Weekend Primer

Your guide to the weekend, SIOC style.

Dad's Challenge, Washington State, 2 p.m.Have some fun on the WSU ropes course and celebrate Dad's Weekend right. While the challenges will be difficult for the dads, they'll be flat out terrifying for students who have yet to experience the trauma of watching their middle-aged fathers perform strenuous physical tasks. With every step and jump, students will cringe at the potential for pulled muscles, spasms and broken bones. Consider these hazardous adventures revenge for all those torturous driving lessons.

ESPN Executives Speaking at Cronkite School, Arizona State, 2 p.m.The speakers include Senior VP John Walsh and Monday Night Football bigwigs Jay Rothman and Chip Dean. Take this as an opportunity to ask questions about Mike Tirico's wardrobe, Tony's hair stylist and what Hank Williams Jr. does the other 348 days of the year.

2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars, Michigan State, 7:30 p.m.Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Jonathan Horton and Raj Bhavsar are among the American medalists who will be performing. Make sure to pay close attention to Johnson and Lukin as they continue their quest to break the world record for most hugs between two females in one year. And if that's not enough reason to attend, the first 2,500 hundred fans through the door will receive free phony Chinese birth certificates.

Logging Sports Chopping Challenge, Colorado State, 8:30 a.m.Colleges from around the Northwest will gather to determine the best collegiate wood chopper. Some of the day's other events include the "pulp toss" and the "axe throw," which I assume resembles the golf club throw -- When your wood chopping doesn't go as well as you'd like, you simply chuck your axe into the nearest body of water and get another one form your chopping caddie.

NCAA Football: Arkansas at South Carolina, 1 p.m.It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a swarm of "Cocky Cloths!" On Saturday, Arkansas will discover the power college football's latest Terrible Towel knockoff delivers. Created less than a month ago by a group of students, more than 80,000 of these towels could be channeling good karma to the Gamecocks on Saturday. That's not good news for an Arkansas team simply dreaming about becoming bowl eligible.

2008 College Puzzle ChallengeWhen I heard Microsoft was behind this competition, I got extremely excited. Then I learned "Minesweeper" is not one of the puzzles. Oh well. Still, teams from 24 schools will set up shop in 16 locations around the country, and you can bet their thinking caps will be on. They'll each receive 15-25 puzzles and the answers to those will help them crack the "Meta-puzzle." The first team to crack the "Meta-puzzle" (I love that name) earns the grand prize (free Vista mouse pads!).

NCAA Football: No. 9 Oklahoma State at No. 2 Texas Tech, 8 p.m.How many premature field stormings will there be this week? Three? Four? Seventeen? Texas Tech needs to rig some kind of red light-green light system to let its fans know when the game is officially over.

NCAA Women's Soccer: Big East Championship Game, Notre Dame, 12 p.m.Notre Dame is ranked No. 1 and owns the only unblemished record in the country. As if the rest of the conference didn't have a steep enough hill to climb, the Fighting Irish's home field will also host the Big East tournament. Even Charlie Weis can't mess up this team.