Sheriff Leon Lott (was that the Super Bowl guy?) has sent his witch hunt around town, chasing Michael Phelps for being photographed holding something that is commonly used to smoke an illegal substance.

Since the photo was put on the Internet by News of the World, Lott has been trying to find a way to nab the Olympic hero.

Instead, he’s now arrested eight other people from the party, including the owner of the infamous bong, who wasn’t even there that night.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but owning a bong isn’t illegal. If you use it to smoke marijuana, that’s illegal, but simply owning the paraphernalia is not in itself a crime.

According to WIS News in South Carolina:

Lott says the picture indicated a law was being broken in his jurisdiction. He said he couldn’t ignore the violation just because Phelps is rich and famous.

We’ve now learned that since investigators began trying to build a case, they’ve made eight arrests: seven for drug possession and one for distribution. These are arrests that resulted as the sheriff’s department served search warrants.
who wasn’t even at the party, is one of the eight now charged.

They also said that as of now, Phelps has not been charged with anything, but the sheriff’s department thinks it has some strong evidence that may lead to that.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford told Fox News that he really doesn’t see what these arrests accomplish, but stopped short of saying he was going to do anything about it.

I tell you what: If you want to prosecute every frat party that has underage drinking and weed, you will be using all of your police resources catching these “criminals” at every party, on every campus, in every state of the country. If this sheriff thinks that this is an isolated incident and that these arrests will deter future party goers from drinking and smoking, he’s just stupid.

Remind me to never go to either of the Carolinas for a college party. Nothing good can come of it.

UPDATE: It appears that the bulk of the “investigation” is around trying to build a case against Phelps. Shocking.

What better way to parlay your Olympic success than by coming home and feeling up whores in Vegas and smoking the marijuana in South Carolina. If there’s a quicker way to put an end to your millions of dollars worth of endorsement deals, I can’t think of it.

Due to the Olympics four-year ban on anyone taking drugs, it stands to reason that Phelps will be a no-go for London 2012, unless of course he plays his “I’m Michael Phelps” card, which is a very real possibility. American advertisers certainly want Phelps to be there, and more often than not, what the money wants, the money gets.

At least this guy will likely get dropped from all of his endorsements, and judging by his personality and the way he’s acted since Beijing, I can’t say I’m all that upset about it.

According to News of the World, Phelps showed up at a party in Columbia to see a girl he was dating, and proceeded to be the most obnoxious guy at the party. He eventually grabbed a glass bong and proceeded to hit it as if it were not his first time. Word around campus was that Phelps was getting wasted every night while in town.

Phelps’ crew tried to get News of the World to kill the story, but it wasn’t to be. Among some of the flavorful quotes in the article:

On Phelps’ Rick James aura…

“He didn’t know many people so you’d think he’d be a little shy. But he was loud, obnoxious and slamming beers from the get-go.

“Every girl wanted a piece of him and every guy wanted to be his best buddy. He couldn’t get enough of all the attention.”

…and his NBA skills…

“You could tell Michael had smoked before. He grabbed the bong and a lighter and knew exactly what to do.

“He looked just as natural with a bong in his hands as he does swimming in the pool. He was the gold medal winner of bong hits. Michael ended up getting a little paranoid, though, because before too long he looked like he was nervous and ran out of the place.”

…and his — well, I guess pick an athlete for this one…

“He was out of control from the moment he got there.

“If he continues to party like that I’d be amazed if he ever won any more medals again.”

Yeah, this kid’s career is over. I hope he invested well, because the money is going to disappear really, really fast. Well played, Mr. Phelps, well played.

A crazy Cuban taekwondo-er flipped out and kicked a referee in the head after getting disqualified from his bronze medal match. Angel Matos and his coach have been banned for life for the move.

Deadspin takes a look at ESPN’s coverage of Gene Upshaw’s death, asking just who the Worldwide Leader really thought was the story.

The International Gymnastics Federation is still looking over a bunch of documents regarding the age of the Chinese gymnasts who cheated their way to a gold medal in the women’s all-around. Here is all of the documentation that you need to know that these girls were not all 16. I’m no Chris Hanson, but I can spot a non-16-year old with the best of them.

Hey, remember last year when everyone insisted that Tom Glavine was going to be the last 300-game winner ever? Well, now Randy Johnson is just six wins away from 300, and Mike Mussina is at a healthy 266, and clearly looks like he can keep going. And I still guarantee that barring a major injury, CC Sabathia will get 300 wins. But what do I know?

I don’t know what the specific rules allow for, but why didn’t Davey Johnson offer Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds a shot to play in the Olympics? Seems like they could have helped us win the gold medal.

–News and Links Archive–

So, rather than tell you once again that NBC has ruined the Olympics, I’ll just show you a video of some top-notch work that NBC once did involving an Olympic event.

It sure is nice to be watching Friday Night Fights on ESPN, only to be told by their bottom-of-the-screen news flash that Michael Phelps got his seventh gold medal. I have actually gone out of my way to avoid the Internet, the news and as much of any type of sports on television as I can handle to try to watch “live” Olympics later that night. But they were showing medals on the bottom of the Red Sox game on NESN, ESPNews, and obviously all over the web.

While I realize that watching live boxing on ESPN is dangerous when trying to avoid results, I shouldn’t have this problem to begin with.

China, meanwhile, apparently faked the entire Opening Ceremonies, then cheated at gymnastics. Hell of a ship they’re running over there.

Let’s sum up again what NBC and China are doing, or have done:

• NBC forced the Olympic committee to move the gymnastics and swimming finals to the morning, despite the fact that most swimming events take place at night. Threatening to withdraw their nearly billion dollar deal, NBC made the Olympics cater to their needs to show these events in prime time in the United States.

  Here’s the problem — most of these events still don’t take place anywhere near prime time. The women’s individual gymnastics all-around didn’t air until after midnight. Not to spoil NBC’s genius idea, but midnight on the East is 9:00 PM on the West Coast. So instead of having late night on one coast and actual prime time on the other, they decided to show everything on a delay in the West so that all of us could have our prime time events after midnight.

  I understand, to an extent, the need to please your advertisers. It’s the only way that they can afford the Olympics. But the advertisers need to be told that live in the West Coast means that your big events are running between eight and nine at night. I’m not advertising exec, but actual prime time, actually live, has to get better ratings than after midnight on a tape delay.

  There is literally no reason in the world that NBC is airing the Olympics on a delay on the West Coast. Embarrassing.

• China and NBC mangled the Opening Ceremonies. It’s bad enough that they aired them on a 12 hour delay (on the East Coast), but what about the fake fireworks? Pathetic.

  Or the faked racial diversity? Even worse.

  Oh yeah, they also told the seven-year old girl that she couldn’t sing because she was too ugly. Really quality work on those Opening Ceremonies.

• How about China’s blatant cheating in gymnastics. Between the awful scoring and the 13-year olds, this is far worse than the skating scandal from Salt Lake City.
• The NBC announcers are painful. Most of them, at least. Aside from Teddy Atlas and Bob Papa doing boxing (outstanding), this is bad. They went out and hired nearly everyone that works for HBO, which is usually a good thing, but they are just not using them right. Cris Collinsworth has provided next to nothing, and really hasn’t been given much of a chance to. Mary Carillo is being relegated to fluff pieces. The folks calling softball and baseball games are horrible and uninformed. The gymnastics announcers were very good. The swimming guys are good, but tend to not shut up. Sometimes the pictures should tell the story, and all of the NBC announcers haven’t learned that.

  Little Bobby Costas is really starting to bug me. Between his one-sided attack on Internet media, to his ever-growing snobbery whenever he talks about sports, I just can’t take it anymore. He has taken condescension to a new level, and I now dislike watching him only for being himself. There isn’t even anything specific I dislike about him covering this Olympics. But he might as well be in New York right now, considering I don’t think I’ve seen him leave his booster seat in the Beijing NBC studio.

  Having said that, I loved him with Béla Károlyi when they were discussing gymnastics. Pure entertainment.

• The boxing scoring is just atrocious. I watch a lot of boxing, but this may as well be cricket, based on my unfamiliarity with what I’m watching. They should make coin flipping an Olympic event. That’s really about all this is. The scoring system that they are using this year is nothing short of a complete mystery. Thankfully, we have Papa and Atlas to call it how it is.
• Minimal graphics. More times than I can count, NBC didn’t show gymnasts scores, or the overall scores. They never showed the scoreboard as the scores were announced. They show the athletes reacting to the scores posted, then eventually the standings. In live sports, this is doing it the wrong way. We are watching with suspense, allow us to watch the scores as they happen.

This has got to be the most frustrating television sports event of my lifetime. Maybe I’m being greedy by demanding a top-notch product, but with what NBC paid for this, and for their media monopoly on this worldly event, I will continue to demand a better product.

It’s one thing to have a few glitches. This is a nightmare. Please ABC, CBS, FOX, ESPN or anyone else — outbid NBC so this doesn’t have to happen anymore.

I just wish we could ignore the Olympics as a country enough to make NBC change their ways, but unfortunately, they just don’t care.

There’s more that’s bothered me about this, but I’m just done for now. I’m sure I’ll touch on this subject again.

This Olympics, I’ve watched an entire handball game (or is it a match?), a water polo game, three or four swashbuckling events (I don’t know the difference between epee, sabre, and fencing), and some awful form of horse racing that you can’t bet on and isn’t a race. And they dress like butlers to do it. Either way, I’ve seen a fair share of entertaining and boring, and so far, I’m pleasantly surprised by NBC’s coverage.

I’ve said many times before that there is nothing better than watching live sports in the middle of the night. I love Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open and the British Open because of their middle-of-the-night-ness. Having the Olympics on multiple channels at three in the morning is fantastic. The Olympics should be played at this year every time they stage them.

Having said all that, I finally got excited watching an event last night, as our swimmers beat the whiny Frenchmen in the 4 x 100, topped off with the best closing kick I’ve seen since Art Official beat Somebeachsomewhere. This race was one of those events that made you really root for your country. It’s one thing to be an underdog (despite having the best swimmer in the world). It’s another thing to have some smelly Frenchies telling you that they are going to destroy you.

So, while it appeared that the French were well on their way to victory, they finished in the Frenchest way they could, by surrendering the lead at the last moment, to allow the United States to be victorious, and Michael Phelps quest for nine gold medals to stay alive. I’m not a big fan of swimming as a spectator sport, but this was the most exciting event of this Olympics so far, and by a lot.

NBC Coverage

There are several reasons to be pleased with this year’s coverage from NBC. First of all, they are airing far more live events than in years past. The past few Olympics, we’ve been subjected to tape delays for the “important” events so that they could be aired in prime time. This year, that’s not the case since the delay would have to be far to long with the drastic time zone difference. So for live coverage, NBC gets thumbs up from me.

I’ve also been extremely happy with NBC’s online coverage. Normally, I have to hope I get ten minutes on some obscure channel to show some powerlifting, but thanks to the wonders of the Interwebs, I can watch some commie broad dominate the 48kg weightlifting division whenever I want.

Another credit to NBC is that they have devoted entire channels to boxing, basketball and soccer. The basketball and soccer I appreciate because it keeps two-hour games from dominating the coverage on the main channels. The boxing on CNBC all day I appreciate because the coverage is outstanding, and I just enjoy boxing more than other sports.

Finally, I have to give NBC credit for putting together a who’s who of broadcasters. Bob Papa and Teddy Atlas are doing an amazing job covering the boxing on CNBC, Bob Costas is far more tolerable covering the Olympics than anything else he does these days, and Jim Lampley’s voice just sounds important. They also have the best in the business at all of the other respective sports, and seem to have spared no costs to put together these great announcers.

UPDATE: While NBC has “Live” displayed on the screen, viewers on the West Coast are actually being lied to. NBC is airing primetime Olympics in a tape delay format, leaving the “Live” banner on the screen, and reminding viewers twice an hour that it is not in fact live. Not only are they screwing us by ruining the Olympic experience, but they are lying to us and don’t care. Their excuse is that what they are doing is no different than what American Idol does. Well, unfortunately, the Olympics are not American Idol. The fact that NBC would compare them to it is embarrassing enough.

So, I take back everything I said about NBC, as tape delayed primetime coverage in this era is completely unacceptable. It’s complete bullshit that I know what’s going to happen on the Olympics tonight before they come on. In today’s digital, Internet age, it’s impossible for many of us to remain in the dark until it comes on TV.

It was bad enough that they faked the Opening Ceremonies with CGI effects, but to deny me the ability to watch the major events live (also blacked out on the Internet), is pathetic. I don’t care what else they do, NBC has failed in their 2008 Olympic coverage.