6B SPORTS
NFL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2007
Holmes returns to practice
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Running back Priest Holmes will practice Wednesday for the first time since a severe 2005 head and neck injury, and Chiefs coach Herm Edwards repeated Tuesday there's a chance Holmes could play at Oakland.
The Chiefs traded backup running back Michael Bennett to Tampa Bay for draft picks on Tuesday, creating a hole behind starter Larry Johnson and speculation that the Chiefs might activate Holmes in time for Sunday's game against the Raiders.
Holmes "will put the pads on. He will put the helmet on. Whether he participates in the (Oakland) game or not, we'll see how practice goes," Edwards said.
Holmes sustained neck and spinal injuries in a game at San Diego on Oct. 30, 2005, when he was hit by Shawne Merriman. He was placed on the physically unable to
The three-time Pro Bowler, who turned 34 this month, appears to have lost about 10 pounds since July and looks fit.
perform list and stayed there until he showed up at training camp in River Falls, Wis., claiming that he'd seen himself playing football in a dream.
Holmes is eligible to come off the inactive list this week, and the Chiefs have 21 days beginning Wednesday to either activate Holmes, place him on the injured reserve list or waive him.
Chiefs president Carl Peterson said he expected Holmes to be activated sooner rather than later.
"My sense right now is that he will be ready to go," Peterson said. "I've said a thousand times, those people who question Priest Holmes are very foolish. Throughout his entire career, he's always come back. When he called me last spring shortly before training camp and told me he would like to do this one
more time, I felt that I owed him that opportunity"
When Holmes was healthy he was one of the most productive running backs in the NFL. He owns 18 Chiefs single-game and career records, including career marks for rushing yards (5,933), total touchdowns (83) and rushing touchdowns (76).
Edwards said it wouldn't be long before he knew whether Holmes was ready.
it he can go out there and practice pretty well, and feels OK after practice, that's good for us and for him. We'll know this week,"Edwards said. "It's been three months. Either he's ready to go or he's not. Another week won't make much of a difference. He's prepared. He's been mentally into it. He's working his tail off.
"For a guy his age to go through what he's gone through over the last three months, you have to take your hat off to the guy."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Missouri faces biggest challenge
Missouri's defense will have its hands full against Texas Tech Saturday. Tech comes in with the best passing offense in the country.
》 COLLEGE FOOTBALL
BY TROY SCHULTE ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Two starts into his career, Missouri cornerback Carl Gettis knows his biggest challenge so far comes this week as the Tigers host high-scoring Texas Tech.
The true freshman began the season as a backup at left corner, but started in Missouri's 41-6 victory over Nebraska and the Tigers' 41-31 loss at Oklahoma last week. No. 15 Missouri (5-1, 1-1 Big 12) hosts the 22nd-ranked Red Raiders (6-1, 2-1) Saturday.
The game is expected to see plenty of points: Texas Tech leads the nation with 582 yards per game, led by Graham Harrell, averaging 350 yards passing; Missouri is fifth with 533.5.
"It ittens with (the corners) because they are going to come out and pass the ball a lot," Getttis said. "We're going to have a lot on our backs this week to stop those
Coach Gary Pinkel agrees.
"It's kind of scary to watch him (Harrell) on film because they can march up and down the field against the best of them," Pinkel said.
Pinkel believes the intensity of the Nebraska and Oklahoma games will help Gettis, who is already getting strong reviews from coaches and teammates.
Pinkel expects Texas Tech to gain plenty of yards. The key, he said, is limiting big plays and forcing turnovers. In last season's win, Missouri returned two interceptions for touchdowns and didn't allow a pass play longer than 30 yards.
Fans celebrate after the Colorado Rockies won Game 4 of the National League Championship baseball series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, 6-4, to advance to the World Series on Monday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY EDDIE PELLS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER — It's October in Colorado. The Broncos are playing. Snow showers are in the forecast. The leaves are turning red and yellow and brown.
The dominant color in the Mile High City these days, though, is purple.
It's "Rocktober" in Colorado.
The Rockies, crazy as it sounds,
are in the World Series.
No Curse of the Bambino. No Wrigley Field goat. Just pure Rockies magic.
Sad-sack losers in almost all their 15 seasons of existence, the Rockies have won 21 of 22 games and seven in a row in the playoffs.
Suddenly, it's cool to wear a black and purple Rockies cap around town. First baseman Todd Helton is a bigger star than the Broncos quarterback, Jay Cutler.
"I didn't see this happening." Colorado fan Jeff Zebrowksi said before the Rockies defeated Arizona on Monday night to win the National League pennant and make it to baseball's biggest stage. "Maybe two or three years from now, but not now. We're too young as a team."
As fantastic and unlikely as it may seem to that handful of long-suffering season-ticket holders who watched their team veer from early success to unbecoming circus act to essentially irrelevant, it carries an even more poignant meaning in a city that cruelly flirted with baseball for decades, only to have its heart broken again and again.
MLB
Today, the thought of the one-time purveyors of the unwatchable, four-hour, 12-11 slugfest in the World Series sounds every bit as outlandish and tantalizing as the idea 30 years ago that Major League Baseball would someday land in Denver.
But Denver finally did get its team. And now the city stands one step from the next baseball milestone in what has been an emotional, memory-filled ride for any native who also happens to be a sports fan.
Yes, Denver has always been a football town — a city that attached itself to the Broncos and married much of its self-esteem and hope to heroes wearing orange and blue.
There probably will never be a
feeling like the one this city enjoyed in 1977, during that improbable, impossible first trip to the Super Bowl. The Orange Crush, Broncomania. Nobody expected that. Denver had finally arrived.
And 20 long years later, when the Broncos finally won the Super Bowl
But in between those football-filled autumns, there had to be something to do to pass the time. There was. It was just on a much smaller scale.
— "This one's for John!" — nobody could smirk more when someone referred to Denver among the most credible of sports towns, right there with Philly or Houston or Chicago.
Mile High Stadium — the real Mile High Stadium that is now a parking lot adjacent to the new Invesco Field — was originally Bears Stadium, a 17,000-seater built on the corner of 19th and Clay in 1948 for the Denver Bears of the old Western League.
Within 20 years, the place was expanded and renamed so it could become a viable home for the Broncos.
Watching baseball there was a surreal experience.
Someday, the thinking went, that stadium would be home to a big-league team.
That was always a dream that seemed close, yet so far away for Denver. Charley Finley nearly sold his Oakland Athletics to Colorado businessman Marvin Davis, who would have moved them to the Mile High City in the early '80s. A few times, the headlines screamed that it was all but a done deal. It never happened.
More than a decade later, Colorado finally got its own team.
It's "Rocktober" in Colorado.
The World Series is coming to Denver.
How crazy does that sound?
FREE MOVIE NIGHT OCTOBER17,2007!
7pm Woodruff Auditorium
Get your geek on! Bring your information security questions, enter a prize drawing and stay for a free showing of Sneakers sponsored by the IT Security Office.
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