Brittney Griner (Getty Images)It's apparently no accident former Baylor star Brittney Griner didn't publicly reveal she was gay until after her college career ended last month.

Griner told espnW that Baylor women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey requested players not be publicly open about their sexuality out of fear it would affect the perception of the program in the community and negatively impact recruiting.

"It was a recruiting thing," Griner told espnW. "The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn't let their kids come play for Baylor.

"It was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don't do it. They kind of tried to make it, like, 'Why put your business out on the street like that?'"

Griner casually acknowledged she was gay last month during a series of interviews with reporters leading up to the WNBA draft. The No. 1 overall pick of the Phoenix Mercury told reporters her friends and family had known she was gay since her freshman year of high school and it was an open secret among her Baylor coaches and teammates.

That Baylor would discourage gay players from publicly discussing their sexuality is a sad testament to the pervasiveness of homophobia in America and to the pressure on college coaches to win. Mulkey was apparently willing to ask players to hide part of their identity because she couldn't risk alienating a recruit or two who wouldn't be comfortable playing alongside openly gay teammates.

(USA Today Sports Images)There was a time when Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy cared about his quarterbacks enough to get hopped up on Red Bull and famously defend them in a shouting rant. That was pretty cool.

This week he said quarterback Wes Lunt, who began last season as a freshman starter but slipped down the depth chart after he sustained some injuries, could transfer but was given a transfer restriction list that included schools from the Big 12, SEC and Pac-12, and Southern Mississippi and Central Michigan as well. All transfer restrictions are pretty unfair, and if the NCAA cared in the slightest about student athletes it would never let broad transfer restrictions happen. But even in a world where coaches often have some rules on where a player can transfer to, that's a pretty substantial list. If Lunt wanted to go to a restricted school he would not only have to sit out but he'd have to pay his own way for a year.

It seems rather petty and unnecessary after both sides went out of their way to say that both sides appreciated what the other did, but it was time to move on. There's just no good reason for this.

So we grabbed a newspaper with the headline, "Coach restricts quarterback from going to whatever school he chooses for no good reason," sat Gundy down and let him know how we felt about it:

RedditDriving a golf cart is a very important part of golf in the United States. Almost any golf course you visit will have carts for rent, and it's an easy way to get you around 18 holes as casually as you'd like.

The problem is, the wrong mix of clientele and alcohol can doom some of these buggies.

Check the above picture, posted to the golf Reddit thread this week. According to the poster, this was a golf tournament in Miami that served free alcohol for most of the day, and yes, that is a completely submerged golf cart in the lake.

Here are the details, courtesy of Redditor donki ...

It was at a charity golf tournament in Miami. I don't want to name the course/event. It was unlimited beer/martinis on the course. All I know is that I heard a cart was in the water on 16 and as soon as we pulled up to the green I saw it. There was no bank for the cart to roll down, it was a shear coral rock canal. Amazed that it stayed upright like it did. No bags were on it so I guess they took them off and

Via Penguins WhoSay

Besides being able to have their team advance out of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the city of Pittsburgh has also made it possible to turn one of its buildings into a goal light.

A Toronto Maple Leafs fan petition to turn CN Tower into a goal light for each playoff game didn't succeed. In Pittsburgh, however, it took a round, but the top of Gulf Tower will light up red every time the Penguins score in for the rest of the playoffs.

Ian Walsh, an executive with Rugby Realty, who control Gulf Tower, met with the Penguins on Wednesday to discuss another idea when the goal light conversation came up. After figuring out a way to control the lights remotely, the plan was put into place for Game 2 on Friday.

Here's a view from inside CONSOL Energy Center after Brenden Morrow's goal in Game 2:

From the Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

There was no test run, and Crosby's goal early in the first period on Friday night turned the Gulf Tower into a rotating red light for the first time. However, because there was still daylight when Crosby scored around 7:50 p.m., few people noticed.

That was not the case about 30 minutes later when Crosby scored his second goal. A darker sky provided the perfect backdrop for the Gulf Tower to stand out.

During the game, Wareham received word from Penguins employees that fans were posting photos of the rooftop goal-light on Twitter, but even he was surprised how quickly the idea became a success.

The Penguins’ director of event presentation controls the lights via an iPhone and beginning with Sunday night’s Game 3, there will be 20 rotations of the lights for each goal scored, up from 15 used during Game 2.

Follow Sean Leahy on Twitter at @Sean_Leahy

Seton Hall coach Paige Smith. (Via The Star-Ledger)

The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger has published a critical account of the actions of Seton Hall's softball coach, Paige Smith, charging a pattern of verbally abusive and capricious behavior — namely, questioning student-athletes who prioritized school or family over athletics — as well as consistently indifferent or obstructive responses by the university administration.

Star-Ledger columnist Dave D'Alessandro has compiled a series of charges leveled against Smith by current and former players. While eye-opening, and in some cases stunningly insensitive, the allegations are, for now, just that — allegations — because Seton Hall has not permitted Smith to speak on her own behalf, and has only responded with carefully worded, vague statements about the matter.

Smith has coached at Seton Hall for just under a year. The allegations leveled by players and their parents include the following:

• When one player, who had pitched a total of three innings all season, asked to have off one weekend

Rob Gronkowski with the children of Newtown. (Rich Gregory, CTPost.com)

On Dec. 14, 2012, America's collective heart was broken by the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., when twenty children and six staff members were killed. Six months later, as a community tries to put things back together as only they will know how ... well, sometimes, it's just about having fun outside and trying to forget for a while. Sometimes, it's just about being a kid. On Saturday, the New England Patriots helped more than 500 kids, ages 6 to 14, do just that at Newtown's Blue and Gold Stadium, when they held a "Football For You" camp.

"As a part of the New England community, I think all of us were devastated when we saw what happened here," Patriots owner Robert Kraft told Richard Gregory of CTPost.com, "and if it can happen in the town of Newtown, it could happen in any city or town in America."

Kraft had just been covering a child in a football drill as a defensive back, while Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski threw the child a pass. Kraft got his feet tangled up with the child's, which caused Gronkowski to call a pass interference penalty. Kraft and Gronkowski were two of over 30 members of the Patriots organization on hand for the clinic.

"I hope they leave here with a good experience," Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo said. "They've been through a lot these last couple months. It's the rebuilding process. They'll never be forgotten, but at the same time, these kids are very strong, their families are very strong, the parents out here in the stands are very strong. And hopefully we can come out here and provide a little temporary relief and some smiles."

Mayo has two children of his own. He talked about how the Newtown shooting just made him want to be closer to his own kids, and how he admired the strength of the Newtown community. Mayo also mentioned that such strength was similar to what he saw after the Boston Marathon bombings on Apr. 15.

"We saw it in Boston right after the horrible events on Patriots' Day, the same way the community came together."

Stafford's mind-blowing 2012 left us all dumbfounded. (USAT)

In every corner of the sports universe hard-to-explain anomalies push the boundaries of flukiness, crazy events that leave eyewitnesses with jaws dropped.

Fantasy football is no exception.

From Jerome Harrison’s trampling of Kansas City Week 14 2009 to Billy Volek’s unforgettable two-game stretch with the Titans in 2004 to an entire offseason week where neither Kenny Britt or Titus Young are incarcerated, unforeseen occurrences happen all the time, changing previously conceived notions about a particular player or team.

Take Detroit’s Matthew Stafford.

Last year, the former No. 1 pick was the definition of 'gunslinger.' Blessed with the game's finest target (Calvin Johnson), immersed in a pass-first offense and placed in numerous come-from-behind situations, the passer shattered Drew Bledsoe's single-season attempts record, firing an unreal 727 passes. Strangely, despite the high pitch-count, he found the end-zone a mere 20 times, the lowest number for a quarterback with at least 640 attempts in NFL history.

Head-scratching.

The Providence Bruins were unable to close out the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Saturday night in their Eastern Conference semifinal matchup as the home side forced a Game 6 with a 4-0 win. The Bruins wouldn't go quietly as a late-game brawl brought fireworks and set the scene for their next meeting on Monday night.

Both Providence and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton combined for 113 penalty minutes in the game, with the bulk of the total coming after Bruins forward Graham Mink -- who had rolled over him just minutes before -- fell on top of Penguins goalie Brad Theissen after he froze the puck:

What a call by the Penguins voice Tom Grace and a nice warning to the Bruins that Steve MacIntyre lurks. And we have to applaud the arena music person for using the Ultimate Warrior's theme during the brawling.

The two teams weren't done getting at one another. Two minutes later, after Paul Thompson made it 4-0 (8:07 mark of video), Bruins netminder Niklas Svedberg took exception and slashed him in the back of the leg, setting off another round of scrums. Svedberg would get a two two-minute penalties for slashing and roughing.

Mink was given a match penalty for deliberate attempt to injure. According to AHL rules, he's fined $200 and the penalty will be reviewed by the league for supplemental discipline.

"I didn't say anything or do anything. It kind of happened. I'm not sure what provoked it," Thiessen (30 saves) told Jonathan Bombulie of the Citizens' Voice afterward. "Whatever they want to do, my job is still to stop the puck."

Follow Sean Leahy on Twitter at @Sean_Leahy