Sports, Ink

(Born August 22, 1938) -- It’s two straight days for profiling football players-turned-broadcasters. The two have very different styles.

Paul Maguire didn’t brag about it much on the air, but he was a very good college football player. He led the nation in touchdown receptions in 1959 at the Citadel, and was drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers of the new American Football League. There Maguire played both linebacker and punter. He was part of the 1963 team, which was at that point in San Diego, that won the AFL title.

Then it was on to Buffalo, where he stayed through 1970. Maguire won AFL championships with the Bills in 1964 and 1965, setting a record with three in a row. He was one of 20 men to play in all 10 years of the AFL’s life.

Along the way, he picked up a reputation as one of the funniest men in football. He worked in a variety of roles in the decades to come. Maguire did the NFL, the Canadian Football League, and college football.

Along the way, he found a home in Western New York, and always has supportive of his adopted community. The area responded when it picked him for the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.

--- Budd Bailey

If the Buffalo Bills' preseason game sells out and airs on Ch. 7 Saturday night, NASCAR fans in Buffalo will still be able to see the Sprint Cup race at Bristol.

According to an e-mail sent to The News from ESPN Communications, "arrangements have been made for the race to air on ESPN in the Buffalo area."

NASCAR coverage is airing on ABC throughout the country. If the Bills' 7 p.m. game is on Ch. 7, the entire NASCAR telecast, which begins at 7 p.m. with prerace coverage, will be aired on ESPN in the Buffalo area. The green flag is scheduled for 7:48 p.m. 

What is set to air on ESPN Saturday night? A high school football game between schools from South Carolina and Virginia. I think it's safe to say that ABC/ESPN made a great move here.

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

Good morning from Watkins Glen International. It's race day and it's always key for reporters to get in the infield early.

10:15 a.m. We're just setting up for the day. Larry Ott and I are talking about possible approaches for coverage in the race.

Larry, as always, is catching up with Western New York natives in NASCAR. Old friend Rodney Fetters, a longtime crew member, is now part of Marcos Ambrose's crew team and he might have a very special day.

Thankfully, weather should not be a factor (knock on wood) -- as it's been recently. The race has been rained out twice in the last three years. It's a sunny day right now. There are rain showers in the forecast, but the chance of precipitation is at 30 percent. 

Otherwise we are using the time to budget our coverage of tomorrow's first day of high school football practice. I'm also trying to check in on the gold medal hoops game online (the media center TVs are on ESPN) but there is a good deal off buf ... fer ... ing.

10:59 a.m. A press conference in the media center presented the trophy that will be awarded to today's winner. It's fittingly been made at the Corning Museum of Glass.

It's a pretty cool item. The stone at the bottom is from the Finger Lakes region (it's actually called "glenstone"), and the clear glass cylinder-type deal is meant to reflect the gorges and waterfalls of the region. It has a baby-blue tinge, which is representative of the track's trademark baby blue guardrails. The shape of the interior of the glass is the shape of the track.

I'll take a picture of it after the press conference is complete (click on the photo for a jumbo-sized picture where you can get a good look of the track design).

It really is a neat trophy when you see it up close. The shape of the track is represented inside the glass, and the trophy's look kind of changes when you look at it from different angles. There were several artists involved in its production. 

11:26 a.m. Come race time, we'll be keeping track of things in the window below. 

I'll be using it as my running notes for the race and I'll flow my tweets as well as some other useful Twitter feeds through.

1 p.m. Here we go: Click below:

Myself and Larry will have several stories on today's race in Monday's paper.

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

     (Born May 22, 1960) --  A few names come up with a discussion begins about the greatest tight ends in the history of the Buffalo Bills. Back in 1983, we probably would have guessed that the discussion would have started and ended with Tony Hunter.

     Notre Dame has spotlight Hunter's talents during a great career in South Bend, Indiana. He had impressive size and speed, and was considered a sure bet for professional stardom. It was a happy day for Bills' fans, then, when Hunter fell to Buffalo with the 12th pick in the first round of the draft. By the way, that was two picks before the Bills took Jim Kelly.

     Hunter worked his way into the lineup as a rookie, catching 36 passes. The number went to 33 the following season, but he was still considered a big-time talent.

     That's what made it so surprising when he was traded. Hunter went to the Rams in a deal that brought Vince Ferragamo here. Hunter only lasted two years with the Rams and was out of football after the 1986 season.

     The final career numbers: 134 catches in 47 games and nine touchdowns.

--- Budd Bailey

The thing that always struck me about Dan Wheldon was that "he gets it." 

The guy was obviously a natural talent in a race car, and with his good looks and smooth manner of speaking, he seemed to be born to talk in front of cameras, too.

The "he gets it" comment is one that media folks will throw out once in a while. When it's used, at least the way I use it, it's not just about someone being amenable to the media, about someone being a "good quote." Those things help, of course, and both could certainly be applied to Wheldon.

But truly getting it goes beyond a snappy one-liner or smiling at cameras. Wheldon had a sense of place, purpose and perspective that made him not just a champion of auto racing but a tremendous ambassador for his sport. 

The best example I remember, and I'm certainly not alone here, is how he represented his sport and the Indianapolis 500 after winning the 2005 race which would become known as Danicamania's coming out party. He also was quite eloquent in talking about fatherhood before and after his Cinderella victory in this summer's Indy 500.

I did a story from Watkins Glen International's Indy Car stop in 2006, just after Sam Hornish had won the Indy 500. With the win putting Hornish in the unofficial position of spokesman of his series, I spent part of the story discussing how well Wheldon had done in that regard.

Here's an excerpt:

After open-wheel racing has struggled in two separate circuits (IRL and Champ Car) for a decade, the IRL has seen a resurgence in the last two years thanks in part to the emergence of Danica Patrick (15th among 19 drivers in practice).

A year ago this week, Wheldon was the series' perfect spokesman in the midst of Danicamania, saying in just about every interview how proud he was to have won "the greatest race in the world" and revving the hyperbole engine loudly by calling it the "biggest sporting event in the world."

Wheldon relished the role so much he even wore a T-shirt that read "I actually won the Indy 500" after rookie Patrick seized magazine covers by becoming the first woman to lead the Indy 500 before she finished fourth. The T-shirt was more fun than sour grapes, but no matter the recipe it was great PR. It's hard to picture the reserved Hornish pulling a similar stunt.

"He's obviously a different personality than me," said Wheldon, 27. "I think he'll represent the Indianapolis 500 very well -- Sam's a good role model for everyone involved."

When asked about his teammate taking on the role of Indy 500 champion, Castroneves said with a smile, "The good news is, he's definitely improved his personality a lot." He was clearly joking, but it's not something one would say if one were talking about, say, the ebullient Wheldon.

As the 5-foot-9 bubbly British-born bachelor with short spiky blond hair zipped his way down to his pit stall Friday in a motor scooter -- most drivers use them to get around the track -- he playfully waved his fist at a team member of a competitor before mock-karate-kicking another bystander.

A few minutes later, the 6-foot, Elvis-like sideburn-wearing Hornish, 26, smoothly drove his scooter down the same path, with wife Crystal riding piggyback."

The entire story is here.

Rest in peace, Dan Wheldon.

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

Here we go again :-) 

 We are back at Watkins Glen International for our second shot at the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen, which was postponed to 10 a.m. today after yesterday's rain.

9:11 a.m. Setting up in the media center after a drive from Corning, and a walk from the parking lot, under very grey skies. 

There remains a 60 percent chance of rain today according to weather.com, but the hour-by-hour forecast looks very good as the higher chance of showers is in the late afternoon. Hopefully the race can get enough laps in early before the weather -- but we were saying the same thing yesterday.

9:44 a.m. Just back from a brisk walk to the infield for an annual souvenir purchase -- can't believe I forgot to do that yesterday. 

The good news is that, while the sky remains grey, there is no rain. 

Snapshot of a Monday at a Sprint Cup race: There are far fewer campsites, and there were fans packing up and leaving as I was entering the facility (you have to think their schedule had them leaving Monday morning regardless and they just can't afford to spend the time here today), there are far fewer fans walking around today and a lot less foot traffic overall. The media center looks to be cut down by at least a third.

It was semi-surreal to see a field that was filled with merchandise trailers for the weekend emptied out. 

9:49 a.m. Reporters analyzing radar again. It appears that an afternoon shower could come along, but right now it looks like it wouldn't sit on top of us for a while like yesterday's did. I guess most people don't believe meteorologists on TV -- so I'm not sure if anyone would put a whole lot of stock in sportswriters' weather analysis. :-)

9:53 a.m. We're going to the live chat window below.

12:45 p.m. Top 10 via the scoring monitor:

Ambrose, Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Truex, Logano, Harvick, Montoya, Allmendinger, Burton, Johnson.

12:59 p.m. Some crazy stuff going on post-race, with Boris Said involved in an altercation wtih the No. 16 Valvoline team of Greg Biffle. Said appeared to be trying to get to Biffle's hauler but was pushed back two or three times by team members.

Said just went off on Biffle during an interview that just aired on ESPN. Wild. 

It is Ambrose's first Cup win, which came in his 105th start. It is his 11th career top five and his sixth top 10 of the season.

It's also the first win for crew chief Todd Parrot since Oct. 2, 2005 at Talladega with Dale Jarrett. First win for owner Richard Petty in a while as well. 

Just for the record, this might be the first time I've correctly predicted a winner. 

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

Hello and a good morning to you on this race day.

8:35 a.m. First things first from our Corning hotel. The forecast is better now than it was yesterday.

The chance of rain is down from 80 to 60 percent. There seems to be significant rain headed our way on the weather.com map that I just checked on my phone, but it also looks like it will pass through. We might be looking at a rain-delayed or rain-shortened race rather than a rainout. We shall see. More to come from the track.

10:16 a.m. We're settled in here at the media center in the infield of the track -- located just behind pit road, close to the start/finish line. I breezed into the track via another favorite route, and no, I'm not revealing this one either.

Just after walking in, a huddle of about six reporters formed around a laptop and I actually heard one say, "well I think we might be OK after this low pressure here." You go to a sports event and a weather report breaks out.

Talk here is that the rain will come later in the afternoon, which is backed up by the weather.com forecast. We're optimistic here that we'll have a good chance to get at least 45 of the 90 laps finished before any delay occurs -- once a race goes halfway, it is official.  

11:22 a.m. Uh-oh. Hourly forecast now has rain coming earlier.

12:33 p.m. Uh-oh again. The map looks bad and we should be getting hit any minute now.

A very reliable source -- I'm getting married to her -- says Buffalo got hit hard by a downpour an hour or so ago. The chatter in the media center has hopefully a delayed race, hopefully not a postponed race until Monday, and hopefully (but looking at weather forecasts you can understand this) not a postponed race until Tuesday (!). We'll see. 

12:38 p.m. I'm going to get the live blog box ready although I'm not sure how much action we'll be tracking.

12:42 p.m. Check in the live blog box below for (hopefully) live updates of the race.

4:41 p.m. We closed out the live chat above. To recap: today's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International has been postponed to 10 a.m. Monday.

It is the second time in three years that the race has been postponed -- the 2009 race was the first to be delayed in NASCAR's history at the Glen.

Monday's forecast is not great either. Gotta love it. 

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

Hello from NASCAR weekend at Watkins Glen International. 

Today the big stuff going around the 11-turn track is Sprint Cup qualifying for Sunday's Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen (11:40 a.m. scheduled start) and the Nationwide race (2 p.m.). The Grand-Am Series also races this evening at 6.

I'll have updates throughout the day.

It was a smooth drive here. After many years of coming to the Glen, I've settled that the Thruway to Route 14 directly south along Seneca Lake is the best way. I have a alternate route that I take to get to the track, but it is a semi off-roading route that I'll keep to myself, thank you very much.

To complete our traffic & weather report, there is a lot of muttering about what tomorrow's weather will bring. The weather.com forecast is calling for 80 percent chance of rain. Yikes. That's not good news for the auto racing/high school reporter with high school football practice opening Monday.

Here's Larry Ott's report from the track on Friday.

11:51 a.m. Powered up and ready to go here in the media center as qualifying laps have started for the Sprint Cup. 

During yesterday's practice sessions, the top laps were posted by Kyle Busch (first practice) and Marcos Ambrose (second).

Nationwide qualifying was held earlier, with Kurt Busch taking the top spot ahead of brother Kyle. That race is usually a blast to watch here.

Kurt Busch has been in the middle of a lot of talk here so far as Jimmie Johnson carried over their feud from last week in Pocono with lengthy comments about Busch during his media session on Friday, including sound bites which were in heavy rotation on Sportscenter.

Busch had his regular weekend media session early Saturday morning. He was asked about Johnson's comments and -- as he usually does -- he had some good quotes. The one that jumped out to me: "I means that I'm in his head and if I'm in his head, he's got to worry about us running through this Chase." 

12:22 p.m. Regan (pronounced REE-gan) Smith, the native of Syracuse-area town of Cato, posts the top time on the grid with 19 drivers having run laps. I wrote a story on Smith that was published on Thursday.

That's a good lap for him. Normally he's not good on road courses, but a good performance at Sonoma, Calif., this year, along with his other successes, has him fired up for this year's visit to his home state.

12:31 p.m. Just had a short visit from Chuck Howard, who many Western New York sports fans will remember as a member of the WIVB Ch. 4 sports team. Howard, a native of South Dayton and a Pine Valley grad, was part of a Ch. 4 staff which included Van Miller, Brian Blessing and Paul Peck. I know those names well since I was an intern for Ch. 4 during my University at Buffalo days. 

Howard is now working for NASCAR and Larry Ott will catch up with him as part of his story in Sunday's paper.

12:33 p.m. Denny Hamlin goes for a surprising spin exiting Turn Nine. Smith still on top of the charts.

12:41 p.m. Jimmie Johnson surges to the top of the speed chart, nearly a half-second faster than Smith. Not a big surprise there. Lots of big guns yet to come so we'll see how long that holds up.

It would be interesting if Johnson is in the top three, which would mean he'd have another opportunity to talk to the media -- and possibly respond to Kurt Busch's comments this morning. 

12:51 p.m. Kurt Busch and Johnson won't be neighbors on the starting grid. Busch had a wiggly lap here and there and currently stands 14th to Johnson's first. 

1 p.m. Marcos Ambrose, who is extremely perturbed that he doesn't have a ride to defend his Nationwide title this afternoon, has put himself on the pole. Not much of a surprise there. The Tasmanian is a superb road racer who is getting better overall (23rd in points).

1:20 p.m. A surprise here as A.J. Allmendinger goes all-out on his lap and takes the pole from Ambrose. Whoa. 

1:24 p.m. Two drivers later, the final driver in the qualifying lineup takes the pole. Kyle Busch, who was last in the lineup due to his top performance in practice, backed that up with a fast lap of 69.767 seconds (126.421 mph).

1:28 p.m. Kyle Busch's lap sets a Sprint Cup record at the Glen. The old record was by Jeff Gordon back in 2003, which was a 70.7979-second circuit at 124.58 mph.

And two NASCAR races here, two Busch brother poles.

1:30 p.m. Interviews going on now here in the media center.

1:41 p.m. The top 15 qualifiers surpassed that record of Gordon's. Fast cars, a lot on the line for the Chase, Johnson and Kurt Busch fueding, Ambrose and Allmendinger aiming for road course wins -- it all sets a fun stage for tomorrow. I'll run down all of those factors in the story for Sunday's paper. 

I'll also have a story on the Nationwide race, which is a bit away from starting. Timeout for me. 

2:32 p.m. The Nationwide is under way with pole-sitter Kurt Busch leading and brother Kyle in second through 15 laps. I'll be working on my stories -- actually I've got to put together a high school story as well -- but I'll chime in with anything worth talking about, and with this race there usually is no shortage of that. 

I watched the first few laps of the race at Turn One, down pit lane as far as we are allowed to go. It's a traditional stop. Just hearing -- and feeling -- the field dive into that first big turn is a must-experience deal here. 

3:53 p.m. I shifted gears (heh-heh) to update the Prep Talk blog with the news that East Aurora's Stan Wier has verbally committed to the University at Buffalo. Shifting back to auto racing ...

And right on time -- we're heading down the stretch of the Nationwide race with Kyle Busch leading brother Kurt with six laps to go. The brothers have dominated a race that has been fairly uneventful (thus the lack of updates).

3:57 p.m. Whoa. Kyle Busch goes to pit road! Apparently they were low on fuel. Bummer for that team. Now Kurt in the lead.

4 p.m. Another whoa. An accident with Eric McClure and Casey Roderick brings out a yellow. Kyle should have a chance to get back in it with a green-white-checkered finish. Only 10 cars on the lead lap thanks to just having one previous caution flag.

4:08 p.m. Should be a very fun finish. Kurt Busch leads Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson (!), Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Ron Fellows, Paul Menard, Elliott Sadler. 

4:12 p.m. Kurt Busch speeds off the restart, then puts space in between himself and Johnson for the WIN of the Nationwide Series Zippo 200 after 85 laps (the green-white-checkered added on to the scheduled 82). 

4:22 p.m. In the picture above you can see Brad Keselowski, the usual driver for the No. 22, in a blue golf shirt to the left of the car as Kurt Busch celebrates in victory lane. 

Your top 10: Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Logano, Kyle Busch, Edwards, Menard, Fellows, Aric Almirola, Trevor Bayne, Sadler.

4:46 p.m. More writing time for me. I'll be back tomorrow for updates from the track on the race (or a weather report).

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

When I asked Watkins Glen International president Michael Printup if there was a chance the IndyCar Series would return to the famed Finger Lakes track in 2012, he said: "I highly doubt for next year."

And the more he talked, it seemed the level of doubt got higher and higher. 

"We haven't been able to meet anything and their schedule is already full for next year," said Printup, a native of Hamburg who just completed his second full year as president at WGI.

Watkins Glen was left of this year's IndyCar schedule after a six-year run at the track. That run featured various date changes and mixed reviews on attendance but often very entertaining racing.

Drivers and teams had been near-unanimous in their appreciation for the track and it's open-wheel history, which includes the hosting of Formula One's U.S. Grand Prix from 1961-80 and CART IndyCar events from 1979-81.

"I wish Randy [Bernard, who took over as IndyCar CEO last summer] would take a look at what's going on in his sport and take a look at us, because we obviously have something to offer that the drivers love," Printup said following a public relations event featuring Juan Pablo Montoya -- the defending champion of the Glen's NASCAR race -- at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta. "And if you ask Juan, he'll tell you the the same thing because he told another [reporter] earlier.

"It's a shame that they're not racing at the Glen. They belong there. The drivers -- you have to go where the racing is racing. Toronto was not racing, Milwaukee wasn't racing. Watkins Glen is racing. Where do fans what to see it, whether it is on TV or live? It's a facility that can provide the excitement."

Printup said that the reasons behind the IndyCar's absence from the Glen come down to money.

"It goes back to the contract, it goes back to what we pay them," he said. "It goes back to the business relationship. You've got to have a product to sell; they've got the product, but you can't outprice yourself either. That's true in free trade, too, supply and demand."

"They wanted more money -- and it didn't fit the business model for WGI."

Printup, as he has said in the past, hopes the series will return to the Glen in the future. 

"Once we can all figure that out together," he said of the business model, "I think we'll all put together a great product again."

Printup said that despite the lack of the IndyCar event this summer, the season was busier for he and his staff. The Glen hosting a celebrated car swap with NASCAR's Tony Stewart and Formula One's Lewis Hamilton in June followed by a Phish concert over the Fourth of July weekend (which had been the IndyCar series' most recent event date).

"We actually got busier," Printup said. "It actually really put a lot of pressure on the staff to function so often together. We always concentrate on Cup obviously, and we're looking forward to it, we're just a mere month away."

Track officials held events with Montoya to promote this summer's NASCAR race weekend of Aug. 12-14. NASCAR has been racing at the Glen since 1986, and its August weekend has regularly attracted crowds estimated close to 100,000.

Ticket sales "are going great," said Printup. "I think we'll be up to the capacity that we were at least last year -- again."

Montoya was in Canandaigua earlier in the afternoon, visiting the Junior Chef Camp at the New York Wine & Culinary Center -- which will have some of its instructor chefs running culinary courses at this weekend's Finger Lakes Wine Festival at the Glen. Montoya then visited with a group of loyal Glen ticket holders at Wild Wings, engaging in an entertaining question & answer session.

---Keith McShea

(@KeithMcSheaBN on Twitter)

Gentlemen (and ladies), start your keyboards. It's live chat time. I'll be keeping notes for myself on the progress of the race, and you are welcome to chime in.

Check out our morning blog here.

After the race, feel free to add comments below.

* * *

The victory is the second of Montoya's career (131 races); his first was also at a road course at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. That was on June 24, 2007, 113 races ago. He won by 4.735 seconds over Kurt Busch (best career finish on a road course).

The rest of the top five were Marcos Ambrose (third top 10 in three races here), A.J. Allmendinger, Carl Edwards. Rounding out the top 10 were Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon.

There were five cautions for 13 laps -- exactly the same amounts from last year's race. NASCAR estimated the attendance at 90,000.

---Keith McShea