Monday, April 2, 2012

Singleton has no regrets about spending $10,000 in lottery

The multistate Mega Millions lottery reached staggering proportions with a jackpot of $640 million. There were three winners in Maryland, Illinois, and Kansas, but Washington Wizards rookie Chris Singleton wasn't among the three.

No dice after dropping $10,000 on lottery tickets. I guess professional athletes have lottery dreams too. Even after spending an absurd amount of money for the tickets, Singleton has no regrets about the money he spent.


Washington Wizards rookie Chris Singleton says it was worth it to buy $10,000 worth of tickets for last week's Mega Millions lottery, adding it was "either that or blowing it in the clubs."


Singleton didn't win a share of the record-breaking top prize, but he said Monday that he did win some money. He's not sure how much because he hasn't gone through all of his tickets yet.


My only beef is that athletes and entertainers shouldn't play to let someone needy have a better shot at winning the top prize.

William Andrews jailed on child support charges

Former Atlanta Falcons running back William Andrews was jailed in Cobb County Friday on a civil contempt charge.

Andrews, 56, of Alpharetta, allegedly failed to pay child support and was arrested Thursday afternoon by a Cobb County deputy, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office told the AJC. Andrews was being held without bond Friday afternoon.


Andrews' criminal record includes arrests in Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb counties, records show.

On Sept. 19, 2004, the day the former Falcons running back was inducted into the Ring of Honor, he was in the Cobb County jail for contempt of court after failing to pay child support. Andrews spent much of 2006 in the DeKalb County Jail on theft by taking charges in an alleged loan fraud case.


Andrews was one of the better running backs in the league during the early 1980's and had a bruising style until a knee injury cut his career short after five productive seasons.

Bruce Pearl and Jimmy Collins call a truce

After a decades long grudge, former Illinois basketball assistant Jimmy Collins has forgiven former Tennessee head basketball coach, Bruce Pearl.

I wouldn't exactly call Collins forgiving Pearl but he did accept Pearl's apology when the two ran into each other in New Orleans Friday night.

If you don't know the story I'll give a cliff notes version of it. Pearl was an assistant at Iowa back in 1989 and Collins was an assistant at Illinois. Both schools were in a heated recruiting battle over the services of Chicago native Deon Thomas.

Pearl secretly recorded a conversation where Collins alledgedly offered thomas $80,000 and a Chevy Blazer. Illinois was hit with probation, Pearl and Collins were never on good terms, and Pearl eventually climbed the coaching ladder to Tennessee while Collins could only land the top job at Illinois-Chicago. Collins never bit his tongue when asked how he felt about Pearl and held a serious grudge against him. 

Eventually Pearl was done in at Tennessee for his own recruiting troubles and lying to NCAA investigators in a classic case of what goes around comes around.

Now it seems the two have made amends this past weekend.


"I saw Jimmy just before dinner about 7 p.m. on Friday; I put my hand out, and he shook it," Pearl, the former Tennessee men's basketball coach, said Sunday. "I told him I'm really sorry about what we all went through, and that Deon Thomas was a victim and there were a lot of victims.


"My apology was it was unfortunate it happened, and it hurt people, ultimately, including me."



" ... I looked up, he was walking toward me," Collins told ESPNChicago.com. "When he got to me, he started to apologize for what had happened. He made it clear that he was young and didn't understand things. He ended up saying he really felt bad because he knew Deon Thomas got hurt.

"The truth of the matter was it was fine. It was a guy who had gone through some changes, and as he's gotten older, he realized some things were wrong, and he apologized for it."

"I let it go; there's nothing I can do with what happened then," he said. "I'm not going around with a lot of hate in my heart. I'm not going to hold a grudge all your life."

I can see why Collins was cold as ice to Pearl, but it was the unspoken oath that Pearl broke that caused the rift between the two. Maybe after what Pearl went through at the end of his Tennessee tenure he could see what he did wrong. At least he reached out to Collins and wanted to make it right.