Brandon Roy may have retired from the NBA just five short months ago, but there have already been multiple reports that the 27-year-old guard might not be done for good.

Roy’s degenerative knees likely haven’t fixed themselves, but if Roy is feeling the itch to play so soon after announcing his retirement, it’s tough to imagine anybody stopping him from returning to basketball somewhere in the future.

The news of Roy’s potential comeback is exciting news for the NBA. As a Portland Trail Blazers fan, though, don’t expect to see your former franchise-saving player back in black and red any time soon.

When the Trail Blazers learned of Roy’s retirement, they opted to use the amnesty clause under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement to alleviate themselves of his maximum-level contract.

Rules exist for a reason: Without them, all we have is chaos.

In golf, there are plenty of rules. But the most basic of them all is to count each and every one of your strokes. You are responsible for counting them yourself, which means it is easy to cheat.  For the casual golfer, not counting a stroke here or there is no problem. But in competitive play, it goes without saying that is an issue. Churchill senior Caroline Inglis found this out the hard way.

The three-time 5A state champion had just wrapped up her fourth straight individual state golf crown Tuesday. After shooting a 3-under-par 69, she signed her scorecard and turned it in. A scorecard that someone else had filled out, mind you.

On that scorecard, it said Inglis finished with a 4 on hole No. 18, when really she had scored a 5. As soon as she realized the mistake, Inglis reported it to OSAA officials. Then she was disqualified.

I should not be excited. I know I shouldn’t be excited. Having this much uncertainty at arguably the single most important position in all of sports is almost never a good thing. Yet here I sit, honestly giddy about the prospect of the Seahawks’ upcoming quarterback battle. I’m looking forward to seeing three quarterbacks we know virtually nothing about duke it out for the starting job. The Seahawks have been on their way up ever since Pete Carroll took over and it’s possible that whichever quarterback ends up winning the job could be just what the Seahawks need to become an elite team. No matter who wins the job, the quarterbacks will likely all be better players on opening day than they are right now simply through the virtue of competition. So the question becomes: who are these guys who are going to be competing for the job? Let’s take a look at them in order from least to most likely to be the day one starter.

With the Seattle Mariners' season six weeks into full swing, it appears another 100 loss season will probably be unlikely. That’s encouraging for Mariners fans. However, a season with a .500 record is in jeopardy without some changes. With the exception of the last couple games in Boston, the young Mariners have shown a lot of promise this season. Most games they play, the M’s maintain competiveness and play pretty good ball even when they do lose.

They’ve been putting up a lot more runs than last year’s team. Unfortunately, it’s been a year full of great starts made by the starting pitching staff that often get thwarted by one bad inning or one bad pitch. It happened to both starting pitchers Hernandez and Nosei in New York this past weekend. Felix’s sinker didn’t sink on the pitch that counted most to Raul Ibanez and Nosei couldn’t get out of a two out jam and it cost their team the game both times. There were also a few hits by the Mariners that couldn’t quite get out of the hitter friendly-ballparks of New York and Boston.  The Mariners’ hopes at making a comeback later in games have been foiled by a distance of five or ten feet the last few games. Mike Carp’s double off the top of the warning track at New Yankee Stadium could have sparked so much more had it been hit a little higher and a homerun. The other day in Boston with the M’s down 4-0, Kyle Seager hit a drive all the way to the fences but it was just short, it was almost a 3 run shot but instead it just ended the inning.

When you use a cardio machine at the gym, do you hold onto the front or sides of the machine?  If so, congratulations!  You have successfully trained yourself to need that walker you’ll be relying upon to keep from toppling over someday.  The human head is heavy, true, but that is why you were given the appropriate musculature to counter the forces that pull you forward.  Clinging to a machine as you move yourself to nowhere won’t do you any favors in terms of strength; however, there is a way to break yourself of that nasty little habit: run your butt up a hill.

Running up a hill is painful and there may be hundreds of other activities you can currently think of that you would rather do instead, but it is a worthwhile activity nonetheless because you will feel like hell while doing it and supreme holy ruler of the world when you make it to the top.  Whatever crampy, nauseous, burning sensation you may experience while running up a hill will instantly disappear once you crest that bad boy, replaced by a calming sense of having accomplished a feat that a large percentage of the population at any given moment will never know or understand.  You will be the envy of any and all who have not also run up a hill and survived to tell the tale.

Any Portland Trail Blazers fan knows that our crowd is viewed as one the best crowds in the NBA. But it’s not just the Blazers team that this city supports. The Portland Timbers have seen some success selling out crowds in the last year as well.

Then there is our junior hockey league team, the Portland Winterhawks. They had a few sellout crowds during their run at the Memorial Cup before falling to the Edmonton Oil Kings in game 7 of the WHL final. The support that this city has shown hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Portland fans are dedicated, passionate, and they know their sports. So when I heard that we were one of the cities being considered for the relaunch of the USFL, I thought, “I don’t see why not?”

Recent history has shown successful NFL teams have two things in common: a quarterback that refuses to turn the ball over and a defense that forces turnovers.  The past Super Bowl champion quarterbacks have featured Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, all future Hall of Famers.  The Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans and New York Jets have been successful lately, even with a lack of quarterback star power, because of the tenacious, blue-collar defense that has become customary in the locker rooms.

The Seattle Seahawks proved last year its defense is solid, allowing 19.7 points per game and just over 320 yards per game, good for seventh and ninth best, respectively, in the NFL.  The offense hampered the team, however, and the Hawks placed 28^th in yards per game and 22^nd in passing yards per game.  Aside from Marshawn Lynch, who ran for 12 touchdowns by himself, the team’s offense was virtually non-existent.  Tarvaris Jackson is not the future of the franchise and, as much as we hate to believe, Charlie Whitehurst turned out to be nothing more than a failed experiment.

During our last home game, the 0-0 draw against Columbus, a chant started circulating slowly through the Timbers Army. It took a while to spread, as new chants tend to, but by the end of the match, it had infected most of the North End and is likely to be repeated this Sunday against Chicago. It was a combination tribute and plea, a way to mourn both the passing of rap legend MCA and our frustrating lack of offense. Now, it seems like the “Goals!” chant (to the tune of the Beastie Boys' "Girls") is going to stay relevant longer than any of us wanted.

A 0-0 draw in Houston, our second straight, was not a bad result on its own. It was the first point we have taken from Houston in MLS, and only the second point we have gathered in four visits to Texas. Last season, we lost just over half of our road matches (9/17), so I’m not looking a road point in the mouth too closely. What is troubling is our overall lack of offense over the past month, and what it says about the 2012 Timbers vs. our 2011 team.

May 12^th 2012, a rather warm sunny day at Kiggins Field, saw the Clark County Vipers taking on the newly formed Mt. Hood Eruption team. The Vipers returned to their home field after a three game losing streak looking to regain some sign of composure. A sense of desperation was in the air as both teams took to the field hoping to get back on the winning side of things.

The first quarter saw the Eruption scoring first with a well thrown pass in between the coverage of the Viper’s defense. #9 Jonathon Simpson set up deep to receive the kickoff. After receiving the kick, Simpson took off like he was shot out of a cannon as he flew by the Eruption’s kickoff team and into the end zone for a touchdown.  Both defenses then took turns making stops on the field with three Vipers, #50 Donnie Vercher, #60 Devin Dyer, and #90 Matt Tefs recording sacks before the quarter ended tied 7 to 7.

In this episode of The Slant, host Brad Stein discusses the best game sevens of all time and the NBA playoffs.

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