An all-‘America’s Team’ clash
You and John Madden have something in common. “The most fun I ever had in a football season,” he said, “was 1985.” As he and Al Michaels return to Chicago to call Sunday night’s Cowboys-Bears game for NBC Sports, Madden says it’s more than simply a clash of two NFC powers. “When Chicago wins — if they get back to being the top team in the NFC or the NFL — they could truly be America’s team,” he said. “But until then, that’s what Dallas is. For years people have said, ‘That’s a bunch of baloney,’ but it’s not. The Dallas Cowboys lead the league in hotel lobbies. You’ll go to some and you’ll see like 10 [fans] in the lobby. With the Dallas Cowboys, it’s like 1,000.”
— Teddy Greenstein
Injured Bill ready for next step
Kevin Everett will be transferred Friday morning to a Houston hospital to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation, less than two weeks after the Bills tight end sustained a life-threatening spinal-cord injury. And doctors said Thursday they believe he will be walking within weeks — perhaps sooner. “Soon … they’re going to stand him up,” Dr. Barth Green told the AP shortly after discussing Everett’s condition with Bills orthopedic surgeon Andrew Cappuccino. “They’re very confident he’ll be walking very soon … in the next days or weeks, not months.” The prognosis is remarkable after Everett arrived at the hospital paralyzed from the neck down after being hurt Sept. 9.
Vaccaro joins lecture circuit
Sonny Vaccaro has long been an outspoken critic of the NCAA. Now he has a new audience. Nine months after leaving the shoe company business, Vaccaro began an East Coast university speaking tour at Harvard, where he criticized the NBA and NCAA in a spirited 90-minute lecture. Vaccaro, who hopes to “awaken America,” will lecture Friday at Yale and Wednesday at Maryland. “I always prayed this would be my ending,” Vaccaro told the Washington Post. “This is the most significant thing I have done in my life. It’s payback for all the kids and parents who have been with me for 43 years. I’m fighting for kids I don’t even know, who have no idea I’m fighting for them.”
