Bol was known for some things other than basketball, too. Most importantly, he used a majority of his earnings from his basketball career to raise money for Sudanese refugees and youth. He is also the only known NBA player who once killed a lion with a spear. He was once fined $25K for missing two exhibition games because he was busy with peace talks with Sudanese rebel leaders in Washington DC. Some also speculate that he may have invented — or at least popularized — the phrase “my bad.”

– Lisa Katayama, Boing Boing.

Man, I hope that’s true. Actually, who cares? I’m just going to proceed as if it’s definitely true, because if Manute Bol actually coined a phrase I use all the time, it just makes Manute Bol that much more awesome. And I didn’t think that was possible. I mean, the guy killed a lion with a spear. Also, he’d occasionally — without jumping, just reaching back over his head — chuck up hilarious three-pointers, which he drained with alarming frequency.

What a stud. I’m sorry I didn’t eulogize him sooner. My bad, Manute Bol.

There are these things called shark attacks, but there is no such thing as a shark attack. I have never seen a real shark attack….

We’re humans. We live on land.

Sharks live in water.

So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.

A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack.

When I see on the news where it’s like, ‘There have been 10 shark attacks,’ I’m like, ‘Hey, for real?! They’re just running around? Sharks are walking now, huh! We live on the land, we don’t live underwater.’

– Gilbert Arenas, NBA.com blog.

Ahhh, that’s a reasonable point I guess. I’ve got nothing.

Hat tip to my buddy Ron for an old link that I somehow missed.

UPDATE, 6:15 a.m.: Devon points out that Gilbert Arenas stole — or borrowed, or sampled — the shark joke from a comedian named Ian Edwards.

There’s a shortage of good sports-themed comedy on the Internet, so kudos to the fellas at Handsome Donkey for this bit of hilarious weirdness:

And it’s my belief that Vitale (and ESPN) represent the biggest reason America HATES Duke.

Vitale is the biggest name in college basketball. He has the biggest platform and he uses it to push his love for Duke. Fans are sensitive about their teams. They know when the media is ignoring their team in favor of some other team. I like Dickie V, but he is a lapdog for Duke basketball. He is their mascot. He fawns over the Duke players, he fawns over the Cameron Crazies, and his nonstop glorification of Duke and Mike Krzyzewski gets on people’s [expletive] nerves!

Let’s return to his rant: What is there to hate about a bunch of kids that play hard, play with feeling, play with intensity, play the right way, go to class, get their degrees, do things with integrity.

When I first heard that I literally started screaming at the top of my lungs: “[Expletive] Dick Vitale! Duke aint the ONLY SCHOOL with players who play hard and go to class.”

His utterly clueless, and yes, sanctimonious rant represents the EXACT reason we hate this damn school.

– Keith Smooth, the Dark Prince of Satire.

Smooth makes a series of decent points in the post but I don’t necessarily agree on all of them. I’m with him 100% on hating Duke in large part because of ESPN and Vitale’s glorification of the school, though.

I don’t care for Vitale’s whole shtick, either. I know he’s a divisive figure, but I can’t stand any broadcaster who works to make himself larger than the game he’s covering, and Vitale’s Public Enemy No. 1 in that realm. This is also why I don’t care for John Sterling. I’m not watching the game to hear your stupid signature calls. I just need you to tell me what’s happening.

Anyway, nothing bothers me more than when I’m watching a non-Duke but Vitale-called college hoops game and Vitale finds some tenuous reason to bring up Duke. “HEY, you know, UConn’s guards are great, baby! But for my money, no guard in the nation is better than Scheyer at DUKE, baby!”

It’s annoying.

Meanwhile, if Duke wins Saturday, I stand to win $500. And I’m still rooting for West Virginia. And I could really use $500.

Hat tip to Can’t Stop the Bleeding for pointing out this Phil Mushnick column lamenting the trend toward body art on NCAA basketball players. Must be a slow day:

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Division of Self-Mutilation, this NCAA tournament destroyed last year’s record for in-view tattoos as seen permanently burned into the flesh of young student-athletes.

I don’t care what your position is on this pop-cultural “advancement” — whether you recognize that it’s another mainstreamed gift from our prison systems and street gangs — but you’ll admit that it seemed half the starters in this year’s tournament were covered with tattoos. Covered.

From there, Mushnick goes on to spend the next several hundred words just cracking jokes about how difficult it must be for these NCAA basketball players to see the tattoos that cover their own bodies, including several about how the text must appear backwards when they see it in the mirror and so they should consider having it written backwards. Poignant stuff.

I don’t have any tattoos and I’m not planning on ever getting any. Obviously I don’t begrudge anyone the right to ink themselves blue, it’s just way too permanent of a commitment for me.

I did watch a friend endure some pretty serious tattoo regret one time, though. It was heavy stuff, too. I was with him after he got his sixth or seventh tattoo, and I guess he didn’t like it, and he became really regretful and freaked out a bit about the permanence of what he had done to his body.

He got over it, though, and now has two full sleeves. That’s the happy ending.