Enter Jeremy Lin.

Maybe that story doesn’t play out the same way now?

Khan, 61, came to America when he was 16, earned an engineering degree from the University of Illinois and fell in love with American football and a blonde named Ann Carlson. Over the years, Khan and his wife have given zillions to their alma mater.

Most recently, the couple made a $10 million donation for the Khan Annex to Huff Hall, home to the university’s college of Applied Health Sciences. “One of the great joys of my life is making money,” Khan said at the September dedication ceremony. “ … What makes it even better is to use it to make a difference.” [Florida Times-Union]

The big question hanging in the air in Jacksonville is whether Khan will keep the team in the city or try to move it to L.A. So far, Khan is saying all the right things, but will he be able to resist the hundreds of millions he could make by moving to a much larger market?

It will also be interesting to see whether Khan keeps a low profile or seeks the limelight. Will he be the type of owner who’s on the sidelines, chatting with players, and always ready to make comments to the media? Or will he stay in the background and let his coach and general manager run the show? If he enjoys being in the news, then you can bet that L.A. will be very tempting.

Yes, American football in India. No, this isn’t a story from The Onion.

According to Daniel Kaplan of Sports Business Journal, the eight-team league, which will begin play in Nov. 2012, is being backed by investors such as Mike Ditka, Ron Jaworski, Michael Irvin and Brandon Chillar (the Indian-American linebacker formerly of the Green Bay Packers).

The founding teams are the Hyderabad Skykings, Bhubaneswar Warhawks, Goa Swarm, Mumbai Gladiators, Dehi Royal Fleet, Punjab Warriors, Pune Blacktigers and Kolkata Vipers. Sorry, no Bengals or Browns.

“India has no history of american football, but backers sure cuz country is crazy about american entertainment, this will fly,” Kaplan tweeted, adding in another tweet: “They are training rugby players right now. Top rugby coaches involved. Seriously unlikely any US players would got there.”

Rugby players? Seriously? Rugby may be the closest sport to football, but that’s like preparing for the PGA tour by playing croquet. 

As for Kaplan’s contention that US players wouldn’t go to India, I have to disagree. As long as team owners can pay decent money, players who can’t crack the NFL, CFL, AFL or UFL would be willing to go to India. Who knows, maybe even Chillar might suit up for the Warriors and Brett Favre might come out of retirement to throw a few INTs for the Skykings.

Kaplan says the league “seems like a stretch” and I have to agree. But you have to start somewhere. Maybe by 2032, India will have a competitive football league, and you and I will be glued to the TV, watching Marshall Williams Manning lead the Bhubaneswar Warhawks over Arjun Tendulkar and the Pune Blacktigers.

You may enjoy the comments on ProFootballTalk. Or not.

The Canucks led in the circle in the regular season, at 54.9 per cent. They’re at 49.9 in the playoffs and a lot of the drop-off is because Malhotra and his 61.7 per cent win rate were on the sidelines until Game 2.

“Over the last couple of weeks as I’ve started to work toward this goal, being able to take draws against guys like Kes and Hank and Lappy really pushes you to get to that next level,” said Malhotra. “The competitive level we have at centre really gets your timing back.”

Malhotra did remarkably well overall in 7: 26 of ice time. He played 13 shifts, including killing penalties and taking a leftwing shift on the third line in relief of Raffi Torres.

He purposely kept his game simple and saw the 7: 26 as a good transition back into playing. In the regular season, as one of the best third line centres in the league and in the conversation for the Selke Trophy for top defensive forward, Malhotra averaged 16: 09. [Vancouver Province]

The Bruins walloped the Canucks 8-1 in Game 3, but Malhotra’s team still leads the series 2-1 and has home ice advantage.

Malhotra, whose full name is Emmanuel Noveen Malhotra, began playing organized hockey at age 7, when his parents apparently made the wrong turn on the way to the cricket field. His father, Shadi, is from Lahore, Punjab, in pre-partition India (present day Pakistan) and mother, Lise, is French-Canadian. (Both his parents hold doctorate degrees from the Université Laval in Québec City — his father a doctorate in polymer chemistry and his mother in biochemistry.)

Drafted in the first round by the New York Rangers in 1998, Malhotra has played on five NHL teams and is the second NHL player of South Asian origin. (The first was Robin Bawa of British Columbia, who spent parts of four seasons in the NHL in the early 1990s but was never a regular starter.)

Malhotra is married to Joann Nash, sister of two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash and retired soccer pro Martin Nash. He has scored 101 NHL goals, one of which can be seen in the 2009 NHL Network feature “A day in the life: Manny Malhotra“, when he played in Columbus.

Maragh and Bridgmohan’s Derby bios both mention dads who made them complete high school before pursuing the thrilling but inherently risky field of horseracing, a fact probably notable because riders are eligible for a jockey license at age 16. Maragh’s father was a jockey. Bridgmohan, whose brother is also a jockey, is referenced in the lyrics for “Fake Patois” by Das Racist: What you know about Shaun Bridgmohan? First Jamaican in the Kentucky Derby. 

That might be the single worst circumstance during which to injure your knee. Stairs? Heels? Hell. The pain was excruciating. I never made it past the narthex, which is where I collapsed on the first bench I could find. When the liturgy was over, I limped out of the handicapped exit and proceeded to drive a stick shift to the nearest CVS in Georgetown, where I procured a knee brace to hold my kneecap together.

Oh, the looks I got in that store, people scornfully glaring at me as if I were an idiot, stumbling around in heels when injured. Silly make-an-ass-out-of-you-and-me strangers. I am stubborn and unwise, but not THAT stubborn and unwise. Sheesh. So let’s recap: two Sundays ago, I hurt my left knee, and by the time I made it to urgent care, favoring my feeble right, it was too late– both were busted. And when they gave out this weekend, I knew that my Orthopedist might have underestimated how serious my injuries were. I swear, I have a point, and that point is, I am not very mobile right now.

Forget driving, I can’t walk without a cane. And that means that I am at home. All the time. Often with a boxing writer. And so I marinate in the sweet science, because, well, I have no choice. I guess there are worse sports to be subjected to, visually. Golf. Bowling. Drawn out games which involve bats and balls– of course, I am talking about vampires and testicles there, I promise. But I’m not that into boxing, despite said boxing writer’s endearing attempts to draw me in. He started (somewhat logically, given my mutinous proclivities) with Amir Khan.

Amir Khan is a British pugilist of Pakistani descent who is referred to as “King Khan”, or the “Pride of Bolton”. Khan is an Olympic medalist, and he’s a big enough deal that he trains with Freddy Roach; in other words, when he runs around, toning that lovely body of his, he might be trotting next to Manny Pacquiao. Perhaps you have heard of him? Anyway, I’ve seen King Khan throw stiff jabs and it barely inspired me to look up from the interwebz. Yay team brown and all, but it’s hard to cheer for someone who is prettier than and weighs less than me. I keed, I keed. It’s hard to cheer because I don’t give a tatti. In fact, no boxer has piqued my interest until I came across Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez. Because of the aforementioned boxing writer, boxing is constantly being recorded on our TV. That means that on a languorous saturday evening, when I’m happily ensconced in a recliner with a puppy in one hand, and a remote in the other, enriching my mind with such intellectually stimulating fare as “Bethenny Ever After” or the “Real Housewives of Wherever“, just as someone’s weave is being yanked, the DVR will dolefully warn me that a recording is about to start and then Poof!. I end up watching boxing, because it is impossible to watch a third channel when two programs are being recorded simultaneously and hey, did I mention that they often show boxing on a bunch of channels? YAY.

So one time when I was held captive by the DVR, something about the pre-fight hype and backstory-telling finally caught my attention. A fighter’s face filled the screen, as he was being interviewed. I saw intensely bright eyes and a kind smile, then I heard a heartbreaking admission of how this boxer grew up unaware of how impoverished his family was, as a child in Argentina, because, “I thought everybody just drank tea and went to bed. It’s all I ever knew. I did not know people ate dinner.” That was Sergio Martinez, and that got me hooked. Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Finding out he was as old as I am, and that he had taken up boxing relatively late in life (at age 20), is what snared me. I’m not ready to fork over all of my dreams to being middle-aged, and the marvelous man I saw that night filled me with a sense of possibility.

But I haven’t liked another boxer since, not even Micky Ward, even though “The Fighter” made me swoon. And that’s the problem with boxing– if you don’t like the people in the ring, well, why bother? I don’t care about Zab Judah or his “devastating” left hand. Sugar Shane who? I want to see Sergio Martinez succeed because I admire his tenacity and love to watch him fight.

I may have another somebody to love, in a few years (via the talented Dan Merica):

Headbangers Boxing sits in a small brick building right near the Navy Yard in Southeast Washington. But the excitement the gym lacks on the outside, is made up by the combination of character and passion of the boxers inside. Led by Coach Marshall Cunningham, the boxing club helps under-served youths focus their energy on something constructive — boxing.

And one boxer has taken the ideals of Headbangers Boxing — commitment, determination and passion — and ran with it. Sixteen-year old Lawrence Singh, the son of immigrant parents, is currently a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic boxing team. Boxing has done more than propel Lawrence out of DC; it has formed an unbreakable bond between him and his father. Loknauth Singh stands ringside every time Lawrence trains, cheering him on as his son pursues his dreams.

If we’re analyzing brown loyalties, I don’t know why I dig Lawrence Singh more than Amir Khan. Oh, wait. I think I do. Not only is Singh a local boy making good, his father is omnipresent, providing encouragement, squirting water in other fighters’ mouths, smiling with pride. I’m sure Amir Khan’s father is just as loyal and loving as Loknauth Singh, but the thing is, I never saw a video of the Khan family like the one I’ve embedded below:

I watched that and felt something stir, deep within. Happiness at this child’s accomplishments…sure. He is graduating from high school a year early, at 16. Pride in the possibility of a fighter from the Northeast (rare these days), who is from my adopted hometown AND is brown? Yeah, why not. But that’s not what made my heart crack a little bit for Lawrence Singh. No.

It was that look, on his father’s face.

I know that look. That sweet love once shined on me, as well, albeit in a different ring (where, ironically, I had a boxing-inspired-nickname: “Iron Anna”). My father never missed one of my debates, from ages 13-17. He carried my briefcase for me, murmured strategy in my ear and even helped out the rest of my high school team, functioning as our unofficial coach. I haven’t thought of that parental devotion in years, possibly because it’s been almost two decades since my Daddy spent his Saturdays driving me to some random high school at 6am, drilling me on my contentions and attacking my narrative all the while.

Nearly thirteen years after losing my own, much-adored boxing coach, I find myself at a point in life which I dreaded. I tried to avoid it, but I was dragged here, my heels creating grooves where my feet tried in vain to stop this inevitable movement towards unwanted, unintended nonchalance. Now, so many years after the one death which permanently altered my alignment, sending me swerving towards oncoming traffic instead of cruising straight ahead, I inhabit that numb space where the dead seem distant and illusory; my days do not contain enough poignant reminders of that other life, that steady, sustaining presence, ever ringside, a fierce South Indian mustache hiding a faint smile.

Lawrence Singh is a local honor-roll student, an Olympic hopeful and, Goddess-willing, a rising star in the South Asian diaspora.

But he’s also his father’s pride and joy.

And more than our both being Desi, that makes me feel connected to him, because he summoned powerful, welcome emotions. He reminded me of what it means to have a bespectacled old Indian man in my corner, and for that peerless gift, I am consummately grateful.

::

Creative Commons-licensed photo via Flickr, from Chamber of Fear.

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There have been 46 matches played so far in this year’s ICC Cricket World Cup, and only four teams remain:

Sri Lanka, who got to the semifinals by chasing England’s respectable total of 221 without losing a wicket;

New Zealand, who did less to the South African bats than the South African bats did to themselves;

Pakistan, who embarrassed the West Indies by first bowling them out for a paltry 112, then chasing the total in less than half the time it took for the West Indies to accumulate it;

India, who avenged their 2003 World Cup Final drubbing by Australia.

Sri Lanka and New Zealand play tomorrow in Colombo. India and Pakistan play on Wednesday in Mohali. The winners play on Saturday in Mumbai. All three matches start at 5 am Eastern, 2 am Pacific.

So the question is, where to watch?

The World Cup final is to be played on April 2 in Mumbai, whose Wankhede Stadium has a capacity of 33,000 seats. Of these, only 4,000 have been allocated for sale to the public. The remaining tickets, a whopping 27,000, are reserved for the ICC and the Mumbai Cricket Club’s associate members (ESPNCricInfo).

Not only that, but when fans tried to buy tickets online, the whole system crashed from the number of people trying to make purchases.

The most prominent errors took place on Monday afternoon when the servers of Kyazoonga.com, the ICC’s official ticketing partners, were overwhelmed with the load as the site went ‘live’ with sales for the final and semi-finals at 1pm India time. The website received close to ten million hits in a matter of minutes – half a million at any given moment – many of those people refreshing the site. It would have needed, a Kyazoonga staffer said, a server farm the “size of a football field” to keep up with that kind of demand. The site crashed by 1.05pm and the few people who had got into the system and begun purchasing their tickets found their plans hanging somewhere in cyberspace.

The website went online again around 9.30pm IST with a statement that no tickets for the finals & semi-finals had been sold on Monday due to the system issues and that updates about the ticket sales would follow. So, all the tickets allocated for online sales will still be available once the Kyazoonga network teams in India, Europe and the United States get their servers up and running again. Kyazoonga were not willing to reveal an approximate time when that was expected to happen.

Epic Fail. Oh well, it’s better on TV anyway, right? Even if you’ve traveled from South Africa to see it live? Um, yeah.

The only remotely exciting match of the tournament so far was the most recent one, between Bangladesh and Ireland. It shouldn’t have been close, but the side that scored 283 against India in Dhaka last week was nowhere to be found. Instead, Bangladesh were bowled out for a paltry 205, and just managed to make sure Ireland didn’t catch them. Scorecard

This weekend should be more promising: On Saturday, Pakistan and Sri Lanka play in Colombo, and England takes on India in Bangalore.

And in case you’re still not sure what this game is all about, have a whack here. Stick out the first half-minute. You’ll be glad you did.

Before we go any further, let’s have a cool video explaining the rules of this exotic and fascinating game:

What? You don’t speak German? Oh. Well unfortunately, I can’t find a nice, concise video presentation in English of how cricket is played. Any suggestions?

If you’re the texty sort, here are the laws of cricket, with a few slightly helpful pictures. If you’d like to translate those to video, I actually suggest watching Lagaan. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. You can skip all the parts about drought, taxes, Radha, Krishna, betrayal, rhyming “kiss” with “bliss,” and skip straight to the actual match. Why? Because if I’m not mistaken, the match in Lagaan has a demonstration of every single way you can get out or score a run in cricket.

If you’re in the US, your viewing options are fairly limited, not least because the matches start at either 11 pm or 4 am eastern time. If you’re a DirecTV subscriber, you can buy the World Cup bundle for $149. You can also pay for an online streaming subscription through willow.tv for $129. Willow offers replays and highlights of previously played matches. The tournament is also available through Dish network, though I’m not sure for how much. The World Cup final will be played in Mumbai on April 2.

Here are this year’s participants, divided into two groups, with their seeding in parentheses:

In the first round, each team plays every other team in its group, and the top four teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals. For more details, take a look at the cricinfo.com page.

The World Cup was originally scheduled to be played in Pakistan as well, but the International Cricket Council canceled those 14 matches following a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March, 2009.

Apart from the opening match of the tournament on Saturday, in which India beat Bangladesh in Dhaka, the three host countries (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) play all of their group matches at home. Pakistan will play all of its group matches in Sri Lanka.

As I write this, defending champion Australia is trying to close out what looks like an inevitable win against Zimbabwe in the 4th match of the tournament.

In the 2007 World Cup, Bangladesh beat India in the group round, and Sri Lanka finished them off in their match to deny India a spot in the quarterfinals. This year India got the best of Bangladesh, posting a mammoth total of 370 that Bangladesh couldn’t catch, though if they can repeat their response of 283 in their remaining matches, they’re sure to notch a few wins and find themselves in the next round again this year.

The 2003 World Cup in South Africa saw Kenya come out of nowhere and secure a spot in the semi-finals. They played incredibly well, winning group matches against Canada, Bangladesh, and a stunner against Sri Lanka in Nairobi. That match was one of two scheduled in Nairobi. Kenya won the other as well, but through forfeit: the New Zealand side refused to travel to Kenya because of security concerns. It would have been great to see Kenya hand it to New Zealand in their 2011 matchup in Chennai, but alas, it only took them 8 overs to chase Kenya’s sad total of 69.

Check out Preston Merchant’s memorable profile of former Kenyan captain Aasif Karim.

In the 3rd match, Sri Lanka crushed Canada by 210 runs in their attempt to return to the finals, where they lost to Australia in 2007. The match took place at the newly-built Mahinda Rajapakse stadium in Hambantota. More on that later.

I’ll go digging through the archives for more posts about the 2007 Cup. In the mean time, enjoy the cricket!