TACKLING BETTIS: Standing in the batter's box as Randy Johnson throws a 98-mph fastball. Taking a charge from Shaquille O'Neal. Dropping the gloves against hockey enforcer Bob Probert.
Surely, nothing could be tougher in sports.According to sports fans surveyed in a national poll, there is something scarier and more intimidating: Tackling Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis in the open field.
According to a poll conducted for On, a magazine for viewers who subscribe to DirecTV satellite sports programming, 45 percent - or nearly half - said tackling Bettis would be the most challenging of the four.
"I wouldn't want to tackle myself, either," Bettis said.
Twenty-five percent wouldn't want to fight Probert, 20 percent feared Johnson's heat, and only 5 percent were frightened to face off with Shaq.
ISU ASSISTANT RESIGNS: Scot Maynard resigned after one season as the special teams coordinator and assistant secondary coach at Idaho State University.
Maynard, 36, the son of National Football League Hall of Famer Don Maynard of the New York Jets, said he was leaving in part to be closer to his mother, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Bengals head coach Tom Walsh immediately announced that Deryl Henderson, an assistant with the defensive line, would take over as special teams coordinator.
FORMER PREP STAR KILLS SELF: A former high school football star whose academic difficulties sidelined a promising college career killed himself at home on Monday.
Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said Tito Lee, 23, shot himself with a family handgun just before 10 a.m.
In 1995 and 1996, Lee was an Associated Press first-team All-State player for Brentwood Academy, a private school about 15 miles south of Nashville that won the state championship both years. He was known as the school's best linebacker and also scored 21 touchdowns at fullback in 1996.
Tennessee and several other top university football programs were interested in him, but Lee did not meet NCAA academic standards.
So Lee enrolled at a junior college, Georgia Military College, after graduating from Brentwood Academy. He played the first two games of the 1997 season before eventually returning home.
Aaron said Lee had told his family and friends he was going to play football this fall at Middle Tennessee State.