A break from the ordinary

So much of sports is riveted in routine that when something delightfully out of the ordinary comes along it is that much sweeter.

Matt Leinart, virtually guaranteed $25 million if he turned pro, decided to return to Southern Cal for his senior season.

Sure, other high profile football players have waited to turn pro - Jason White at Oklahoma, though he isn't likely to have much of an NFL career, and Peyton Manning come to mind. But to see a two-time "national champion" and Heisman-winner come back is unique.

Most inspiring in all this is Leinart's reason for returning - college football is just too much fun to walk away from. No sermon on the importance of an education, no soliloquy about not being ready. Just an honest appraisal that he's having fun and wants to keep having fun.

For my money (and about $17,000 of it is still owed to student loans) the college experience is incalculably more valuable - and important - than the college education. And while I would never begrudge anyone for seeking out the fortunes of a pro career, I have to at the same time applaud Leinart for taking the road less traveled.

This week's top 10 (limited to six because four items refused to come to work in the cold):

- 6. Second banana. How fitting was it that the Trojans decided to introduce Tim Floyd as their new basketball coach on the same day Leinart announced his decision? I wonder where that played in the L.A. sports pages.

Basketball has always been, and always will be, far behind football in Trojan land. Friday's dueling press conferences just reinforced that.

Still, you can't help but notice an interesting similarity between Floyd and football coach Pete Carroll - both coaches came to USC after two failed stints as head coaches in the pros.

We've seen what Carroll did. If Floyd can do half of that (which I guess would be just one national championship at this point), USC could establish itself as the premiere athletic institution in America.

- 5. Something's better than nothing. Baseball's new steroid policy is a start, but if they're really serious about eradicating juice from the game, it doesn't go far enough.

Four failed drug tests before you get suspended for a year? People get expelled from school for fewer failed academic tests than that. But how much can you expect from a sport that elects admitted cheaters to the Hall of Fame with a wink and a nod (Gaylord Perry and your spitball, I'm looking at you)?

- 4. It's FANtastic. The Phoenix Suns are the salvation of the NBA season so far. It's like Steve Nash's arrival in the desert coincided with a trip in the way back machine and it's 1990 all over again.

What saddens me, though, is how pundits are already poo-pooing the Suns' free wheeling ways, saying it can't win in the playoffs - and I know they're right. Come April, the referees put their whistles away and the thuggish, mugging defenses that have become so common over the last 10 years will rule the day and Phoenix will lose.

And rather than looking at ways to free things up in the postseason, teams will look at the great regular season followed by postseason failure and run screaming in the other direction from the type of basketball the Suns play.

- 3. Triple Lutz, double Salchow. Boy, it sure has been some show at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships hasn't it? I mean all the grace and beauty and crying and … oh, who am I kidding?

- 2. Best foot forward. There is something terribly unsatisfying when any football game, but especially a playoff game, is decided by the kicker. And Saturday's Jets-Steelers game was particularly distasteful.

Doug Brien gets two - two! - chances to be the hero inside of two minutes and can't do it. And really, I blame Jets coach Herman Edwards for the second miss. The Jets get a gift interception after the first miss and decide to run the clock down rather than get closer. That's just weak.

Neither team really deserved to win, but New York definitely deserved to lose more.

- 1. Sins of the father. The happiest person in the world after Atlanta's blowout win over St. Louis was Jim Mora the elder. Mora's son, Jim Mora Jr., won his first playoff game as a head coach, ending the family curse of losing in the first round.

Aside from that, the Falcons made it look easy against the Rams, who have to be the most up-and-down team of recent memory. Clutch wins late in the season to make the playoffs, a thrilling road win in the first round. Then, playing inside on turf just like they like it, they laid a big fat egg.

Next week will provide a great matchup of quarterbacks - Michael Vick versus either Daunte Culpepper or Donovan McNabb. The next generation of great quarterbacks has taken over.

Andrew Hinkelman is a sports writer for The Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached at hink@dailyinterlake.com