Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Harold Bell got some mainstream media time this afternoon.

He didn't waste it.

Bell, a D.C. sportstalk pioneer profiled in our pages in February, was brought on the Mike Wise Show on WJFK-FM because of a characteristically flame-throwing column he recently posted on Bleacher Report.

In the money grafs of the column, Bell's post puts a different and amazing spin on one of the most heinous incidents in D.C. sports history: The appearance of a racist banner at a Georgetown basketball game.

From a 2002 story I wrote about the incident:

At the start of a game in February 1975 between Georgetown and Dickinson College at what was then the Hoyas’ home court, McDonough Arena, a bedsheet was unfurled scrawled with “Thompson the Nigger Flop Must Go.” The “Thompson” on the sheet referred to the Georgetown coach, John Thompson, then in his third year of running the Hoyas program. The folks who hung the sheet from a window inside the gym ran away as their hate speech fell to the floor.

Bell, however, says in the column that Thompson orchestrated the whole incident. Bell didn't provide any evidence to back up that accusation in the post.

Asked by Wise to support the tale, Bell said that Thompson's "right hand man" from back in the day, who Bell identified on the air as "James Wiggins," told him years ago that the coach had in fact staged the banner's appearance.

Wise then loudly confronted Bell with what he said were discrepancies between Bell's version of events and what Wise said he knew about the goings on that fateful and hateful night — the banner was thrown threw a window, not hung, Wise said.

But Bell didn't back down from anything he'd written or said.

"A lie changes a thousand times, the truth never changes!" Bell said. Also: "You ain't poked holes in nothing I said!"

Later, when Wise's co-host Chris Johnson, said he doubted the validity of Bell's tale, the guest retorted: "You can take it or leave it!"

When Johnson tried to diminish Bell's credentials by yelling, "I've worked in the business 16 years... I don't know who you are!" Bell called him "a cheerleader with pompoms" and "Howdy Doody!"

"You're a zero, man," Bell said as Johnson railed.

The show's highlight, out of a large field, came when Bell told the WJFK hosts that they haven't ever done anything for the "community."

Wise yelped: "I painted schools!"

Oh, my.

"This is a waste of time," Bell said.

Not for listeners, it wasn't! Awesome radio!

Adam Dantus, general manager of the Premier Basketball League squad, says Hailey had a chronic kidney condition and received regular dialysis treatments. He had a dialysis session scheduled for Friday, but put it off for a day to be with the team as it traveled home from a loss Thursday in Rochester. He never made the rescheduled appointment.

"He ran practice here from 9 to 11 on Friday night," Dantus says. "He thought he was coming down with a cold, but went back to the hotel. I started getting calls at 9 in the morning. I only knew him a week, but, man, he was a great guy. Devoted."

So, after just seven games in their first season, the GreenHawks will now be hiring their fourth head coach. Ryan Krueger, who was the first coach hired by the expansion franchise, left during the preseason for a college job. Rob Spon, a minor league basketball veteran, replaced Kreuger but was dumped after going 1-4 to start the year. Enter Hailey, another well-traveled minor leaguer with short stints — every minor league coaching stint is short — all over the place. Among the teams you never heard of formerly coached by Hailey: the Montreal Dragons, Saskatchewan Hawks,Vancouver Nighthawks, Niagara DareDevils, Tijuana Diablos, Calgary Drillers and Los Angeles Push.

Hailey, who as a teenager set the national prep high jump record at 7' 1" in 1968, went 1-1 in his last coaching gig.

Hours after Hailey's death, the GreenHawks were scheduled to host the Vermont FrostHeaves, a squad made famous by founder/author Alexander Wolff. But that game was postponed, officially because of snow.

The next new coach of the now 2-5 team has not yet been announced. "I'm talking to three people today," says Dantus. "I'll make a decision by three o'clock."

***

I was so wowed by a UDC men's room that I went back with a camera so I could share its majesty with the world.

Shortly after I posted my wows, I learned that I'm hardly the first person to walk away dazed after hitting the head at the Harvard of the West Side of the Middle of the 4200 Block of Connecticut Avenue NW.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Who first blew the lid off the UDC bathroom story? More Potomac swimming? Isn't that where you find intersexual smallmouth bass? DeMatha plays the wrong St. Anthony's? How much would you pay for the Pontiac Silverdome? Wasn't that where King Kong Bundy broke Little Beaver's back? How much would you not pay for a Dan Snyder autograph?)

Turns out that nearly three years ago, before going on to greater greatness at Huffington Post, City Paper's own Arthur Delaney felt a similar sense of wonderment in a UDC restroom, which he described in this very forum as "fit for the Queen."

You get the collar, Art.

***

Another day to swim in the Potomac River! Registration opens today for the inaugural Washington, D.C. Triathlon, scheduled for June 20. The new race is put on by the same folks who produce the Nation's Triathlon. Chuck Brodsky, founder of both, put in a big plug for the city's most powerful triathlete in announcing the event.

“We are incredibly pleased to bring a second triathlon to our city," Brodsky said, "which not only boasts the nation’s top triathlete Mayor but also features two unparalleled courses that offer swimming, biking and running tours of DC’s most spectacular monuments and national treasures.  No where else in the world can competitors trace the footsteps of America’s history while competing alongside the nation’s best.”

Absent triathlons, it's still illegal to swim in the Potomac, which has been famously polluted since the 19th century — first with pig parts, later with industrial waste. Brodsky pushed for years before getting a one-day exemption on the swimming ban so he could hold the Nation's Triathlon.

After swimmers returned to the river for the 2008 triathlon, I called Rita Colwell, a former director of the National Science Foundation and a person who had been studying the Potomac for decades, to ask her feelings on whether it should be reopened for recreational purposes. Colwell was appalled that anybody would jump in a body of water whose name so often appeared alongside references to "fecal matter" and "intersexual smallmouth bass."

“When I heard that they were swimming down by the Memorial Bridge, my first reaction was: You wouldn’t get me in there!” Colwell told me.

But, for folks with stronger constitutions, register for the new race at www.DCTri.com.

***

DeMatha was the top ranked team in town at the end of last week. A lot has changed. A night after losing to Gonzaga in OT at AU, DeMatha lost by two points to a basketball factory school from up north: St. Anthony's, the New Jersey squad usually described as being "coached by Bobby Hurley's dad."

'Course, this wasn't the DeMatha/St. Anthony's matchup that local prep hoops crazies coveted four decades ago, back when Stags' coach Morgan Wootten and Tonies' boss John Thompson had the best programs in the area and flat-out hated each other. For years, both coaches claimed the other coach was ducking his team. The closest the matter ever came to getting settled was when a matchup was scheduled in June 1970 for an outdoor court in the Jelleff Summer League. Somewhere between 500 and 5,000 people showed up, depending on who you believe, but Thompson Punk'd 'em all by leaving his real players off the court and sending in a bunch of non-playing students to face DeMatha's powerhouse squad. Final score: DeMatha 108, St. Anthony’s 26.

Because of Thompson's antics, that night at Jelleff is referred to as the The Greatest Game Never Played. And folks associated with both programs haven't been allowed to forget it. The joke around DeMatha circles last week, one even Morgan Wootten was heard telling people, was: "We're finally playing St. Anthony's, but we had to go to New Jersey to do it."

***

Saturday's Washington Post had two stories that paint Maryland as open-minded about drugs. Marcus Curry, a Navy football star, remains on the squad even after getting caught with pot in his system. Curry says whatever made his pee pee dirty came from a cigar he smoked. Smoking a pot-free cigar seems dumber than a joint in 2010, doesn't it? The second story was from Andrew Beyer, about trainer Kirk Ziadie, who was banished from Florida tracks this winter amid scads of drug accusations, only to be welcomed to Laurel Park with his large stable of horses. I bet Beyer's been betting 'em.

***

Amazing story in today's Washington Post about the Pontiac Silverdome. The city of Pontiac just sold the building and 127 surrounding acres for $583,000 at auction. For most sports fans, the building is best remembered for hosting Wrestlemania III in 1987. About 93,173 folks, the biggest crowd ever to see an indoor sporting event, showed up to witness 400-pounder-or-so King Kong Bundy break midget legend Little Beaver's back with a body slam.   (Here's Jesse the Body Ventura's call: "Smash him, Bundy!", plus Bob Uecker telling the audience, "Little Beaver just gave Bundy a shot in the boiler!")

But $583,000 for the 80,300-seater? Remind me not to hire a real estate agent or auctioneer from Pontiac.

***

Speaking of auctions for items the public doesn't want: eBay has an autographed photo of Dan Snyder for just $79.99. An auction of what looks like the exact same photo and signature just got zero bids on the site, even with an opening of just $3.95.

***

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1)Henry Allen really is a cocksucker. Charticles are hard as balls.

2)Charticles don't work real well in the pro-visionary online format. See for yourself! But charticles are grand in print. So pick up an analog copy of City Paper now. Patronize the advertisers therein! You'll not only be helping save this newspaper, you'll be giving the charticle a future!

This particular charticle deals with how Redskins fans can spend all that money they save by giving up season tickets. Sure, season tickets used to be harder to get around here than a legitimate invitation to a state dinner. But from everything I've heard and read and felt and tasted lately, I'd bet there's going to be a waiting list to get rid of Skins tickets after this season.

I'm still suffering from sticker shock after reporting this charticle — and, yes, I'm going to use "charticle" as often as possible henceforth, because it's the greatest word I've learned since "jism." Thousands of families in this area have given Dan Snyder tens of thousands of dollars a year for years just to attend Redskins games. I mean, I guess I always knew that. But seeing these figures in print left me stunned: Using essentially the same template as Team Marketing Report, the godfather of fan-expenditure surveys, I calculated that a family of four spends about $24,190 per season to sit in the Loge section of FedExField.

Depression? What depression?

The biggest rush I got out of reporting the charticle(!) was the chance to talk to Gerry Bessell.

Redskins fans might not know Bessell's name, but they sure know his work. He's the guy who kickstarted Joe Jacoby's acting career by hiring the biggest Hog to be the spokesmodel for TheaterVision, the Rockville-based big-screen TV retailer that Bessell owned.

(AFTER THE JUMP: How come we don't have TheaterVision commercials anymore? DeMatha and Montrose Christian just plain don't like each other? Mike Jones and Stu Vetter are the latter day Morgan Wootten and John Thompson? Who's going to punk who?)

"And yes, and you can have this set here, 50 inch, four-foot screen, for as little as $895," Jacoby told viewers while wearing a tight t-shirt and those polyester coach's shorts that were huge in the 1980s but later banned by the United Nations. That scene, from the first of many TheaterVision commercials that starred Redskins, was burned into the brains of a generation of Skins fans.

Bessell, like Alfred Hitchcock, did cameos in most of the TheaterVision commercials. He says the first Jacoby spot, filmed in 1984, was the most popular ad he ever produced, mostly because of how awful the Redskins star's line delivery was.

"Those were the world's worst and best commercials," says Bessell. "Joe Jacoby wasn't married when we did that first one. But his wife made him come back and do another commercial after they got married, and she was in it. She looked good, standing next to him, and he sounded a little better in that ad, but not much."

Bessell no longer owns TheaterVision, but he still works there. He misses the old days, when an independent businessman such as himself could produce godawful commercials with amateur production values, and still put throw them out to the masses.

"It's too expensive to get any time on TV now," he says. "You gotta be a big chain."

Oh, well. We still have BathFitters.

***

Past is prologue: Great piece in today's Washington Post, titled "Deprived of a Dream Matchup." Josh Barr writes about a feud brewing between the top two prep basketball programs in the area. The schools are avoiding playing each other as the head coaches snipe at one another.

Nowadays, it's DeMatha and Montrose Christian doing the avoiding, and Stags coach Mike Jones and MC's Stu Vetter doing the sniping.

From Barr's story:

Jones does not want to play Montrose so late in the season because the Stags play in the competitive Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and get plenty of tough games at that time of the year. Plus, Jones noted, what if Montrose or DeMatha was having an off year, would that hurt the game's billing?

Vetter, whose team competes as an independent, sees the game as a natural for late in the season, with the ability to hype the matchup for a few months.

"He wants to play us after he has a chance to mesh his new talent with his old talent," Jones said. "I'd be a fool to play Montrose so close to our playoffs. It just would make no sense. Bottom line, they don't have a league championship to worry about. We do. If we beat Montrose and don't win our league championship, it won't make a difference. Nobody is going to pat us on the back if we beat Montrose."

Countered Vetter: "We would love to play anybody in the area. Obviously, DeMatha has an outstanding program. We would love the opportunity to play DeMatha, and I think they should love the opportunity to play us. I think it would be great for the area, and I think it's something that should happen."

But dang if the whole episode doesn't harken back to the old brouhahas between DeMatha and St. Anthony's circa 1970, when Hall of Famers Morgan Wootten and John Thompson went at it.

DeMatha's Wootten and St. Anthony's Thompson, as Keith Jackson used to say, just plain didn't like each other. After a couple seasons of both saying the other was ducking 'em in regular season scheduling and postseason tournaments, the schools found themselves in the same summer league at Jelleff Boy's Club. And so they were scheduled to settle it all one night in June 1970 at an outside court at Jelleff, off Wisconsin Avenue NW just north of Georgetown.

The hype was ridiculous for any sort of high school sporting event, let alone a summer-league matchup.

“It took a summer-league basketball schedule to accomplish it, but DeMatha and St. Anthony’s high schools will finally meet,” said a preview piece in the Washington Post that appeared the morning of the big game. A crowd of anywhere from 400, as the Post reported, to 5,000 fans, as former DeMatha star Kenny Roy and several attendees now estimate, showed up to watch.

But Thompson pulled one of the biggest stunts of his legendary coaching career that night. He sat all his regular players and suited up St. Anthony's students who weren't even on the school team.

DeMatha's regular lineup, which included future NBA superstar and Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley, brutalized Thompson's scrubs.

Final score: DeMatha 108, St. Anthony’s 26. Legend holds DeMatha full court pressed from start to finish.

Days after the game, Thompson confessed to the Washington Post's Ken Denlinger that he'd set up the prank to get back at DeMatha coach Morgan Wootten for blackballing his team from a tournament a year earlier.He said he'd included the non-players' names on the roster he submitted to league officials at the beginning of the summer season knowing he was going to use them to mock Wootten and DeMatha when the schools met at Jelleff.

Many DeMatha backers have never forgiven Thompson for what Roy calls “the greatest game never played.”

"Finally, it was going to happen," Roy told me a few months ago. "This was the game everybody wanted to see. And then John Thompson pulls what he pulls. What a disappointment.”

But Merlin Wilson, a high school all-American and future Georgetown star who played center on Thompson's loaded St. Anthony's team, still has no problem with his coach showing Wootten up.

“[T]his was on the two coaches, just going at each other, this was their deal,” Wilson told me recently. “But we knew [Wootten] wouldn’t play us [in a regular season] and pulled out of tournaments, kept us out. If his team was all that, why wouldn’t they play us when it mattered?”

Though times have changed too much for there ever to be a high school rivalry as renowned as the vintage DeMatha/St. Anthony's feud, Barr's article in the Post makes it sound like DeMatha/Montrose Christian is certainly worth paying attention to.

And with the money at stake to both programs, you just know they're gonna play each other.

***

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Thompson told listeners he phoned Baylor in Southern California on his birthday just to say thanks for inspiring him and so many other DC kids in the 1950s when he went off to college to play ball. Baylor's style of play was a revelation to players from anywhere and everywhere. But around here, Baylor's influence transcended the court. Before Baylor, Thompson said, kids on the city's playgrounds never thought of going off to college. He made the world a bigger place for a whole generation.

Thompson, now 68, recalled being at the playground one day when Baylor, already a legend here after carrying the University of Seattle to the NCAA Final Four, showed up with a big friend: Wilt Chamberlain. Thompson, then a skinny and awestruck teenager sitting courtside, was the last guy picked for the game. "Elgin remembered it!" Thompson said, as if he never played in a game that mattered more.

The story led to all sorts of calls from other aging children to talk about Baylor's greatness and other boyhood heroes.

Because the mainstream media pretended black schoolboy athletes didn't matter, Baylor never got talked up enough when he lived here.

(AFTER THE JUMP: How come Baylor doesn't have a statue? Tamir Goodman retires? From what? If Linda McMahon comes back to DC, will Vince follow?)

And, he doesn't get talked up enough around his old hometown to this day. If any athlete from DC deserves a statue, it's Elgin Baylor.

***

From a kid who didn't get enough attention to a kid who got way too much: Here's the lede of the Tamir Goodman retirement story from the Baltimore Sun: "Once heralded as 'The Jewish Jordan,' Tamir Goodman never lived up to the hype."

Goodman never had a chance.  It seemed the state of Maryland's entire Orthodox Jewish community was coming out for his games around the time Gary Williams offered Goodman a scholarship in 1999. Goodman's high school coach did him no favors, going on every sports station and calling every newspaper to tout the skinny teen's greatness during his junior season at Talmudical Academy in Pikesville. Goodman signed autographs to kids wearing yarmulkes and said he was playing not for a school but for a people.

"Tamir feels like he's playing for the Jewish people," his father, Karl Goodman, told me after a game at Talmudical. "But he still takes out the garbage."

For outsiders, the whole scene was as bizarre as it was entertaining.The administration at Talmudical, known for its conservative ways and academic rigors, wasn't amused by the media circus. The school didn't even want Goodman or his coach around for his senior year of high school.

And, like a horse whose trainer had only run him against cheap claimers or a fighter whose padded his record with tomato cans, Goodman's real game got exposed as soon as he went against high schools who cared about basketball. Williams withdrew Maryland's scholarship offer to Goodman before he'd graduated high school, and Goodman basically went into heavy rotation in Where-Are-They-Now? stories (including several in this space).

The godly frenzy that surrounded him as a kid put a zap on his head that's still there. After making his retirement announcement in Brooklyn — he's been playing minor league ball in Israel, and now he'll work with kids — he gave the Sun such quotes as "Looking back, I see how divinely ordained everything was," and "If you look at the beginning of my career, it seemed like God just carried me and I only knew success."

It's not his fault, or His fault, that Goodman was a better story than he was a basketball player.

***

Linda McMahon is trying to get back to DC. She's running as a Republican for Chris Dodd's (D-CT) U.S. Senate seat. McMahon is the husband of WWE boss and absolute mothershutyourmouthin' genius Vince McMahon.

The McMahons became a couple as kids growing up in North Carolina, when she was 13 years old and Vince was a couple years older. They've been together ever since. Vince spent a lot of time here in DC with his dad, Vincent J. McMahon, who ran his wrestling empire out of this city, with weekly matches at Turner’s Arena on W Street NW. And after college Vince and Linda moved up here to help out with the family ring business, and stayed with the company as it moved to Connecticut and became the global force it is today.

She's not the first Connecticutter to try to use wrestling as a springboard to Congress. Bob Backlund, a World Champion for the McMahons' federation, then called WWF, in the 1970s, tried running for a House seat in 2000 as a Republican. Backlund's campaign — his second for public office, if you count the 1996 run for president as part of a WWF story line — ended with him getting piledriven by his Democratic opponent.

Linda McMahon pledges her campaign is legit.

But, there's no way Vince is going to let this pass without adding a wrestling angle to it. No way.

***

Update on the Road to 100 Losses: Nationals get whupped in Philadelphia, 6-1.

The Nats scored their first and only run in two days in the top of the 9th, on a play the official scorer ruled "fielder's indifference."

Indifference in the Nats has spread to the opposition!

Good thing it's football season...

***

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They were the two best teams in the city back then, and played before a huge crowd on a little outdoor court at Jelleff.

Well, they sort of played. Thompson made the evening memorable, though for wholly unsporting reasons. He kept his star-stocked lineup, full of future NCAA Division 1 players, on the bench, and instead sent in a ringer squad of non-basketball players to face DeMatha. The Stags took no pity on the replacements, crushing the kids in St. Anthony's uniforms, 108-26.

DeMatha players and the hoop-crazy fans who believed the hype and took the trouble that hot summer night to get to Jelleff, a boys club off Wisconsin Avenue, are still peeved at Thompson for making a mockery of the matchup.

But at the time the future Georgetown legend was anything but contrite.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Thompson ducked Wootten for Ducking Thompson? Nats win a video replay battle, lose the war? Larry Weisman practices the real new journalism? Michael Vick is the new Justin Timberlake? Greyhounds have friends?)

Thompson said his prank was to get back at Wootten for ducking his team in a year earlier in a postseason tournament: "I hope everyone who was there the other night and everyone who was interested was disappointed," Thompson told the Washington Post. "Then they'll know how my kids felt last year."

They don't have high school rivalries like that anymore. Or, if there are, they don't get written up on the front page of the sports section. Also, how many times do you have a high school matchup that can boast three future Hall of Famers — Thompson, Wootten, and DeMatha's Adrian Dantley? Basketball was indeed king around here back then.

The whole thing would make a good documentary.

***

Nats lose, 7-5. Starting pitching doesn't hold up, bullpen doesn't hold up, and immediately after a video replay turned a homer from Brewers Ryan Braun into a triple, Garrett Mock wild pitches the dude home from third. Few hints of Thunderation, is all I'm sayin'...

***

Training camp opens today. I get more excited about the start of football season every year. I don't know if it's me or the NFL publicity machine.

Speaking of: Larry Weisman practices the real new journalism. The longtime USA Today writer and football savant left the newspaper biz a couple months ago to work for Dan Snyder's PR staff.

Weisman's duties will include writing faux news stories for the Redskins website, such as today's piece on Jim Zorn's status. (Weisman's real stories are still appearing in real newspapers.)

It's a good thing Zorn wasn't fired after his team sunk to 8-8 last season, Weisman's hired hands type: "Lessons were learned last year, Zorn said. Hard lessons, some of them. Now more teaching commences, more building takes place and, executed properly, sets the stage for further development. That’s the hope. That’s the plan."

Readers could mistake Weisman's work for a newspaper story. And, I'm sure Snyder would admit: That's the hope. That's the plan.

I'm surprised Snyder hasn't given Weisman a faux radio show yet, too.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg showcases a pack of fans who came to Redskins Park to lobby for the signing of Michael Vick. When asked how he'd feel if Vick were actually brought to DC, one says: "Have you ever seen a girl at an 'N Sync concert?" I sorta get it, but would have been more convinced if the answer was something like: "Have you ever seen Michael Vick when his brown pit bull rips the throat off another guy's pit bull wide open, and collects on his $40 bet?"

Now THAT's excitement!

***

Not everybody is mean to dogs. This weekend, folks who care about the conditions of the greyhound breed are holding a convention in Massachusetts. The worries come from the decline of greyhound racing in this country, and the lack of concern the rest of the world has about the welfare of the racing dogs. A huge greyhound adoption network has sprung up in the U.S. in recent years with the help of animal rights groups and the racing industry, but apparently the dogs have a less rosy post-racing future elsewhere.

***

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That's how Caps' play-by-play man Steve Kolbe ended his awesome call of David Steckel's game winner last night from Pittsburgh.

Nothing like OT playoff hockey on the radio.

The game started lousy for the eventual winners. At the end of the 1st period, with the Caps down 1-0 and trailing the Penguins in shots on goal 18-5, the Kolbe and, particularly, his booth partner Ken Sabourin, sounded resigned to a bad ending.

"The Penguins got help from the official on that one. Check's in the mail!" said Sabourin after Kris Letang's goal gave Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead early in the third period. His point was that a referee had deflected the puck right to Letang, and was clearly on the take.

"Check's in the mail!" is what you want from the home crew!

The Caps scored twice over the next 88 seconds.

Steckel's shot snapped the franchise's long losing streak in playoff overtime games and kept 'em alive to tighten up the 1-7 record in playoff series with Pittsburgh.

But, that's the past. Once again: Doesn't this year just feel different?

We'll find out tomorrow. I'll be listening.

***
The Caps' post-game show, aired on WJFK during the playoffs, isn't for everybody: An earnest and nervous caller said he wanted to "give props" to the Capitals only to have the rest of his garbled goodwill message cut off mid-thought.

The hosts, led by Jonathan Warner, announced that only callers 18 years old and older are allowed on the air and quickly hit the next line.

Within seconds an older and unsober sounding dude was yelling "Me and my wife, man, our heads literally went through the roof!" He got to say his whole piece.

Yes, the airwaves are an adult domain.

***

Ryan Zimmerman's at 29. Half-Dimaggio plus one!

***

Is there turmoil in Georgetown sports?

Yesterday Hoyas Athletic Director Bernard Muir announced he'd be leaving the Hoyas to take a job at the University of Delaware.

On paper, doesn't seem like a parallel move. Muir's new title will be Director of Athletics and Recreation Services.

"Recreation Services"?

Sounds like Muir's job description just went from overseeing one of the NCAA's highest profile basketball programs to making sure the Ultimate Frisbee field in Greek Circle gets watered.

Muir's leaving comes just as Hoyas e-fanzines are buzzing about the departure of Robert Burke, a Georgetown assistant basketball coach and head coach John Thompson III's longtime court partner.

Burke played alongside JT III at Gonzaga, coached with him at Princeton and came to Georgetown at the same time in 2004.

The school has not announced that Burke is leaving. And until an official reason is given, the message boarders will provide their own rationales.

Posters at mdhigh.com, a high-volume rivals.com site, have attributed Burke's departure to game strategy and recruiting problems, and some sort of squabbles between the program and Curtis Malone, the idolmaker behind DC Assault, one of the strongest AAU programs in the country.

There are also alleged sub-plots involving David Falk, the super-agent who has historically represented a lot of Georgetown talent.

Maybe, in the end, we'll find out it's just because Georgetown beat most of the top teams in the country early on, then lost 12 of its last 16 games.

***
Just as the Have Nots were on the verge of Having, Mother Nature threw a curveball.

Bishop Ireton of Alexandria has won just four boys athletics titles in the Catholic schools conference, now called the WCAC, in the last 40 years: three in soccer and one in lacrosse.

None have come since 1994.

But last night, in WCAC's baseball championship game, Ireton was up a run over Paul VI in the sixth inning. With the biggest sporting accomplishment in the school's history within sight, the clouds opened up, and umpires suspended the game.

DCSPORTSFAN.COM says the replay is tomorrow night. Because of the 48-hour rain delay, Paul VI will be able to put its ace pitcher, who was resting last night, back on the mound.

God has both dogs in this fight. But if Taylor Swift has any say, Ireton's a cinch.

***
Michael Phelps is back!

In the tabloids, that is. A Baltimore stripper named Theresa White has sold her tale of three-way romance with the Olympic swimmer to News of the World.

If you believe the news, he's spent all his time since Beijing banging or bonging.

But his stamina remains world class, says Stripper Theresa.

***

Roger Clemens' nickname was Rocket, not Rocket Scientist.

Clemens showed up this morning on "Mike and Mike" on WTEM, where the pitcher plead his innocence by saying "my stepdad" had heart disease, so therefore it would be "suicidal" to "take any of these dangerous drugs."

Your step-dad can give you swine flu, Rocket. But not heart disease.

***

Wonder how Roger would do on the Wonderlic? Take it yourself.

***

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