Sportscenter

When ESPN2 was unveiled last month, I immediately thought: Olbermann. Since ESPN2 will take a more irreverent approach to sports than ESPN does, aiming at a younger audience, this is right up the let's-not-take-this- too- seriously alley where Keith Olbermann works each night on ESPN's "SportsCenter. " To no one's surprise, ESPN this week announced that Olbermann will shift to ESPN2's "SportsNight" when the new network debuts in early October (moved up from the orginal November start date)

An enjoyable summer afternoon ended in tragedy yesterday when ESPN's Tom Mees drowned in a neighbor's pool. Mees, one of ESPN's original "SportsCenter" anchors, was a University of Delaware graduate. According to Southington, Conn., police Lt. James Tortora, a lawn maintenance man pulled Mees from the water. Michelle Mees reportedly told police her husband did not know how to swim. Police and fire officials said Mees, 46, had no pulse or respiration when he was brought to Bradley Memorial Hospital in Southington at 2:50 p.m. Richard Corcoran, a hospital vice president, said Mees could not be revived and was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

By day, Genevieve Haney is a consumer marketing manager for Interstate General Media, which owns The Inquirer. At night, Haney doubles as a Phillies ballgirl. And in Monday night's wild comeback victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, she made a made a highlight-reel catch that earned mention on ESPN as one of SportsCenter' s top-10 plays of the day. In the top of the seventh inning, Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez smoked a line drive down the left-field line. With lightning-quick reflexes, Haney leaped off her stool to make the backhand grab.

NEW YORK - President Obama is picking Louisville, North Carolina, Memphis and Pittsburgh for the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament. The First Hoops Fan indulged in one of the week's most popular pastimes, filling out his NCAA bracket yesterday for ESPN. The network, which is posting Obama's bracket online today and showing Andy Katz' report on "SportsCenter" at noon, will reveal the president's pick for NCAA champion then. The president stuck primarily with No. 1 seeds. The sole exception was Memphis, seeded No. 2 behind Connecticut in the West regional.

Shocking news just in: Everyone at ESPN is not best buds. It seems Bob Ley was not the first person Keith Olbermann would ask for a ride to work. In a piece about Olbermann's move to MSNBC in the September American Journalism Review, Ley says Olbermann was not a team player at ESPN. "He had an agenda, and it was Keith," Ley says. Dan Patrick, Olbermann's former partner on the popular "SportsCenter" show, says that when Olbermann replaced Ley as Patrick's partner on the 11 p.m. "Center," it sparked friction.

"The Battle of Figure Skating Stars" will be on tomorrow night. In the red corner, CBS has "Nancy Kerrigan and Friends" (Channel 10, 9 o'clock). Before the exhibition, to be taped tonight at Northeastern University in Boston, Greg Gumbel interviewed Kerrigan. Asked if she has followed the reports out of Portland, Ore., possibly linking Tonya Harding with the attack on her at the U.S. championships last month, Kerrigan said, "I always like mysteries, so it's kind of like reading a book.

The Baby Bombers from the Bronx have won their first two games at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., but ESPN - despite live telecasts and highlights on SportsCenter - is missing a good chunk of the story. The 12 players who comprise the Rolando Paulino All-Stars are Dominican or Puerto Rican, but not one of the announcers covering the games speaks Spanish. The players - an 11-year-old and 11 12-year-olds - communicate with each other in Spanish and English, but coach Alberto Gonzalez can be heard throughout their games instructing them primarily in Spanish.

FROM TEBOWING to Kaepernicking to Te'oing. The Internet was all atwitter Thursday with shots of guys posing with their arms around imaginary girlfriends. The fun started quickly after Deadspin revealed that Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o allegedly had fabricated a story about a girlfriend who had died of leukemia. That story is still unfolding, but Te'oing photos went viral almost immediately after the news broke. Most of the shots involve guys sitting on couches, their arms around non-existent hotties.

He won't go away. After guesting on "Schaap Talk" on ESPN on Tuesday night, Charles Barkley returns for the cable network's "Sunday Conversation" at 11:30 a.m. and again on "SportsCenter" after the White Sox-Yankees game. ARUM FIGURES QUESTIONED Promoter Bob Arum's comment earlier in the week that TVKO would lose between $2.5 to $3 million on the Evander Holyfield-Larry Holmes heavyweight championship fight is premature pessimism. That's the opinion of Dave Coskey, whose South Jersey-based Media Works public relations firm represents TVKO.

Sports-talk station WPEN (950) is now calling itself "950 ESPN" as the local ESPN affiliate. WPEN is expected to announce a lineup today that will include some network shows as well as local programming. WPEN general manager Bob DeBlois yesterday announced one change: The morning show will be Mike and Mike, hosted by retired Eagles defensive lineman Mike Golic and SportsCenter anchor Mike Greenberg. It's one of the top-rated shows in the country, heard on more than 300 ESPN affiliates and simulcast on ESPN2.

FROM TEBOWING to Kaepernicking to Te'oing. The Internet was all atwitter Thursday with shots of guys posing with their arms around imaginary girlfriends. The fun started quickly after Deadspin revealed that Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o allegedly had fabricated a story about a girlfriend who had died of leukemia. That story is still unfolding, but Te'oing photos went viral almost immediately after the news broke. Most of the shots involve guys sitting on couches, their arms around non-existent hotties.

By day, Genevieve Haney is a consumer marketing manager for Interstate General Media, which owns The Inquirer. At night, Haney doubles as a Phillies ballgirl. And in Monday night's wild comeback victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, she made a made a highlight-reel catch that earned mention on ESPN as one of SportsCenter' s top-10 plays of the day. In the top of the seventh inning, Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez smoked a line drive down the left-field line. With lightning-quick reflexes, Haney leaped off her stool to make the backhand grab.

AT THIS TIME last year, the Flyers were still neck-deep in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The final was under way against the Chicago Blackhawks and the notion that two hockey cities were in a contest for the great and iconic silver trophy was unquestioned. To be in the middle of it was to experience what the NHL has always hoped to be: not dominant like the Eagles and the NFL, and not necessarily threaded into the city's fiber like the Phillies and baseball, but real and meaningful nonetheless - real and meaningful and recognized for the spectacle that it is. With that . . . . . . same time, next year.

NEW YORK - President Obama is picking Louisville, North Carolina, Memphis and Pittsburgh for the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament. The First Hoops Fan indulged in one of the week's most popular pastimes, filling out his NCAA bracket yesterday for ESPN. The network, which is posting Obama's bracket online today and showing Andy Katz' report on "SportsCenter" at noon, will reveal the president's pick for NCAA champion then. The president stuck primarily with No. 1 seeds. The sole exception was Memphis, seeded No. 2 behind Connecticut in the West regional.

"PRACTICE! Practice! Not a game, practice!" Six years later, Allen Iverson's career-defining quote still pops up on Sportscenter or in daily cultural references. And, like AI, yes, I'm talking about practice, but not as an evil to be avoided, but as an opportunity. I'm talking about practice because, for thousands of kids, the word has little significance. Though they see sports on TV, listen to music on the radio or play games at home, they have no chance to practice with their peers.

Sports-talk station WPEN (950) is now calling itself "950 ESPN" as the local ESPN affiliate. WPEN is expected to announce a lineup today that will include some network shows as well as local programming. WPEN general manager Bob DeBlois yesterday announced one change: The morning show will be Mike and Mike, hosted by retired Eagles defensive lineman Mike Golic and SportsCenter anchor Mike Greenberg. It's one of the top-rated shows in the country, heard on more than 300 ESPN affiliates and simulcast on ESPN2.

To Bill Davis, it was like he never got a chance to pull his own darts. To ESPN, the darts thrown were nowhere near the bull's-eye. Just three episodes into the eight-episode arc of the World Series of Darts, ESPN pulled the rookie series from its key 7 p.m. Tuesday time slot last week. For Davis, a world-class darts player featured in the first hourlong show, and for the growing fraternity of American darts players, the prime-time exposure was just the jolt the game needed.

ESPN will begin its first season of televising Monday Night Football with an expanded team in the booth and on the sideline. ESPN announced yesterday that Mike Tirico will be the play-by-play announcer, while Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser will serve as analysts when ESPN takes over Monday night coverage in the 2006 season. As expected, Al Michaels, who was originally slated to join Theismann in a two-man booth, was allowed out of his contract as play-by-play announcer.

He speaks in rapid, breathless bursts that are exhausting to listen to, if not to deliver. But talking, and specifically talking about sports, is what Michael Quigley does for recreation, and, if all goes according to plan, soon will do for his vocation. ESPN is the latest player to enter the oversaturated reality TV genre, and Quigley, a 40-year-old self-employed auto supplies salesman from Lansdowne, Delaware County, is one of 12 finalists in the network's Dream Job show. Starting tomorrow, Quigley and his fellow SportsCenter anchor wannabes will compete in a weekly series in which they perform typical on-air television tasks, such as sideline reporting, anchoring, reading scripts and interviewing athletes.

Jennifer Calcagno wanted to play football in high school. Her mother told her to try cheerleading instead. To her dismay, she made the squad, but her heart always stayed on the field. "They were all these girly-girls looking at their nails, and I'm screaming, 'Gggoooo!!!'" So when Calcagno, now 22, heard that ESPN was looking for talent in the Philadelphia area, she decided to put her enthusiasm to work. The Mantua, N.J., native was one of 262 who lined up at McFadden's Restaurant and Saloon on North Third Street in Center City yesterday for a chance to compete on ESPN's Dream Job, a reality TV show that promises a one-year contract as a sportscaster on SportsCenter to the amateur who rises to the top of the heap.