David Shaw stands in front of his team before they take the field to play UCLA. (Getty)

PALO ALTO, Calif. – When David Shaw and his assistant coaches go out in search of football recruits capable of playing for Stanford, the list of necessary attributes is long.

Superior academics are mandatory for admission and success at the elite university. Great athletic ability, strength and speed are a necessity to play for the reigning Pac-12 champions. Character, leadership and motivation are highly valued intangibles. 

And then there is something unique Stanford coaches evaluate when meeting with a prospect, something that few would think predicts football success.

"Vocabulary," Shaw said.

Vocabulary? 

"Yes, you look for vocabulary," he said. "Can this kid express himself in a way that befits a Stanford man?

"Does that correlate to football? I say, yes, absolutely. [We seek] a young man that has the confidence to stand up in front of you and express himself as opposed to what a lot of young kids do today – they don't give you eye contact, they kind of mumble

Read More »from David Shaw building Stanford into a perennial power with unconventional recruiting mandate

Jerry Sandusky’s halting, rasping, decrepit voice seeped out from a Pennsylvania prison via NBC’s "Today Show" and it was about as pointless and pathetic as you might imagine.

Only approximately one minute of sound was played from phone conversations recorded between Sandusky and John Ziegler, a filmmaker and former radio show host who says he is working to clear the name of Sandusky’s former boss, Penn State coach Joe Paterno, even as the Paterno family itself slammed the interview and made it apparent they are not fans of Ziegler.

Jerry Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys during a 15-year span. (AP Photo)The brief audio clips were Sandusky’s first statements since being convicted in June 2012 of 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. He’s currently serving 30-to-60 years in Greene State Prison in the state’s southwest corner.

Ziegler says he conducted three and a half hours of interviews with the Nittany Lions' former defensive coordinator. Sandusky has turned down all media requests for comment since being found guilty. He

Read More »from Jerry Sandusky prison interview clips are as pointless as they are creepy

Eight Presidents of the United States. Forty-seven Nobel Prize winners. Forty-seven more Pulitzer Prize recipients.

And one NCAA tournament victory.Jeremy Lin celebrates after the win. (Courtesy: Jeremy Lin's Twitter page)

Harvard, that bastion of Supreme Court justices, captains of industry and high school valedictorians, continued its rise in men's basketball with a historic 68-62 victory over New Mexico on Thursday in Salt Lake City.

"YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!," tweeted Harvard alum and current Houston Rockets guard Jeremy Lin. "HARVARD winssss!!! hahahahhah I told you"

If there was anything surprising about the game, it was the Crimson's domination throughout most of the contest, riding hot 3-point shooting and a strong defensive effort to control the contest.

The Crimson, appearing in just their fourth NCAA tournament ever, will face Arizona on Saturday in the round of 32.

[Yahoo! Sports fan shop: Buy gear commemorating Harvard's historic win]

"I'm extremely proud," said coach Tommy Amaker on CBS after the win. "They had to

Read More »from Harvard stamps its brand on March Madness

When Dana Altman and his Oregon Ducks gathered last Sunday to watch the NCAA tournament selection show, they were stunned when a 12 appeared next to their name.

They had 26 victories and just won the Pac-12 tournament, yet all they got was a 12 seed? Is that how far the perception of their conference had fallen?

Oregon's Johnathan Loyd passes the ball to Arsalan Kazemi vs.Oklahoma State's Michael Cobbins. (USA TODAY Sports)With the Pac-12 ranking sixth nationally in RPI and producing just three Sweet 16 teams across the last four NCAA tournaments, this may have been a cold dose of reality. The conference was going to need to make people believe in it again.

"We downplayed it," Altman said Thursday, "because we weren't going to change it. There was nothing we could do about it. We've just got to go play."

Play the Ducks did, beating fifth-seeded Oklahoma State handedly, 68-55. They were hardly the only show of force from the league, either. Arizona dusted Belmont 81-64. And Cal emerged victorious, 64-61, over UNLV, of the Mountain West conference that

Read More »from Picked-on Pac-12 goes 3-0 in NCAA tournament

A couple of months back, Mike DeWine, the attorney general of Ohio, was going through the case his special prosecutors were building over rape allegations involving high school football players in Steubenville, an old mill town along the eastern border of the state.

The case – which resulted in convictions Sunday of Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old West Virginia girl after a night of partying last August – was fairly clear.

Judge Thomas Lipps granted immunity to three eyewitnesses who could still face charges. (AP Photo) What DeWine also saw though, were myriad unresolved issues surrounding the case, including reasonable questions coming from the people of Steubenville.

Where did underage kids get the alcohol? Were others involved in some way? Was there a resistance by local authorities to investigate a case involving players from the high-profile Steubenville High Big Red football program?

"The further we got into it, I said, ‘We need a separate investigation,'" DeWine told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday.

So DeWine called

Read More »from Ohio attorney general wants more answers regarding Steubenville rape case

The looming possibility that on June 1 a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Northern California could grant the potentially earth-shattering lawsuit of O'Bannon v. NCAA class-action status has left college athletic administrators concerned.

What started four years ago as a simple, if big-dreaming, lawsuit – former UCLA basketball great Ed O'Bannon suing over the NCAA's continued use of his likeness, long after his 1996 graduation, in a video game – has snowballed into a legal challenge of college sports' entire economic model.

The NCAA kept earning money off Ed O'Bannon long after he stopped playing for UCLA. Here on the eve of the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament, there isn't anyone in college athletics that isn't taking it seriously. One day soon, maybe even by 2015, the players themselves could be getting a share of the billion-dollar revenue, a once-unthinkable development.

The O'Bannon side is seeking a 50/50 split. The NCAA wants to keep it 100/0 and has expressed no interest in negotiating. Billions of dollars hang in the balance.

Last

Read More »from O'Bannon case against NCAA sheds light on big-time athletic departments' fuzzy math

Inside a small Steubenville, Ohio, courtroom filled with sobbing and exhausting emotion, Judge Thomas Lipps found Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond guilty Sunday of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old girl. Lipps sentenced both defendants to a minimum of one year in a youth correctional institute with the determination for a longer sentence coming from child-service experts.

Mays received an additional year for transmission of nude photos, to be served after his rape sentence is completed. Mays and Richmond also will have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

"It provides a great incentive to do well," said Lipps, who could have ordered Mays and Richmond to remain behind bars until they turned 21.

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, both wept, at times uncontrollably, as the verdict was announced. Mays buried his head in a handkerchief as defense attorneys rubbed his back. He later hugged his parents goodbye.

Richmond was able to stand and approach the victim's

Read More »from Steubenville High School football players found guilty of raping 16-year-old girl

After four long, emotional days of testimony and evidence, Judge Thomas Lipps was given the Steubenville rape case on Saturday night and said he will announce his verdict at 10 a.m. ET Sunday at the Jefferson County Justice Center.

Jefferson County juvenile court Judge Thomas Lipps will deliver his verdict on Sunday. (Reuters)Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, are charged with the rape last August of a 16-year-old West Virginia girl who prosecutors say was drunk or drugged after a teenage party. Mays and Richmond are being tried as juveniles and face imprisonment until they turn 21. They have each maintained their innocence.

Both teens are members of Steubenville High School's powerhouse Big Red football program, which plays to much adulation and is a point of local pride in this aging steel mill town in Eastern Ohio.

The case drew international attention because of pictures of the victim, who appeared passed out as the defendants appeared to be carrying her by her ankles and wrists. Later, a video of a friend of the defendants making crude, cruel jokes about the

Read More »from Judge to announce verdict in Steubenville rape case on Sunday morning