The 21st Winter Olympics begins in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on Friday, February 12th and will run for 17 days. There are 86 events and 258 medals to be won by the best winter sports athletes in the world.

                   Team USA has been projected to finish in the top three of thefinal team medal count. The favorite for the third time in the last four Winter Olympics is Germany followed by host Canada.

                      Among the US superstars is downhill skier Lindsey Vonn, considered the best American woman skier in history. Vonn is favored to win Gold in the Downhill and Super Giant Slalom events. On the men's side the top hope for a medal in sking is veteran Bode Miller in the combined event.

                      Other top gold medal hopes for team USA include Shaun White in halfpipe Snowboarding;Kelly Clark in the same event for women and Shani Davis in the men's 1,000 meters and 1,500 meters long track Speed Skating.

                      In Figure Skating no U.S. women are ranked among the top three for medals but on the men's team Evan Lysacek is given a shot to get on the medal stand. In hockey its America's women who are projected to challenge Canada for the Gold while the men's team is given just an outside shot to make it to the medal round against powers Canada, Russia and he Csech Republic.

                       National pride is always what flames the Olympics. So go U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!

                       Enjoy Winter Olympics XXI.

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              Here was the breakdown for the Big Six, know as the Automatic Qualifying Conferences.

              $17.7 million for the Big 12, Big East, Pac 10 and Atlantic Coast Conferences.

               $22.2 million for the Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences since each league had two teams in the BCS bowls.

              For the first time, two conferences that did not earn automatic aqualficiation for their champions - the Mountain West
 and Western Athletic ( Boise State and TCU ) played in the BCS games in the same years. That led to a record-breaking distribution to non-Automatic Qualifying Conferences of $24-million dollars.

             This was good news for Tulsa's Conference USA as they received a $2.8 million dollar allocation.  Here is the breakdown for the five non-Automatic Qualifying Conferences ---

                   $9.8 million - Mountain West

                   $7.8 million - Western Athletic

                   $2.8 million - Conference USA

                   $2.1 million - Mid-American

                   $1.5 million - Sun Belt

                 The BCS creates a lot of money. But not as much as a true national playof would. It's what the majority of college football fans and players and coaches want. The pay off -- PRICELESS.

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           Say it isn't so!

           Another season of college football is finished. It seems like just a few weeks ago we were covering the start of fall practice in the heat and humidity of August. Now after a 13-game regular season and 32 Bowl Games it's all over.

          Can we really make it eight months without football?

           The BCS non-playoff system for the 12th straight year by their measurements and the ninth time in 12-years by AP rankings, the number one and number two teams met in the BCS National Championship game.  And, the BCS bowls featured the top ten teams as they were ranked in the final BCS standings.  This season also produced, for the first time, two teams fron non-automatic qualiying conferences when Boise State and TCU met in the Fiesta Bowl.

           Because of that the five conferences that do not have automatic qualification into the BCS are expected to share a record $24.1 million.  Meanwhile, each of the six BCS Conferences ( ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 10 and SEC) are each expected to receive about $17.9 million per conference in net revenue. The SEC and Big Ten, with two teams in the BCS games, will each receive and additional $4.5 million.

           The debate will continue about a true playoff for Division-I college football. A playoff like every other division in every other sport has but those payouts and the protection of the 32 post season bowls makes it more and more unlikely.

          All the television networks are happy, too. The BCS title game on ABC (Channel 8) between #1 Alabama and #2 Texas  drew an overnight rating of 18.2, higher thatn the 15.82 rating from last year's OU-Florida game.

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