SB Nation DC was among those reporting last week about the DVD release of "Major League Entrepreneurs," what it called a "new documentary" about Dan Snyder's business successes. Far as I can tell, the video is really just a repackaging of an old PBS show that Snyder appeared in.

"Major League Entrepreneurs" was the title of the first episode of Season 1 of PBS's program called "CEO Exchange." Most of the footage came from a Q&A Snyder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban did with Jeff Greenfield on Sept. 20, 2000 in front of a roomful of students from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University outside Chicago. (Rather hilariously, the official PBS program guide for "CEO Exchange" lists him as "Daniel Synder" — "Synder" being the nickname hardcore Snyder bashers have been typing for years.)

Much of Snyder's performance is available online through a Japanese web site.

I've watched it a lot. It'll make you giggle. You'll feel sorry for Snyder. And then he'll scare the bejeezus out of you.

Given what we've learned in the decade since it was shot, the PBS program should have been rereleased with a laugh track. The intro has clips of Snyder, only a year into his ownership of the team, sitting around smoking a cigar with Vinny Cerrato at training camp, as Deion Sanders and Jeff George lolly gag nearby and a voice-over says "One thing that does come naturally to Snyder is winning!" (This was taped, again, during the 2000 season; the Redskins under Snyder have gone 70-90 since.)

But Snyder was hot at the time; the Skins had just been named the most valuable sports franchise by Forbes. His cockiness gets him in some trouble here. You could cue the "Jaws" music at about the 13 minute mark, when Greenfield, who had earlier introduced Snyder with a speech about "the shy kid in the back of the room in high school, the kid nobody notices... while the quarterback and the basketball captain gets the cheers and the dates," eggs on the Redskins owner to divulge the secret behind his making money as a marketer. Snyder replies that at Snyder Communications, they had "weekly meetings" to come up with a list of what groups to market goods and services to.

"We'd make jokes, each niche would be a $5 million niche, and we'd go after each one," Snyder says.

Greenfield asks for examples of his targeting decisions.

"We were looking at trend lines," Snyder says. "We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

The first 20 times or so that I saw the clip, I had pretty much the same reaction: "Uhhhh....Did Dan Snyder just brag to a crowd of college kids that he looks at folks on the business end of diabetes and cancer as a target market? As members of '$5 million niche?'"

And then I'd rewind the clip. And, dang if Snyder wouldn't say it all over again!

So let me type it again: "That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc." Snyder says. "How do we capture those market segments?"

Repeat after me: Yucky! I mean, sure, big business is a cold realm. But it takes a special kind of guy to boast about exploiting the downtrodden in front of a roomful of young strangers and TV cameras.

Click here to order "Major League Entrepreneurs" for $19, shipping included. Get yours today!

Today the courts are featuring the episode about Jackie Robinson's 1947 integration of baseball. As many times as I've seen it, damn, it's still good.

The jury pool, meanwhile, is only slightly more racially integrated than the 1946 Brooklyn Dodgers.

From what I read, that's been a problem for a while.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Did Dave Donovan used to cover Vinny Cerrato as a media man? D.C. Armor might be one and done, but NFL dreams still alive for its players? D.C. Council to recognize 1954 public school all-stars? Does that mean you're going to write about the 1954 public school all-stars again? Mike Locksley really is landing DCIAA talent all the way to New Mexico?)

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He was born in a small town. The Daily Times-Herald of Carroll, Iowa, which Dave "Yeah, That' the Ticket!" Donovan once delivered, writes up another profile of a favorite son: the former newspaper boy turned newspaper basher (and Redskins chief operating officer).

The inspiration for the latest piece is outlined in the lede:

Kuemper Catholic High School alum David Donovan, The Washington Redskins top in-house attorney, recently received high-profile billing in a Wall Street Journal story about the team.

Not many folks from Carroll get ink in the Journal.

There's also this bio information:

As a youth David worked as a paperboy here at the Daily Times Herald and also spent time in this newspaper's circulation department. He worked for the former Sernett's department store as well.

At KCHS, Donovan was student council president and editor of the student newspaper, The Charger.

Donovan earned his bachelor's degree in 1980 from Iowa State University in journalism and political science. During his time at Iowa State, Donovan interned for the Daily Times Herald, covering general news and sports under the tutelage of former sports editor Dennis O'Grady.

Kind of humanizes Donovan, a guy who can use some humanizing after all the whoppers he's told this season — the Redskins banned signs for safety reasons, fans aren't acting any differently this season, etc. — in a miserable attempt to protect boss Dan Snyder.

That part about being an Iowa State sportswriter way back when bears greater scrutiny. Being a 1980 grad, that means there was a great chance Donovan was covering the Cyclones when they had a young quarterback named Vinny Cerrato.

The Redskins are being run by the Ames Mafia!

I ask again: What did D.C. ever do to Iowa State to deserve this?

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Turns out the DC Armor, in the team's brief existence, indeed kept some dreams alive. The Philadelphia Eagles have just signed fullback Joel Gamble to their practice squad. Gamble's recent football background came indoors, with the DC Armor this past season. Here's a highlight.

The Armor, after one season playing before crowds slightly smaller than those the Bremers used to draw at the Grog & Tankard, have reportedly decided to pack it in. The team's website, however, urges fans to "Stayed tuned for the 2010 Season."

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City Council Chair Vince Gray and Councilman Harry Thomas have introduced a resolution honoring the 1954 D.C. Public School High School All-Star football team.

That's the first integrated team in the DC's schoolboy sports history.

The D.C. All-Stars beat Catholic League powerhouse and all-white St. John's, 12-7, at Griffith Stadium on Dec. 4, 1954. That game has been ignored far too long. So, the more attention the merrier.

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DCSportsFan.com reports that Coolidge football wideouts Martize Barr and Josh Ford will go to New Mexico to play for Mike Locksley.

Locksley has earned a reputation as one of the top recruiters in college ball over the last decade by funneling DC's best players into whatever program is paying him. He landed Vernon Davis when he was an assistant at Maryland and his brother Vontae Davis when he was offensive coordinator at Illinois.

Both Davises, who grew up in Petworth and played for Craig Jefferies powerhouse Dunbar teams, are now in the NFL. Arrelious Benn, another Dunbar star who was recruited nationally, also went to Illinois to play for Locksley, as did H.D. Woodson QB Eddie McGee.

New Mexico gave Locksley his first head coaching job after last season, and very little has gone smoothly since.Last May, an employee of the New Mexico athletic department accused Locksley with age and sex discrimination. That case was dropped.  Then early in this football season, Locksley got in a fight with an assistant coach that turned physical. He was briefly suspended without pay for that incident.

I spoke with the Davis Brothers a few months ago, and asked if they thought Locksley would be able to work his recruiting magic at such an outta-the-way locale. They said: Sure he will.

"Oh, he's going to bring talent that New Mexico has never seen before now," laughs Vontae. "Let me tell you that!"

Looks like he's right. Last offseason, he landed Coolidge's highly pursued quarterback/receiver tandem of Emmanuel Yeager and Derrell Person.

Yeager later left the team, however, after an arrest in Albuquerque for something called "concealing identity."  He had been pulled over for speeding and told the police that his name was "Emmanuel Yeastraiv." Not quite as catchy as the handle used by Michael Vick's herpes-friendly alter-ego, "Ron Mexico" — though "Ron New Mexico" would have worked well, all things considered.

But "Yeastraiv" seems pretty worldly for a D.C. kid to come up with in the clutch.

Yeastraiv, having reverted back to Yeager, played for Bowie State this season.

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

First up is The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), a 2008 Silverdocs selection.  It's the story of Thavi Phrasavath, a Laotian refugee who struggles to support his family and himself after they leave their native country following the US bombing of Laos during the Vietnam War.  Director Ellen Kuras met Phrasavath in 1986, when she was seeking language lesson and their relationship culminated in the production of this documentary.  Kuras followed Thavi for the next 23 years, through gang wars and death threats, and captures the ultimate betrayals within and outside the family.

Two of the short films from the 2009 festival and one from 2008 will air in an evening of award-winning short documentaries.  Utopia, Part 3: The World's Largest Shopping Mall focuses on a new mall built in China's Guangzhou province that is supposed to lure visitors to the rural area but instead remains a ghost town.  Nutkin's Last Stand tells the story of a group of squirrel enthusiasts in Britain who want to protect the diminishing population of red squirrels, so they resort to killing the American gray squirrels who have been descimating the population.  And City of Cranes focuses on a group of crane operators in London, who narrate the documentary while the cranes appear as a graceful addition to the city.

Later in the summer, This Way Up, the story of residents at a Catholic-run nursing home in East Jerusalem.  A wall of concrete slabs run past the door of the nursing home, dividing the city.  Unfortunately for the Palestinian residents of the home, they become separated from their families when the wall that zig-zags through the West Bank places the nursing home on the Israeli side.  Told from the point of view of Jad, one of the male residents, the documentary shows the variety of ways the residents learn to cope with their new separation.

Finally, sometime in September is the TV premiere of Bronx Princess, the story of Rocky Otoo, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants who grew up in the Bronx.  Chronicalling her last months before beginning college, the film shows Rocky breaking free of her parents' traditions while trying to define her values.  The crew follows her from graduation to her father's village in Ghana to her new home at Dickinson College and all the while, Rocky provides her own commentary about her life, and nobody else's.

Air times vary depending on which PBS station you watch, so check listings before tuning in.

If you've ever honked in Dupont Circle because you think Scientology is a cult, well then grab your Guy Fawkes mask. May 24 is your chance to act on the familiar weekend chant (Free Katie Holmes! Free Katie Holmes!). The bobbed wonder, fresh from All My Sons (which Entertainment Weekly hilariously and mistakenly refers to as My Three Sons, which Arthur Miller did not write), will be among the studded cast of the National Memorial Day Concert. Blissfully, she will not be singing. She is instead performing a dramatic reading with Dianne Weist. Also on the bill: Gary Sinese, Joe Mantegna, Colin Powell (doesn't he live here?), Laurence Fishburne and former American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee. The show will be broadcast live on PBS. After which Katie will shake off her shackles and begin eating again. One piece of advice, Joey: Be wary of the jumbo slice.

Flickr photo by danoz2k9