'Tis the season to be a sports fan. The recipe for the perfect holiday dish is simple: Just add three or four cups controversy, a dash of violence, a sprinkle of feel good story and top it off with a scoop of scandal. Your sports salad, if you will, should be low in calories and high in entertainment. \nDon't eat it all at once. Take a couple weeks (12 days to be exact) and remember to chew slowly and never talk with your mouth full. \nGrab a large glass of egg nog, turn down Dick Vitale, and enjoy some of the truly great gifts sports have to offer. So as not to mislead you, this version has no turtle doves and no French hens. Also, this is in no way similar to Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song," although those Trailblazers can't seem to stay away from that marajuanic-ah. Cue the carolers, please.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, the sports world gave to me ...\nTWELVE replays of Warren Sapp's vicious hit on Chad Clifton. "Don't walk in a lion's den without a gun," said Sapp in response to the heavy criticism he took during the week that followed. Just because you carry a gun does not mean you have to shoot someone in the pelvis. Packer head coach Mike Sherman confronted Sapp after the game and apparently threw out an expletive. Sapp replied by inviting Sherman to "put on a jersey." Ironically, Clifton won't be able to wear one again this season.\nELEVEN wins recorded by the Iowa Hawkeyes. Without question the most unexpected success story of this college football season, Iowa has many believing that they are the best team in the Big Ten. Now if the Hawks' basketball team could only find enough players to scrimmage five-on-five…\nTEN times a day we hear about the controversy over whether to admit a woman member into Augusta National. Hootie Johnson says no, but everyone else seems to say yes. What we really want to know, however, is what Tiger Woods thinks.\nNINE p.m. ET, Dec. 14, ESPN. That's when "The Junction Boys" premieres. ESPN's second feature film has Tom Berenger portraying Paul "Bear" Bryant, a legendary coach who was Bobby Knight before Bobby Knight. It can't be worse than "Major League II."\nEIGHT The number of teams from each conference that make the NHL playoffs. The point here is that hockey's regular season is generally thought of as a waste of time. Teams fight (literally!) all year for home-ice advantage just to see a puck hit off a skate blade in overtime of game seven. \nSEVEN The number of wins that the Portland Trailblazers had a week ago. The Blazers would be lucky if underachieving was their biggest problem. Instead, Damon Stoudamire and Rasheed Wallace can't seem to say no to drugs, while Ruben Patterson treats his wife like Lennox Lewis treated Tyson. And if that's not bad enough, former Blazer first-round draft pick Erick Barkley proved recently that you can take the Trailblazer out of Portland but you can't take the Portland out of a Blazer when he was suspended by the Greek Basketball Federation after testing positive for marijuana. Keep blazin,' guys!\nSIX The previous position of Duke in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. Now at number two after handling UCLA, Ohio State and Michigan, Coach K's kids are at it again. Dunleavy, Boozer and Jay "don't call me Jason" Williams may have jumped to the NBA, but Chris Duhon, Dahntay Jones and Daniel Ewing are out to prove that Duke never really rebuilds -- they simply reload.\nFIVE Golden Rings. The five Olympic rings may be headed for New York City in 2012. Thanks largely in part to the strong resolve it showed after Sept. 11 and its position as an overwhelming sentimental favorite, New York beat out San Francisco as the U.S. representative. Now maybe everyone will forget about the scandals, bribery and dirty skating judges that have plagued the IOC? Doubt it.\nFOUR more months until baseball season. Will the Yankees get back to the World Series? We know that the Angels are one-hit wonders, but we really want to know how many of them will get busted for steroids. The Braves, once regarded as the best ran franchise in the league, have already lost Tom Glavine. Since I'm old enough to be the Red Sox GM, I feel qualified enough to let you in on next season's best kept secret -- Frank Thomas will have a big year. \nTHREE The number of matches that Russia needed to win its first Davis Cup. Agassi and Sampras will only play for the U.S. team if their schedule allows. When did representing your country become so passé?\nTWO shady! That's the way people are looking at horse racing these days. Once America's sport of kings, the sport, like the economy, has hit a downturn. Three fraternity guys from Drexel allegedly scammed their way to roughly $3 million, thanks to a computer generated Pick Six in the Breeders' Cup. Everything was fine until it was discovered that the three men had hit another Pick Six a few weeks back, and another…\nAnd a partridge in a pear tree!
