CURIOUS INDEX, 3/5/08

LSU defensive monster Ricky Jean-Francois is allegedly related to Kimbo Slice. We mention this only to affirm your already solid suspicion that if he does not cheat on another test and makes it to the playing field this fall, RJF will be takin' food off lawyas' plates just like his horrifying alleged relative. Because remember: our ultimate nightmare is being locked in a dimly lit shipping container with Kimbo at one end, five thousand dollars and a ham at the other, and us in the middle.

No, sir. The money AND the ham are both yours. Really, please.

Bill Cowher is not going to be the head coach at Penn State...but only if you're foolish enough to believe the words coming out of his chin, sucker:

"Put that to rest," Cowher said firmly yesterday. "I'm staying here."

Laschout.com got really, really excited over the slumber party allegedly had by Cowher and Penn State officials, who are looking for some way to beat creeping death to the punch and bump Paterno up to glorified fundraiser and cheerleader status before on-field turmoil, off the field turmoil, or death-induced turmoil when he drops dead on the field drives Penn State into failed state status.

And that's just how icy we stay here, dear reader, because Joe Pa is a lot closer to applesauce time than he is to winning the Big Ten ever again, school officials know it, and everyone's terrified of saying it out loud in public because it would mean that despite being the greatest coach of his generation, Penn State officials ultimately judge him by his utility in the present, not his happy memories of the past. Only Bill Belichick, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Leavitt are fine being exposed as naked utilitarians. Everyone else has gotta keep their inner bastard on the down-low.

On the upside: it gives us an opportunity to post another fine bit of Mr2Cents' work.

See? There's work to be done yet.

Police and excessive force: like Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, man. Steve Spurrier now gets to enter a new circle of hell as South Carolina football coach. This is the sixth ring, the one where you piss off the police department by suggesting that their time-honored methods of beating people bloody during arrests might be "excessive," especially when it involves one of your football players. Spurrier does have one nice thing on his side in the debate over the treatment of Kevin Young, Gamecock football player: witnesses.

Kevin McCrarey, a co-host on the South Carolina News Network’s SportsTalk show, said he was leaving a nearby bar around 1:30 a.m. when three or four officers ran by him on Harden Street. McCrarey said he saw an officer repeatedly punch one of the combatants, whom he later learned was Young, in the head with a closed fist.

“I think his rights were violated. Just because you get in a fight ... he got beat up by police. I really believe that,” McCrarey said. “I don’t know police procedure, but the guy from behind was just swinging. He must have thrown 10 or 15 punches. Then they got him down, and they were still hitting him.”

Wait for Spurrier to be arrested with a pound of heroin and five unregistered firearms on his passenger seat in the next three days after being pulled over for "a busted tail light." Though in reality, sexiness as unbridled and irresistable as Spurrier should have been arrested long, long ago.

Police brutality would be a nice change for Alabama fans, who are angry over an Auburn license plate on a Tuscaloosa police cruiser, and their use of the phrase "Beat 'em like he's Brodie Croyle!" during difficult arrests.

And just because we hadn't heard the song in ten years until yesterday... Long White Cadillac, Dwight Yoakam.

Useful for a needed serotonin bump this morning, and for the phrase "Let's get this white trash on down the road."