The Linkz of the Week are a weekly recap of some of the best things I've come across in my daily travels through the world of Sports and sports media. Find something you think would make a good link? Shoot it my way at tdonegan@gwu.edu and I'll probably post it.

1. Calzaghe Holds Court One Last Time

Calzaghe put on a clinic the other night, probably ending Roy Jones Jr.'s career as well as his own with a dominating title defense. It started brightly with Jones sneaking in a great right that put Calzaghe down to a knee in the first round but that was the closest is got to an upset.Ron Borges has a nice recap of the fight on HBO's website.

2. Ron Zook Is Crazy

No. Really. Not an in-depth link here but, jesus. This man is mad:

3. This is The Football of Tomorrow

No, it won't be played with ramps and silver balls and fiery red-headed women QBs. Apparently it will be played with 9 receivers, 2 quarterbacks, only two people rushing the passer and a 9 man zone defense lined up sideline to sideline.

Welcome to the A-11 offense.

4. Own a Piece of History

This might be the coolest thing I've seen in months. Reelclothes lets you bid and buy actual clothes worn in movies that they have gotten or stolen or whatever. I don't know how legal or legit this is, but I don't care. Just sign me up because I will definitely pay over 3 grand for Ricky Bobby's Wonderbread Jumpsuit.

5. Browns Show Why You Have To Make a Decision

Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio has a column over at the Sporting News about the Browns and their now overdue decision to hand the reigns over to young Brady Quinn, which they should've done in the offseason, trading Derek Anderson and saving thousands of fantasy football seasons.

Take note, Theo Epstein. Take note.

6. Toyota Bullish Over Stupid, Stupid Ad

It's really a toss-up between which ad will cause the first ever commercial-driven suicide: The five dollar footlong jingle or Toyota's Saved By Zero.... Awful Announcing has a roundup of a number of blogs' take on the ad and Toyota's response that they hear the criticism and will not pull the ad. Ridiculous.

7. Rondo Rollerskating Like It's Going Out Of Style

Read an interesting little feature on Rondo's interesting offseason habit: rollerskating. Apparently he's pretty good and has been doing it for years. You learn something every day I guess. Couldn't find a link to the story (It was in Giant magazine) but here's the gallery that the photographer they hired took of him.

8. Classic Link of the Week, pt. I: Terry Tate, Office Linebacker

Given the hullabaloo (can't believe I just googled "Define: hullabaloo") over commercials recently, I figured I'd do the world a service and link to some of the best ones ever: Terry Tate, office linebacker.

"YOU KNOW YOU NEED A COVER SHEET ON YOUR TPS REPORT, RICHARD. THAT AIN'T NEW, BABY."

"Hi Terry"

"HI Janice!... MOTHERF--"

Classic.

9. Classic Link of the Week, pt 2: The Last Sports Column, Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

I'm not kidding when I say this is one of the best descriptions of sports writing that I've seen in awhile. It's a 2002 feature from Pierce and it's just a hell of a read. Here's a short excerpt:

 

"Why sports?" the late Dick Schaap once asked me on a radio program. He knew the answer, of course, but it was his radio program, and he was being polite.

Why not? I asked him back. If you follow them the right way, they can lead you into some amazing places. They can bring you close up to the history of this country, good and bad. They can bring you close up to the sinew and marrow and bone of this culture, good and bad. You can look race and class and all the other shadows in the bushes right in the eye if you do sports right, if you follow them where they most desperately want to take you. They will make you understand that ours is the only culture ever evolved that could produce a Babe Ruth or a Charles Barkley or a Little Richard or a Coltrane or a James Madison. Follow sports into the small, winding places, where America hangs over you like Spanish moss on a sycamore, and sports will even make a patriot out of you.

10. Link of the Week: Hope

Surprisingly, Michael Irvin has become a hell of a speaker lately. He perhaps summed up the post-Obama jubilation for African Americans best, as well, and you should read what he had to say.

Sports mean different things to different people and different cultures, of course, but for many African Americans over the last century, a playing field was one of the few places where a black person could be valued for exactly what he or she was, without penalty because of the color of their skin.

Watching the coverage of the Obama win was moving because listening to prominent African Americans speak about the day, it became easy trace the line of their progress in America back to courts and ball fields. From Joe Louis to Jackie Robinson, some of the most important and most heroic black figures in the last century have come from the world of sports, a fact that is easy to forget in an age of me-firsts, self promotion, and "get me the damn ball" attitudes.

Sports in and of themselves don't heal differences and won't break barriers, but it amplifies everything about our human nature. It magnifies certain aspects of society, holding them up to closer inspection. Truths that seem obvious to people and go unquestioned day-in and day-out, when placed under the hot spotlight of sports, are tested in ways that other pursuits don't require.

While no African American has slammed the point home as dramatically as Obama did with his ascension to the presidency this week, the absurdity of the notion that a black man couldn't do what a white man could might have first been realized, on a national level, by the acts of men like Louis and Robinson.

I went for a run to the capitol building (I live in D.C.) about 2 AM on Wednesday morning after the election and there were just people about, at the monuments, at the White House, just out. Everyone I passed gave a cheer or yelled out "Obama!" and cars passing by honked their horns in celebration.

I'm not going to get into the political side of the election, but as an American, whether you're young like me or have been around to witness the changes that have taken hold in this country, you can't help but feel proud and not the least bit hopeful that maybe there's something to this whole American dream thing after all.