Mayock: From Haverford School to NFL Network

One thing Philly people generally have in common: They can talk. Basketball coaches from here can talk. Ballplayers from here can talk. (Best example: Philly helps keep NBC in business, from Chris Matthews on MSNBC to Jim Cramer on CNBC to Tina Fey all over your TV.)

Mike Mayock of the NFL Network isn't a look-at-me guy - his bluster level is low - but the Haverford School graduate can really articulate what he knows, and he knows football. If you see Mayock this week talking about the NFL draft - and if you care about the NFL draft, you can't miss him - understand that NFL personnel people consider Mayock to be on their level. He's done his film work. He isn't throwing darts at the draft board.

And Mayock paid his dues. I was there a couple of decades back, covering a Ridley High football game, when he got his start as the sideline reporter for the Ridley High radio network, which reached all the way to Prospect Park.

Here was a former Boston College and New York Giants defensive back working as the third guy on the team, because part of the deal was that a Ridley High student got to be the color commentator. Mayock didn't even have an ear piece. He couldn't hear what they were saying in the booth. Once in a while, they'd point down to him, he'd say what he was seeing from his view, then smoothly throw it back to the booth. A pro, even then.

The Miami Hurricanes hired 61-year-old George Mason coach Jim Larranaga. This makes more sense than trying to bring in the next hot young coach, since that coach would either fail in the Atlantic Coast Conference, or likely move to a better job if he achieves any degree of success.

Past performance remains the best indicator of future potential. Any college admissions counselor could tell you that. If Larranaga can get George Mason to a Final Four, and then beat Villanova in the NCAA tournament with an entirely separate group, he can win in a big-time league. And why should an athletic director or college president worry about anything but the next five years? Anybody who has been around Larranaga knows he isn't ready for assisted living.

A top prep football prospect and the brother of another prospect were among three people arrested for stealing iPods and iPhones from the lockers of seven University of Georgia players earlier this month during an open house - a kind of unofficial recruiting visit.

Maybe these guys got more on other recruiting visits?

The National Association of Black Journalists announced that former Inquirer and current ESPN staffer Claire Smith will receive its Legacy Award at an August convention in Philadelphia. The NABJ detailed the Bucks County native's pioneering work as a baseball writer for the Philadelphia Bulletin, Hartford Courant, New York Times and The Inquirer. Congrats to one of the classiest people to ever work in the business.

Don't want to hear "Phillies Nation" or " 'Nova Nation" or any other cliché name for a collection of fans. . . . Please don't refer to the score of a Union game as "one-nil'' or "a nil-nil draw." England may have invented soccer, but it hasn't won the World Cup in 41/2 decades and its national team coach is Italian. The rest of the world has moved on. "One-zip" is just fine, or if announcers want to go with soccer's actual international language, try "uno-cero" or "cero-cero," since Spain is now ground zero for the real innovation in the sport. . . . News anchors, don't say "Thank you so much" to reporters in the field when they finish talking. Same for a play-by-play man after a sideline reporter offers something. When did that over-effusive phrase become so commonplace? Why don't my editors say "Thank you so much" when I make deadline?