Here’s why you should take my Sports & Media course at Arizona State University.

My 111 students saw this trailer for the first time last night. They applauded at the end. That was cool.

My Sports & Media class at Arizona State University had the chance to hear from longtime NBA reporter and columnist Sam Smith last night. Smith, who worked for the Chicago Tribune for 28 years and now covers the NBA for bulls.com, regaled my students with stories from inside the league and gave them his insight into journalistic ethics and advice about a career in the media. Some video will be coming later today, so watch this space. A video clip is here for those of you who missed it or want to have another chuckle.

Mr. Smith was kind enough to stick around for a half-hour after the class talking one-on-one with students and with me, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Thanks, Sam!

I’ll be one of the broadcasters for today’s Pac-10 women’s soccer match between UCLA and Arizona State at 3pm ET/1pm MT on Fox Sports Arizona and Fox Sports Prime Ticket. Both teams are hoping to secure berths in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

That’s me with the lovely and talented Ann Meyers Drysdale (left), Basketball Hall of Famer and GM of the WNBA champion Phoenix Mercury and Kyndra de St. Aubin, my colleague at the Big Ten Network (she and I will finally work a game together at the end of this month). They were gracious enough to be guests in my Sports & Media class at Arizona State University last night as we talked about gender issues in sports media.

I just thought the sun coming through the beams at Sky Harbor this morning looked cool. Don’t think this photo does it justice, but, whatever.

So, I just flew in from Indianapolis, and boy are my arms tired. Got to see some old friends and called Michigan State’s 1-0, double-overtime victory over Indiana on the Big Ten Network Sunday afternoon.

Tonight it’s class at Arizona State, with a discussion of gender issues that includes guest speakers Kyndra de St. Aubin and Ann Meyers Drysdale (by the way, here’s a story I did in 1992 on Ann, recalling her brief tryout with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers).

I’ve lost track of the days. I’m in a Diet Coke-induced haze that’s exacerbated by my unwillingness to venture outside when it’s 107 degrees*. My daughter sometimes tells me, “You drink too much Diet Coke.” I tell my daughter, “Yes, but Daddy doesn’t drink alcohol, Daddy doesn’t smoke, Daddy doesn’t do drugs, Daddy doesn’t hit women, and Daddy doesn’t have a 20-year-old Dave & Busters waitress for a mistress who will put four bullets in him while he’s snoozing on the sofa, either, so back off.”

Anyway, here are some notes on various things:

• The indoor soccer outlook is bleak. I know they’re trying to save the Milwaukee Wave, but, seriously, unless the prospective ownership group that Keith Tozer supposedly met with (a) has just completely come out of the blue and ( b) doesn’t know how to read a P&L sheet, I’m not optimistic. After talking with as many different people as I could over the last week, it seems like all four XSL teams are dead and not all of the NISL teams are that well, either. It could be that we take a big step back in indoor soccer in this country (insert your own joke here, then email it to yourself) for this season and the forseeable future before someone figures out what to do.
• The US Nats beat Honduras, 2-0 in DC last night, to go 2-0 in the Gold Cup. They’ll finish up group play with Haiti on Saturday in Foxboro. When Brian Ching scored his I’m Taller Than You header to seal it, it was revealed that that was Ching’s 10th international goal. I honestly couldn’t remember the other nine. Could you? So I went back and checked:
  • 08/18/2004: 1 in a 1-1 draw with Jamaica in Kingston (WCQ)
  • 09/04/2004: 1 in a 2-0 win over El Salvador in Foxboro (WCQ)
  • 02/19/2006: 1 in a 4-0 win over Guatemala in Frisco in (Friendly)
  • 05/26/2006: 1 in a 2-0 win over Venezuela in Cleveland (Friendly)
  • 06/09/2007: 1 in a 2-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago in Carson (Gold Cup)
  • 06/15/2008: 2 in an 8-0 win over Barbados in Carson (WCQ)
  • 09/10/2008: 1 in a 3-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago in Chicago (WCQ)
  • 10/11/2008: 1 in a 6-1 win over Cuba in Washington, DC (WCQ)
  • 07/08/2009: 1 in a 2-0 win over Honduras in Washington, DC (Gold Cup)

  Seems like his biggest one was his first. As near as I can tell, he’s got 38 caps? (Thanks for not having that information readily available, USSF.) 10 goals in 38 games is actually comparable to Eric Wynalda‘s strike rate (34 goals in 107 caps). That boggles my mind, because not long before Ching scored, I was thinking, “Why do they keep running this guy out there?”

• WPS teams have scored 100 goals in 49 games in their inaugural season (2.04 per game). That’s broken down like this:
  • Games with 0 goals: 5 times (10.2%)
  • Games with 1 goal:   15 times (30.6%)
  • Games with 2 goals: 15 times (30.6%)
  • Games with 3 goals: 7 times (14.3%)
  • Games with 4 goals: 4 times (8.2%)
  • Games with 5 goals: 1 time (2.0%)
  • Games with 6 goals: 1 time (2.0%)
  • Games with 7 goals: 1 time (2.0%)

  They need to work on that, obviously.

• Shocking that Landon Donovan wouldn’t have realized at the time that Grant Wahl is, you know, a reporter and that unless he didn’t tell you he was writing all this stuff down and going to turn it into a book or a screenplay or a Facebook status update or something, you should have realized what you were saying. And, yes, you should have had that conversation with Beckham. Last year. If you were bent out of shape that you lost the armband, that is. If you fancied yourself as a real captain.
• At this moment, I’ve got ten soccer broadcasts tentatively scheduled for my Big Ten Network gigs this fall. Stay tuned.
• Also this fall, I’m teaching at Arizona State University again. I have 91 students registered and need 100 to get a teaching assistant to grade papers and stuff. So, come on, you Sun Devils!

*No, the fact that there’s very little humidity doesn’t matter above about 103.

I have to give a shout-out to Darryl Webb, assistant photo editor for the East Valley Tribune, for taking the time to come speak to and show his work to my Sports & Media class at Arizona State University yesterday.

You can check out some of his work here.

(Thanks also to the lovely and talented Lauren Miller for the photo above.)