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A friend who happened to be there when this happened Thursday night reports that this coach has been known to have these sorts of tirades.

He’s broken glasses. He’s busted clipboards. He’s overturned podiums.

Enjoy the show.

The 2008 Olympics are less than six months away.

Time to start beefing up on the American hopefuls.

The AT&T Blue Room has launched something totally cool for those of you who catch Olympic fever every few years. They have a behind-the-scenes look at several of the athletes and teams as they prepare for Beijing, including men’s gymnastics. And that includes Oklahoma gymnast Jonathan Horton.

In the latest episode of “Behind the Team,” Horton and other gymnasts talk about the Winter Cup and the national team training camps.

Maybe you haven’t started thinking about the Games just yet, but these are the folks we’re going to be hearing all about in the next couple months. Might as well get a jump-start on them now. 

Oklahoma State is suddenly surging.

What could it mean? 

Watch my latest video commentary or read below:

The Oklahoma State men’s basketball team in the NCAA Tournament?

It’s not as crazy as it seemed even two weeks ago.

At that point, the Cowboys were coming off a blowout loss at Kansas State, a loss that dropped them to 11-12 overall and 2-7 in Big 12 play. With only seven games to play, all hope seemed lost. The next three games were against Baylor, Texas A&M and Kansas, all teams that have spent time this season in the top 25.

Then came a double-digit victory over Baylor, then a road victory at Texas A&M, then Saturday came the biggest shocker of them all.

OSU 61, Kansas 60.

Now, the Cowboys are 14-12 overall and 5-7 in conference play. They’ve won their last three games and four of the last five. They’re one of the hottest teams in the country.

Now, they look like the team everyone thought they could be.

Now, they look like they could do anything.

That includes going to the NCAA Tournament.

Four games remain in the regular season. OSU goes to Missouri, then hosts Nebraska and Oklahoma before finishing on the road at Texas. If the Cowboys can win three of those, then win a couple games in the Big 12 Tournament, they just might be in the tournament. That, after all, would make them winners of eight of their final 10 games, a factor at which the NCAA selection committee takes a long hard look.

And the Cowboys winning eight of 10 is entirely possible. The way they’re playing, they could definitely win their next three. Missouri is struggling. Nebraska has pulled shockers but is no great shakes. And Oklahoma is beatable in Stillwater.

Then, you have to figure that if the Cowboys win those three, they would face someone like Texas Tech or OU in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament, then have to take on one of the top seeds in the second round. And if the Cowboys got to that point on that type of roll, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think they could keep winning.

Heck, look at the run they went on last year in the conference tournament. The Cowboys made a seemingly impossible run that ended just short of the championship game. Who’s to say they couldn’t make the same type of run this season? And if OSU does, that’d be one hot team, and the NCAA selection committee likes hot teams.

Crazy?

Not anymore.

Kelvin Sampson is a confusing man.

Watch my latest video commentary or read below:

Lots of things in this world, I don’t understand.

Why chocolate can taste so good but be so bad. Why my speedometer goes over a hundred but I’m not supposed to.

But nothing confounds me as much as Kelvin Sampson.

No doubt you’ve heard the latest with the former Oklahoma basketball coach. Last week the NCAA indicated that Indiana, Sampson’s new school, has committed five major violations. Primary among them is Sampson making too many phone calls to recruits. Of course, these were the same type of transgressions that got Sampson in trouble when he was still coaching the Sooners.

Listen, I don’t condone any coach breaking NCAA rules, but at least you can understand trying to bend them when you’re a basketball coach at a football-rabid school like Oklahoma. Convincing basketball recruits to come to Norman is no small task.

By convincing them to come to Bloomington, Ind.?

That’d be like trying to coax a bikini-clad woman out of a snowstorm. It shouldn’t take too much convincing.

But apparently, Sampson felt like he needed to cheat to draw players to one of the most storied basketball programs in the country. It was foolish. It was stupid, especially since Sampson had been given a second chance like no other. He didn’t just land on his feet after his problems at OU. He landed in one of the best five college basketball coaching jobs in the country.

What did he do?

He threw it all away. At least that’s what it appears he’s done. Indiana officials say they’re still mulling what to do, and Sampson is expected to coach Tuesday night’s game against Purdue. But after that, most folks around the Hoosier State expect Sampson to be fired before the weekend.

Kelvin Sampson had the second chance of a lifetime, and he botched it worse than a 5-on-1 fastbreak.

One more thing in this world that I don’t understand.

In Monday’s Oklahoman, several sports staffers made known our bucket lists.

You know, the sports-type things we’d like to see before we kick the bucket.

My list – which included a visit to John Wooden’s apartment, a trip to see the British Open at St. Andrews and an Army-Navy football game – generated an interesting e-mail from John MacDonald in Edmond. Here’s what he had to say:

At one time I worked for a large bank in Los Angeles. One of my associates was George Fenneman, best known as announcer/straight man for Groucho Marx. George was head of P.R. for us and knew John Wooden and his wife, Nell. I needed some gifts for a convention, and Coach Wooden agreed to autograph and make entries in the fly leaf of his book, “They Call Me Coach,” for me. The Coach’s wife was ill with cancer at the time. We met Wooden at his condo. I had a list of 125 names, hence 125 books needed signing. In spite of the pressure Nell’s illness was for him, he signed that many books plus added a personal note using the individual names I’d supplied. What a gracious man. The tag is… I forgot to have him sign a book for me.

As an 8-year-old, I lived with my grandmother for a couple years in Scotland. Her brother, my grand uncle, Alec MacDonald, was a golf club maker there and made me, not a cut down set, but an original set of hickory shafted clubs (including a mashie-niblick and a jigger) to match my size. As a school kid, I wore laced ankle-high shoes, knickers, vest, tie and jacket, and wore a cap. The “Auld Course,” was a fife (county) owned course golf with free play for kids up to age 12. In school dress, we’d high ourselves to the course and play, carrying our sticks in a small canvas bag. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I paid attention the the fact that every time I crossed over swilcan burn and the stone bridge, its history actually dated to Roman times. The adjacent Jubilee course is more fun to play, easier.

I was a class mate of Wayne Hardin at College of the Pacific (now university) at Stockton, Calif. He later became assistant, then head coach at Annapolis. I made a couple A&N games while it was still played at Philadelphia and believe me it is a football experience like no other. The USC/Notre Dame rivalry of the 1930’s came close but not to compare with the Cadets and Middies en masse.

I hope you get to fill your bucket list. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience three of those on your list.

And for that, John, I am jealous!

USA Today made Chris Paul the cover boy for its All-Star Game special section.

Their story of the Hornet guard’s efforts to help in New Orleans recovery just backs up what folks in Oklahoma City already knew. CP3 is a good guy. He is helping raise funds and awareness for the work that remains in the Big Easy after Hurricane Katrina.

Check out some of the extra’s on USA Today’s website, including photos and a video.

The argument over who’s toughest in sports is as old as sport itself.

There’s a guy in Oklahoma who ranks near the top.

Watch my latest video commentary or read below:

Start talking about tough guys in sports, and the debate rages.

Who are the toughest of them all?

Some say football players. Others say boxers or ultimate fighters or wrestlers, gymnasts or hockey players or swimmers.

What about tough guys with ties to our fair state?

You could make an argument for someone like former boxing champ Sean O’Grady, punishing running back Adrian Peterson, wrestling legend John Smith or stunt bike rider Mat Hoffman. You could make an argument for lots of tough guys.

But in my estimation, there aren’t many tougher than Justin McBride.

The name may not be familiar to everyone, but in the world of professional bull riding, McBride is a superstar. He has won two of the last three world championships and broken all sorts of records.

He’s broken all sorts of body parts, too.

McBride, who lives on a ranch in Western Oklahoma, rode to his second world title last season with a separated shoulder on his free arm. That meant every time he rode, he was swinging that arm around like a mad man. Talk about painful.

And he took no painkillers, not even an aspirin.

Heck, mention the thought of taking something, and McBride practically growls the answer.

“I didn’t take any Advil.”

How about this litany of injury reports? Concussion with brief loss of consciousness after being stepped on. Dislocated left shoulder. Pinched nerve in neck after landing on his head. All of that happened last season.

Oh, by the way, McBride won the world championship last season.

At only 5-foot-8, 140 pounds, it’s difficult to imagine our fair state has any athlete tougher, pound for pound.

Want to know more about McBride and how he became the world’s best bull rider? Watch for our coverage of this weekend’s Copenhagen Bull Riding Challengers Tour Championship here in Oklahoma City.

Eddie Sutton reached a coaching milestone on Saturday.

Or did he?

Watch my latest video commentary or read here:

Eddie Sutton tallied the 800th victory of his career over the weekend.

So say the record books anyway.

Two years ago, a drunk driving charge sidelined Sutton for the last 10 games of the season at Oklahoma State. Cowboy brass decided that even though Sutton’s son Sean was coaching the team, wins and losses would still go on the elder Sutton’s record.

The Cowboys won four of their last 10 games, and Sutton’s record went 794 career wins to 798. It increased by four even though he wasn’t on the bench during the games or in practices during the week. He had absolutely nothing to do with the day-to-day operation of the team, and still, the wins counted toward his record.

What was a bad idea then seems even worse now.

Truth is, no one thought Sutton would coach again. The good folks at OSU wanted to make a nice gesture toward the coach. He resurrected the basketball program, which saved OSU athletics. OSU sports wouldn’t be where they are today without Eddie Sutton.

OSU did Sutton a disservice, though, when it credited him with Sean’s wins.

When he took over at San Francisco earlier this winter, he did so only two wins from his 800th. And on Saturday, after a frantic 19-point comeback, San Francisco beat Pepperdine and Sutton won No. 800. But, of course, it was really only No. 796.

That difference doesn’t change the fact that Sutton is one heck of a coach, a Hall of Fame-worthy coach. But fancy bookkeeping also doesn’t change the fact that he’s only been on the bench for 796 of his 800 victories.