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Last-minute signee Michael Copeland has officially joined the North Carolina basketball team after receiving clearance from the NCAA, an athletics department spokesman said Thursday.

Copeland, a 6-foot-8, 235-pound forward from Winston-Salem, will travel to the Bahamas this weekend with the Tar Heels, who will play a couple of club teams on a team-building trip.

UNC offered a basketball scholarship this spring that was contingent on Copeland meeting freshman-eligibility standards. He enrolled last week after receiving the needed grades in correspondence courses, but had to wait on the NCAA Clearinghouse to pass judgment before joining the team.

Copeland is one of five freshmen who will help rebuild a program that lost its top seven scorers from an NCAA-championship season.

Marcus Ginyard, a first-year guard from Alexandria, Va., will not play in the Bahamas because of a wrist injury suffered a few weeks ago. The Heels expect to learn the extent of the injury early next week.

For those fans of the late Greensboro Generals who like to keep up with former coach Rick Adduono's whereabouts, he apparently has opted to leave the UHL team in Roanoke, Va., for a better opportunity elsewhere. Not sure where elsewhere is at this point, apparently.

On the opening weekend of college football season, Virginia's Al Groh puts his ego aside to remind us that any win's a good win -- and is one more than Oklahoma has:

"If you're not happy with this win, you've got a problem with your ego," Groh said, according to the Washington Post after UVa's sloppy 31-19 win Saturday over unheralded Western Michigan. "I'm real happy. We won. That's a pretty good feeling. Now we've got one more win than Oklahoma's got. That feels pretty good, too. It wasn't perfect. Nope, it wasn't perfect. We'll do some things better. We better do some things better. I'm real happy about it. I'm not going to let my ego get in the way."

(The Sooners lost at home to TCU.)

That might be small consolation to Wake Forest and Duke, which lost to Vanderbilt and East Carolina, respectively. Maryland survived Navy on a last-minute TD. Clemson and Georgia Tech got the ACC big nonconference wins, though, for those who missed those late-Saturday night finishes (ABC's special report on Rehnquist's death almost ran long enough to keep the Tigers' dramatic finish off the air).

Why? Why? Why?

Why must the NFL insist on holding these season-opening concerts? Can't we all just watch some football? Why must we be force-fed the Rolling Stones, Green Day, Santana, Maroon 5, Trisha Yearwood, Good Charlotte, Kanye West and (pause for breath)Rihanna?

(Speaking of Kanye, I'm guessing there's no chance he makes it on air. Not after his "ad-lib" performance during the Katrina telethon on Friday. Yikes!)

You know what's at work here, don't you? It's this insidious thing that network execs like to call "the merging of sports and entertainment." It's this despicable notion that football - football, people! - isn't entertaining enough for us. Nooooooo. We have to have live music performances as well, or else we'll all tune to CSI instead.

Look, I get this to a certain extent. There's a reason we have dizzy-bat races and sumo wrestling contests at minor league baseball games. The on-field product needs a little off-field boost. But that's baseball. And it's the minor leagues. This is football! And this is the NFL! This is America's sport! (I don't want to hear any arguments from you baseball purists. There is no room for discussion here).

So why, why, why, do we feel the need to stage a horribly forced, plastic version of Woodstock before the game?

And while we're at it, why the Rolling Stones? Are they really appealing to that 18-34 demographic that advertisers covet? Listening to sports radio this morning, I believe one caller put it best:

"Do we really need to listen to 80-year olds sing about teenage alienation?"

and followed it up with this zinger

"The Rolling Stones were has-beens when my parents were teenagers!"

Ouch.

Thankfully, I've at least got a choice here. I can tune in after all the pre-game irrelevance, when the ball has kicked off and the football has begun.

You'd better believe that's what I'm going to do.

I know these guys have to do this, but don't you think the lawyers for the major league baseball players' union are feeling a bit half-hearted about their efforts to get former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Sidney Ponson's contract reinstated?

Here's the briefs news story.

My favorite line? The one at the end where it says the union is claiming the Orioles didn't have just cause for terminating Ponson's contract.

(long pause to keep from spitting Coke out my nose while I laugh)

I know the clause about standards of player conduct is a bit vague, but come one people. This is a guy who 1) punched out a judge during a fight on Christmas Day in his native Aruba 2) got arrested for drunk driving later last winter and 3) got arrested AGAIN for drunk driving a few weeks ago.

Oh yeah, he's also a terrible pitcher making millions of dollars.

Look, if you get arrested once for drunk driving - maybe it was a once in a lifetime stupid mistake. You get arrested twice in the same year, I'm thinking you've probably got a drinking problem. You throw in a brawl with a judge - a judge! - on Christmas Day, and I'm thinking you're got definite problems with personal conduct.

Add in an E.R.A. over six and I'm guessing that this conduct is clearly affecting your on-field performance.

So what, exactly, am I missing here? Ponson's got a mess of a personal life. He's tarnishing the image of an Orioles franchise that is already taking plenty of hits already (Thank you Raffy) and he's killing them on the field.

Can you find any just cause for keeping this guy?

Me neither.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2155666

Two things in particular stood out to me in Atlanta about North Carolina's season-opener at Georgia Tech, at least after I got past the matter of Matt Baker's debut start. One, the Tar Heels really miss Ronnie McGill, not to mention Jacque Lewis and Chad Scott. Two, why on earth did Tech not run the ball much at all in the fourth quarter up 13 points?

Judging by the talk on talk radio and message boards today, that 2nd question is on the minds of a lot of people. P.J. Daniels rushed 21 times for 103 yards, but was a forgotten man by his own coach late. On their last scoring drive, to go up 27-14, the Jackets passed the ball 7 straight times. QB Reggie Ball then scored on a 9-yard run that looked like a broken pass play. The next three Tech drives: three passes and a punt; two passes, run and punt; three passes and a punt. That, to me, was responsible for the game taking three hours and 50 minutes and giving UNC enough clock to come back with a shot to win.

Here's was Ga Tech coach Chan Gailey's explanation: "Their front seven was strong and physical, and they did a better job at stopping the run as the game went on, especially in the second half."

Seriously, that can't be it.

As for UNC's running game, the true freshman, Cooter Arnold, got the start. But neither he nor Barrington Edwards appeared ready for a 1,000-yard season. The Heels need a running game, obviously. Here is what John Bunting had to say about it -- after the game, and Sunday.

I'm planning to give you regular updates on the fantasy football team I co-own with co-blogger Jeff Carlton because a) I suspect many of you out there also own teams and b) I suspect I'm really going to need a place to vent.

Certainly that's the case today. Jeff and I felt very good about our club (The Van Buren Boys. Seinfeld reference. If you don't get it, the explanation will just take too much time) coming out of our draft last Tuesday. But doesn't everyone?

Anyway, here was our lineup. In our league, you have two QBs, three RBS, four WRs and one kicker.

Drafting ninth in a 10-team league, we plucked Baltimore RB Jamal Lewis. The former 2,000 yard rusher is in a contract year and he's made. Sounded good to us.

Then came Texas RB Domanick Davis at No. 11. I don't think he's that great, but he catches a lot of passes and scores a lot of TDS. Good fantasy guy.

We drafted Cincy WR Chad Johnson at the end of the third round. I'm giddy. I love this guy.

In the fourth round we drafted our first QB - Matt Hasselbeck. He's no Peyton, but he's solid. We think he'll do.

In the fifth round we found Seattle WR Darrell Jackson. I don't like drafting QB/WR combos, but Jackson's clearly the best wideout left at this point.

The sixth round brought a huge gamble, but one we felt was worth it - We took "Fragile" Fred Taylor, the talented, oft-injured running back out of Jacksonville.

In the seventh, we took Jets WR Laveranues Coles. Fortunately, we weren't required to spell his name.

In the eighth, we got what I thought was a steal by taking Jets QB Chad Pennington. Emphasis here on "thought." More on that later.

In the ninth, we took San Diego TE Antonio Gates. Grantede, we'd be without him for one week because of his suspension, but well worth the hit at this point.

Finally, we rounded things out by taking Green Bay kicker Ryan Longwell. An accurate kicker on a high-octane offense (or so we thought).

What could go wrong? Well, if you watched any football yesterday, you have an idea ...

(to be continued)

... Remember how Chad Pennington's arm was supposedly healed? Remember how he and Laveranues (there's that name again) Coles supposedly had this special connection on the field? Remember how prolific the new Jets offense was supposed to be under new coordinator Mike Heimerdinger? Remember?

Me neither. All I remember is how bad Pennington was yesterday, as the Jets scored only seven points against the Chiefs (Remember when the Chiefs were supposed to have a soft defense?) Coles was OK, but he didn't score a TD. In our league, TDs are a must.

Here's what else I remember from yesterday. Brian Billick insisting on throwing the ball with the monumentally incompetent Kyle Boller instead of giving it to Jamal Lewis, who wound up with just 48 yards rushing. Domanick Davis getting completely shut down. And no one outside of Hasselbeck being even remotely involved in a touchdown.

You want to know the worst part? Just a slightly better performance from any one of our players, and we probably win this week. As it stands, the Van Buren Boys are still up, 78-64, with one game left to go - Philly at Atlanta. But now I must hope that Donavan McNabb scores less than 14 points tonight. Not very likely, people.

I know, things could be worse. We could be the proud owners of Javon Walker. Or we could be doing as badly as we did in Game 1 last season, when I think we barely crested 50 points.

But if you think that's going to stop me from complaining, well then you don't know fantasy football - or me - very well.

The notice might be a little late, but if you're still milling around the office and haven't heard enough talk about this weekend's N.C. State-North Carolina game, check out a discussion among our beat writers (and Rob Daniels) on Radio Free Sports.

Oh, and we talk about the sham that was the Saints' "home" game in the Meadowlands.

And if you don't believe that subject line, watch a US-Mexico soccer match sometime when the U.S. is playing in Mexico. It brings the term "bitter rival" to whole new levels.

I'm guessing some of this may go back to the U.S. land grab of, oh, about half of Mexico's territory, back in the 1800's. You can argue all you want about the morality of such moves and whether having California as a part of the U.S. is really such a good thing after all, but you cannot deny this:

The U.S. is going to give Mexico a major slap in the face next Sunday, courtesy of the NFL.

The NFL, in its never-ending quest to find another town that can be used as leverage for future stadium deals, is playing its first ever regular season game abroad, in Mexico City.

Our proud delegation that we're sending to represent America's sport? The Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers.

Maybe I've got this wrong. Maybe we're actually trying to push away the Mexican market for reasons that are unclear to me. Really, can you imagine any other effect when the mighty 0-3 Cardinals (remember when some people actually picked them to win the NFC West?) and the powerful 1-2 49ers (somewhere, Joe Montana is weeping) take the field on Sunday night?

What's being gained by this? When you're looking to export a product abroad, do you send two rejected items that were stashed in the back of the store room? Are we hoping that maybe the Mexican fans will be so ignorant about pro football that they won't be able to realize that what they're watching is really, really bad?

Now that I think about this, why not send New Orleans there? It's at least a modest step up in talent. And hey, even though playing in Mexico City is a far cry from a home game, it's still a lot closer than playing a "home" game in Giants Stadium against the New York Giants.

Some of you may not know this, but Jeff Carlton may be the biggest Bobby Cox detractor alive. Which is why it is with no small amount of glee that I link to this column by ESPN's Jayson Stark.

I'm going to withhold comment for now, assuming that I'll have to respond to the inevitable biting criticism from Carlton.

Yes, the Grounds are gorgeous when the leaves start turning. But that's not what I mean.

As most North Carolina football fans can tell you, the Heels haven't won in C'ville in a long, long time. Last win there was 1981, the end of the Dick Bestwick era, as a matter of fact. Next visit is '06.

But I was surprised to see the UNC men's soccer team hasn't won at UVa since 1977, back when Anson Dorrance was coaching the Heels' men. They get another shot at it this weekend at Klockner Stadium. UNC is 7-0-0 and ranked No. 2 in the nation. Virginia, not nearly the powerhouse it was under Bruce Arena, is 6-1-1 and ranked 11th.

Rather get into a back-and-forth blog debate with colleagues Jim Young and Bruce Buchanan over the meaning of "free pass," I'll let you listen to us discuss the Braves, manager Bobby Cox and the point I was making at this week's Radio Free Sports podcast.

Listen and understand that I was not arguing the NL East is weak. Just that other teams who should have challenged the Braves underachieved or faded after showing early promise and, thus, the Braves don't get 100% of the credit for their 11th straight (not 14th) division title as Jim seems to want to give them.

We do agree Cox is the NL manager of the year, just as Andruw Jones should be MVP. But, if Jimbo is going to talk up the NL East and rip the NL Central for being full of chumps, does that not mean the Phillies had a more treacherous road than the Astros, whom they trail by 2 games for the wild card?