Gregg Doyel

Please retire. Please? Before you die right there on the sideline?

I'm serious, and I'm not trying to be a jerk. Maybe I come off as a jerk. Big shock there. But in all sincerity, this latest medical issue is another sign that Penn State football coach Joe Paterno needs to resign before he has the ugliest ending in coaching history.

The guy is 81. He's getting frail of health, as so many people in their 80s do. There's nothing wrong with that.

My problem with Paterno is his hubris, his denial, that he could die right there on a Saturday afternoon, turning Happy Valley into the world's largest wake. Or maybe he's not in denial. Maybe he's very well aware of the possibility, and he doesn't care. Either way it's an ugly thought, a terrible idea, and it's certainly not something I want to happen.

But it could. Paterno needs to realize that, and realize how horrible that would be for everyone involved, and get out before it actually does happen.

Or someone above him -- there is someone above him at Penn State, right? -- needs to realize it for him. And force him out.

Troy Hambrick is going to prison? Consider me not surprised.

My first job out of college was writing for The Tampa Tribune's Pasco County bureau, where I covered the Pasco High football team led by brothers Darren and Troy Hambrick. Darren was clearly the better all-around athlete -- future NFL linebacker, 20 ppg in basketball, one-man contender for the state track team title -- but Troy was the better football player. One of the great things about covering high school football is when you run across a larger than life player like Troy Hambrick. He literally felt he should score every time he touched the ball, and he damn near did. He was bigger, stronger and faster than everyone else on the field. Watching him was a privilege.

But you knew major trouble was waiting. I just thought it would find Darren Hambrick first. He was such a bad guy that at one of his track meets he literally punched a girl right in front of me. I was interviewing him, this girl came up and said something silly, and he smashed her. Then he turns to me and says, "Sorry, she's on crack."

I've never known if he was serious or kidding about the crack, but I've never forgotten the incident -- would you? -- and I've always wondered how long before Darren Hambrick found trouble. Turns out, it didn't take long.

And now Troy has found prison. What a waste of talent those brothers turned out to be.

No, I don't. I fricking love it. Because I told you so. More than a year ago I wrote that the NCAA in general and Southern California in particular ought to be terrified that O.J. Mayo was being "advised" by Rodney Guillory.

USC coach Tim Floyd didn't want to hear about the Guillory connection. He never wants to hear about anything. Floyd is that ostrich who sticks his neck in the ground and then pleads plausible deniability. Tim Floyd didn't know nothing, you hear? He never does.

Meanwhile, the NCAA will have no choice but to take a good, long look not only at Mayo -- but also at the USC men's basketball program.

Stick around, NCAA. Make yourself at home in lovely Los Angeles. Take all the time you need.

We can wait.

And the ostrich can sweat.

You get only one chance to make a first impression, Ray McCallum. And you blew it.

McCallum, the new basketball coach at the University of Detroit, stole a player from his old school when he convinced freshman center Eli Holman to transfer from the Hoosiers to Detroit. It was an ethical no-no, but what does McCallum know about ethics? He has spent the last several years working for Kelvin Sampson.

In one move, McCallum brands himself as a guy to be watched closely, and not for good reasons. And he did it for nothing, because Eli Holman is a first-rate head case who -- mark my words -- will ultimately bring more bad than good to McCallum's program at Detroit. Holman is the idiot, you'll recall, who threw a potted plant while trying to tell new Indiana coach Tom Crean he wanted to transfer, getting so angry that school police had to be called.

That wasn't the first time Holman had been physically violent at Indiana, either. I hear Holman went after Sampson last year and had to be kicked out of practice.

Sampson being the disciplinarian he is, he didn't do anything else to punish Holman.

McCallum being the low-rent guy he is, he stole Holman.

Good riddance for Indiana. Bad move for Detroit.

Nice start, Ray McCallum.