The Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson, who made Prince George's County one of his early targets along the way to developing his post-NBA pro-minority-business-ownership persona, sold his 105 Starbucks franchises back to the corporation. He has owned at least four Starbucks in the D.C. market.

Johnson opened his first Starbucks in P.G. County in Hyattsville in March 2000, and subsequently put franchises in Largo, The Boulevard at the Capital Centre (on the site of impoded arena where he and the Lakers used to crush the Bullets once a year)  and Rivertown Commons.

The NBA all-timer also opened up a Washington Mutual Home Loan Center and an eponymous movie megaplex in Prince George's. He's made frequent appearances over the years promoting the county with its chief executive, Jack Johnson.

Former Bullets/Wizards owner Abe Pollin was a big supporter of Johnson's local efforts. Johnson became the first tenant to sign a lease when Pollin's Capital Centre site was developed for retail.

The Starbucks divestiture comes right after Johnson unloaded his stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to a well-heeled fan, and as Johnson is rumored to be drumming up cash while he's on the prowl for an NBA team or some other sports franchise to buy. He still owns AMC Magic Johnson Theaters and the home loan outfit in the county.

For now.

The Cliff's Notes Version: In 1988, when Alston attended Seat Pleasant Elementary, Pollin came to the school and promised her and all her fifth-grade classmates that he'd pay for their college educations so long as they graduated high school. Alston grew up to take full advantage of Pollin's benevolence: He paid for her to get an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and a law degree at UDC. He also bought her a lot of lunches and concert tickets along the way, and provided the sort of inspiration that money can't buy.

When Pollin died last November, Alston spoke at his funeral and came away motivated to take her first shot at politics. And, after waging a campaign run by another member of Pollin's adopted class, Alston won. 

I had been talking to Alston now and then over the years, ever since I found out she was a member of Pollin's "adopted" class. But I was not aware she was running for office. I only learned about her win when looking at the election results for Maryland's 24th District during the recent Democratic Primaries in Maryland. I was interested in that race because Michael Vaughn, a candidate who falsely claimed on a campaign web site to have played three years with the Dallas Cowboys, was also running.

Both Alston and Vaughn were among the three winners, out of a field of 10 candidates, in the race for Democratic Party nominations for the three House of Delegates slots in the District. No Republican candidates have registered to oppose them in the general election, so a primary win all but guarantees them each seats.

Alston's feel-good tale provided an equal and opposite reaction to Vaughn's feel-bad story. I was really taken by Alston's courage, and touched by all the gratitude she has for Pollin. He came into her life 22 years ago, and is still a positive influence. Now she wants to pay his good deeds forward, and is hoping to establish a scholarship in Pollin's name for students in her home district — which includes the ground the old Capital Centre stood on before its 2002 demolition, and Seat Pleasant Elementary School. I gotta say, it's not every day I come across a story that hits me like Alston's life story did. My faith in humanity is almost restored!

Michael Vaughn who?

"An overcast Sunday morning brought surprises to the Southwest Fish Market which was flooded by high water on the Washington Channel today. The roadway on East Potomac Park/Hains Point was also partially flooded. Workers at the market did their best to install temporary wooded paths to the market stalls, which were still open and filled with seafood. By early afternoon, the water had retreated, and it was business as usual at the market."

The AP reports "soggy" conditions elsewhere in the northeast.

After the jump: hoops news, etc.

Big local hoops news. The Hoyas earned the 3rd seed in the midwest region and will face Ohio in the first round. The team got a raw deal having to play in the midwest as they face the most stacked region in the tournament with Kansas, the number one overall seed, in that region along with the Terps (the fourth seed), Michigan State, Tennessee and Ohio State. The Hoyas should have gotten a two seed in the east region!!!

Someone please explain to me how Duke ended up a No. 1 seed in the tournament.

In other hoops news, DeMatha beat Ballou in the "Abe Pollin City Title Game."

And finally, Howard Kurtz made an ass of himself on CNN.

Oh, for somebody to do the same for Georgetown basketball!

(Full disclosure: Repeatedly bringing up the role of race in the Hoyas basketball history will only do wonders for the value of my Tom Lang trading card collection. I love that photo of my Lang stack. I might run it every day, or at least until I found out whatever happened to Tom Lang.)

***

So much for the smooth transition from Abe Pollin to Ted Leonsis. The Washington Post's Thomas Heath reports that Washington Sports now plans to put the whole Pollin Estate shebang — controlling interests in the Washington Wizards and the Verizon Center, plus the local franchisee rights to Ticketmaster — up for bid on the open market.

The Ticketmaster portion of Pollin's holdings always intrigued me. He was the first arena owner to have his own computerized ticketing system. His stake in Ticketmaster was something neither he nor the parent company ever discussed. But there's got to be a story on how he was able to hold onto that through all the company's mergers and acquisitions as the ticketing realm consolidated over the last two decades. Last time I checked, Pollin was the last franchisee, with every other territory in the U.S. owned by the parent company.

Here's one example of why Leonsis would want to get in on the ticket-fee scam: A friend of mine recently bought one ticket to the Vampire Weekend show at Constitution Hall.

(AFTER THE JUMP: How much does a $28.50 ticket to Vampire Weekend cost? Really? Who remembers Parkington? How about a retrospective of all WUSA sportscasters between Glenn Brenner and Brett Haber? Who still remembers Ken Broo? Nostalgic for a Fridgen/Weis matchup that never happened? Would that have been a heavyweight bout or what? London Fletcher's the only guy happy about this year's Pro Bowl?)

The cost breakdown:

Ticket face-value – $28.50
Facility Charge – $1.50
Convenience Charge – $8.55
Order Processing Fee – $4.00
TicketFast Delivery (to print ticket at home) – $4.75

So, the total cost of a $28.50 ticket is....$47.30!

What a racket! When I was a little dirtball waiting all night in line at the Hecht Company at Parkington to buy tickets for Jethro Tull at the Capital Centre, the service charge was 35 cents! (I saw Tull there five summer tours in a row. What the hell was I drinking?)

***

Ever since Brett Haber, the current sports director at Glenn Brenner's old stomping grounds, WUSA-9, gave a sweet homage to his predecessor, I've been on a bit of a Brenner bender, looking up old clips on youtube and reading about a guy who everybody loved. Haber, speaking off the cuff after his station ran a package on the George Michael memorial service, told a viewing audience, "As a guy who sits in Glenn's chair every day, I aspire to live up to his legacy."

And from my Brenner readings, it became clear how much trouble the folks who've sat in that chair since his death at the peak of his popularity in 1992 have had.

A compendium of how we got from Brenner to Haber:

Warner Wolf, a local product and legend when he left DC for New York in the mid-1970s, was the first Brenner replacement to get crushed by his ghost. He came back to his hometown in June 1992, but his once robust "Boo of the Week" seemed stale and frail in Brenner's wake. Wolf's return engagement at WUSA ended in August 1995 with a spat over whether horse racing results should be given out as a part of his nightly sportscast — Wolf said yes, management said no. Wolf gave out the feature winner from Laurel anyway, and he lost his job.

Ken Broo was next to be done in by the dead guy. Broo, who came here from Cincinnati, got off on bad footing right away. His start at Channel 9 in the spring of 1996 came the same week that the station was sponsoring the Glenn Brenner 5K, a memorial race that that year attracted more than 4,000 runners. The station had commercials for the Brenner tribute running in heavy rotation, but nothing promoting the new sportscaster. I spoke at that time with Broo about how hard it was to fight the past. Broo, who hadn't yet found a place to live in DC, asked me "You think I should rent?"

“I guess anybody who does sports at Channel 9 is going to feel Glenn Brenner’s ghost,” Broo said. “But it’s like Glenn Brenner isn’t even Glenn Brenner anymore.”

Broo, despite trying out Brenneresque vehicles like his lighthearted weekly "Broo View" segments, never caught on here, and lasted four years before going back to Ohio.

Then came Jess Atkinson, a real nice guy and local hero for being a star kicker for the University of Maryland and the Redskins (Atkinson was a perfect 7-7 on FGs with the Skins — the best kicking percentage in team history — before his career was ended on a cheap shot by Andre Dirty Waters.)

But by the time Atkinson got Brenner's old job in 2000, WUSA's news operation had all but abandoned sports, thinking any viewer looking for scores or highlights would be turning to George Michael. Some nights, Atkinson's sports slot on the nightly news was just a minute long. He quit WUSA in 2002 to form his own production company. Atkinson now produces shows around University of Maryland athletics, something Glenn Brenner never tried.

***

The Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland and Notre Dame are talking about holding a football game at Dan Snyder's FedExField next year. Too bad they couldn't get this done during the Charlie Weis Era in South Bend. Firstly, that would have given the Terps a wonderful chance of whupping up on the Fighting Irish, since Weis' teams went 15-24 in his last three years of "outscheming" the opposition.

But more importantly, a Weis/Friedgen matchup would surely smash the record for combined weight of the head coaches.

With Weis and Mark Mangino gone, is The Fridge now the King of the Hill in the NCAA?

***

We read earlier this week about London Fletcher's ecstasy over getting to play in his first Pro Bowl, despite backing into the lineup like a Green Line Metro train that overshot the Petworth station. Fletcher by now appears to be the only one celebrating anything about the event.

The Pro Bowl moved this year from Honolulu to Miami and from a week after the Super Bowl to a week before, both moves in hopes of defibrillating a game that had lost its pulse. And that latter change means Pro Bowl selections from Super Bowl teams won't be in the lineup.

Fletcher, who has been dubbed "The Susan Lucci of the Pro Bowl" for being on the cusp of an invitation so many times in his 12-year career, benefited from the alterations. He gets to go to the game only because Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma, who was voted in as a reserve, found out Sunday evening that he and his teammates will be preparing for a game that counts.

There's so many defections for so many reasons now that even folks in the host city are blasting the game as a joke. This from the Miami Herald, in a piece headlined "Pro Bowl is an embarrassing waste of time":

The Pro Bowl has gone from being something benign and easily ignored to something begging scorn.

Kicking off Super Bowl Week with the Pro Bowl is like kicking off your vacation with rain...

[T]he main problem isn't where you put the game.

The main problem is that players continue to want to be selected to the Pro Bowl (think bonus check) but not actually play in it.

The co-main problem, the new, colossally dumb one, is that having the game before the Super Bowl automatically eliminates Pro Bowl players from the two Super Bowl teams — meaning, the best players from the best teams.

Raise your hand if you think that makes any sense.

Already built in are the many players bowing out every year with lame excuses and made-up injuries. Now you also eliminate the players that fans most want to see. In this case, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.

The result is that only 63 percent of players originally selected by fans, players and coaches actually are competing Sunday at It's-Still-Dolphin Stadium-to-Me.

I mean, so many actual stars have dropped out that two of the AFC quarterbacks are Vince Young and David Garrard. Seriously. C'mon!

But, good for you London. Hell, I'll probably watch anyway.

***

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The lead sentence of yesterday's press release from the Washington Redskins, dated Jan. 13, 2010, announcing the team won't raise ticket prices: "The Redskins have announced that general admission ticket prices for the 2010 season will be unchanged, remaining at the same price for the fifth season in a row.

The lead sentence of last year's press release from the Washington Redskins, dated Jan. 14, 2009, announcing the team won't raise ticket prices: "The Washington Redskins announced Jan. 14 that general admission ticket prices for the 2009 season would remain unchanged for the third straight year."

One year passes, two years are gained! The new math?

But wait! In fairness to Karl Swanson and the beleaguered Skins marketing machine, I think those statements are both accurate. Then again, I got a D in algebra.

But: A 2006 story in the Washington Post said Snyder raised general admission prices in the lower bowl that year by 39 percent, and the price of parking 40 percent. Since that massive hike — 39 percent in one season? What the heck? — Dan Snyder has learned that demand ain't what he expected it to be, and has gone to desperate measures to keep those ticketholders he has. That means suing 'em. And, much as it surely hurts him, not raising ticket prices.

So, the general admission tickets for the 2010 season will indeed have the same prices as the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons. Fifth season in a row!

But if you use years, as the 2009 release did, then the prices that were changed in 2006 went unchanged in 2007, 2008, and 2009, so last year was only the third year they were unchanged.

Hence: One = Two!

'Course, the Redskins love to play funny with numbers in these releases. Last year's announcement also had CEO Mitch Gershman saying the Redskins have "more than 200,000 people on our waiting list for season tickets." This year, it's got Gershman's replacement, Dave Donovan, saying: "The Redskins have the largest season ticket waiting list in the NFL." Surely that's hokum, but it' still an improvement from 2008's bogusness.

(AFTER THE JUMP: The Skins are still claiming a sellout streak? The Skins charge the ninth highest ticket prices for the 29th best team? How great was Steve Kolbe's Caps' call? How depressing was Dave Johnson's Wiz call? Shouldn't the Wizards be the ones offering all-you-can-drink tickets? D.C. United gives away some future to get some past? Tim Riggins splits Dillon? How's Lyla taking it? John Riggins is on "One Tree Hill"? Really?)

Both this year's and last year's release both claim the Redskins have a sellout streak that's been running "since 1966." That's totally true...in Opposite Land! Even allowing the team to ignore the strike year's small crowds, Snyder was unloading tickets to last month's Dallas game as Christmas packages to all takers. And Snyder's now got more than 20,000 premium seats that he doesn't count here, even though there hasn't been a single year since he bought the team that those seats have all sold. So stop with the sellout talk.

The recent press release has an odd boast: "The Redskins average general admission ticket prices are below those of nine other NFL teams." (True, according to Team Marketing Report, the prime surveyor of pro sports pricing, with figured that a family of four spent $431 and change per Redskins game this season.) Snyder's release didn't mention, however, that the Redskins record was below that of 28 other NFL teams.

A high draft pick, Bruce Allen, Mike Shanahan and no price increase still ain't gonna be enough to bring everybody back to FedExField.

For starters: The people want a real Jumbotron, Dan Snyder!

***

A Tale of Two of the City's Teams: Steve Kolbe's call on WFED-AM of Tomas Fleischmann's shootout goal, which completed the first-place Caps' comeback last night from two goals down in the third period to beat Florida, was so ecstatic and over-the-top, it was as if he was practicing a Stanley Cup call — which, what the heck, isn't that crazy a thing for this team's play-by-play man to do even this early in the season.

Meanwhile, over at WJFK, Glenn Consor and Dave Johnson were desperate to say something positive about the last-place Wizards, as they fell 22 points back in the first half and lost by 12. The announcers described Antawn Jamison in Herculean terms as he tried keeping the Wiz within reach of a single-digit deficit. The desperation and overall plight of the team made it really hard to listen to.

Also last night, the Caps' radio ads were pushing premium ticket packages that include an all-you-can-eat buffet and even "Unlimited Beer, Wine and Soda." The Snyderesque tickets, called the Dewar's 12 Club, are "starting at $99" apiece. I tried getting tickets for tomorrow night's game with Toronto through Ticketmaster, and, as usual, no pairs were for for sale. The best available was a single seat in the corner for $229.45. Best of times for the Caps.

The announcers' desperation carries over to Wizards marketing campaign. The team is now running high-budget TV commercials starring Caron Butler on local TV — I'd never noticed this sort of advertising before — and, during radio game broadcasts, hawking cheap family packages for $49 for four seats and four hot dogs. Worst of times for the Wiz.

Throw in the off-court troubles, and, if the Verizon Center weren't thrown in, you gotta figure Ted Leonsis would seriously be considering to go for the "refusal" portion of his right-of-first-refusal deal to buy the Wizards from Abe Pollin's estate.

***

Guess you really don't know what you've got til it's gone.

D.C. United gave up a whole lot to bring back former goalie Troy Perkins, who left town in 2007 to play in Norway. Perkins was with United from 2004-2007, and stands as the second-winningest goalie in franchise history. The team sent midfielder Fred, who never lived up to one-name status, as well as a 2010 first round SuperDraft pick (seventh overall) and some cash to the Philadelphia Union just to take the expansion squad's place in the allocation line in time to nab Perkins. United really must've missed him.

And Perkins gives a quote that shows he missed United right back.  "It’s more than just a feeling," Perkins said about the return. "It’s something deep in the heart and the soul."

Awesome Trivia about "More than a feeling": Even Kurt Cobain accepted that his riff for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" transcended from Boston's 1976 smash "More Than a Feeling."

That makes Tom Scholz the Karl Marx of the alternative rock revolution!

***

One of my favorite football players of all-time, Tim Riggins of the Dillon Panthers, is moving on. TV Guide reports the star fullback from NBC/DirectTV's "Friday Night Lights" is leaving Dillon so Taylor Kitsch, the actor who's played him so gloriously for four seasons, can make a play for the big screen.

I always figured Riggins, a troubled, wild-and-crazy-but-lovable fullback, was modeled after John Riggins of the Redskins. And he was just one of many seeming Washington references on FNL. There was Coach McGregor, the hotshot coach who was hired as Coach Taylor's replacement at Dillon when he, you know, took a brief sabbatical to give college coaching a try — DeMatha's Bill McGregor, whose squad always makes USA Today's Top 20 national polls, has long been among the most touted high school coaches in the country. And when Riggins and his buddies watch the highlights package he was going to send to recruiters for the University of Oklahoma, as a clip of him bowling over an opposing safety was shown, the guys all agree he looks like "Brandon Jacobs running over Laron Landry."

Why the D.C. nods? Well, turns out "Friday Night Lights" executive producer Peter Berg is pals with Dan Snyder. He's sat in Snyder's box on game days for years, and privately screened his Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx movie "The Kingdom" for the team and its owner. Berg's team's a whole lot more successful on the field than Snyder's.

Meanwhile, the real life Riggins, as in John Riggins, was reportedly taking a role on "One Tree Hill" this season. I see that his alleged character, Ken Arthur, has appeared in three episodes, but I've missed 'em all and read nothing about his acting. Anybody see #44's TV work this year?

***

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So Snyder has apparently asked that the flight-tracking services no longer divulge where the plane's going. When you punch in Redskins 1's digits over at flightaware.com now, you get this message:

DSWA LLC (DULLES VA)
This aircraft (N904DS) is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator

***

Dan Snyder, of course, has more than flight-trackers to blame for watering down the Mike Shanahan story. For Redskins marketing purposes, NBA Commissioner David Stern picked the worst time to announce he'd banished Gilbert Arenas. Within hours of Shanahan's introductory press conference at Redskins Park, it was all-Gilbert, all-the-time on local sportsradio. The Arenas' story got the above the fold slot on the Washington Post's front page that would have gone to the coach. Arenas knocked Shanahan below-the-fold on the sports page, too.

***

Moral #1 of the Gilbert Arenas tale: Quirky always end bad.

Moral #2: Big Threes don't work in Washington basketball.

We now know that none of the high hopes fans had for a lineup that put Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison on the floor will be realized. That's the greatest flop since Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Rod Strickland wore the same uniform. When Webber retired in the spring of 2008, I looked back over the years that trio spent in town. Good golly, was their fall epic.

Strickland and Howard and Webber spent much of their Bullets/Wizards careers getting arrested for driving offenses. Strickland's been confirmed as a louse in the years since he left, and Howard went on to have a solid and amazingly long post-Wizards career. He's still at it, and is now in his 19th NBA season, playing with Portland. Howard had 13 points in Tuesday's loss to Memphis, and is averaging about 5 points and four rebounds a game on the season.

But Webber doesn't get nearly enough credit for his jerkitude. He was a dick as soon as the Bullets traded four first-round picks to the Golden State Warriors to bring him here in 1994. (Yup, four first rounders — the Warriors got Tom Gugliotta, who was the No. 6 overall pick in the NBA's 1992 draft, plus three future #1 picks.)

One harmless example: Early in his first season here, Webber went to the Washington Times to complain about the food served on the team’s chartered flights. “I don’t eat beef,” he said.

Owner Abe Pollin ended up buying the team its own plane a few years later. Webber didn't reform, and was all but given away to Sacramento not long after he was pepper-sprayed and busted on petty traffic and drug charges by Prince George’s police in January 1998.

The big three of Strickland, Howard and Webber never won a single playoff game.

But, they never pulled a gun on anybody, either.

***

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Snyder wins this dishonor pretty much every year. The second he retires it'll be renamed the Dan Snyder Unsportsman of the Year Award. Sort of like the Lombardi Trophy, only opposite.

This year, like most since Snyder bought the Redskins, the selection process for the Unsportsman hardware was as lopsided as a Saddam Hussein presidential vote. Snyder was at his worst all 2009 long. There ain't enough digital column inches to go over all his yearly badness.

But my personal favorite tidbit: Snyder now makes his employees give up their right to a jury trial as a condition of employment.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Johnny Rockets gets an award, but Snyder gets slammed anyway? Abe Pollin's adopted class gets represented at his memorial service? Dimebag Darrell gets a memorial, too? What's Cheap Seats Daily doing writing about Dimebag Darrell? Open Letter Tracker™ gets put back in service already?)

That means that if he screws over a worker, as he has been accused of doing a lot in his run as Skins owner, the screwed over worker's only avenue for recompense is to appeal for justice through an arbitration firm selected by...Snyder!

When Snyder's treatment of employees is put before a jury, as it was in the case of his former nanny, Juliette Mendonca, he doesn't fare too well.

Mendonca filed suit in Montgomery County saying Snyder stiffed her on overtime. A jury agreed. Awesome grafs from WTOP's writeup of the 2007 trial:

Mendonca testified that an angry Dan Snyder confronted her around midnight in 2004 and with papers in hand he told her, "Do you know how much you make? I pay you more than my Redskins park people! I can't afford to pay you like this!"

And:

About an hour after beginning deliberations, the six-member jury asked the Montgomery County Circuit Court judge for a calendar and calculator.

The verdict came in about two hours later.

Guess he learned his lesson about juries. So, as the staff of the Redskins ticket office found out the hard way, if you want to work for Snyder, it's no jury, or no job. Or no to both, in the case of the fired ticket office workers.

How un-American is that? Or, perhaps, how American!

Yet Mayor Fenty and Jack Evans keep threatening to throw D.C. residents in bed with Snyder. What the hell are they drinking?

***

Unsportsman of the Year ain't the only hardware Dan Snyder's taking home, however. His food chain, Johnny Rockets, has just been named Fast Food Chain of the Year by Foodservice Equipment and Supply.

Alas, even when something goes right for Snyder, his football operation gets slammed. Foodservice Equipment and Supply takes a shot at the team in the lede of the Fast Food Chain of the Year announcement:

Where Lake Forest, Calif.-based retro-themed burger chain Johnny Rockets has found itself mentioned in the press this fall, it has often been in the context of a side note about its charismatic owner: Dan Snyder, whose Red Zone Capital Management private-equity firm also owns the struggling Washington Redskins football franchise.

The announcement says there are "more than 250 units" of Johnny Rockets around the world now and that Snyder plans to hit "the 1000-store mark within the next decade." When Snyder bought the chain in 2007, he said he'd hit the 1,000 mark in five years, a boast that fast foodies scoffed at. There were 203 locations at the time. And much of the subsequent expansion comes from Snyder installing Johnny Rockets huts at Six Flags theme parks, a public equity company he controls.

By the way, if you want to get in bed with Snyder: The Johnny Rockets franchise at 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue is for sale.

Maybe Mayor Fenty or Jack Evans should buy the damn thing.

***

Tiffany Alston, one of the fifth graders from Seat Pleasant Elementary that Abe Pollin "adopted" and mentored through the years, spoke at his memorial service yesterday.

From the AP story:

"He instilled the community with doctors, lawyers, teachers, public servants and police officers. ... Thank you, Pollin family, for sharing him with us," Alston told the crowd of about 1,000 seated in the arena's lower level.

The Washington Post's writeup of Pollin's service at Verizon Center put the crowd at 2,500. Accurate or not, Abe earned the big number.

***

Speaking of memorials, as we veer off: The fifth anniversary of Dimebag Darrell's death comes this month. You don't have to be a fan of metal in general or Pantera even particular to be in awe of Dimebag.

He had a nickname we can all aspire to. RIP, Dime.

And, say what you will about metal fans, they're smarter than sports fans in at least one arena: Open-letter writing. According to Cheap Seats Daily's fabulous new Open Letter Tracker™, while "Open Letter to Tiger Woods" gets 293,000 Google hits; "Open Letter to Dimebag" gets zero.

Zero!

Right on, metallurgists!

(However, Korn's Brian "Head" Welch released a video of his musical memorial to the dead shredder, "Letter to Dimebag." The Open Letter Tracker™ technology is not yet able to count music videos. But "Head" is another fabulous nickname.)

***

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Parade, 1990

Demolition, 1995

In the spirit of giving thanks I suppose I owe Abe Pollin some. I had a darkroom on 9th Street NW in the late 80s to mid-90s at the princely sum of $231 a month, a location I was quickly priced out of with the success of all the redevelopment. But the Gallery Place/Chinatown area has become our mini-Times Square, a good place to practice the craft of street photography. A vibrant urban space with enough people per square yard that some are bound to be interesting.

Full gallery after the jump.

But what I really want to talk about is how today is the Busiest Travel Day of the Year. You may never have heard this, even though it happens every year. It means lots and lots of people will be going from one undisclosed location to another in cars, planes, trains, and possibly even buses. (City Paper Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon gave the Bolt bus a good review the other day, which I'm sure has already affected sales.)

The Washington Post was way ahead of this whole Thanksgiving travel story, reporting already last Saturday on some cold, hard stats. Some 978,000 people in the Washington area—about 16 percent—plan to travel more than 50 miles over the holiday stretch, according to AAA. Some 824,000 of those intend to drive. I suspect it may feel later today like all of them are on the Beltway, so I'm really looking forward to that!

Anyway, that's a 3.6 percent increase in local travelers from last year. So people must either really want to see their families, or they think the table spread is going to be better this year. (Haven't they heard about the canned pumpkin shortage? I reported on it in last Friday's Morning Roundup.)

Lon Anderson, spokesperson for AAA Mid-Atlantic, gets extra points for working a reference to pilgrims (small p) in to his quote to the Post: "When it comes to traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it appears that we are still a nation of pilgrims, and that's especially true of Washingtonians." (Perhaps I appreciate this more than the average person: I am practically one of the original Pilgrims myself! I grew up in Massachusetts near historic Plymouth Rock, the most visited rock in New England! Actually, the rock is puny and lame, and the Pilgrims probably never set foot on it. But whatever.)

This morning, on WTOP, I heard more Thanksgiving travel coverage. The station sent a reporter to Reagan National Airport to interview people about how they're going to travel, because that's really interesting. For instance, I learned that one woman is going to go somewhere to eat turkey, fried chicken, ham, greens, corn bread, and other items. I can't remember if she mentioned pumpkin pie. See, there's a shortage!

By the way, if you take away anything from this roundup, it should be this: Be thankful for stuff. Research says it's good for you.

So go be thankful! And catch up with me on Twitter!

But he also brought hope.

"He was a businessman, that's what the accolades were for," said Tiffany Alston, an attorney in Upper Marlboro, upon hearing of Pollin's death. "But looking back now, as an adult, I see that Mr. Pollin knew the quintessential meaning of philanthropy. The amount of time and money he gave of himself to this community, to me, it was just amazing."

Alston met Pollin in May 1988. She was a fifth grader at Seat Pleasant Elementary School. Pollin was looking for some productive ways to spend the money he made from being owner of several pro sports teams in the DC market.

He showed up at Seat Pleasant Elementary with his friend Melvin Cohen and together made a big pledge to Alston and all 54 other kids in the school's fifth grade.

“The plan was to tell kids that if they stayed in school, we’d pay for their college education," Pollin told me in an interview a few years ago.

Seat Pleasant Elementary, Pollin and Cohen had been told by local educators, was the school most lacking in resources and hope. The kids there weren't used to good fortune. So when he first made the announcement to the students and the parents who had been invited to hear Pollin and Cohen speak, folks weren't sure what they had heard.

“I remember that moment very clearly,” Pollin told me about making the scholarship offer. "I was introduced; I told everybody what we were about—that if they stayed in school, we would pay for their college. And when I was done, there was complete silence.”

The Seat Pleasant principal then asked Pollin to repeat the announcement.

“When I said it again, everybody got it,” Pollin recalled. “Children were bursting out of the room, and parents started crying, and I started to cry, and everybody cried. That was a very emotional day.”

Alston's mother was among those bawling. And she recalls trying to take advantage of everything that Pollin offered her and her classmates.

"It was so much more than just paying for college," Alston now says. "Whatever the students needed, he provided. He had tutors. He took us to shows at the Capital Centre. He had us come to lunch with him. He took us to plays. We did things we never would have done if it weren't for him. This expanded our horizons."

The original class of 55 "adoptees" from Seat Pleasant Elementary eventually went up to 59, after four kids transferred to the school and Pollin and Cohen said, "Let 'em in!" According to the I Have a Dream Foundation, which monitored Pollin's gift, 49 of those kids graduated from high school, and 39 went to a trade school or college on the owner's dime. As of 2007, 17 had received at least one college degree.

Alston was among those who took Pollin up on his offer, and then some. Pollin paid for her undergraduate education at the University of Maryland, and her law school at UDC. She's now a litigator with her own practice.

"He allowed me the opportunities I wouldn't have had," she says. "I’m a business owner now. I have a child now, and my child is in a private school, getting the best education possible. For that and everything, I thank him and his family for all they did for me. All they did."

Did he coddle Wes Unseld for too long?

Did he err in changing the name of the Bullets to the Wizards?

Did he treat Michael Jordan too harshly?

Should he have re-signed an injured Gilbert Arenas?

Should he have sold the Wizards to Ted Leonsis instead of the Capitals?

Did he put Landover on the map?

Is Gladys and Ron's Chicken & Waffles a good trade for the Cap Centre?

Should he have squeezed a publicly financed stadium out of the District of Columbia?

Where does he rank among owners of Washington professional sports teams?

Good man or great man?

Abe Pollin—real estate developer, philanthropist, and owner of the Washington Wizards and other sports teams—has died at 85.

Pollin today is remembered most fondly as a sports team owner—the man who bought the Baltimore Bullets to Washington and renamed them Wizards, brought NHL hockey to the city, women's pro basketball, and other sporting endeavors.

He presided over one world championship, the 1978 Bullets' NBA title.

But he was also a crackerjack businessman, a developer who left his legacy across the region's landscape, in numerous apartment towers in Montgomery County and the District. His prime development legacy, let there be no doubt about it, will be the MCI Center, which Pollin built out of his own pocket while the city suffered from crippling financial woes and went on to anchor the rebirth of downtown Washington.

Though well known as a hellish negotiator, Pollin was generous with his riches, donating heavily to Jewish causes (he helped save the Sixth & I Synagogue, for instance) and, among other good works, paying for an entire elementary-school class to go to college.

The cause of Pollin's death has been reported as corticobasal degeneration, and he had appeared frail in rare public appearances in recent years. ESPN.com reports this comment from the July 2008 re-signing announcement for Antawn Jamison: "I'm getting a little old and a little sick....But I'm still around, and I'm going to be around until we win the...championship. I'm stubborn and hardheaded."

The Washington Post writes:

Pollin was among the last of the old-school pro sports owners who ran his teams as a family business, shaped by his strong personality and his intense loyalties. His teams lost more than they won, and fans often criticized his personnel moves and his failure to spend more money, but Pollin invariably remained set in his ways.

He was also a major philanthropist in the community, paying for affordable housing and endowing a local Boy's and Girl's Club. His grandest project was building the MCI Center (now Verizon Center) in 1997 and triggering a stunning renaissance of Gallery Place and surrounding neighborhoods.

WRC-TV's Lindsay Czarniak interviewed Pollin's beloved wife Irene last month:

ESPN.com notes his impact on the D.C. sporting world and beyond, and notes that Ted Leonsis, who bought the Bullets and Mystics from Pollin, stands to take over his empire, Washington Sports & Entertainment:

Pollin was the NBA's longest-tenured owner. With his death, a group led by longtime AOL executive Ted Leonsis is poised to take ownership of a Washington-area sports empire that began when Pollin purchased the Baltimore Bullets in 1964....

"There's no important initiative or any end to difficult situations or any settlement or any legislation that Abe was not leading the way on across all these years," NBA commissioner David Stern said in March. "He's been an extraordinary league person, always voting the league way, similar to what he did in building Verizon Center. He was going the D.C. way, not necessarily what was in his best economic interest but what was in the best economic interests of Washington, D.C."

Former WaPo sports editor George Solomon is now hosting a live chat on Pollin at washingtonpost.com.

A statement from the Washington Nationals:

The Washington Nationals and the Lerner family join all of the Washington DC community and sports fans nationally in mourning the loss of Abe Pollin. He was not just the beloved owner of sports teams in the Nation's Capital for almost 40 years; he was also a significant force in the rebirth of downtown Washington DC, and a magnanimous contributor to the personality, health, and well-being of everyone who calls our community home. He leaves an important legacy. Our deepest affection and condolences are with the Pollin family and the Washington Sports and Entertainment organization in their time of grief.

Here are some of the best Pollin-related columns by WCP's Dave McKenna:

• About Pollin's team-owner bona fides...back in 2003! "More than ever before, he thrives in comparison with the other major-league owners in town. With every passing week, Dan Snyder proves himself the Redskins equivalent of star-crossed Cubs fan Steve Bartman: a superfan who, when given a chance to control the fate of the team he idolizes, screws it up for everybody. And Ted Leonsis, long billed by the Capitals as "the most accessible owner in sports," committed the mortal sin of ownership by blasting the fans for not coming out to watch his overpaid underperformers fold against Tampa Bay in last year's playoffs." (So he was a little off about Leonsis; the new Caps owner would get Best Sports Owner honors from McKenna this year, with Pollin runner-up.)
• About a group of fans who mobilized to "Save the Caps" in the early '80s after Pollin threatened to move the team unless Prince George's County handed him tax breaks.
• About a Pollin and his documentarian, who won "Unsportsman of the Year" honors in 2007 for making an unnecessarily mean-spirited biopic. Among its revelations: That Michael Jordan “called me a liar, and the worst thing he said to me was, ‘You’re a no-good redneck bastard.’”
• About the Wizards' re-embrace of the Bullets moniker, which Pollin famously discarded citing his feelings on violence in the mideast and in the inner city.
• About Pollin's encounter with rocker Nils Lofgren, author of "Bullets Fever"

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has issued a statement:

Today the District of Columbia has lost one of our greatest treasures. Abe Pollin almost single-handedly revitalized the Gallery Place / Chinatown neighborhood by turning down offers from suburban jurisdictions to finance and build the Verizon Center on 7th Street NW. My deepest condolences go out to Mr. Pollin’s family, most especially his wife Irene, who was always his partner, in sports, construction, philanthropy, and of course, family.

Abe Pollin will be remembered in the District for adopting our city as his hometown, having lived in the area since the age of eight; for more than 40 years as owner of the Washington Wizards; and for being the original owner of the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals and the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Washington Mystics.

He will be truly missed.

Here's At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown's statement:

I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Abe Pollin, a true pioneer who contributed to the growth of professional sports and gave unselfishly to our communities.” In 1997, Abe & Irene Pollin saw their dreams to fruition with the completion of a state of-the-art sports and entertainment facility in our nation’s capitol.

Mr. Pollin, not only achieved his goal to create a facility that would “be the catalyst that turned the city around,” he also demonstrated his commitment to ensuring that our residents became the primary benefactors of the city’s resurgence. Together, the Pollins’ contributions to our communities are invaluable. From employing many of our District residents to giving many of our students the opportunity to attend college, Mr. Pollin embodied the intangible qualities of a wonderful humanitarian, businessman and father, whose legacy will continue to inspire others.”

The prayers of the Councilmember, his family and staff go to Abe Pollin’s wife and partner, Irene and his two sons Robert and James.

The Wizznutzz tweet a tribute: "WE LOVE U ABE POLLIN u helped build DC with your hands & your hope"

Here's D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray:

I am saddened to learn of the passing of Abe Pollin, one of Washington’s most-respected businessmen and philanthropists. He and his wife, Irene, have made a huge difference on the lives of countless residents in the District of Columbia and in the region. My sincere condolences go to Mrs. Pollin and their family.

In the late 90s, Abe Pollin brought the Wizards and the Capitals to what’s now called the Verizon Center. Now, a decade later, the Pollins can take a large part of the credit for the bright lights, crowds and remarkable revitalization of downtown Washington.

It’s not just the mixture of sports and business that made Abe Pollin a household name. He also will be remembered for the benevolent business partnerships with the District that sparked housing and other projects to improve the quality of life for some of our residents most in need. I worked closely with Mr. Pollin on numerous projects and will miss his personal, gentle style of collaboration. Ironically, today I chaired a hearing on the plan for the continued cultural development and revitalization of Chinatown.

Mrs. Pollin was an active partner with her husband on many fronts. No doubt she will continue their immeasurable work to ensure Mr. Pollin’s legacy lives on.

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans calls in with his thoughts:

He was a great man. His contributions to the city were enormous, to many of the philanthropic causes, to affordable housing, to the synagogue at Sixth and I, his reach was extraordinary. But what he will absolutely be remembered for is bringing the two teams, the Bullets and the Caps, to downtown Washington and the area that was absolutely deserted and dangerous. And then, when the city could not fulfill its part of the deal, to build the arena, he used his own money to building the arena. It was the catalyst for the revitalization of Washington. You can't say enough how much this city is indebted to Abe Pollin....

I saw him at a game recently, must have been a hockey game. He was not in good shape. I don't know that he recognized me; he was definitely on the downswing. But they had a special place for him in the box....

Every time I saw him, he was so upbeat about the city.

A statement from Washington Convention and Sports Authority CEO Greg O'Dell:

The Washington Convention and Sports Authority, along with the entire Washington, D.C. community, mourns the passing of Abe Pollin, a legendary figure on the D.C. sports scene and a visionary whose dedication to the community is an inspiration to us all. He was a beloved sports owner in the District for more than 40 years and his pioneering efforts were a significant factor in the revitalization of downtown Washington. He will be missed, but his legacy will live on forever. We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Irene, his two sons and the entire Pollin family.

Redskins owner Dan Snyder's statement:

Abe Pollin was a great owner for Washington, as well as a personal friend. His legacy will live through his teams and the arena he built, and just as importantly, through his commitment to his family and to Washington. My thoughts and prayers go out to Irene and the rest of his wonderful family.

Developer Douglas Jemal shares some thoughts with Washington Business Journal:

Jemal...recalled Pollin as a wonderful man and a business icon who did things the old school way.

"I knew him very well and spent a lot of years with him down here when he was building the Verizon Center. And I can tell you when the Verizon Center was being built, he was down here every day monitoring construction," Jemal said.

One day, when a worker on one of Jemal's buildings had a construction accident, Pollin was there to help, Jemal said. "He came running across the street to see what he could do."

Pollin represented a now gone era of "independent, old-school team owners" who cared about the city's where they did business. "I think that team was his life," Jemal said. He said that even when the team was not winning, "he would sit in that owners' box by himself and watch every time that team played."

ESPN.com:

Pollin will be remembered for several things. He was the NBA's longest tenured owner. He was the guy who fired Michael Jordan. And he was the person who changed the name of his team from the Bullets to the Wizards after his friend, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was killed.

NPR:

Pollin will long be known as the man who stopped Michael Jordan's basketball ambitions, not on the court where few people could stop His Airness but in the front office. After Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls, Pollin brought him to Washington in 2000, selling him a minority stake in the Wizards.

Jordan, with his towering ego, eventually proved insufferable, especially to Pollin. According to reports, Pollin was particularly irked by Jordan's presumption that he would one day own Pollin's team.

After Jordan sold back his minority stake in order to put on his basketball shoes and play a few seasons for the Wizards, Pollin outfoxed him by refusing to sell back to Jordan once he retired from playing again, the minority stake Jordan had given up. Jordan left the organization in 2003.

From GWU President Stephen Knapp:

Many years ago, Abe Pollin envisioned Washington, D.C., as an international sports town with a full complement of teams and events. The realization of that vision is no more present than in his legacy of accomplishments.

The Washington Post already has an editorial written:

AS FAR AS Washingtonians are concerned, the most important thing about Abe Pollin is that he was one of us. By that we mean not that he was necessarily a man of the people, whatever that is these days, but simply that he was part of this community through and through. He did well here, and he did a lot of good in return. He made a fortune in construction but became better known as the owner of Washington's pro basketball team. And while he hadn't had a champion in a long time, he accomplished something far more important for Washington sports fans: Rather than taking teams out of this town, he brought them here. He built, first, an arena on the Beltway and then the one downtown that has contributed greatly to the renaissance of a neighborhood rich in history and tradition....

He was a thoughtful and public-spirited man whose list of charitable and civic activities — helping feed and educate the city's schoolchildren, aiding the homeless, establishing a prize for pediatric research, and much, much more — was as impressive as his work for mutual understanding and respect among the people of this region. Much of his life was a sustained effort, with his wife, Irene, to better the community, and for the most part it was carried on without a great deal of public attention....

From AIPAC, the pro-Israel policy shop:

As a member of AIPAC's board of directors and friend of many of our country's most influential policy makers and elected officials, Abe never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of America's special and unbreakable bond with the State of Israel.

We are profoundly saddened by his loss, but comforted by the knowledge that Abe's courageous and tireless spirit made a profound difference for a cause in which he deeply believed – the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

And from the Israel Project:

Mr. Pollin was a great lover of Israel and the Jewish people. He and Irene have been champions of important causes, both Jewish and in the wider community. Mr. Pollin joined The Israel Project’s board in June of 2004 and he was especially proud to fund our TV ads in Washington that showcased Israel’s democratic nature and desire for peace. Despite health issues he was recently re-elected to the board. He will be missed especially by the Jewish community and by the city of Washington, DC – a place that was made better 1000 ways because of Abe Pollin.

Via Examiner, a statement from NBA Commissioner David Stern:

With Abe Pollin's passing, the NBA family has lost its most revered member, whose stewardship of the Wizards franchise, together with his wife Irene, has been a study in unparalleled dedication to the city of Washington....During his illness he fought with a determination and valor that will remain an inspiration to all.

And more on his philanthropic activities:

Pollin was a philanthropic force, putting his wealth behind numerous charitable organizations including N Street Village, the Salvation Army, the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue and the I Have a Dream Foundation. Partnering with Calvary Baptist Church, Pollin's Abe's Table program fed the homeless twice a week over the past decade.

"He loved making sure everybody had enough to eat," said Rev. Amy Butler, senior pastor at Calvary. "That was his thing. He really put all of the resources that he had to bear on that, and it was great to partner with him."

The Post has uploaded a fabulous photo gallery.

The official WaPo obit is now up, written by Peter Perl. The lede:

He arrived in Washington more than 75 years ago, the gangly son of a Russian metal worker named Morris Pollinovsky who came to America a poor man speaking no English. Through decades of hard work and a seemingly unstoppable will, Abe Pollin rose to the top of the worlds of business, philanthropy and professional sports. In the process, he transformed his adopted home town by bringing professional basketball and hockey franchises here and by spending $220 million of his own money to build a massive sports and entertainment arena that has dramatically changed the face of downtown Washington.

A statement from Eleanor Holmes Norton:

Abe Pollin built an unparalleled sports empire that left almost no game out, but his heart was in building a better District of Columbia. His agreement to bring his teams from Maryland and build the Verizon Center in the midst of the city’s worst financial crisis in this century was emblematic of his devotion to the town that helped form him from his childhood. In more small and large ways than will ever be widely known, Abe made himself citizen number one in this city. I had many occasions to work with Abe and Irene, who has made unique contributions on her own to our city. What I will remember beyond my friendships with Abe and Irene is how generously they befriended the District of Columbia.

Housing Complex's Ruth Samuelson gets Gallery Place developer Herb Miller on the record:

He was always a very humble man, who could deal with anyone in any capacity. I didn’t know him well professionally until the last 15 years. We could never have built Gallery Place without his help and cooperation. At any rate, the city wanted the connection we built in the atrium between the two....

Two hundred years ago, 7th Street was the main street of the city, and then it died out in the 1950s, and our idea was to bring Main Street back alive. They had already built the Shakespeare Theater on 7th. The goal was to use 7th as the retail core of the city, to literally connect it: At one end, you had the Smithsonian with 30,000 visitors a year. We put the convention center at the other end. It was truly a community effort, but if it wasn’t for Abe Pollin nothing would have happened because he started it. For him to go build the Verizon Center with a risk associated with it—most people would have done it only if the government paid for everything. And bringing his teams into the city at a time was quite a bold and risky proposition. If you walked through downtown then, people were afraid to even go to downtown. People thought it was dangerous.

If he hadn’t committed to the first major project downtown, I don’t think the rest of it would have happened.

From President Barack Obama:

Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Abe Pollin – a giant in the world of professional sports and someone I was proud to call a friend. Abe was a man who knew that being an owner wasn’t just about winning championships, although his teams had plenty of success. It was about helping young athletes become good people as well as good players. And it was about being part of a community. Abe believed in Washington, D.C. when many others didn’t – putting his own fortune on the line to help revitalize the city he loved. He was committed to the teams he guided, generous to those who needed it most, and as loyal to the people of D.C. as they were to him.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Irene, his sons Robert and James, and the entire Pollin family.

"We feel frustration and we feel sorry for our fans," Snyder told a crowd at an event the Redskins organized. He was standing at a podium in front of a gang of players in jerseys and behind a placard that said "Children Come First." As I noticed during a shot of the owner's box in last week's Monday Night Football broadcast, Snyder looks smaller these days than he ever did. (Seriously: Check out this video from WUSA.) Reminds me of what happened to Rev. Dimmesdale in the Cliff's Notes version of The Scarlet Letter.

(AFTER THE JUMP: 2% of WRC viewers are "Thrilled!" by Dan Snyder's mini-contrition? The Bathroom Diaries are looking for a few good places to squat? Have they considered FedExField's beer-friendly head? The EagleBank Bowl adds a conference? Wes Unseld gets a street named after him? Will it be clogged in the middle at all times?)

After leaving the stage, Snyder talked briefly with reporters, but Brett Haber reports for WUSA-TV that the owner refused to answer any questions about the treatment of the fans he feels sorry for, the ones he's taken signs from and ejected for yelling anti-management slogans or wearing anti-Snyder shirts.

Still, just in case this press stop signaled the dawning of a new era of glasnost at Redskins Park, I contacted the team to request a turn at interviewing Snyder.

Longtime Snyder spokesman Karl Swanson, who hasn't been as available to me as he once was, wrote back quickly, just like the old days.

"I’m not sure I’d call being stopped on a sidewalk by a couple of reporters an interview," Swanson said, "but in any event he does not plan on any formal interviews during the season."

Hey, informal's cool with me, Dan! Have you seen my wardrobe? Informal's pretty much the only game I can play!

But I'm guessing Swanson's telling me my request has been denied.

WRC-TV posted some video of Snyder's comments on its Web site last night, along with a "Sound Off" function where viewers could rate what they watched.

The scoring, as of this morning:

Thrilled: 2%
Sad:  3%
Intrigued: 4%
Bored: 8 %
Laughing: 17 %, and, the big winner,
Furious: 66%

***

The Bathroom Diaries, which bills itself as "The World's Largest Database of Restroom Locations," is now taking nominations for the 2009-2010 Golden Plunger Awards. These honors go annually to the best restrooms around the globe.

I think the FedExField bathrooms deserve serious consideration.

The Bathroom Diaries Web site lists past winners of the Plunger. Sure, they all look less viral than Snyder's loo. But, far as I can tell, no previous Plunger honoree had guys with big tubs of Bud Light waiting for you as you flush.

And as both my readers know: FedEx is the home of BeerInTheBathroomsGate.

(Check out the mission statement from The Bathroom Diaries, a site founded in 2000 by Lynchburg, Va.'s Mary Ann Racin that now lists over 12,000 places to do your business: "Few would visit a country without some advanced information, yet our tender bits are exposed to uncharted territories with no help or assistance.  At our most vulnerable, we are blind. Well, no more.")

***

The EagleBank Bowl has broadened its horizons. Organizers have announced they will accept schools from the Big 12 Conference beginning next year.

The game was originally designed to feature one of the service academies against an ACC squad each year. But that setup relied on the military schools fielding bowl-eligible football teams. Navy did its part last season, winning enough games in the regular season to earn a matchup with Wake Forest at RFK in the inaugural tilt. Air Force is a member of the Mountain West Conference, and its obligations to the MWC, which include mandatory appearances in bowls which that conference has contracts with, have proven more cumbersome than EagleBank Bowl planners counted on.

And then there's Army, which just isn't bowl material most seasons. Army is supposed to be the academy invitee to this year's EagleBank Bowl. But Army's on the bubble, at best, for bowl eligibility. Six wins are required. Army is now 3-5, and will lose this weekend at Air Force.

Army could well beat VMI and North Texas later this month. That would put the team at 5-6 heading into the season finale.

That'll mean its bowl eligibility, and a lot of EagleBank Bowl dollars, will be decided against Navy. Army will be a massive underdog going into that game.

The new deal with the Big 12 will take some pressure off organizers to find eligible teams. And Navy can still play every third year.

(The Big 12 pact doesn't kick in until next season. If Army loses out and things get really rough this year, the EagleBank folks can always add a Gary Clark Party to the agenda to get local folks really interested.)

***

Wes Unseld, known during his NBA days for clogging thoroughfares, now has one named after him. Baltimore officials announced that the 200 block of what was once known as Hilton Street will now be called Unselds Way.

From the street-renaming announcement, I learned a couple things about Unseld that I probably should have known. First, he and his wife have operated a private school in Baltimore, the Unselds School, since the late 1970s. Also, Unseld has lived in Baltimore since coming to the Bullets in 1968, having stayed there even after Abe Pollin moved the team to Landover in 1973.

So for all the years Wes Unseld was a fixture in this market, he never lived around here.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Over the years, there aren't many things I've written about more than Monk and Mann's training center.

For a decade, the beloved former Redskins said the Carver Theatre building was going to be rebuilt by their non-profit organization, called the Good Samaritan Foundation, and promised that the building would become an epicenter of goodwill in a neighborhood historically lacking in it.

It never happened. But every time I wrote that the training center still wasn't open — almost like "Saturday Night Live"'s repeating that Francisco Franco was "still dead" in every fake newscast — officials of the organization continued insisting that their actions would soon back up Monk and Mann's words.

It's not like they didn't use Good Samaritan Foundation to make themselves look good. Monk's son even spoke of the organization in the speech he gave during Dad's Hall of Fame induction in August 2008.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Still more on the neverending story? Karl Swanson holds no grudge against the Washington Post? Roger Phegley DIDN'T mess up the Bullets forever and ever? Clearing on the Road to 100 Losses?)

And, of course, they used the promise of a job training center on the other side of the river to raise money, literally millions of dollars in federal grants and through gala dinners and celebrity golf tournaments. Congress kicked in at least $775,000 in the 2003 and 2004 federal budgets, which, according to bill granting the sum, would be used “to acquire and renovate a building to expand outreach and mentoring services to at-risk District of Columbia youths.”

Now, we know there won't be a training center.

A charter school bought the property from Monk and Mann's organization and opened it up as a middle school. There isn't even a Good Samaritan Foundation anymore.

To learn yesterday that the training center won't ever happen, after all that talk from such major local figures, and all that money they collected from well-wishers to accomplish their allegedly noble goal, is just amazing. I can't say I didn't see this sort of bailout coming. But I'm stunned.

I hope they come up with a decent explanation for what went wrong.

In the meantime. I'm gonna have to go dig out my copy of the 1988 Super Bowl, with Monk and Mann making huge plays as the Skins crushed the Broncos and gave me the greatest day of my sports fan life. Good god, they were awesome football players.

***

Cleaning out some sports pages:

From Sunday's Post: Karl Swanson still talks to the Washington Post! Who knew?

And, J. Freedom du Lac provides an oral history of the Bullets 1979 trip to China.

The highlight of the proceedings for me comes with du Lac dusting off Roger Phegley.

Phegley, then a first-year forward with the Bullets, delivers period-piece quotes about the voyage, among them: "You'd take a picture of the huge crowd with a Polaroid, and that baby would develop right in front of their faces and the Chinese would just freak out."

Dig!

The story made me reconsider Phegley's local legacy. I've always thought the beginning of the end of the Bullets dynasty — Awesome Trivia: the team made four NBA finals appearance in the same decade a feat matched by only the Celtics and Lakers — came when the Bullets used a 1978 first round pick on the unknown from Bradley.

I mean, Phegley really was a bust with the Bullets.

But, looking back at the detritus chosen shortly after him, and it's tough to make a case that then-Bullets GM Bob Ferry screwed up by picking Phegley. Marty Byrnes, anybody? Frankie Sanders? Buster Matheney?

Sure, it had Larry Bird, but the Class of '78 was for the dogs.

(Here's a photo from the story of Phegley, Abe Pollin, Wes Unseld, Jerry Sachs...and some woman who doesn't rate a mention. If that's Irene Pollin, you know the Post got at least one phone call about the omission.)

Nice to see du Lac getting back to basketball. Back when he was at the Sacramento Bee, du Lac famously broke the news that Chris Webber  was rubbing naughty bits with Tyra Banks. The story got the Kings' serial underaccomplisher to, as Phegley would say, freak out on the media in general and du Lac in particular.

(Full disclosure: When du Lac was the Post's rock critic, he let me review a Jonas Brothers show for the paper, and we've since become friendly enough that he lets me call him "Josh.")

***

Nationals get blanked in Philadelphia.

Now at 50-94, the Nats' Road to 100 Losses starts looking like a driveway.

With the shutout/blowout, the Nats also re-took the Major League lead in Worst Run Differential, having been outscored by opponents by 131 runs on the season.

***

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