SPORTS ON EARTH's Jeb Lund wrote CHRIS KLUWE, who recently accused the Vikings of releasing him because of his support for gay rights, "is a problem" for the NFL. He "hasn't harmed anyone" or taken "anything illegal or cost his team a season." However, there "isn't a paint-by-numbers NFL resolution to his complaint, that is, employing bigots who marginalize human beings on one of the biggest hot-button issues of our time." The NFL "wants to provide you a hermetic entertainment experience in which real life does not intrude, and events on the field do not redound to real life either" (SPORTSONEARTH.com, 1/9).
AWARDS & HONORS: Turner Sports' MARV ALBERT and ESPN's RICK REILLY have been elected to the National Sportscasters & Sportswriters Association HOF. NBC's MIKE EMRICK has been elected the '13 National Sportscaster of the Year and PETER KING of SI and The MMQB has won his third National Sportswriter of the Year Award in the last four years. Award recipients will be honored during the 55th annual NSSA awards weekend, June 7-9 in Salisbury, N.C. (NSSA)....Longtime baseball scouts JACK MCKEON and RAY CRONE SR. are to be presented with lifetime achievement awards at the 11th "In the Spirit of the Game" gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in L.A. on Jan. 18. The banquet is hosted each year by the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation (LATIMES.com, 1/8).
CHARITY STRIPE: The NFL on Thursday announced that New Jersey school children have donated 30,000 items to help other local children who are in need as part of a Super Bowl XLVIII project entitled, "Super Kids -- Super Sharing" (NORTHJERSEY.com, 1/9)....The seventh annual Morgan & Friends Fight Cancer Golf Tournament hosted by St. Andrews Country Club Jan. 5-6 raised a record $600,000 to further the fight against breast cancer through early detection and testing. A total of $3.4M has been raised by the Morgan Pressel Foundation since '07 (St. Andrews).
NAMES: A Nets spokesperson said that Owner MIKHAIL PROKHOROV is “planning to attend” the team’s game next Thursday at London’s O2 Arena against the Hawks. It will be the “first time Prokhorov has attended a game” since the team’s Nov. 1 game against the Heat at Barclays Center (N.Y. TIMES, 1/10)….Wisconsin Gov. SCOTT WALKER on Sunday held a fundraiser from the "comfort of a Lambeau Field suite” during 49ers-Packers (JSONLINE.com, 1/9)….Univ. of Tennessee women's basketball coach emeritus PAT SUMMITT “has been nominated for a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the two highest honors for a U.S. citizen.” U.S. Rep JOHN DUNCAN JR. (R-Tenn.) “introduced the legislation” (KNOXNEWS.com, 1/9)….Bengals QB ANDY DALTON and wife JORDAN are “expecting their first baby” (CINCINNATI.com, 1/9).
IN MEMORY: Former Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist BILL CONLIN, whose career “ended in the disgrace of child molestation accusations,” died Wednesday at 79 in Largo, Fla. He died in the Largo Medical Center, to which he had been “admitted with multiple illnesses, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and a colon infection.” Conlin, resigned from the Daily News in ’11 shortly before the molestation charges were made public, received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award in ’11 from the BBWAA. He spent four decades at the Daily News and appeared in more than 300 episodes of ESPN’s “THE SPORTS REPORTERS” (PHILLY.com, 1/9).
