The Dean's List

Hey, hey it's The Dean's List, where we're throwing punches like Amy Winehouse and coming out on-top, Spanish-style.

• How Stanford maintains its academic integrity and continues to kick ass in athletics is an enigma that only Scandinavian scientists can crack (Scandinavians are very precise). For the 14th straight year, Stanford won the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup, an annual award presented to the best overall athletics program in America. The Cardinal posted top-five finishes in 12 different sports in 2007-2008, winning the women's cross country championship and coming in second in women's basketball, women's volleyball, men's gymnastics and men's golf. (I'm not going to list the rest of the school's accomplishments here because the sentence would run to the end of the page.) Fourteen consecutive years. Not since "Bubba" Clinton was elected to his first term has another university taken the title.

• After dominating the college competition, Jacquelyn Johnson has taken her game to the next level. The four-time NCAA champion at Arizona State earned a ticket to Beijing this weekend with a second place finish in her signature event, the heptathlon. On hand to watch her impressive performance was boyfriend Jarrett Bush, a cornerback for the Green Bay Packers, and Michael Johnson, who holds the world record in the 200 and is going to be Jacquelyn's rep to the shoe companies. Hey, maybe we'll see those gold shoes again. We can only hope.

• With a wide gait and an impressive bark, he roamed the sidelines at Sanford Stadium for nine years, urging his beloved Georgia football team to an 87-27 record, two SEC championships and seven bowl victories. But every dog has its day, even the winningest mascot in UGA history, and on Friday Uga VI, Georgia's English bulldog mascot since 1999, passed away from heart failure at his home in Savannah. He'll be remembered as the heaviest (he would've preferred "most imposing") mascot in Georgia history and the only mascot to ever grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. In accordance with his celebrity status, Uga will be laid to rest in a marble vault in the Southwest corner of his old stomping grounds, Sanford Stadium, early this week. Rest in peace Uga VI. You was a good dawg.

• Bob McKillop and Davidson College basketball go together like J.Lo and Marc Anthony. I'm not so sure he'd agree with that comparison, but like Paul Pierce, it's the truth -- they're a perfect match. So it's great news all around that Coach McKillop has agreed to a three-year contract extension that'll keep him on the sidelines in North Carolina through 2016. I interviewed Coach McKillop last season, in the midst of his team's historic NCAA tournament run, and he couldn't have been more gracious or humble to a fledgling reporter who badgered him with questions he'd already answered hundreds of times. Despite his success, he wanted nothing more than to stay in Davidson, where he is the toast of the town, and continue to do what he does best - recruit underrated talent that will go out and beat over-confident teams.

• Lee Evans is The Man. The two-time Olympic gold medalist is leaving his job as track and field coach at the University of South Alabama, where he led the Jaguars to two Sun Belt indoor titles and a cross country league championship, to work for the United Nations in West Africa. Evans is what we like to call a well-rounded individual. He has proven himself a world-class athlete by setting a world record in the 400-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, a top-notch coach and mentor for eight years at South Alabama and an award-winning humanitarian. Evans, who has already won the NCAA Silver Anniversary and the Nelson Mandela Award for humanitarianism, will be working in refugee camps in Guinea to establish sports programs. Impressive, to say the least.

• In certain circles, of which I'm not a part, jail time is a badge of honor. If you beat up someone that's been talking smack about your mother and end up in the slammer, people respect you. They say, "Don't mess with that guy. He's crazy." I think the term is "street cred". But going to jail for unpaid traffic tickets does nothing to boost your street cred. In fact, from what I hear, your street-cred rating drops significantly after doing hard time for hitting 65-mph in a 45-mph zone. Just ask former Oklahoma quarterback Jamelle Holieway, who was thrown in the clink on Friday because of outstanding traffic warrants. Holieway took over for an injured Troy Aikman on OU's 1985 national championship team and is still considered one of the greatest option quarterbacks in college football history, but has fallen on hard times recently. Back in 2006 he was issued a speeding ticket, and this year he got two more tickets for driving really fast with a suspended license. Holieway decided not to pay the tickets and when he was picked up for marijuana possession (good for street cred) he was taken into custody for the unpaid traffic tickets. Now his reputation is ruined and he can't even drive to the store for a soda.

• Poor Darrell Arthur. He's got a pair of healthy kidneys -- no, honestly, they're normal -- but nobody seemed to believe him on draft night. The former Kansas forward, who left Lawrence after his sophomore season, slipped all the way to 27th in the NBA draft because there was a rumor floating around that he suffered from kidney problems. But he'd been tested by the Washington Wizards one day earlier and his kidneys were just fine. To add insult to pseudo-injury, Arthur was the last player waiting in the infamous "green room," and TV cameras couldn't help but get a close up of his mystified face as he waited for someone, anyone, to pick him. Arthur and his two healthy kidneys were eventually taken by the New Orleans Hornets and were then traded three times until they ended up in Memphis, where there are dozens of dialysis centers from which he can choose.

• Last week was a long week, but I really thought I was going crazy when I saw that not one, but two quarterbacks committed to Duke. Really? Next thing you know, gas will be back under a dollar. Sean Schroeder, a 6-foot-3 drop-back quarterback from California who's rated the fifth-best quarterback in the nation by Scout.com, committed to the Blue Devils along with Corey Gattis, a 5-foot-10 star from nearby Durham HIllside. What are these kids thinking? A lot, apparently, since they're going to a school that's ranked 101 nationally in football but eighth in academics. Still, you've got to wonder why two talented football players would want to go to a school that readily admits that its football program is one of the worst in the nation. That's like going to Switzerland for the beaches.

• I'm from Washington, D.C., and have seen what Steve Spurrier can do to a professional football team -- even one as great as the Redskins. But, let's give credit where credit is due. He's been effective at the college level because he's a smooth talker and a good recruiter. At least he used to be. Spurrier's Gamecocks just lost a prized recruit because the coaching staff failed to show up for the kid's visit. Justin Jones, a talented 6-foot-7 tight end, visited South Carolina last Wednesday and nobody but a graduate assistant showed up to greet him. So, one day later, Jones committed to Kentucky. The Wildcats had performed more admirably on his recruiting visit in Lexington, taking him to a basketball game -- appropriately against Spurrier's old school, Florida.