For years, one of the worst practices in all of sports is the yearly signing day announcements for college football and basketball stars. Every year, a select number of 18- and sometimes 17-year-old high school students will be pushed onto a podium, with microphones all around them, to fatefully announce which school they're going to play for by selecting which university cap to put on their head -- as though they're Julius Ceasar.

Sports are great, but at times they morph into self-aggrandizing performances of melodrama that blind athletes into thinking more of themselves than they really are. We've seen Latrell Sprewell turn down a million-dollar contract because, "I've got my family to feed"; we've seen multimillionaire Patrick Ewing participate in charity basketball games during the '98 lockout because, "We players make a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money too." And now, we've seen LeBron James, whose ego has risen so drastically this offseason that one can assume he's taken the nickname "King James" literally.

It's to be expected. James never went to college, and thus never had that experience of holding a televised press conference where the world anxiously waits for his to decision to be made. But now, James is getting a second chance. On Thursday, at 9 PM on ESPN, LeBron James will announce on national TV where he plans to spend the next five to six years of his life. But don't worry Cleveland fans, who are already nervous over potentially losing the one bright spot in the city's economy; the proceeds of the LEBRON JAMES SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT will be donated to charity.

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June 20, 2010 will mark the 35th anniversary of one of the most influential, significant, and kick-ass movies of all time. That's right, it was 35 years ago this week that Steven Spielberg's Jaws was released to movie theaters everywhere. And while this anniversary hardly fits in the sports category, it does fit in the history category. And since this is Inhistoric, the sports history blog, and since June is a fairly slow month (EDIT: it actually isn't but I wrote this months ago, when I thought it would be), I figure there's no harm in separating the sports and focusing on the history. Here's a look back at what makes Jaws such an important piece of cinema...

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(TNT: Blazers @ Lakers, Game 2, 2001 -- They don't make scoreboard bugs like this anymore)

It was about thirteen years ago that CNN started featuring a news ticker on the bottom of the TV screen. Many people complained that the non-stop line of text was annoying, a waste of space, and a constant distraction from the actual program going on behind it. And yet here we are in 2010, and the crawl is more prevalent than ever. Every news station imaginable features a crawl, including local sports stations, cable news channels, and pretty much anything that dishes out information. ESPN is the undisputed king of the crawl -- it's there on all four of their channels (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN U, ESPN Classic) and only disappears during select programming, such as their 30 For 30 documentary series, or games one-through-six of the Eastern Conference Finals.

It was right around the advent of the crawl that another innovation started appearing: a permanent scoreboard bug during sports games. In the olden days, networks would only briefly flash the scoreboard before waving it off and focusing entirely on the sport. But now the scoreboard would stay on the screen throughout the game -- giving fans an immediate indication on where things stood.

The timing of these innovations was not coincidental. The Internet was taking the world by storm, and the television needed to catch up. Gone were the days where people would have to wait for the news to arrive at their doorstep; now people could get the news whenever they wanted, preferably immediately. People didn't want to wait for a news piece to air or for the score to pop up in a couple minutes. They wanted the score NOW.

At first, sports scoreboards were solely for convenience. They were small, hip, and pretty much stayed out of the way of the action in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. But then marketing experts discovered something. They realized that people were more likely to watch a program with a ticker in it, not so much because of the information it provided, but because the constant motion of the ticker subliminally convinced viewers to keep watching. Suddenly, the crawl was more valuable as a piece of wallpaper than as an actual source of information, and the same (unfortunately) was true of the sports scoreboard.

Since then, the scoreboard has become an inseparable part of sports telecasts. And as the ubiquity of its use increased, so did the size of the bugs, as well as the information it provided. Eventually, the bugs stopped hiding in the corner of the screen, and they began taking up more and more room, until they finally morphed into a colossal mess of letters and digits that aimed to be flashier than the sport it was covering...

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• Ray Allen broke or tied all the important three-point records last night. His five threes in the second quarter tied the record for most in a quarter in a finals game; his seven first half three's were also a single-game record, as was his final-game total of eight and his seven consecutive made three-point field goals.
• The NHL must be run by idiots or something. Last night's Game 5 between the Flyers and Blackhawks went up against the NBA at 8:00PM, and were no doubt crushed in the ratings. Are you people insane? Don't you realize how important it is to be the No. 1 thing on at a sports bar, and how that can give you millions more viewers than if you're second-tier? Don't you realize that with all the gaping layoffs that occur in the NBA Finals, there's absolutely no excuse to not have the games on the NBA's off-night? I mean, really NHL!
• There were a plethora of closely-contested baseball games yesterday. 11, yes 11 games were decided by only one run, tying the Major League record. The previous times 11 games had been decided by one run: July 4, 1918 and April 14, 2001. (Courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau)
  
• Ubaldo Jimenez is phenomenal. How phenomenal? At 11-1 in just 12 starts, the most Jimenez has allowed in a single game is two runs, joining him with Detroit's Al Benton (1945) and Cincinnati's Edinson Volquez (2008) as the only men to do that. But here's what's more impressive: through two-plus months of the year, Jimenez is actually on pace to win 30 games. Denny McLain, who in 1968 became the last person to win 30 games in a year, was 9-1 through June 7 in 1968 and even had a higher ERA than Jimenez has now. I'm not expecting Ubaldo to win 30 or anything, especially since McLain started 41 games that year. But when you consider the start that he's off to, and the fact that he's pitching at Coors Field half the time, there's no question the Cy Young is his to lose.
• The SB Nation regional sites are up, bringing SBN one step closer to world domination. Check out the links on the left-hand side, and give your love to the newbies such as SBN New York or SBN Arizona. Also, here's a New York Times article covering the meta-site, an article that features both Jim Bankoff AND Tyler Bleszinski. I'm also very happy that the article had a pro-newspaper tone; let's face it: a lot of bloggers love to rip on newspapers and are happy to see the industry in ruins. But newspapers provide professional reporting that blogs pretty much don't, and I'm all in favor of the symbiotic relationship between the mediums as long as we recognize that newspapers are important too.
  
• Okay, I rewatched the series finale of Lost, and I have to say that upon closer review, the series finale was absolute Grade-A bull****. They didn't even try to answer anything! There was a freakin' food drop in season freakin' two (a plane, yes a manned plane, flew over the island) -- never explained it. The magic box Ben talked about -- never explained it. The reason why women couldn't give birth on the island -- never explained it. They never even tried! They spent all that time crushing Sawyer's character, having him lose Juliet and then having him cause Jin and Sun's death, and his resolution? None! He just gets on a plane, and flies away. Wow! What resolution! Basically, if you're considering watching the show, don't do it. Lost is just one big PT Barnum scam that reels you in by pretending that all the clues and crap means something. But it doesn't mean anything!, and with an ending so unabashedly horrible, you'd have to be masochistic to sit through all six seasons and come thinking that there's any sort of pay-off.
  

(Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld, Getty Images)

A 2009 Sports Illustrated interview with John Wooden, by Seth Davis:

Though his mental and physical faculties have slipped considerably, Wooden is still in incredible shape for a man his age. He also hasn't lost his trademark wit and sunny disposition. "My eyesight is not nearly as good. My hearing is probably going away. My memory is slipping too. But I'm still around." He is due to turn 99 on Oct. 14. "Hope to make it," he said pleasantly. "But if I don't, I've had a long run."

Death is a constant topic of conversation for Wooden, but he does not discuss it with the same maudlin air he carried for so long after he lost his beloved wife, Nell, in 1985. When I half-jokingly suggested that the city of Los Angeles hold a parade for him when he turns 100, Wooden simply shrugged and laughed. [His son] Jim interjected by saying, "In either case, we'll celebrate it with or without you? Is that what you're saying?"

"You'll celebrate the death," Wooden cracked.

"Well," Jim said, "the good thing about that is you'll be with who? Your Nellie." Wooden nodded.

Simply put, John Wooden is perhaps the most legendary basketball coach of all time. During his 27-year span as the head man at UCLA, Wooden won 10 national titles, including seven in a row, and led the Bruins to an 88-game winning streak -- the longest in basketball history. His success on the court has yet to equaled and almost certainly never will. But by far the most defining part of Wooden's legacy is his stressing of teamwork, unselfishness, camaraderie and character -- the attributes that have made his death a deafening blow in the sports world, even though he hasn't coached a game in 35 years.

In an age where shocking, out-of-nowhere celebrity deaths are commonplace (Michael Jackson, Billie Mays, Brittany Murphy just to name a few), Wooden's death doesn't quite fit with the ethos. Wooden had been struggling with health for many years, and at 99, his passing was hardly unexpected. But perhaps that's what makes his death special; unlike many L.A. celebrities, he went out on his own terms at the right time. Sadness is appropriate, but for Wooden, his passing should be more a celebration than a tragedy -- and you certainly can't say that about most people's deaths, and not even in the sports world. The last sports person to die, Jose Lima, went at just 37.

Asked what his secret to long life was in 2008, Wooden responded: "Not being afraid of death and having peace within yourself. All of life is peaks and valleys. Don't let the peaks get too high and the valleys get too low."

In March 1985, Wooden's wife of 53 years, Nellie, passed away. From then until the rest of his life, Wooden sent a love letter to Nellie on the 21st of every month. He never dated again and would only sleep on his side of the bed. In 2000, Wooden told Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated: "I'm not afraid to die. Death is my only chance to be with her again."

Further Reading:

A six page, must-read obit of John Wooden [L.A. Times]

John Wooden, the greatest coach of the 20th century, died last night [NJ.com]

Our top ten favorite John Wooden quotes [CS Monitor]

(The New Meadowlands Stadium, to be the site of Super Bowl XLVIII. Photo by Jeff Zelevansky, Getty Images)

Moments after the New York/New Jersey area was awarded the rights to host Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014, Rich Eisen of the NFL Network pronounced, "Start spreading the news!" From then on, the talk on both ESPN and NFL Network was about how it was a great honor for New York City, and how no other city deserved it more, and yada yada yada. And that's fine. I have nothing against New York.

I do, however, feel the need to point out that New York will NOT be the state hosting the big game. New Jersey will.

In sports, it's a team's obligation to have as broad and wide a market as possible, and if that means lying about where the team actually plays, then so be it. The "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" play in Anaheim, the Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington, and the Tampa Bay Rays play in St. Petersburg. And no location is more overshadowed in favor of its larger metropolitan brother than New Jersey, so much so that the NFL announced that the "New York/New Jersey" area had won the rights to Super Bowl XLVIII -- New Jersey didn't even get alphabetical preference over NY, even though they're the ones who'll actually host it.

The sad fact is that no one in sports wants to admit it has anything to do with New Jersey -- largely because they all want to associate with New York City instead, as it is the largest market in the United States. Both the New York Jets and New York Giants play in New Jersey, and have played in New Jersey for three decades. The New Jersey Nets were recently purchased by a new owner, who vows to of course move them to Brooklyn. Even the XFL New Jersey team, the Hitmen, were called the "New York/New Jersey Hitmen," again putting NY above NJ.

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(UPDATE: shortly after I wrote this article, the NBA changed its playoff schedule. The Magic and Celtics will play on ABC this Sunday; this contrasts what the schedule was prior to this change, when the Eastern Conference Finals were to begin on ESPN on Tuesday. Keep that in mind.)

Okay, so I'm a big Lost fan, and perhaps as a means of letting out my anxieties over what's been going on with the show, I wanted to write about it prior to its 150-minute season finale, which airs on ABC on May 23. But I wanted to keep this article sports-history-related-ish, since that is the point of the site and all. And it turns out that there is significance involving the NBA and ABC (and Lost), in that the two have become almost completely separate.

First of all, I'm not exaggerating when I say that this has been the worst NBA playoffs I've ever seen. I'm sure David Stern is happy that the Celtics and the Lakers and Kobe and LeBron and all the major players are still in it, but I don't think I've ever watched a three- or four-week period of basketball with less competitive games. Three of the four semifinals series ended in sweeps, and judging by the beatdown the Celtics handed the Cavaliers on Tuesday night (against Lost), that series could be over as early as tonight. And since the NBA loves to space out their series, we could be going a full four days before we see the Suns and Lakers square up on May 17 -- an entire week after the Suns and Lakers finished their semifinals series.

The NBA: where excessively long layoffs happen.

To be fair, this year's postseason is a bit of an aberration, and they'd hardly be compelling no matter what channels were broadcasting it. But the fact that ABC has basically decided it doesn't care about the NBA (or pretty much all sports, in general) is somewhat baffling. So far, the network that decided that Wife Swap was more valuable than Monday Night Football or the Super Bowl has aired less than 10 NBA postseason games, all of them coming on the weekends and all but one of them featuring the Celtics, Lakers or Cavaliers (the one being Game 7 of the dreadful Hawks-Bucks series, which they were forced to air).

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(Rondo drives to the bucket. Photo by Brian Babineau, Getty Images)

There may be a dozen point guards in the NBA who are better scorers than Rajon Rondo, and his overall statistics may be partially inflated because of the superstar talent he has around him. Still, Rondo has emerged as one of the five best point guards in the league this postseason, with yesterday's performance proving that he is by far the Celtics' most consistent performer.

Rondo finished with 29 points, 18 rebounds and 13 assists in yesterday's win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Only two other players have ever equaled that statline in a playoff game: Oscar Robertson (who had 32 points, 19 rebounds and 13 assists in 1963) and Wilt Chamberlain (who had 29 points, 36 rebounds and 13 assists in 1967). Any time your name is mentioned in the same category as Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain, probably the two biggest triple-double threats in NBA history, you know you are doing something right.

By the way, how about the Cleveland Cavaliers wearing throwback uniforms in back-to-back games? The Cavs have worn so many retro jerseys in the past five or six years, they've pretty much become league leaders in that category. As much as I'd like to think the Cavs are honoring past editions of the franchise, the cynical part of me thinks it's a shameless ploy to pon off as many jersey designs as possible before LeBron James *maybe* leaves town.