NFL referees are back

So long, replacement refs. The NFL's regular crews will be back on the field starting Thursday night.

After two days of marathon negotiations -- and mounting frustration among coaches, players and fans -- the NFL and the referees' union announced at midnight Thursday that a tentative agreement had been reached to end a lockout that began in June.

Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was at the bargaining table Tuesday and Wednesday, said the regular officials would work the Browns-Ravens game at Baltimore.

"Welcome back REFS," Buffalo Bills running back C.J. Spiller tweeted shortly after the news broke.

The replacements worked the first three weeks of games, triggering a wave of outrage that threatened to disrupt the rest of the season. After a missed call cost the Green Bay Packers a win on a chaotic final play at Seattle on Monday night, the two sides really got serious.

"We are glad to be getting back on the field for this week's games," referees' union president Scott Green said.

The tentative eight-year deal is the longest involving on-field officials in NHL history and was reached with the assistance of two federal mediators. It must be ratified by 51 percent of the union's 121 members, who plan to vote Friday and Saturday in Dallas.

The agreement hinged on working out salary, pension and retirement benefits for the officials, who are part-time employees of the league. Tentatively, it calls for their salaries to increase from an average of $149,000 a year in 2011 to $173,000 in 2013, rising to $205,000 by 2019.

Under the proposal, the current defined benefit pension plan will remain in place for current officials through the 2016 season or until the official earns 20 years' service. The defined benefit plan will then be frozen.

Retirement benefits will be provided for new hires, and for all officials beginning in 2017, through a defined contribution arrangement. The annual league contribution made on behalf of each game official will begin with an average of more than $18,000 per official and increase to more than $23,000 per official in 2019.

LeBron and the Dream

Imagine if Martin Scorsese had stopped making his own films 10 or 15 years ago and instead had signed on as Paul Thomas Anderson’s second-unit director. Or say Warren Buffet dropped Berkshire Hathaway to serve exclusively as Mark Zuckerberg’s financial advisor. Think of Kate Upton, tutored in the kitchen by Rachel Ray.

Unfair, right? Overkill. The rich, the gifted and the awesome don’t need to get that much richer, more gifted or awesomer, do they? Yet that is what happened in the NBA when LeBron James enlisted the help of no less than Hakeem Olajuwon as his post-moves coach.

As described in the fine feature story by Mike Berardino of the Sun-Sentinel, the teacher-pupil relationship between arguably the NBA’s most swift and elusive Hall of Fame center ever and its most dominant active player began during the lockout. Stinging from Miami’s loss in the 2011 Finals, his ears burning from ceaseless criticism, James sought out Olajuwon to add a new wrinkle to his game: Balance, footwork, deception and scoring tricks in the low post.

It was like Eric Clapton making a pilgrimage to Les Paul.

The Lakers Network

The Lakers' partnership with Time Warner Cable (let's call it TWC from here on out; we all know I'm not referring to The Weather Channel, right?) that will debut two Lakers-centric regional sports networks -- one in English, one in Spanish -- on Oct. 1 is not just a game-changer. It's an industry changer.

TWC is paying the Lakers somewhere between $2-$5 billion over the next 20 to 25 years -- there have been different estimates bandied about -- in the new endeavor. Whatever the actual amount is, it will dwarf anything that any other NBA team receives for its games. And that only increases the huge financial edge the Lakers have to acquire and keep players.
Luxury tax, schmuxury tax.

All-A-Twitter in Seattle

SEATTLE -- Golden Tate shoved a Green Bay defender out of the way, wrestled another for the ball and was awarded a disputed touchdown on the final play. But it was another 10 minutes before the game actually ended, when the Seattle Seahawks and the stunned Packers were called back on the field for the extra point.

Replacement ref rage may have peaked Monday night.

Just when it seemed that NFL coaches, players and fans couldn't get any angrier, along came a fiasco that trumped any of the complaints from the weekend. The Seahawks' 14-12 victory featured one of the most bizarre finishes in recent memory, and was certain to reignite frustrations over the locked-out officials."Don't ask me a question about the officials," Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy said. "I've never seen anything like that in all my years in football."

Russell Wilson threw the 24-yard touchdown pass to Tate. The crew of replacement officials agreed that Tate caught the pass.

"We both had possession of it. I don't even know the rule but I guess the tie goes to the receiver," Tate said.

Asked later if he got his hands on Wilson's pass first, Tate wasn't so sure.

"I think so. ... Oh, well maybe he did. But I took it from him," Tate said.

Wilson scrambled from the pocket and threw to the corner of the end zone as the clock expired. Tate shoved Green Bay's Sam Shields out of the way, then wrestled with M.D. Jennings for possession. It was ruled on the field as a touchdown and after a lengthy review, referee Wayne Elliott came out from under the hood and announced "the ruling on the field stands" and CenturyLink Field erupted in celebration.

Elliott told a pool reporter after the game that the play was ruled as simultaneous possession that was confirmed by the replay official.

"They both possessed it," Elliott said.

The Packers were far from convinced that Tate had possession. Jennings said he had the ball pinned to his chest the entire time. A handful of Packers players began venting on their Twitter accounts right after the game, posting protest messages to their followers -- many of them too profane to print. Offensive lineman T.J. Lang even challenged the NFL to "fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs."

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Twitters / more twitters

Nevada 69 Hawaii 24

Hawaii's defense denied Nevada on its first possession of the game, forcing a three and out.

After that, it was a dire evening in Halawa as the Wolf Pack and Stefphon Jefferson ran roughshod on the Warriors in a 69-24 rout.

Jefferson scored a UH opponent record six rushing touchdowns and Nevada rolled up the most points by a Warriors foe at Aloha Stadium. Jefferson's seven total scores tied a major-college record.

In its first two games, UH did not allow a 100-yard rusher. It ranked 11th nationally in rushing defense at 62.5 per game. Nevada arrived with two key players — running back Jefferson (176.3) and quarterback Cody Fajardo (116.3) — averaging triple digits on the ground through its pistol offense.

Something had to give, and by halftime it was clearly the overwhelmed hosts.

Jefferson netted 170 yards on 31 carries. When he wasn't going off, Fajardo did the damage himself, either on the ground or through the air. [Brian McInnis]

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When the University of Nevada cheerleaders paraded through the north end zone at Aloha Stadium waving their blue-and-white Wolf Pack flags after a first-quarter touchdown Saturday night, the display drew a robust round of boos from the Hawaii partisans in the stands.

So did a repeat after the second, third and fourth touchdowns.

But by the time the sixth, seventh and eighth scores were registered in the third quarter, amid a run of 42 unanswered points, there was nary a futile peep to be heard in Halawa.

By the time the ninth and 10th touchdowns were rung up in the fourth quarter of a 69-24 thumping of the Warriors, there were too few resigned remnants of the original 29,002 to matter.

It was the most points given up by UH at home since a 74-20 loss to Stanford on Jan. 2, 1950. To put it in perspective, UH coach Norm Chow was 3 years old then.

Andy Roddick announces retirement

The man who has defined American tennis, for better and worse, over the last decade or so, announced on Thursday, his 30th birthday, that this year's U.S. Open will be his last tournament.

He's calling it quits at the scene of his biggest triumph, the 2003 U.S. Open, and at the place where his name was virtually always on the marquee, even as his days as the world's top-ranked player faded further into the rearview mirror.

[9/5/12] Andy Roddick loses to Del Potro in his retirement match