FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: sfgate.com

SUPER BOWL

Mannings near top of brother acts, but can't match sisters

(02-04) 23:35 PST -- Imagine it's 20 years from now, you're watching "Jeopardy!" and the category "Sports Siblings" appears on the big board. The answer to "Most Accomplished Brother Act in Sports History" very well could be: "Who are Eli and Peyton Manning?"

But until then, let the debate rage. Are the Mannings the best sibling combination in professional sports history? Football history, nobody comes close. But pro sports history? That's hooey.

The Waners (Paul and Lloyd) of baseball are the best brother act in sports. They're both are Hall of Famers and they own a brother record of 5,611 hits. Then there are the Perrys (Gaylord and Jim), nearly 600 career wins and the only two brothers to each win Cy Young awards. The DiMaggios (Joe and either Vince or Dom) and Niekros (Phil and Joe) might get a few votes, too.

For a sibling duo, there's the Miller combo, Cheryl (basketball Hall of Fame) and Reggie (most three-pointers in NBA history and probable Hall of Famer).

My vote for the best sibling pair goes to Serena and Venus Williams and their 22 grand slam tennis titles (14 singles).

Sure, there's probably a sibling act from Kansas or West Virginia that has won more international titles in skeet shooting or midget-car racing, but the Mannings do have one thing going for them: They're the only brother act in which each has been named MVP in championships, among the four major U.S. sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey).

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mannings are the fourth brother combo to play on a Super Bowl-winning team, and the second to start and win, joining Keith Fahnhorst (1981 and '84 49ers) and Jim Fahnhorst (1988 49ers). The two who won a Super Bowl, but one or both did not start: Matt Bahr (1979 Steelers and '90 Giants) and Chris Bahr (1980 and '83 Raiders), and Bubba Smith (1970 Colts) and Tody Smith (1971 Cowboys).

Just win it all, Baby: Al Davis used to say, and correctly so, that the Raiders were the only team to participate in a Super Bowl in three straight decades (1960s, '70s and '80s). Since Davis said so in the early '80s, several other teams have played in Super Bowls in three straight decades: Broncos and Redskins (1970s, '80s and '90s), and Patriots and Giants (1980s, '90s, and '00s). However, with their win Sunday, the Giants are the only team to win Super Bowls in three consecutive decades.

Keeping the faith: It might be interesting to go back and read the clips and quotes after the Giants lost 35-13 to Packers in Week 2. People were calling for head coach Tom Coughlin's head. And what were they saying when the Giants were trailing by 14 points in the second half in Week 3 against the Redskins?

The Giants came back and won that game against the Redskins and the rest is history. The Giants joined the 1993 Cowboys and 2001 Patriots as the only teams to win the Super Bowl after starting 0-2. As Elias notes, neither the Cowboys nor Patriots trailed at any point in Game 3 of their comeback seasons.

Six up, six down: The Patriots entered the playoffs with six more victories than the Giants, the biggest differential between Super Bowl opponents. The previous widest margin was four between the Raiders (13) and Packers (nine) in Super Bowl II in 1968 and the Bears (15) and Patriots (11) in Super Bowl XX in 1986.

Eli Montana: Manning's game-winning drive with less than three minutes to play evoked many memories of Joe Montana's game-winning drive in Super Bowl XXIII, a 20-16 win over the Bengals which was decided on John Taylor's touchdown catch with 34 seconds to play. When Manning threw a touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds to play, he joined Montana as the only quarterbacks to throw a game-deciding touchdown pass in the final minute to win a Super Bowl.

There have been three game-deciding field goals in the final minute of a Super Bowl, two by New England's Adam Vinatieri (Super Bowls XXXVI and XXXVIII) and one by the Colts' Jim O'Brien in Super Bowl V.

Sub-20 winner: The 17 points scored by the Giants were the fifth lowest by a Super Bowl winner, and the lowest in 33 years. Not since the Steelers beat the Vikings 16-6 in Super Bowl IX in 1975 had a winner been held to less than 20 points. The lowest total by a Super Bowl winner is 14, when the Dolphins capped their 17-0 season with a 14-7 win over the Redskins in SB VII.

Midgame lull: Between Laurence Maroney's 1-yard run for a touchdown on the first play of the second quarter and David Tyree's 5-yard touchdown reception nearly four minutes into the fourth quarter, the two teams played 33 minutes and 52 seconds with scoring a single point. According to Elias, that's the longest single-game Super Bowl drought, eclipsing the 33:15 break in Super Bowl X between the Steelers and Cowboys.

Big arms, big flops: Tom Brady was the fourth quarterback to lead the NFL in passing yards to play in the Super Bowl. Like the three before him, he failed to pull off the victory in the title game. The three previous yardage leaders who didn't win the Big One were: Dan Marino, Dolphins (Super Bowl XIX), Kurt Warner, Rams (Super Bowl XXXVI) and Rich Gannon, Raiders (Super Bowl XXXVII).

Random numbers: The Giants have won three Super Bowls, tied for the fourth most in NFL history. Only the 49ers, Cowboys and Steelers have more (five each). ... The Giants were the 14th team to be an underdog by 10 or more points in the Super Bowl. Though the 14 teams are 6-7-1 against the spread, the past four are 4-0 against the spread, including outright wins in Super Bowl XXXVI (Patriots over Rams) and Sunday's Giants win over the Patriots. ... New England linebacker Junior Seau set a record by going 13 years between Super Bowl appearances. The previous record was 11 by Matt Bahr (1979 Steelers, 1990 Giants) and Ed Newman (1973-1984 Dolphins).

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FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: iht.com

 

Quotes from and about 2008 Pro Football Hall of Famers

 

"The 1983 first-round class — I made it. Dan Marino, (John) Elway, (Jim) Kelly, (Eric) Dickerson, (Bruce) Matthews, Green." — Darrell Green on joining five other first-rounders from '83 in the Hall.

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"I started playing as a defensive lineman because I was always one of the biggest kids. I always bugged them to at least give me an opportunity (with the ball)." — Art Monk, who became one of the NFL's most prolific receivers from 1980-95.

"I knew how people had spoken about him as a coach. I asked him, what are you going to do with me? It was probably my third year. He says, 'Nothing."  "He said you were covering (Cardinals star receiver) Roy Green and I have seen how you cover. Basically, I am going to let you go into what you do." — Darrell Green on Emmitt Thomas, his defensive backs coach early in his career in Washington.

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"I think he suffered for a few years. But that's the way it goes. You can't get everyone in every year." — Former Redskins QB Doug Williams on Monk's eight-year wait to get voted into the Hall.

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"I didn't work for this. I worked for the love of the game." — Defensive end Fred Dean, one of the game's best sackmasters from 1975-85 with San Diego and San Francisco.

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"Those guys have high character. I'm proud to go in with them." — Emmitt Thomas, an assistant coach in Washington when Monk and Green played there, and one of the best cornerbacks of the 1960s and '70s with Kansas City.

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"I was trying to keep my composure. I'm emotional. I will cry at the drop of a hat. It was pretty overwhelming for me. I tried to keep it together as long as I could." — Andre Tippett, a star linebacker with New England in the 1980s who waited 10 years to be elected.

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"I never dreamed this day would come, and I've never looked at myself as being this caliber of player. I played with many great players. I think they are the ones that really helped me get to this spot. I just feel very honored, lucky — you name it." — Tackle Gary Zimmerman, elected in his sixth year of eligibility.

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FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: money.cnn.com

Putting stereotypes on ice

 

More men than you think will be watching the women's Olympic figure skating competition this week, just as more women than you think were watching the Super Bowl.

A weekly column by Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

February 21, 2006: 4:14 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - It may have the strongest female audience for any sporting event, but it's not just women who will be watching women's figure skating at the Olympics this week.

And when the women skaters are not on the ice, or at least not on the tape-delayed broadcast, their loyal female viewers aren't going to just melt away.

Women's figure skating isn't the only thing drawing women viewers to the Olympics, and it's not just women tuning into the highly-rated competition.

The truth is that far more men watch the figure skating at the Olympics than you might assume. And female viewers aren't tuning in just to "women's" sports like figure skating.

First, a look at the guys who will be watching skating.

According to figures from Nielsen Sports Marketing, there were about 15.6 million men ages 18 and older who watched the women's skating finals four years ago at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. That might have only been enough to make up 37 percent of the 18-and-older audience that night. But it was still more than the men who watch many typical "guy" sporting events.

For example, the 2005 Daytona 500, the top race in the nation's No. 2 television spectator sport, only had just over 10.8 million male viewers age 18 and above last year. A breakdown on this year's race is not yet available.

So the advertisers who have a have a campaign geared towards men, such as beer or pickup trucks, will find the viewers they're targeting even when women's figure skating is dominating a night's coverage.

But women are becoming much more of a factor for sports viewership, and advertising.

Overall, the gender breakdown in the key 18- to 49-year-old age group for NBC's entire Winter Olympics prime time broadcasts in 2002 was 7.9 million women viewers on an average night, compared to 6.2 million men. That means women were about 56 percent of the "typical" Winter Olympic audience.

And it's not all ice skating. It's also men and women racing downhill on skis or around the track on speed skates.

"For the women viewers, it's more than a sporting event, it's entertainment, like a movie," said Neal Pilson, a sports broadcasting consultant who helped the International Olympic Committee negotiate its most recent rights deal with NBC. "There's a lot of effort to tell stories. Women look at it differently than they do the typical basketball or football game."

And the ability of the Olympics to attract women viewers with those kinds of stories is a key to the games' great audience, and advertising dollar, strength.

"Women typically control the remote in prime time," said Pilson. "Maybe men determine what is watched on a Sunday afternoon, but women generally pick what is viewed at night. 'American Idol' might be able to beat the Olympics for a night or two, but for the full run of the Olympics that (the popularity with women viewers) is what gives you the quality of the audience, and the value to the advertisers."

Of course the Olympics aren't the only big sporting event with a big female viewership. The Super Bowl this year drew nearly 20 million women viewers ages 18 to 49, or about 44 percent of that age group watching the big game. That's far more than ever tuned in to watch "Desperate Housewives" or "Dancing with the Stars." It's even far above the 12 million women in that age group who watched the women's figure skating final four years ago, even if it's not a majority of the audience.

That's a key reason that among the beer and car commercials, there were also spots for Dove soap and Slim-Fast diet drinks aimed primarily at female viewers. The audience for sports today, whether it's 300-pound guys bashing into each other or lithe teenage girls doing spins above the ice, isn't what you might have thought it was.

"We don't typically use sports programming, but the Super Bowl happened at a time of year when dieting is at a peak," said Terry Olson, vice president of brand development at Slim-Fast. "It was a terrific opportunity to get real reach to a vast audience, of which females are a big part." The ads used only actresses.

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FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: terragalleria.com

Climbing related quotes

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, "What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?" and my answer must at once be, "It is no use." There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. George Leigh Mallory, 1922

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. Rene Daumal

Near the foot of the mountain we visited a yogi who dwelled in a hollow tunneled beneath a boulder. He pondered our notion of climbing Shivling and said: "First travel, then struggle, finally calm." Greg Child

Life is brought down to the basics: if you are warm, regular, healthy, not thirsty or hungry, then you are not on a mountain. . . . Climbing at altitude is like hitting your head against a brick wall - it's great when you stop. Chris Darwin ,The Social Climbers

You've climbed the highest mountain in the world. What's left ? It's all downhill from there. You've got to set your sights on something higher than Everest. Willi Unsoeld

We commenced plugging up in foot deep steps with a thin wind crust on top and precious little belay for the ice-axe. It was altogether most unsatisfactory and whenever I felt feelings of fear regarding it I'd say to myself, 'Forget it!?  This is Everest and you've got to take a few risks.' Edmund Hillary

I told him of my concern about avalanche danger on the route but Peter was full of confidence. He had watched the face on many occasions, he told me, and had never seen an avalanche sweep down.?  I argued no longer. I too had never actually seen an avalanche falling down the face, although they must come down sometimes, I felt, judging from the debris at the bottom. [...] I don't think there is anything very clever about killing yourself off, or even about having a fall and surviving. Edmund Hillary advising his son Peter on intended ascent of the West Face of Ama Dablam, which ended with an avalanche

Mountains are not fair or unfair - they are just dangerous. Reinhold Messner

The mountains will always be there, the trick is to make sure you are too. Hervey Voge

In this short span between my fingertips and the smooth edge and these tense feet cramped to a crystal ledge, I hold the life of a man. Geoffrey Winthrop Young

If you don't let go, you can't fall off! Jerry Moffat

It does not matter how slow you go, as long as you don't stop. Confucius

Height has nothing to do with it, it is your strength that counts. Lynn Hill

The rules of the game must be constantly updated to keep up with the expanding technology. Otherwise we overkill the classic climbs and delude ourselves into thinking we are better climbers than the pioneers. Yvon Chouinard

Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain-tops are within reach John Muir

I want to know the thoughts of God. All the rest are details. Albert Einstein

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. Aldous Huxley

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Kurt Vonnegut

...as I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was the conqueror and who was the conquered. I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition that I was. Warren Harding

Short is the little time which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, awake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerouus men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it reality. T.E. Lawrence

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

Living with the immediacy of death helps you sort out your priorities in life. It helps you to live a less trivial life. Sogyal Rinpoche

Where protection is not assured by a usable crack, long unprotected runouts sometimes result, and the leader of commitment must be prepared to accept the risks and alternatives which are only too well defined. Personal qualities - judgement, concentration, boldness - the ordeal by fire, take precedence, as they should, over mere hardware... But every climb is not for every climber; the ultimate climbs are not democratic. Doug Robinson

The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger, and play dice for death. Friedrich Nietzsche

We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have come out against us. We have no cause for complaint. Scott, found in his diary after the party froze in Antarctica

To the sober person adventurous conduct often seems insanity. Georg Simmel , On Individuality and Social Forms

It's not advisable to drink too much strong liquors while climbing in the Alps. If, however, you are going to fall over a cliff, it's advisable to be thoroughly intoxicated when you do so. English alpinist

Many years ago, I climbed the mountains, even though it is forbidden. Things are not as they teach us; the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky. from Startrek

To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling. A. Alvarez , The Games Climbers Play

The pleasure of risk is in the control needed to ride it with assurance so that what appears dangerous to the outsider is, to the participant, simply a matter of intelligence, skill, intuition, coordination- in a word, experience. Climbing in particular, is a parodoxically intellectual pastime, but with this difference: you have to think with your body. Every move has to be worked out in terms of playing chess with you body. If I make a mistake the consequences are immediate, obvious, embarrassing, and possibly painful. For a brief period I am directly responsible for my actions. In that beautiful, silent, world of mountains, it seems to me worth a little risk. A.Alvarez

To qualify for mountain rescue work, you have to pass our test. The doctor holds a flashlight to your ear. If he can see light coming out the other one, you qualify. Willi Pfisterer

If the conquest of a great peak brings moments of exultation and bliss, which in the monotonous, materialistic existence of modern times nothing else can approach, it also presents great dangers. It is not the goal of grand alpinisme to face peril, but it is one of the tests one must undergo to deserve the joy of rising for an instant above the state of crawling grubs. On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude. Lionel Terray

Climbing is, above all, a matter of integrity Gaston Rebufat

Fear... the right and necessary counterweights to that courage which urges men skyward, and protects them from self-destruction Heinrich Harrer

I have never turned back in my life ; I shall not do so today. Emile Rey

" - You guys going up ? - Yes, yes, we go up - You may be going a lot higher than you think!" Don Whillans, to a Japanese party, while descending Eiger

"The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived." "Although the injury would add character to my immediate post-climb appearance, it was not serious." "As in any alpine region, the weather is changeable, protection questionable, routefinding bewildering, rockfall frequent and descents tedious. In short, it's everything you could ever ask for." from the Canadian Alpine Journal 1993, selected by Peter Green

Pain Is Only Weakness Leaving The Body Tom Muccia

If you're ever killed mountain climbing, then all that you've worked for is gone Jim Whittaker

I hope I die before I get old. The Who

...writing about climbing is boring. I would rather go climbing. Chuck Pratt

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FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: washingtonpost.com

In Water Polo, the Brutality Is Just Beneath the Surface

Sure, all these swimming races are exciting and inspiring and all that, but after a few days of watching people paddle back and forth across a pool, your average red-blooded American sports fan begins to wonder: Hey, where's the violence?

Fortunately, the happy answer is just a couple hundred yards away, in the indoor pool, where the preliminary rounds of water polo are in progress. There's enough violence in an average water polo match to fill all your brutality needs, at least until football season starts.

With all the churning white water in the pool, there are plenty of penalties a water polo referee will never see. Wedgies are one of the more benign tactics.

Water polo is a combination of swimming, soccer and basketball, plus wrestling, boxing and mugging. The players are phenomenal athletes who perform amazing feats of speed, grace, stamina and ball-handling. They also perform amazing feats of kicking, punching, scratching, clawing and choking. And that's just the men. The women are also fond of tearing each other's bathing suits off.

"There's a lot of fighting," says Layne Beaubien, 28, a defender on the U.S. men's team. "Under the water, anything goes . . . even biting. I have a guy on my team -- Jeff Powers -- who has a scar on his shoulder that's a whole mouth, a whole bite. All of us have had chunks taken out of our face. And there are a lot of broken noses."

"It gets pretty feisty," agrees Natalie Golda, 22, a defender on the U.S. women's team. "On top of the water, it looks pretty mellow -- you're passing the ball around -- but under water, they're grabbing, they're punching and people are getting dunked. Sometimes they'll pull you under water for so long, you're thinking, 'If I don't get air, soon, I'll be in trouble.' "

Surprisingly, most water polo injuries are minor, Golda says: "They're mostly superficial -- broken fingers, broken noses, teeth, jaws, eardrums, stuff like that."

Which tells you something about water polo: It's a sport played by folks who feel that broken noses and busted jaws are "superficial."

On Wednesday, Golda and her teammates lost a heartbreaker to Canada, 6-5, after leading 5-1 early in the fourth quarter -- a thrilling match played before several thousand cheering, chanting fans who waved flags from both countries.

The U.S. women are now 1-1 and will probably have to beat the tough 2-0 Russian team Friday to advance to the medal round. The U.S. men's team is 2-0 and will play Hungary, the reigning Olympic champ, on Thursday.

The games begin with each team's starting seven members lined up on opposite ends of the 30-by-20-meter pool while the bright orange ball sits in a yellow plastic ring in the center. A ref blows a whistle and everybody (except the two goalies) sprints for the ball. As they get close, the yellow ring descends steadily to the bottom of the pool on a cord, making you wonder if there isn't some Quasimodo character squatting in a cave under the pool pulling it down. (Actually, the cord is pulled by an official at the poolside scorer's table.)

The team that snags the ball spreads out and moves toward their opponent's goal, a 10-by-3-foot net guarded by a goalie in a red swim cap. On offense, teams pass the ball around like basketball players, looking for an opening. Rules insist that they throw and catch with one hand. The other hand is used to fend off their opponents, who are permitted to tackle the player with the ball.

From above, the passing looks simple -- until you remember that the players aren't just standing there playing catch. They're treading water in a 10-foot-deep pool, constantly whirling their feet around in the eggbeater motion that keeps their arms and shoulders up out of water.

If your eyes follow the ball, you see a fair amount of fighting, but the real action, brutality-wise, occurs as players who don't have the ball fight for position in the prime real estate in front of the goal.

"You're both fighting for the same spot," says Robin Beauregard, 25, a defender on the U.S. women's team. "There's a lot of grabbing and holding and kicking."

Frequently, a player will suddenly disappear under the water, as if yanked down by an invisible hand. That's because he was yanked down by an invisible hand -- the hand of an opponent.

For men, the preferred method of dunking an opponent is to grab the body and yank down, Golda says. For women, it's grabbing the opponent's swimsuit and yanking down.

"They'll grab the suit in the back and twist it, and sometimes it'll tear off," she says. "So you lose quite a few suits."

When that happens, she says, "you play as long as you can and then you get subbed out."

Here in the aquatics arena, two TV cameras sitting on the bottom of the pool capture some of this underwater skirmishing and show it during breaks between the game's seven-minute quarters. Through the murk of the water, you see elbows swung into guts, knees slammed into groins, hands yanking bathing suits into painful wedgies, guys simply swimming on top of an opponent and holding him under water until he fights his way, punching and kicking, to the surface.

Technically, none of this stuff is legal, but the refs working the poolside allow a certain amount of leeway. Blatant -- and that's a relative term -- fouls are punished by 20-second sentences in the penalty box -- which is usually long enough for the other team to score on a power play. However, there's a catch: With the water churned up by all the action, the refs can't really see under the surface.

"There's a lot of white water," says Beaubien, "and if the ref doesn't see it, it doesn't count."

As every schoolchild knows, water polo was actually played on horseback until PETA complained about the effects of chlorine on equine eyeballs.

Just kidding, sports fans. Horses were never involved in water polo. But the truth about the game's history, as recounted by USA Water Polo, is almost as bizarre.

The sport began in the 1860s, when primitive games of "aquatic football" were played in lakes and rivers in England. Within a couple of decades, the game moved indoors.

"A favorite trick of these early games was to place the small India rubber ball (which ranged from five to nine inches in diameter) inside the swimsuit, dive under water and then 'appear' again as near the goal as possible," the organization's media guide recounts. " 'Appear' is the proper word, for in those days, the water in pools had no filtration systems, and was typically cloudy. But this mode of scoring had its disadvantages, as the goalkeeper was permitted to stand on the pool deck and protect his goal as he saw fit. Should the forward come too near the goal, he was promptly jumped on by the goalie."

In the United States in the 1890s, the sport became even more brutal, permitting wrestling-style moves called "the back strangle hold" and the "jujitsu toe hold." It started being billed as "the roughest game in the world."

"Victims often floated to the surface in need of resuscitation," the guide says, deadpan.

Now that's entertainment! Naturally, the sport became wildly popular, drawing thousands to matches in Madison Square Garden.

"While the main attraction for spectators was the violence and mayhem," the guide continues, "it was a spectacular game that featured plays like the 'flying salmon' -- where the player with the ball could leap 15 feet through the air, from the backs of his teammates, to score a goal over the top of the defenders."

Meanwhile, more sedate versions of the game were spreading across Europe. By 1900, it was so popular that it became the first team sport in the Olympics. But only for men; women's water polo did not become an Olympic sport for another century, debuting at Sydney in 2000. There, U.S. women took silver and the men finished sixth.

The most famous water polo game in Olympic history is also the most brutal. It occurred between the Soviet Union and Hungary in 1956, just after the Russians had crushed an anti-communist uprising there. The Hungarians won 4-0 in a slugfest that was called early and is now known as the "Blood in the Water" game. The game was immortalized by a legendary photograph of Hungarian player Ervin Zador bleeding profusely from the eye after the Soviet captain punched him.

"It's not the same game it was back in the old days," says Wolf Wigo, 31, the captain of the U.S. men's team and a three-time Olympian. "But I think it's still the roughest game in the world."

After the U.S. men's team beat Kazakhstan 9-6 on Tuesday, Ratko Rudic, the legendary coach of the American team, lumbered into the "mix zone" where players meet the media, grumbling to reporters about the brutality of the Kazakh team.

"This is not football, it's water polo," he fumed through his thick, bristly mustache. "If some teams can't get the result they want, this is how they play."

At least that's what he seemed to say. It was tough to understand him, not just because of his thick Slavic accent but because the PA system in the pool complex was blaring the Village People's "YMCA."

"This game was so violent," said Rudic, 56. "I can't remember such a violent game."

It was an odd statement coming from Rudic, who has never been mistaken for Mahatma Gandhi. Playing for his native Yugoslavia, the aggressive Rudic won a gold medal in 1968 and a silver in 1980. Coaching the Yugoslav team, he won gold medals in 1984 and 1988. Then he took a job coaching the Italian team, winning gold in 1992 and bronze in 1996.

Coaching Italy in Sydney in 2000, Rudic argued so vociferously with a referee that he had to be restrained by police, and he was later suspended from the sport for a year over the incident. That didn't hurt his career: When the year was up, he was hired by USA Water Polo to whip the mediocre American team into shape.

And now, in Athens, Rudic was shocked -- shocked! -- at the violence in water polo.

"Who will protect us?" he asked.

The players didn't take Rudic's outburst seriously. Wigo, who scored four goals in the game, didn't think Kazakhstan was particularly rough. He figured the coach was just working the refs, hoping they'd call more penalties on opponents in future games.

"I think he just wants to get us a couple of calls," Wigo said, smiling.

Defenseman Dan Klatt, 25, who scored one goal, didn't think the Kazakhs were particularly brutal, either.

"A couple guys got punched in the face and a couple got kicked in the face," he said with a shrug. "But that's just part of the game."

A few yards away, another game had started, this one between Russia and Serbia and Montenegro. Up on the big TV screen was a candid shot from the pool: A Russian player appeared to be giving a Serb player a big bear hug. The Serb hugged him back.

For a split second, it looked like one of those heartwarming moments of Olympic brotherhood. Then the two men started trying to drown each other, and you realized it was just another heartwarming moment of Olympic water polo.

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