Totally Random
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Just call him Little Man Tate.
Not that anyone standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 236 pounds could ever be classified as little. But California linebacker Zack Follett got some of his inspirational mojo from Reebok’s fictional Terry Tate, the ‘Office Linebacker’ star of that vintage 2003 commercial.
Follett was asked at the NFL’s scouting combine last week in Indianapolis about his excitable style.
‘I get real pumped up for games,’ he said. ‘This is something I love to do, and to do it in front of 70,000 fans, plus people watching at home on an ESPN game, that gets me even more juiced. To go out and have a chance to be on ESPN like that, I think they had me miked up for the game and I was talking about the Pain Train.
‘And growing up, Terry Tate, No. 56, the Office Linebacker, he was my hero watching those commercials. I tried to emulate him when I was out there.’
Trivia time
What bowl game in December 2008 was Follett the defensive most valuable player?
James says
Tennis players are creatures of habit. And James Blake is no exception, taking the superstitious thing and running with it.
‘I don’t shave once I win,’ he told Tennis magazine. ‘I always used the same shower in the locker room. I drink my drinks in the same order: first the Gatorade, then the water. I get the balls from the same ball kid when I haven’t been broken [on serve].
‘I eat the same breakfast every day after I win the first match.’
Iceman playeth
Q, a British rock magazine, stepped away from covering the likes of the Killers and the Kings of Leon and took a look at several weird world records.
Most of which have nothing to do with sport.
Then again, that’s always in the eye of the beholder. Whoever thought you could wave around a ribbon and win an Olympic medal?
One record was for longest time immersed in ice. Wim Hoff of the Netherlands stood in an ice-cube-filled tube for 1 hour 17 minutes in 2004.
That could be challenged by the Clippers’ Chris Kaman.
It only seems as though his injured foot has been on ice all season.
Trivia answer
The Emerald City Bowl. In case you missed it, Cal beat Miami, 24-17.
And finally
Cam Hutchinson, of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, on 47-year-old Chris Chelios of the Detroit Red Wings:
‘It would be a shame if Chris Chelios isn’t on the American hockey team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Chelios is the last active player from the American squad that participated at the inaugural Winter Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924.’
-- Lisa Dillman and Sam Farmer
