Nicest Thing Ever

Even Damino will have to leave a nice comment on this post.
In his will Dean Smith left $200 to every varsity letterman, whom he coached, 180 in all. The executor of Coach Smith's will sent a check and a letter explaining the Coach's wishes.
The one below was sent to one of Billy's all-time favorite Tar Heels, Dante Calabria.

The letter reads, in part:

"Each player was important and special to Coach Smith and when he prepared his estate plan, Coach wanted to reach out to each of his lettermen. Accordingly, Coach directed that following his passing each letterman be sent a two hundred dollar ($200.00) check with the message "enjoy a dinner out compliments of Coach Dean Smith." Enclosed is a check in the amount of two hundred dollars ($200.00) with the notation "Dinner out".

180 lettermen, $200 each, equals $36,000. Pretty generous and very classy of the Coach who must have planned this long ago because his health and mental acuity declined rapidly in his final years.

I hope the UNC players receiving this benefit will follow the lead of the coach and do something better with the money than enjoy a dinner out. Maybe Michael Jordan could invite all the players to a dinner to remember their coach and donate $36,000 to charity in his name.

It's a Rare Condition In This Day and Age To Read Any Good News on the Newspaper Page -- When It Comes to the NFL

The story of Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Devon Still is one of the few things that makes you feel good about being an NFL fan this season. Still's 4-year-old daughter, Leah, has neuroblastoma, a form of cancer.
He has tweeted about her progress, instagrammed videos of his pep talks for her and the NFL has started selling his jersey and giving some of the profits to charity.
In fact, there are no more #75 Still jerseys available a check will be presented to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for OVER $1 million dollars. Even the New England Patriots cheerleaders wore them.

That produced a single tear from Still's eye, which dripped on his faux-eye black which bears his daughter's name.

Something Good in This World

Last summer a 29-year-old man with Down Syndrome, named Ted Kremer joined the Cincinnati Reds as batboy for a day after his parents won a charity auction.
His effect on the team was so profound that they invited Teddy back, to be the batboy again on April 17th. In the 6th inning he asked Todd Frazier to hit a home run for him.



Teddy looks pretty happy, doesn't he?



"He is so funny," Frazier told Cincinnati.com. "He said, 'come on man, hit me a home run. I love you.' And I said 'I love you, too. I'll hit you one. It was great how excited, that look, I started smiling before I even hit home plate.

"He's such a great guy… Even if you have a terrible day, you can't be mad with a guy like that around."



There's a lot of bad stuff going on in this world, so it's nice to see pure unadulterated joy on the face of someone who really deserves it.

Everyone Does Stupid Things in College

After beating NC State beat Duke by 8 points (as Damino correctly predicted) NC State students stormed the court. They did it because their team has just defeated the #1 team in the country, and because it's fun. I have stormed a few courts and a football field in my dad and it's really cool, it's exciting and it's nice to have that experience.



Will Privette is a senior at NC State, studying communications. He is a huge sports fan, has been to every home basketball game but one in his four years and even did statistical work for the basketball team. Privette was born with leg deformities and has been in a wheelchair his entire life. As this game was ending he wheeled courtside and a friend offered to push him onto the court. It seemed like a good idea at the time but when the crowd came Privette got plowed out of his chair and went flying. Guard CJ Leslie found him, picked him up and held him until he could be reunited with his chair.

Privette was not hurt, but his phone was cracked and his chair was damaged. "But I don't regret it at all", he says.
"It was the dumbest thing I've done in college but it was awesome."
"I'm glad this happened my senior year. It's a great way to go out."

Normally, I would criticize someone for doing something so dumb that could jeopardize his safety. But in this case I don't blame Privette one bit for wanting to feel like a normal college student.

Poppy Didn't React Like This for His Pinstripe Bowl Ticket

A very touching video is making the rounds on the internet since Christmas. An Alabama fan gets a ticket to the BCS National Title Game, Alabama vs. Notre Dame.



Strange that Poppy didn't react that way when he got a ticket to the Pinstripe Bowl for Christmas.
I love the way the guy tried to seem happy about the hat, and they had to say "what size is it?" in order for him to notice the ticket.

Laugh Just a Little

While Staten Island is still recovering from Superstorm Sandy comedian Louis CK did a benefit show there (two actually) and raised $150,000 for the relief efforts.

And apparently, he texted Chris Rock the afternoon of the show, convinced him to come along and Rock was persuaded to be the opening act.

"Nothing but Wu-Tang and Republicans out here!" is how Rock described Staten Island.

And he joked about September 11th (is that possible?), saying "You know we're 10 years away from 9/11 sales: ‘Come down to Red Lobster, where everything's $9.11 all day!’"

Louis CK took the stage for a solid hour, and mostly stayed away from joking about the circumstance, instead focusing on his normal topics, like dating

“Why would a woman ever want to meet a man, alone, at night, ever? Men are the number one threat to women!”

Jerry Seinfeld will be performing next week at the same St. George Theater. And even though this was planned before Sandy (it was actually scheduled for November 1) Seinfeld will still donate all the proceeds to Sandy relief.

He Waited Seven Years For This?

In 2005 Adam Greenberg stepped to the plate for his first major league plate appearance. He was beaned in the head.

He spent the next 7 years trying to recover, experiencing vertigo and a host of other ailments as he fought his way through the minor leagues, the independent leagues before eventually giving up baseball last year.
But the Florida Marlins decided to do something nice for Greenberg and give him a pity at bat. Which is fine, and a nice thing to do, but they did it out of pity, and for the attention.

Unfortunately for him, his long awaited at bat came against the knuckleball of R.A. Dickey and he struck out on three pitches.