The Climate

College Football Spring Practice: If the season is the season, and recruiting has become the "second season," spring practice technically becomes the third, right? Now that it's officially underway for a handful of teams, the early questions seem to be, "Who starts at quarterback for USC?", "Who becomes the home run threat for Florida?", and of course, "How happy is Lou Holtz that he never has to attempt to pronounce 'Maualuga' ever again?"

Jimmy Fallon (feat. Serena Williams): After a solid first week (not huge, not horrible), Jimmy and Serena Williams played a quick game of beer pong. Thanks to some highly dubious underhanded lean-in throws, Serena took him down. Now that publicly challenging female tennis players to games is considered socially acceptable, let me formally challenge Ana Ivanovic to three quick rounds of Greco-Roman wrestling. I'll bring the pudding.

Donald Sterling's Clippers Tirade: Donald Sterling, the longtime Clippers owner,tore into his players in the locker room for not giving any effort and being selfish. I put this under the "Good" section because it's nice to see an owner with some moxie. Sure, Donald Sterling calling other people out for being selfish and putting forth no effort is like Larry the Cable Guy calling another comedian gimmicky and unfunny, but Sterling will be damned if he's going to just now start employing good judgement after all these years. HUEVOS.

Japanese World Baseball Classic Crowds: The best thing so far to come out of the WBC. If eating giant bowls of noodles, cheering in unison with thundersticks, and wearing oddly-magnetized necklaces is wrong, I don't think I want to be right.

Vlade Divac: When Shaq and Stan Van Gundy go back and forth about such things as flopping and manning up, there's only one real winner here -- Vlade. Nobody did the former better and the latter worse. For that, a special place on the weekly list must be saved for the best bearded, chain-smoking Yugoslavian to ever play the low post in the NBA.

These next five think that they're too cool for school, but I have a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite... they aren't:

NCAA Basketball Conference Tournaments: Every college football writer against a playoff will tell you that they fear that the regular season won't matter, comparing it to college basketball. Despite the fact that you can't logically connect the two ideas, the real problem here is the year-end tournaments that basically say, "Sure, you proved exactly who your team was over the course of a balanced schedule, but let's see you do it again -- this time on a carefully -- constructed TV revenue schedule!"

Terrell Owens: The worst thing about T.O. signing with the Bills is the opportunity it gives hack sports radio hosts across the country to dust off and regurgitate the ol' "Is T.O. worth it?" show. At this point, if you don't know that Owens will 100 percent detonate your team, it's best you just fire up Tecmo Super Bowl and sit down.

Florida State + the NCAA: The NCAA handed down sanctions to the Seminoles because of the use academically ineligible athletes, forcing the football team to forfeit certain victories, which puts Bobby Bowden's quest for the all-time wins record in serious doubt. This story really hit everyone involved with the 'Noles hard, so if you're having a tough time dealing with all of this, take comfort in knowing that no matter what, there are still crazy good deals at Foot Locker.

The Dominican Republic Baseball Team: Sure, they won their second game, but one of the overwhelming WBC favorites lost early to the Netherlands in one of the two biggest tournament upsets. It's one thing to lose, but it gets to be embarrassing when it's to a country known for wooden shoes, special bakeries, and 16th century composer/organistJan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Shame on you.

NBA Revenue: Ticket prices have seemingly hit rock bottom, making it pretty realistic to see an NBA game for roughly the same price as a chalupa. On second thought, though, a chalupa sounds significantly more enticing than an evening with Beno Udrih and the Kings right about now.