LITTLE ROCK — Swap isn’t a swipe at Steelers
Ray Rice just wanted a souvenir for his basement.
He upset some Pittsburgh Steelers fans in the process.
Rice, the Baltimore Ravens’ running back, traded a pair of his game-worn gloves with a fan for a “Terrible Towel” - the yellow rags swung by Pittsburgh Steelers fans at home games - as he was walking off the field in Pittsburgh after the Ravens’ 13-10 victory Monday.
He draped the towel over his head as he walked to the locker room, but wanted to make it clear he didn’t do anything else with it.
“I didn’t stomp on it or do anything wrong,” Rice told the Baltimore Sun. “I actually walked with it and I think I’m going to save it and put it in my basement to cherish the rivalry. It’s not like you get out there and do derogatory stuff and spit. No, none of that stuff.
“If you think about it, where I’m at in my career, you cherish those rivalries.”
Rice heard about a few who were upset with his swap, but he wanted to make clear his intentions.
“It’s not like you’re going to catch me on YouTube burning the Terrible Towel,’’ he said.
“I’ll keep it in my basement, and when I get to grow up and my time is done you get to look back on these moments: ‘I got to play against the Pittsburgh Steelers.’ ”
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton planned to head to his suburban Atlanta home for Thanksgiving dinner following a team practice Thursday.
What was he most excited about?
Red Kool-Aid.
Newton, 23, loves the Thanksgiving feast but said it’s nothing without Kool-Aid.
“Everyone has food, but if you don’t have something to flush it down with, it just doesn’t make it Thanksgiving,” Newton told the Charlotte Observer. “So on topof having red rice, the ham, the turkey, some people may have the fried chicken, the potato salad, the spaghetti salad, the collard greens, chitterlings, you have to flush it down with some great red Kool-Aid.”
No flopping
Metta World Peace plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, but he’d like for a certain edge to be found in those who play for the Brooklyn Nets.
The New York City native was in Brooklyn earlier this week playing the Nets. It was the game that led to Nets forward Reggie Evans being fined $5,000 by the NBA for flopping.
World Peace, who played college basketball at St. John’s, went on Twitter expressing his glee in Evans’ fine, his disappointment that the Nets’ Gerald Wallace didn’t get a fine too, and what he thought Nets players should all have.
“You cannot flop and play for Brooklyn.!!!,” he tweeted.
“Brooklyn equals red bricks, streets, the gutter, Marcy, soul in the hole, Gershwin Park, etc. ...”
He never did list falling backward onto the court in an attempt to draw a cheap foul.
Quote of the day
“I’m thankful for the fans. These fans are the best I’ve ever seen.” Arkansas Coach John L. Smith
Sports, Pages 21 on 11/23/2012