SPORTS FOLDEROL

Headline seen on-line: Will Penn State live to regret  firing James Franklin? Better to ask: How Long Before Franklin Wears Out His Welcome at Virginia Tech? *****  YOU COULD almost feel sorry for  BILL  BELICHICK … except it is Belichick after all … so  what doesn’t seem fair gets a pass, nevertheless, when the  media goes out of their way to trash the six-time Super  Bowl winner for attending his 24 year old girl friend’s  cheerleading contest after his North Carolina football  team loses another game. Given a choice, it says here, every one of his critics  would do the same thing. Besides, his assistant coaches  had to be pleased, too, that is if rumors of Belichick’s  reaction to losses while coaching in the NFL are only half  true. We know one former aide who told horror stories of  Belichick unable to sleep which meant his staff had to  stay up all kinds of crazy hours and work, too. *****  WAS IT only...

  If ever there was a frivolous lawsuit, it would be Henrico  County’s attempted takedown of Roseshire, the new  gambling site at Staples Mill and Glenside. Granted, Churchill Downs, the object of the county’s  wrath as owner, has been nothing but arrogant by its  willful disregard of any and all correspondence from  Henrico. Lawyers orders, I’m sure. Then again, the home of the Kentucky Derby was under  no obligation either. Frankly, it (cliche alert) caught the  county with its pants down by beating a deadline (barely)  that would have permitted county residents to vote in a  referendum … that quite likely would have passed  anyway, We were told by someone who should know that the last  13 referendums held in Henrico “passed easily,” and there  really was no reason to think this one wouldn’t sail  through either. So more than 200 angry citizens turned out to vent on the subject. So what! They were a distinct minorit...

  More stuff ... In ice hockey, isn’t it about time to come full circle and  bring back the stand-up goaltender? Sure seems like it,  what with NHL goalies automatically going to their knees  nowadays … and being beaten, with uncanny regularity,  high to the upper right and left corners of the goal. Last of the (really good) stand-up goaltenders was   MARTIN BRODEUR , who retired in 2015 after 22  NHL seasons, 21 with New Jersey. He was inducted into  the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018. Actually, Brodeur’s style was considered something of a  hybrid … because, in the latter years of his career, he  started floping more, resorting to the so-called “butterfly”  method first introduced by the Detroit Red Wings’   GLENN HALL  in the mid-1950s and latter perfected by  other future hall of famers such as  TONY ESPOSITO   (Chicago) and current Islanders coach  PATRICK ROY  (Montreal). Locally, when the Richm...

Lots of Stuff:  Why is it calls that are missed (any sport, you name it)  invariably have greater significance than those recognized  in error? Saturday night, in Charlottesville, Virginia’s 14th-ranked  Cavaliers lost QB  CHANDLER MORRIS  to a late hit  that by any definition was targeting by Wake Forest’s   TRAVON WEST … who, nevertheless, was allowed to  remain in the game. Without the player most responsible for the Hoos’  turnaround this season, underdog Wake ended their  seven-game winning streak, 16-9. Morris went down with more than eight minutes left in  the first half, running for a first down then doing the  familiar “quarterback slide” as Deacon defenders were  closing in.  Invariably, opponents will pull up and refrain from hitting  the suddenly-defenseless runner. Or, at the very least, try  to avoid him. West did neither. He came on, low and hard, and with  Morris on the ground, faci...