Even On Injured Reserve, Matt Leinart Keeps Taking Hits

Last year, Matt Leinart celebrated his new contract by paying $2.4 million for a six bedroom, six and a half bath, 6,800 square-foot, tuscan style home in an Arizona suburb called Ahwatukee. This week, he sold the house to Phoenix Suns forward and real estate mogul (he owns four homes in Arizona) Amare Stoudemire for $1.9 million, for a tidy loss of $500,000, or roughly a little more than three years of child support payments.

You can now add "Real Estate" to a growing list of subjects for which you would never want to ask Matt Leinart's advice. That list includes:

Birth control
Driver's Ed.
STDs (allegedly)
Parenting
Sportsmanship
Durability
Self-esteem

On the plus side, if you ever need tips on the foxtrot, Matt's your guy.

I Remember Kia Vaughn. She Was a Ho. Fo' Sho.

Don Imus has reached a settlement with CBS for an undisclosed sum (he was threatening to sue for $120 million) and now Rutgers center Kia Vaughn wants in on the action.

Vaughn is suing Imus for slander and defamation of character, claiming that she was "humiliated, embarrassed, and publicly mocked" by Don Imus's comment that the Rutgers basketball team was a bunch of "nappy-headed hos." I would have thought that being famous would have been a prerequisite for a defamation suit, but apparently it is not. What is required for slander however is that the statement be either expressly stated or implied to be factual. I'll admit that I'm not a Don Imus listener, but I guess the guy makes quite an impression, because according to the lawsuit:

"The ... false, defamatory, sexually denigrating and slanderous statements and comments against the women athletes of said basketball team were heard, believed and understood by millions of listeners ... as factual pronouncements concerning the character, chastity and reputation of the plaintiff."

Stupid me, I just thought it was an unfunny joke. But like I said, I'm not an Imus listener. And a factual pronouncement concerning her chastity because Imus used the word "ho?" Really. Even if you are dim-witted enough to believe that Imus was literally calling her a whore, wouldn't you have to realize it was facetious in light of its absurdity. I mean, a women's basketball player having sex with a man? Whoever heard of such a thing?!

It doesn't look like other people really took Imus' statements to be factual either. Kia is a member of the USA basketball team, and has an extensive bio and survey available. In it, I've learned that KIA stands for "Killer Instinct Always," she wants to play in the WNBA, and she's afraid of clowns. At no time does it mention her head's propensity to get nappy nor an inclination towards hoin' it up, so I guess Team USA didn't really think it impacted her character.

Now if they are somehow able to claim that this was presented as factual information, then it would also be incumbent upon them to prove the claim was false. This is where it could get fun, as the defense could call to the stand an expert witness in the field of hos- Snoop Dogg. During the fallout of the Imus situation, Snoop defended his use of the word "ho" by explaining that:

"We're talking about hos that's in the 'hood...that's trying to get a n**ga for his money."

Oh oh. So maybe his use of the word "ho" wasn't so far off, afterall.

To be fair, I should not be directing all of my ridicule towards Kia Vaughn for this lawsuit. She is afterall just a 20 year-old college student who is certainly susceptible to the sales-pitch of a greedy, fame-hungry lawyer. The lawyer in this case is Richard B. Ancowitz. Would it surprise you to learn that Mr. Ancowitz specializes in automotive litigation? I guess he was too busy chasing ambulances to have seen The People Vs Larry Flynt where we all learned that we enjoy certain 1st amendment protection when it comes to parody and absurd comments. I could write that Richard Ancowitz paid his way through the Brooklyn Law School by strangling hookers on video and selling the tapes on the black market and not be guilty of libel- because everyone knows that my snuff film collection doesn't go beyond 1990 and Mr. Ancowitz graduated from the Brooklyn Law School in 1982. So how could I possibly know? Whether he was making snuff films or hustling blowjobs on the corner of Court St. and Jorelemon...I really have no way of knowing with any degree of certainty.

On the bright side, if Vaughn does win this suit, then it establishes a precedent for Randy Moss v Joe Buck, Terrell Owens v Chris Berman, and Vince Young v Merrill Hoge. That could be highly entertaining.

Will Jim Boeheim Please Stop Whining Now?

When the pairings for the NCAA tournament were announced, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim appeared on ESPN as frequently as he could to air his grievances on the perceived snub his Orangemen received at the hands of the NCAA selection committee. As the weeks progressed and the N.I.T. tournament commenced, it was apparent that Boeheim still felt that his team was wronged, and that attitude trickled down to his entire team in their comments to the media. After losing in the quarterfinals to Clemson tonight in a game that was much closer than it should have been, hopefully everyone realizes that the N.I.T. is exactly where Syracuse belonged. More importantly, I hope this game is enough to shut Boeheim up... at least until the start of next season.

Why was Boeheim so upset about missing the NCAAs this year anyway? Basketball fans already saw this storyline last year when we pretended for a week that Gerry McNamara somehow symbolized all that was good about college basketball as he led Syracuse to the Big East tournament title- and then proceeded to watch the Orangemen get ousted in the first round by Texas A&M. Even if Syracuse had been invited to the tournament this year instead of a less deserving at-large team (Stanford), is there any reason to expect that Syracuse would have been able to get past the first round of the NCAA's when it couldn't even make it to the Final Four of the N.I.T.- a tournament designed for the bubble teams?

I can understand a school like Air Force being upset about not making the tournament. For a school such as Air Force, just making the big dance is a huge accomplishment in itself. But at Syracuse, the bar should be set a lot higher. Jim Boeheim is a hall of fame coach who has appeared in three NCAA championship games. Would a first round loss in this tournament really have transformed this disappointing season into a success? The University of Arizona had a season similar to that of Syracuse. I'm pretty sure that after their first round loss, none of Arizona's fans took any consolation in the fact that their team at least made the tournament. They're probably just glad it's over. Now Syracuse's season is over as well, and it's time for Jimmy to take his ball and go home...quietly.

(As an aside, if asked before the tournament started, I would have said that the N.I.T. had long since outlived its usefulness and should be discontinued. However today at both Clemson and Air Force, fans rushed the court after victories sent the home team to Madison Square Garden for the semifinals. So either college kids will get excited about virtually anything, or the N.I.T. still has some credibility afterall. Considering how happy I used to get in college about a free pizza, it's probably a little of both.)