After everybody was long gone from Wednesday’s Bremerton Athletic Roundtable meeting, Bob Fredericks shared an interesting tale.
Fredericks, a former Bremerton High and University of Washington grad, is an interesting guy. He worked closely as an engineer at PSNS with Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover — the “Father of the Nuclear Navy.” As the ASB president at Bremerton High, he led the drive that got Memorial Stadium built. He was among the seven founding members of the Bremerton Tennis and Athletic Club.

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No, not that bar.
I’m talking about the Kitsap County Bremerton Athletic Roundtable.
There was a smorgasbord of news spewed during a lengthy meeting on Wednesday evening at the Cloverleaf Sports Bar & Grille.
Some of the things you could have learned:
* I hesitate to write this because it hasn’t been confirmed, but it was said that Central Kitsap boys basketball coach Tim Fryer announced his resignation at the Cougars’ season-ending banquet. We’ll try to track this down.
* Kitsap Sports Council director Ben Pecora announced earlier in the day that the Olympic Peninsula Premier Invitational Cup youth soccer tournament would be held July 17-20 at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds. Pecora, Westsound FC president Todd Lincoln and District IV president Laurie Myers made a presentation at the BAR, which will be an active supporter of the event. They expect around 60 teams this year, but that number could triple in a few years, said Lincoln.

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Bremerton’s Tara Kirk was part of a panel last month that tackled the ethical issues surrounding the debate on performance-enhancing drugs in athletics at Stanford University. The program was titled “Doping in Sports: The State of Play.”
Kirk, who won a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic Games, described what it feels like when you’re the one under investigation. Kirk was accused of doping four years ago, but her name was eventually cleared. During the forum, she held up a booklet containing the results that showed she tested negative for performance-enhancing drugs.
“It’s easy to accuse someone,” Kirk said, adding that once an athlete’s name is smeared, “no one reads the retraction.”

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It looks like the Sonics are going to be gone before their lease at KeyArena expires in 2010.
I don’t know what else you can read into the latest comments made by NBA Commissioner David Stern during the All-Star break in New Orleans.
Eric Williams, former sportswriter at The Sun who now covers the Sonics for the Tacoma News Tribune, said all that’s left is for the city and the Sonics to negotiate a price. The Sonics offered a reported $26.5 million last week. The city turned it down, but Williams said you should consider that the first step in the negotiating process.
“Folks in the press row have been sending along their condolences to myself and Seattle P-I reporter Gary Washburn, as the grim reality approaches that this could very well be the team’s last year in Seattle,” Williams wrote in his blog from New Orleans.
The city of Seattle says it’s going to hold the team to its final two years of the contract, but it makes no sense to have a lame duck franchise for two more years.
The odds are against anybody riding in on a white horse to save the day. Stern and Sonics owner Clay Bennett are set on moving the team to Oklahoma City. And when it comes to the NBA, the iron-fisted Stern always, it seems, gets what he wants.
Now, maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance Seattle could wind up with the Charlotte Bobcats or New Orleans Hornets. Those franchises are failing in their present locations.
But it’s going to take a new arena — not a remodel of KeyArena — to do it. The current building is an excellent place to watch a game, but isn’t up to the new standards of the NBA business world.
You can get all sappy and sentimental about losing a franchise that’s been here for 40 years, but it’s not going to do any good. Don’t over-analyze or think what if? This is simply about the money. When it comes to big-time college and professional sports, or any kind of business for that matter, it always is, isn’t it?

The Bellingham Bells of the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League — the summer league the Kitsap BlueJackets belong to — have new owners.
The Bells were acquired by a group led by Bobby Brett and his brother, Baseball Hall of Famer George Brett. The Bells were sold by Tony Larson, who had owned the team since 2001.
The Brett family also operates the Spokane Indians Baseball Club, the Spokane Chiefs Hockey Club, the Tri-City Dust Devils Baseball Club and the High Desert Mavericks Baseball Club.
The WCCBL schedule has also been announced. The BlueJackets open the league season at home at the Fairgrounds against the rival Corvallis Knights, June 5-6-7.
For ticket information and the complete schedule, go to kitsapbluejackets.com.
This will be the BlueJackets fourth year of operation and it’ll be interesting to see if they can pump up the interest. Attendance dipped a year ago.

The United States Golf Association announced today that Chambers Bay, which opened last summer, will host the 2015 U.S. Open and the 2010 U.S. Amateur.
On a related note,the USGA still hasn’t officially announced that Bremerton’s Gold Mountain Golf Club will host the 2011 U.S. Boys Junior, but it’s all but a done deal.
Gold Mountain’s also preparing for the May 15-17 NCAA West Regional, a 30-team event that promises to feature some of the next stars of the PGA Tour. Gold Mountain will likely put in a bid for the NCAA Champioships after that event.
Here’s the USGA press release about Chambers Bay, which was pulled off the USGA.org website:

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Well, nothing new revealed on today’s Jim Rome Is Burning show.
Rome, who isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions, threw nothing but soft balls at Marvin.
You didn’t learn anything that you haven’t read about him in our pages over the years. He’s a tough guy to interview. He’s a good guy, but it’s hard to get him to open up.

If you’re by a television this afternoon, you might want to tune in to ESPN’s Jim Rome Is Burning. Bremerton’s Marvin Williams, the third-year forward with the Atlanta Hawks, is scheduled to be interviewed by the smack-talking host.
The 30-minute program airs at 1:30 p.m.
I think you can also hear the interview live if you go to http://www.jimrome.com/home.html.
Marvin’s had a huge game against the Sonics at KeyArena on Jan. 26, pouring in a career-high 33 points that night while looking like the dominating player many of us thought he could be.
It had to have been a satisfying and fun night for the Bremerton High grad. He came up with 50 tickets for his family and friends and there were at least that many or more who had tickets of their own.
I think you can expect more nights like that one from Williams, who’s just coming into his own. It was the kind of night that explained why Atlanta picked the versatile 6-foot-9 forward with the No. 2 pick inthe 2005 draft.

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You’re going to be reading more about this in our paper this week. Some of you are probably aware that students at Olympic College voted a year ago to change the name of the mascot at the college. It’s been Rangers for 62 years, but the Assocaited Students of Olympic College (ASOC) voted to change the name to the Bears (originally it was going to be Black Bears).
A total of 262 students and faculty voted. It doesn’t matter that most of those students are probably no longer attending classes at OC. It doesn’t matter that its athletics teams will have to trash all of its uniforms with Rangers on it and purchase new ones.
It doesn’t matter that 62 years of tradition will be tossed aside.
Why?
It has something to do with creating a new logo. Maybe they want to sell new t-shirts or sweatshirts?

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Considering what was at stake for the New England Patriots, who seemed on their way to a 19-0 season late in fourth quarter, Super Bowl XLII just might be the best the NFL has ever staged.
Growing up a Baltimore Colts fans, Super Bowl III was a bigger upset. That was the game Joe Namath walked the talked, leading the underdog New York Jets of the AFC to the upset over the Colts.
But Sunday’s 17-14 win by the Giants is the best Super Bowl I’ve watched. The game also featured one of the best plays in NFL history. Giants QB Eli Manning turned into Houdini, wiggling out of what seemed to be a sure sack to fling a pass to David Tyree, who leaped up in traffic to pin the ball against his helmet with one hand before coming down with the ball for a 33-yard game. That led to the game-winning 13-yard TD pass from Manning to Plaxico Buress with 35 seconds left.
The Patriots seemed to be a little tight from the outset, but I think you can attribute most of that to New York’s defense. The Giants proved, once again, that if you can get pressure on the quarterback, you can beat any team in the NFL. Pressuring the QB is the key to success in the NFL. Always has been.
What do you think?
Was Eli deserving of the MVP?
Who is David Tyree?
Will the Giants repeat?
What will this loss do to the Patriots psyche?
Where does Super Bowl XLII rank?