Smooth — but believable?

So.

Urban Meyer checked himself into a hospital — except he didn’t.

It turns out his wife called 911 because he had had chest pains and was non-responsive.

Meyer has lied from the get-go on this, first stating not only that he had checked himself into the hospital but saying that it was for dehydration. He only later admitted feeling chest pain.

What else is the Florida football coach not being truthful about? Is he really coming back to coach the Gators after his “leave of absence,” or was his apparent 180 all about keeping Florida’s recruits in place? If so, is there a financial reward for doing so?

Sorry to sound so distrustful, Urban, but you’ve not given the press really much reason to believe you.

I like this idea

News item: The NBA has fined the Knicks’ Nate Robinson $25,000 for a trade demand made by his agent.

Comment: If we’re going to start fining players for agents, may I suggest Major League Baseball fine all of Scott Boras’ clients … simply for being Scott Boras’ clients.

Maybe Leach is the one with the concussion

A test for Mike Leach:

1) How many fingers am I holding up?

Now,

2) What DECADE is it?

Friday column: In sports, a sorry state of affairs

A few days ago, The Associated Press named its 2009 Athletes of the Year.

Big whup.

The AP didn’t touch the most fiercely contested category of athletic accomplishment — Apologizer of the Year. The Anti-Fan will bravely step into the breach.

Let’s start with the men.

Right away, I know what you’re thinking: Tiger.

Now, it’s true that Woods would bag Scandal of the Year, Screw-up of the Year or Disappearance of the Year, but his Web site progression from silence to admitted “transgressions” to admitted “infidelities,” while interesting, hardly rates a blip on the apology radar screen.

Unlike the mea culpa of the NBA’s Brendan Haywood, who, after questioning the sexual orientation of Stephon Marbury, issued a statement of regret with a classic apology element — throwing someone else under the bus.

“I wasn’t trying to come off like Tim Hardaway,” Haywood blogged, essentially saying, “Hey, I might be a homophobe — but I’m not a homophobe like Hardaway! Remember him? He was awful.”

But Haywood’s apology can’t compare with that of this year’s Male Apologizer of the Year — Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod’s apology tour began in February after Serena Roberts broke the news that he had failed a Major League Baseball drug test in 2003.

First came an ESPN interview in which the slugger, who had denied steroid use loudly and long, said he was “very sorry and deeply regretful” — but not sorry enough to forgo bashing Roberts, whom he bizarrely accused of “stalking” him and trying to break into his home.

That led to his second apology — a phone call to Roberts. Next came an apology to Rangers owner Tom Hicks — for whom he played during his drug days — followed by a news conference in which he apologized to his Yankee manager, his Yankee teammates, his Yankee fans, the metropolis of New York and the entire civilized world.

Through it all, A-Rod managed to summon excuse after excuse, and actually insist that for three years he had had no idea what was being injected into his rump. That’s an all-time sports apology.

On the women’s side, we have a home-state contestant, Lobos soccer player Elizabeth Lambert, who apologized for a thuggish display against BYU while at the same time explaining that the uproar was because of 1) poor refereeing; 2) fan ignorance about the intricacies of the game; 3) mistaken identity; and 4) last but not least, gender bias.

That’s an impressive apology performance for a youngster, but not enough to wrest the women’s crown from Serena Williams, whose “regret” over cursing and threatening a lineswoman had to be dragged out of her over three days — and even then came with the requisite excuse: “I’m a very intense person and a very emotional person.”

Bravo, Serena. Bravo.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Growing up, growing better

Recommended reading: Jeffri Chadiha's ESPN piece on Ron Woodson, a player who came into the league with both talent and an attitude. Now with Green Bay, the veteran cornerback still has the talent but attitude has gone through an adjustment, and that adjustment affects everything Woodson does on — and off — the field.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?page=hotread15/Woodson

Sounds reasonable to me

So.

The 2006 Land Rover that Southern Cal tailback Joe McKnight has been driving isn’t his — it’s his girlfriend’s.

OK.

And the car was registered not by the girlfriend, but by the girlfriend's boss, Scott Schenter, just because he’s a good guy.

OK.

And Schenter has no dreams of turning his relationship with McKnight into a marketing opportunity, just because he bought the Web site www.joemcknight4.com and has a company called “USC Marketing.”

OK.

And Schenter didn’t respond to questions about all this at first because he was in South Africa and the “internet is very expensive to use” there.

OK.

And everyone is telling the truth — even though McKnight obviously lied when he denied driving the car (he had been seen behind the wheel several times by reporters).

OK.

And McKnight might not play in Saturday’s Emerald Bowl because it’s all a big misunderstanding.

OK.

And the USC administration is investigating possible NCAA violations because of the misunderstanding.

OK

And we’re all dumb as a box of rocks.

OK.

On the way, maybe — but not there

Chris Henry, we’re told, had finally figured it out. He had turned his life around. He had put himself on the right path.

From the reaction of the locker room to his death, it’s certain the Bengal wide receiver was popular with his teammates, and it’s understandable they — along with team executives and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell — would speak words of praise in wake of his passing.

But about that passing …

Henry either fell or jumped from the back of a moving truck in the midst of an reported domestic dispute with Loleini Tonga, his fiancée and the mother of his three children. Tonga, the truck’s driver, was trying to get away from Henry. Witnesses heard him say, “If you take off, I'm going to jump out and kill myself.”

Henry apparently was in the process of change, and we’ll never know the person he might have become. But from the circumstances of his death, one thing is clear: The young man was a long way from figuring it all out.