Giants upset Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII

The New York Giants won Super Bowl XLII with a last-minute touchdown, upsetting the New England Patriots’ hopes of becoming the first team since 1972 to complete a National Football League season undefeated.

The Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 in Sunday night’s championship game, giving New York its first NFL title since 1991.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning was named the game’s Most Valuable Player — a year after his brother, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, took the same honor.

”There’s something about this team,” Eli Manning told The Associated Press. ”The way we win games, and performed in the playoffs in the stretch. We had total confidence in ourselves. The players believed in each other.”

The heavily favored Patriots, who have won three of the last seven Super Bowls, went undefeated in the regular season and playoffs.

A win Sunday would have made them the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated.

“It was good enough for 18 wins. It’s just the most important one we ended up losing,” said Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who twice previously has taken Super Bowl MVP honors. “I’m sure we’re all going to wake up tomorrow more disappointed.”

The Giants drew first blood with a first-quarter field goal, and their vaunted defense went on to sack Brady five times during the course of the game.

New England came back with a one-yard touchdown run by Laurence Maroney early in the second quarter and led 7-3 at halftime.

After a scoreless third quarter, the Giants hit the end zone early in the fourth to make it 10-7. A 6-yard touchdown pass from Brady to wide receiver Randy Moss with 2:42 left put the Patriots back on top — and the pressure on Manning

With just under a minute remaining, Manning wriggled free of what looked like a certain sack to throw a 32-yard pass to David Tyree, putting the Giants on New England’s 24-yard line.

Four plays later, Manning connected with wide receiver Plaxico Burress on a 13-yard pass to reclaim the lead and win the game.

”It’s the greatest feeling in professional sports,” Burress said after the game as he was overcome by emotion.

Taking over with 35 seconds remaining, Brady was sacked once and threw three incomplete passes on the Patriots’ final possession.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick crossed the field and shook the hand of Giants coach Tom Coughlin with a second left on the clock, then going to the locker room and missing Manning’s final kneeldown.

Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer, who had six catches for 84 yards, credited his team’s physical play for the win.

“They tried to just bully us around,” Toomer said. “We’re a more physical team than them, and it showed today. We punched them in the mouth, and they didn’t want anymore.”

-CNN.com

Heat, Hawks to replay final 0:51.9 of game

For the first time since 1982, the NBA is sending two teams back to the court for a do-over.

The Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat must replay the final 51.9 seconds of their game last month because the official scorer ruled incorrectly that Shaquille O’Neal fouled out, the league said Friday.

The Hawks won 117-111 at home in overtime Dec. 19, but strike that one from the books. For now, playoff-contending Atlanta has one less win, while the Heat have one less loss on their hapless record.

-msnbc.com

Marion Jones sentenced to 6 months in prison

Marion Jones was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for lying about using steroids and a check-fraud scam, despite beseeching the judge that she not be separated from her two young children “even for a short period of time.”

“I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be,” said Jones, who cried on her husband’s shoulder after she was sentenced.

The disgraced former Olympic champion was ordered to surrender March 11 to begin her term.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he gave her the maximum under the plea deal to send a message to athletes who have abused drugs and overlooked the values of “hard work, dedication, teamwork and sportsmanship.”

“Athletes in society have an elevated status, they entertain, they inspire, and perhaps, most important, they serve as role models,” Karas said.

Later Friday, Karas was to sentence Jones’ former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, who was convicted in the check-fraud scam.

The 31-year-old Jones also was given two years’ probation and supervised release, during which she will be required to perform 800 hours of community service.

“As everyone can imagine, I’m very disappointed today,” Jones told reporters outside court. “But as I stood in front of all of you for years in victory, I stand in front of you today. I stand for what is right.”

“I respect the judge’s order, and I truly hope that people will learn from my mistakes,” added Jones.

The judge said Jones’ community service requirement would take advantage of her “eloquence, strength and her ability to work with kids.”

It was her children that worried Jones as she pleaded for a lighter sentence, talking at length about her two boys, including the infant son she’s still nursing.

“My passion in life has always been my family,” Jones said. “I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright … and guide them into not making the same mistakes.”

The sentence completes a stunning fall for the woman who was once the most celebrated female athlete in the world. She won three gold and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to federal investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. “The clear” has been linked to BALCO, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports.

She also admitted lying about her knowledge of the involvement of Tim Montgomery, the father of her older son Monty, in a scheme to cash millions of dollars worth of stolen or forged checks. Montgomery and several others have been convicted in that scam.

“The revelation that one of the sport’s biggest stars took performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly lied about it, in addition to being a party to fraud, has no silver lining,” USA Track & Field president Bill Roe and CEO Craig Masback said in a statement. “But, it is a vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life, on or off the track.”

After her guilty pleas last October, Jones made an apologetic and teary-eyed statement outside court, saying, “It’s with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust.”

-MSNBC.com

 

Anchor suspended 2 weeks for “lynch” comment

Golf Channel suspended anchor Kelly Tilghman for two weeks on Wednesday for saying last week that young players who wanted to challenge Tiger Woods should “lynch him in a back alley.”Tilghman was laughing during the exchange Friday with analyst Nick Faldo at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, and Woods’ agent at IMG said he didn’t think there was any ill intent.

But the comments became prevalent on news shows Wednesday, and the Rev. Al Sharpton joined the fray by demanding she be fired immediately. Golf Channel didn’t know who would replace Tilghman in the booth this week at the Sony Open or next week at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

“There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this,” Golf Channel said in a statement.

Tilghman became golf’s first female anchor last year when the PGA Tour signed a 15-year deal in which Golf Channel broadcasts the first three events of the year, weekday coverage of all tour events, and full coverage of the Fall Series and opposite-field events.

The suspension ends in time for the Buick Invitational on Jan. 24, when Woods will make his 2008 debut.

Faldo and Tilghman were discussing young players who could challenge the world’s No. 1 player toward the end of Friday’s broadcast at Kapalua when Faldo suggested that “to take Tiger on, maybe they should just gang up for a while.”

“Lynch him in a back alley,” Tilghman replied.

“While we believe that Kelly’s choice of words was inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate,” Golf Channel said in its statement. “Consequently, we have decided to suspend Kelly for two weeks, effective immediately.”

Woods and Tilghman have known each other 12 years. She was picked to host a club demonstration with Woods in south Florida when he talked about new products from Nike Golf.

Tilghman was helped when Mark Steinberg, Woods’ agent at IMG, said it was a non-issue and considered the matter “case closed.”

“Tiger and Kelly are friends, and Tiger has a great deal of respect for Kelly,” Steinberg said Tuesday night in a statement released by Golf Channel. “Regardless of the choice of words used, we know unequivocally that there was no ill-intent in her comments.”

Tilghman had said in a previous statement she apologized directly to Woods, and the immediate support from Woods’ camp was critical.

-from Yahoo.com