Atlanta Falcons Bobby Petrino Resigns

Petrino resigns as Atlanta Falcons coach after 13 games, heads to Arkansas

The Canadian Press

ATLANTA - Bobby Petrino resigned as Atlanta Falcons coach on Tuesday, having lasted only 13 games with the NFL team. A person within the league told The Associated Press that Petrino quit to return to the college ranks at Arkansas.

He left Louisville in January to become Atlanta's coach for a five-year, US$24-million contract, largely because the Falcons felt he could help star quarterback Michael Vick reach his full potential.

A few months later, Vick came under investigation for a grisly dogfighting operation that eventually led him to plead guilty to federal charges. He was sentenced Monday to 23 months in prison without ever taking a snap for Petrino.

A source familiar with Patrino's decision, speaking on condition of anonymity because the school had not made an official announcement, said he was going to Arkansas. The Razorbacks have been looking for a coach for two weeks to replace Houston Nutt, who resigned after a tumultuous season and took the Mississippi job.

The school had no immediate comment on its coaching search.

The Falcons declined further comment beyond a terse, two-paragraph statement released Tuesday night. Owner Arthur Blank and general manager Rich McKay were scheduled to hold a news conference Wednesday.

There was no immediate word who would take over as head coach for the final three games, though defensive co-ordinator Mike Zimmer and offensive co-ordinator Hue Jackson would be the most logical candidates.

Petrino did not answer his cell phone or a call placed to his Atlanta-area home. His brother, Falcons receivers coach Paul Petrino, declined comment when reached on his cell phone.

"I don't think I can say anything about it right now," he said. "I'm sorry."

After losing Vick, Petrino tried three starting quarterbacks without success. The Falcons are 3-10 and assured of the 32nd losing season in their 42-year history.

The resignation of Petrino was another jarring blow to the Falcons, who dealt with Vick's legal troubles since the first day of training camp, when a plane flew overhead pulling a sign that said: "New team name? Dog Killers?"

Petrino assembled one of college football's highest-scoring offences at Louisville, but the Falcons were anemic without Vick. They also were plagued by injuries on the offensive line, which forced them to start two players who weren't even drafted out of college.

Just hours after Vick's sentencing in Richmond, Va., Atlanta took its fourth straight double-digit loss, 34-14 to the New Orleans Saints.

"Not a good day," Petrino said afterward.

The resignation had to be a major surprise to Blank, who fired Jim Mora just two seasons after he led the Falcons to the NFC championship game, and lured Petrino with a lucrative contract.

Before Monday's game, Blank said he felt better than ever about his decision to hire Petrino given all the adversity the team faced this season.

"I feel real fortunate we have a terrific guy leading our team, our CEO, in Bobby Petrino," Blank said. "I think he's proven to me he's a better head coach than we thought he was going to be, dealing with a set of cards we didn't see unfold this year, which probably never in the history of the NFL has anything like this happened. Bobby has done a wonderful job dealing with all of these issues. He's kept the players focused."

But there were signs of dissension, especially in the way Petrino dealt with his players.

He ran the team with an aloof style, feeling no reason to share his decisions on personnel with the affected players. He could walk through the locker room without speaking to anyone and was openly criticized by two of the team's stars, Pro Bowlers Alge Crumpler and DeAngelo Hall.

Petrino drew the ire of the veterans with his decision to cut nose tackle Grady Jackson, one of the team's most productive defensive linemen, during the bye week. Quarterback Joey Harrington was clearly perturbed a few weeks ago when, after leading the Falcons to two straight wins, he heard from the media that Petrino still considered injury prone Byron Leftwich the starter.

Against the Saints, the Falcons made another change at the most crucial offensive position, giving Chris Redman his first start since 2002. While Redman threw for 298 yards and two touchdowns, the Falcons lost again.

They have been outscored by an average of 18.5 points in their last four defeats.

After the latest loss, Petrino sounded as though he was still committed to getting the Falcons turned around.

"We'll come back on Wednesday to take a look at it, and then we'll get back to work," he said. "We have to find something to rally around."

But clearly, Petrino already had decided to abandon the sinking ship.

canadianpress.com

Alex Trebek Suffers Heart Attack

Thankfully, just a minor one...

Trebek Hospitalized With Heart Attack

By ROBERT JABLON – 42 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Longtime "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek was hospitalized Tuesday after a minor heart attack, a spokesman for the game show said. Trebek, 67, was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center late Monday night and was expected to remain there about two days for tests and observation, said show spokesman Jeff Ritter.

"Thankfully it was a minor heart attack," Ritter said. He did not give other details.

A post on the official "Jeopardy!" Web site said Trebek was "resting comfortably in a Los Angeles hospital, and he will be back in the studio for the next scheduled tapings in January." His heart attack was first reported by "Entertainment Tonight."

Trebek escaped a car crash unhurt in 2004 when he fell asleep at the wheel, sideswiped a string of mailboxes and wound up in a ditch, according to the California Highway Patrol. The Jan 30, 2004, accident happened in the town of Templeton, not far from Trebek's thoroughbred horse ranch.

"Jeopardy!" has been one of television's top-rated syndicated programs for more than 20 years. The Canadian-born Trebek has been its host since 1984.

He has been nominated numerous times for daytime Emmy Awards for game show host, winning twice.

Trebek, who holds a philosophy degree from the University of Ottawa, was a TV and radio reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Company before moving to the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 1998.

He launched his U.S. game show career in 1983 as host of a show called "The Wizard of Odds." Other shows he's hosted include "Pitfall," "Battlestars," "The $128,000 Question," "Double Dare," "High Rollers," "Strategy" and "Reach for the Top." He also hosts the annual National Geography Bee in the U.S. and Canada.

Trebek and his wife, Jean, have two children.

Associated Press
AP - Trebec

Ryan White's Mother Upset Over Huckabee Comments

This isn't the only controversial comment by Huckabee. As reported on www.dailykos.com:

In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: "I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention." What was in the family statement from the SBC? "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

The ad wasn't just a blanket, "we support the SBC statement," but rather highlighted details. The ad Huckabee signed specifically said of the SBC family statement: "You are right because you called wives to graciously submit to their husband's sacrificial leadership."

dailydos.com

AIDS Comments Alarm Ryan White's Mother

By LIZ SIDOTI

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's 15-year-old comments that AIDS patients should have been isolated have so alarmed the mother of Ryan White, an Indiana teenager whose life-ending battle with AIDS in the 1980s engrossed the nation, that she has asked for a meeting.

"I would be very willing to meet with them," the former Arkansas governor responded Tuesday while campaigning in western Iowa. "I would tell them we've come a long way in research, in treatment."

The GOP front-runner in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses stood by his 1992 comments in a broadcast interview Sunday, infuriating Jeanne White-Ginder, the late teen's mother and a board member of the AIDS Institute.

"It's so alarming to me," she said in a telephone interview Monday with The Associated Press from her home in Leesburg, Fla.

"It's very important to me that we don't live in the darkness" when people thought AIDS was transmitted through casual contact, such as by "kissing, tears, sweat and saliva," White-Ginder said. "We have to treat this disease like a disease, and like Ryan always said, not like a dirty word."

White was 13 when he was diagnosed with AIDS in December 1984, having contracted the disease from the blood-clotting agent used to treat his hemophilia. He was barred from school the following year out of fear the disease was spread casually. He died in 1990 at age 18.

On Tuesday, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, and the AIDS Institute sent a letter to Huckabee asking him to meet with White-Ginder — who declined in the interview to say what political party she belongs to — and calling his comments "completely beyond comprehension."

In response, Huckabee told reporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa: "I certainly never would want to say anything that would be hurtful to them or anyone else. I would have great regret and anxiety if I thought my comments were hurtful or in any way added to the already incredible pain that families have felt regardless of how they contracted AIDS."

Once an underdog, Huckabee has come under increased scrutiny as he has soared to the front-running position in the important Iowa caucuses and elsewhere over the past few weeks. He's faced criticism, in particular, for his comments on AIDS, and his records on parole, taxes and immigration in his decade as governor, and those issues were all but certain to be raised at a GOP debate in Iowa on Wednesday.

As a Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee told the AP in a questionnaire that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," he said then.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Huckabee denied that those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved. "I didn't say we should quarantine," he said. The idea was not to "lock people up."

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain.

Associated Press Writer Mike Glover in Council Bluffs, Iowa contributed to this report.

ap.google.com