June 6, 2010 – It’s been a week now and the Duke University lacrosse team has glowed in the light as national champions for several days. It’s time to say that if any good lacrosse team were given an extra year of eligibility for it’s players, they too would probably witness the glow as number 1.

It is the single most favorable decison ever granted to an NCAA team, giving an obvious unfair competitive advantage with blessing, as a reward for going through an awful chapter involving a lying hooker and an aggressive, politically-motivated DA. And, oh yeah, reporters like Sports Illustrated’s, ex-New York Times writer, Selena Roberts, who jumped on the throats of the Duke “privileged” and stood up for women everywhere as a loud mouth who was wrong and never apologized.

Duke sent 17 seniors out to eke an overtime win and its first national championship against Notre Dame. A just reward by “lacrosse society” and the NCAA, who granted the extra year of eligibility concession with little debate. The perception was that the bogus charges ruined the pretty good lives of Reade Seligman, Colin Finnerty and David Evans and punished the rest of the team when Duke president Richard Brodsky cancelled the remainder of the 2006 season. So the lacrosse powers-that-be and the NCAA, doled out and granted rewards to make everything right.

As it turned out, Finnerty played well in a tough overtime loss in a tournament game for Loyola of Maryland against Cornell, while Seligman played and graduated at Brown and Evans toiled on Wall Street. All three have allegedly profited from wrongful prosecution lawsuits, while Mike Pressler, the Duke coach at the time, who was discarded, without so much as an inkling of support from such good and powerful friends as Mike Kryzewski, was named head coach of the 2010 U. S. World Team.

Making everything right for a team that still engaged in a “traditional” end-of-spring-break-week party, at the captain’s off-campus house that brought the police. Complete with underaged drinking and “imported” girls. A national championship for “Blue Devils Gone Wild.”

LeBron

Big news when he talks about where he’ll wind up with Larry King on CNN. David Stern is mad because it takes away friom his marquee matchup in the Finals of Boston at Los Angeles. Still, LeBron remains the biggest non-story-forced-down-our-throats since Brett Favre’s retirement status and the U.S. Soccer team.

Cleveland can pay him the most, has shown commitment to surround him with talent and its home. Leaving Cleveland could also mark him as a quitter and change an area that now reveres him into one that detests his grand opinion of himself. The Los Angeles Clippers would allow him to rub elbows with the stars, and play with a loaded, youthful, rudderless team. But there’s Donald Sterling, the Clipper’s owner, the standard for ineptitude, who serves as the sterling standard of bumbling, for Knicks owner, James Dolan.

Chicago gets a lot of play in the speculation, but Jerry Reinsdorf has a horrible track record with Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. He’s cheap and not beyond eventually turning his back on loved ones. Why go there?

New York, it is becoming clear, is too hot to handle. There would be money and endorsements and adoration and there is a need for the NBA to get stronger despite all of David Stern’s claims otherwise. Putting a winner in New York could revitalize the league and put LeBron’s historic stamp on it in the way that Larry and Magic pulled it out of the “cocaine years.” New York is also the best springboard to the rest of the world, something LeBron could easily conquer if “Team LeBron” is something more than a collection of talent that specializes in “low hanging fruit.”

The Knicks can only pay and the Nets can only pray. They can’t serve up a team and guarantee championships. And then there’s the phenomenon of James Dolan, perhaps the most inept owner since Ted Stepian. Why would LeBron want to struggle in front of the most sophisticated and critical fans in the game? So that he can glide through the ropes at Marquee? So that he can walk the streets and be heckled by construction workers?

Truth be told, LeBron is a beast, but could be the game’s biggest loser, about to be paid the biggest salary. He’s got seven years on a 25-year old body. Dan Marino, anyone? Charles Barkley? Karl Malone? Alex Rodriguez? None of the teams he’s being courted by qualify as sure-fire winners. Maybe his free agent summit can change that by creating a Survivor-like alliance. But what remains based on his history is that he hasn’t been capable of winning the big one. And that could be a career curse.

Tiger Woods

There have been 23 tournaments played so far and only Ernie Els has repeated, both times on the Florida swing, at Doral and Bay Hill. 23 tournaments and 22 different winners. Welcome to your new world, Tiger Woods. Yes, Tiger is now a member of the pack. He could rise up like any of the other guys and win a tournament, but his days of domination are over.

He struggles with his swing like the rest of them, not knowing what will show up week-to-week. His new spot is as the most popular golfer on tour, not it’s best, and certainly not both, as it has been for years. The pressures have hit in his head like all the others. He now has doubts. He thinks too much. He frustrates and worries. He alters his swing. He doesn’t have the world on a string anymore. He wonders what people are thinking and what his family is doing. It’s pretty certain he’s lost that edge. Welcome to the pack, Tiger.