Singletary’s legend continues to grow
If you were wondering, it’s boxers, not briefs, for ex-Bear Mike Singletary.
A 49ers spokesman confirmed to ESPN on Thursday a report by Arizona radio station XTRA that Singletary, the interim coach, dropped his pants in front of his team at halftime during his team’s 34-13 throttling at home to the Seahawks.
“He was just dramatizing how embarrassing it was,” 49ers spokesman Aaron Salkin told ESPN.
Singletary issued this statement: “I used my pants to illustrate that we were getting our tails whipped on Sunday and how humiliating that should feel for all of us. I needed to do something to dramatize my point. There were other ways I could have done it, but I think this got the message across.”
Asked if Singletary is embarrassed by the incident, Salkin told ESPN: “There are other ways he could’ve done it. He knows that.”
Burke gets ABC nod to replace Tafoya
You’ll be seeing a familiar (but different) face on the sideline during NBA games on ABC this season featuring the network’s lead NBA team, USA Today reports.
Doris Burke, who first called a men’s basketball two decades ago by happening to be at a Providence game when an on-air analyst didn’t show up, is getting the new gig.
Burke, 43, who played at Providence and is already an analyst for weekly NBA games on ESPN as well as on the network’s Big East and Big Ten games, will replace Michele Tafoya, who wants to spend more time with her family in Minnesota.
Tafoya told the Los Angeles Times she’s had enough of the nights on the road but that she will remain on the sidelines for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”
Tafoya, 43, has a young son and said she wants to adopt another child.
You ready for some (political) football?
Given the late-campaign vitriol that’s surfacing during campaign rallies, Chris Berman might do well to carry a referee’s whistle and a yellow flag during planned interviews with John McCain and Barack Obama that will run at halftime of the “Monday Night Football” game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the host Washington Redskins.
Berman will anchor the broadcast from the ESPN studios in Bristol, Conn. McCain and Obama will phone it in from the road, where both candidates will continue their campaigning well into Monday night.
The interviews will be taped via satellite earlier Monday and are slated to air about 9:15 p.m.
No word on whether the “Swami” will weigh in with any new nicknames or with a prediction on which candidate is going to go all the way to the White House.
— Los Angeles Times
