The Nightcap - Allison's Family Continues to Stokke Internet Fire

Tonight's Nightcap is sponsored by Allison Stokke's drink of choice, Belvedere Vodka. Because when not trying to maintain those last few moments of innocence, it's always fun for an 18 year-old to party with her boyfriend, throw back a few shots, and chase it with some Coors Light. (Note: I'm just guessing on the can in her hand. It could very well be Diet Coke. Also the bottle doesn't appear to have been opened...yet.)

So let me get this straight- high school pole vaulter Allison Stokke is upset about all the attention she's receiving, so this Orange County girl's solution is to go to the Washington Post and Fox News with her story? If she really wanted anonymity, she should have granted Insomniac's Lounge an interview. I can promise her that my parents wouldn't have been adding her to their MySpace page immediately afterwards. Perhaps her feelings in the Post article are sincere, but if so, she's been badly misguided by her media savvy father. (He is an attorney who regularly defends people accused of rape and child molestation, so he's very familiar with using the media). The timing is odd too. It's the end of the school year. There won't be many meets between now and her college track season next spring, so this story would have dried up quickly as websites moved on to June's flavor of the month. She's in a peripheral (i.e., non-televised), seasonal sport, so unlike athletes like Michelle Wie and Maria Sharapova, her exposure is limited by the short duration of her sport. Even the peripheral athletes that overtly seek extra attention have a very short life span. When is the last time you saw Jennie Finch anywhere? Anyone remember high jumper Amy Acuff? If the Stokke family had just left the story alone, it would have run its course, and no one would have ever mentioned her again until perhaps the 2008 Summer Olympics. As it is, she's added an extra week or two to her lifespan.

Besides, she's going to Cal-Berkeley. By this time next year, she'll have stopped wearing makeup or shaving her armpits. I doubt many people will be fleecing her Facebook page for pics then.

....

A few other thoughts from the day in sports that really should be in their own posts, but that would mean coming up with some new headlines; and it's already almost 4 am, so screw it...

It's been about six hours since I've last checked the story, so I'm not sure where Kobe Bryant currently stands on his trade demands with the Lakers. Either way, it doesn't really matter. Kobe has no leverage on the issue, and Jerry Buss will stop drinking with hot 23 year-olds before he trades Kobe Bryant. At least that's the case this offseason. There is however one scenario in which I could forsee Bryant possibly leaving LA. If OJ Mayo totally blows up during his one season at USC, then I could see Buss trading Kobe to move up in the 2008 draft for the rights to the fellow Trojan (Buss received his PhD from and taught at USC). While he won't have the same cache as Kobe Bryant, "Juice Deuce" should still be a pretty good draw in Los Angeles. Combine him with whomever the Lakers draft from this deep 2007 class and you've suddenly built a decent nucleus to compete in the next generation's (Portland, Seattle) Western Conference...

Personally, I was much more offended by ARod's latest bush league move on the field in Toronto than I was by reports of him heading up to his Four Seasons hotel room with a stripper. I don't know what that says about me, and I probably don't want to know...

So for three weeks, I've been waiting for Tom Glavine to get closer to 300 wins, so I could post my well-researched (by my standards, at least) article about how he could very likely be the last pitcher to reach that magic number for the next 10 years, along with speculation of who that next 300 game winner might be. Then Wednesday afternoon, I walked past a newsstand and saw that very topic is the cover story for this week's Sporting News. Sonofab*tch! To all you bloggers out there, the lesson to take from this is to always post whatever is on your mind, no matter how hasty or pointless it might seem...

I've got another contest to share that I should probably be keeping for myself. Between now and June 3, you can enter on DenverBroncos.com for the chance to win an all expense FunJet Vacation to Cozumel during the week of June 24-July 1. Putting the "fun" in FunJet is that those dates coincide with the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders calendar photoshoot, and the winner will be given the opportunity to attend one session of the shoot. While it's not explicitly stated in the rules, I assume the winner will also have to pass a lie detector test, as Mike Shanahan needs to know your true intentions before letting you go.

Oh, and if you happen to win but can't find anyone to gawk at Broncos Cheerleaders with ya....Lemme know.