based on his experience as the coach of his young son's football team. According to Reuters-NY 20th Century Fox beat out several bidders and paid $1,000,000 for "Coach Snoop". "This film is about how I learned to be a good father through coaching," Snoop...

Hoping to follow former Bond girls such as Halle Berry, Jane Seymour and Ursula Andress, Britney Spears met in London recently with the producers of the James Bond movies, reportedly at her request. Spears' Web site says she has signed on to produce and star in an adaptation of author Tobi Tobin's Door to Door, in which she will play a teenager trying to catch her big break in Hollywood.