The only bad part about having a sports column in the summer is that, frankly, there is often little to write about. The college season has ended, and the only professional sports going on are baseball, the WNBA and MLS. So, with this in mind, I have set out to help the sports fan plan his or her summer viewing plans.\nJune 23-July 6: Wimbledon. Perhaps the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, the only one that requires players to wear all white, and the one that seems to get the most rain delays (it takes place in England). It will be interesting to see if Serena Williams can bounce back from her disappointment in the French Open, and if Tim Henman can be the first English man to win the title since Fred Perry in 1936.\nJune 26: NBA Draft. The night will be the crowning of King James at Madison Square Garden. The suspense will really start with the Toronto Raptors and the fourth pick. Will TJ Ford go in the top 5, despite his lack of size and a reliable jumper? How many Europeans will be selected? Where will college stars like Dwayne Wade and Nick Collison end up?\nJuly 1: NBA free agents can negotiate with new teams. The man gaining the most print is Jason Kidd, but this could be a bumper year of free agents, including Elton Brand, Jermaine O'Neal, Brad Miller, Karl Malone and Scottie Pippen, just to name a few. Can any Eastern Conference team improve itself enough to seriously challenge the western powers?\nJuly 12: WNBA All-Star Game. After facing troubles with sponsorship, team relocation and the possibility of a player's strike, it will be interesting to see what the WNBA will do in order to gain viewers. At the age of five, the WNBA is the oldest women's professional league in American history, yet it still has never made a profit. Perhaps in this year's All-Star game, the WNBA will throw in a few tricks to make it more interesting to viewers.\nJuly 14-20: The British Open. Golf's third major will be held this year at Royal St. George's Golf Club in Sandwich, England. The executives at ABC are praying that the Tiger Woods of old shows up and is in contention Sunday. Without Tiger, golf is still a peripheral sport that the casual fan does not care about. With him, however, it is a totally different story.\nJuly 15: MLB's All-Star Game. Bud Selig has tried to juice up the mid-summer classic this year by awarding World Series home field to the league that wins. Is it really fair to the Yankees or the Braves that home field might rest on the shoulders of a Tampa Bay Devil Ray or Florida Marlin? Plus, any additional appeal the game might have had is quickly sucked out by the game being played at U.S. Cellular Field, one of the new stadiums that is outdated before its time.\nJuly 28: NFL Training Camps open. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Green Bay Packers are the first teams to open their camps. It's hard to get excited about football in the middle of summer, but it finally will give us something useful to talk about. Will Bill Parcells be a success in Big D? Can Tampa repeat? Can the Bengals actually look respectable?\nAugust 3: Brickyard 400. This is one of NASCAR's big events, and the second auto race of the year at Indy. Not being much of a racing fan, I cannot really analyze this, but I figured it deserved at least a mention, as I am sure at least some of you are going to the race. \nAugust 23: College football begins. This year's opener sees California take on Kansas State in the BCA Classic at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Kan. While this particular game might not be all that exciting, it shows us what is to come -- SEC shoot-outs, Big 12 clashes and the Old Oaken Bucket. Hopefully Coach DiNardo and the Hoosiers can bring some excitement to Bloomington.\nSummer sports are not nearly as exciting as during the rest of the year, but hopefully we can all make due until the NFL, college football, NBA, NHL and the World Series come around again.
Quick Hits\n• Lennox Lewis was the luckiest man in southern California Saturday night. Vitali Klitschko handled the heavyweight champion for the first six rounds of their bout, but the fight was ended because of a hideous gash over the Ukrainian's left eye. A rematch should be lined up as soon as possible, hopefully on HBO (like the first battle) and not as part of a $50 pay-per-view event.\n• The sporting world lost two legends this week when Larry Doby, the first African-American player in the American League, and Roger Nielsen, former NHL coach, both passed away. They will be missed.