The Times details how many University of Oregon football players are taking American Sign Language to fulfill their foreign language course requirement. When one of them scores a touchdown, they put their hands together in the shape of the letter “O”. Now that they know what that symbol means, they won’t do it anymore.

“I did the ‘O’ once, and I never did it again,” said LaMichael James, the team’s star running back, who recently injured his right elbow. When discussing this, James spoke quietly so that those nearby would not hear. He would not make the sign. His elbow hurt, he demurred.

So…I now know one word in sign language. Probably won’t come in that handy.

Malcolm Gladwell at Grantland takes a look at owning a professional sports franchise and ‘psychic benefits’:

The best illustration of psychic benefits is the art market. Art collectors buy paintings for two reasons. They are interested in the painting as an investment — the same way they would view buying stock in General Motors. And they are interested in the painting as a painting — as a beautiful object. In a recent paper in Economics Bulletin, the economists Erdal Atukeren and Aylin Seçkin used a variety of clever ways to figure out just how large the second psychic benefit is, and they put it at 28 percent. In other words, if you pay $100 million for a Van Gogh, $28 million of that is for the joy of looking at it every morning. If that seems like a lot, it shouldn’t. There aren’t many Van Goghs out there, and they are very beautiful. If you care passionately about art, paying that kind of premium makes perfect sense.

Brett Favre’s consecutive starts streak ends at 297 consecutive NFL regular season games.  The streak started in 1992.  George Bush was President of the U.S. (the father, not the son); I was in high school; The Silence of the Lambs won the Oscar for Best Picture; “Unforgettable” by Natalie Cole & Nat King Cole won the Grammy for record of the year; Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show, and Jay Leno took over (Favre outlasted him and Leno doesn’t get sacked every show!); and Tarvaris Jackson, the QB who started in place of Brett, was 9 years old.

The roof of the Minneapolis Metrodome “collapsed”, and Fox, who was scheduled to broadcast the Giants vs. Vikings game Sunday, had cameras rolling when it happened early Sunday morning.  A snow storm dumped 17 inches of snow in the area.

The Metrodome is an inflatable bubble, so they just need to get some spare fabric and patch it up.

What is that thing sprinting along the sideline during the first few seconds of the video when the roof starts to deflate?

UPDATE: Yahoo! has a good before/after picture of the Metrodome, and word from the Fox engineers that they left the cameras on on purpose because they were hoping for expecting a roof collapse.

Detainees in Iraq use Favre to tease soldiers from Wisconsin. First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen explains:

“One of the big words they know now is shenanigan. They’ll constantly talk about ‘Favre shenanigans,’ ‘He’s so good for the Vikings,’ and ‘The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.’ ”

By beating his former team last night, Brett Favre became the only quarterback in NFL history to notch wins against all 32 teams. He did it in typical Farve fashion: 24 for 32 for 271 yards, 3 TD passes, and a QB rating of 142+. He didn’t look 39 years old out there.

After 30 years in the booth, John Madden has retired.

Longtime broadcast partner Al Michaels said Madden will have a unique place in pro football history.

“No one has made the sport more interesting, more relevant and more enjoyable to watch and listen to than John,” Michaels said in a statement. “There’s never been anyone like him and he’s been the gold standard for analysts for almost three decades.”

When I was growing up, almost every Sunday afternoon Giants’ game was broadcast by John Madden and Pat Summerall; so much so, in fact, that I was disappointed and didn’t pay as much attention to the game when it was another tandem in the booth. You could tell that he really loved watching the game (as well as hearing his own voice), and was at home explaining the obvious points as well as the underlying subtle ones. He’ll be missed.