Big scoop: Gailey's got his trouble licked: with Georgia Tech on the verge of a breakout season, life is sweet—and it's fat-free

One of the true good guys in the game recently conquered the only vice that ever consumed him. Chart Galley gave up ice cream. The fully loaded kind, anyway.

Georgia Tech's fiery, funny coach has accepted the freak circumstances of his recent heart attack. He understands that despite being in relatively good shape, despite his age (53) and daily physical activity (he's a racquetball nut), one of his arteries was 100 percent blocked and that led to some tense moments on the operating table last month.

But fat-free ice cream? "It's that or that yogurt stuff," Gailey says.

He can joke about it now because, well, wouldn't you if you were walking around and coaching less than three weeks after things got more than a little dicey in the only game that really matters?

Look, Gailey worked for Jerry Jones in the NFL. The most demanding owner at the most difficult level of play. Don't think a heart attack is going to keep him from spring practice. Especially with Tech on the verge of a breakout season.

Gailey knows that life trumps football. But he also knows the most important factor in coaching 19-year-old kids: Players are a reflection of their coach.

"If I ask a player to (play) when he's hurt, how can I do anything less?" Gailey says.

He was jogging around the practice field last week, moving from station to station and coaching and motivating as he always does. Doctors say he can resume playing racquetball in August. But he's got more important things to do.

Like winning Tech's first ACC title since 1998.

speed reads

Some local luminaries are incensed that Minnesota ,s selling the naming rights to a proposed on-campus stadium for $35 million, it's OK, however, when a local donor provides a "gift" of $900,000 to help fund the new $2 million soccer stadium--named after the donor's mother? Let's stop the grandstanding. Everything is for sale in college sports.

Jerry Glanville has joined the Hawaii staff as an assistant coach. What's next, Buddy Ryan hitches up and brings along the ol' 46 to do something with that awful Hawaii defense?

Too many coaches preach about helping players emotionally and socially and "not giving up" on them when they consistently make poor decisions off the field, Then a player allegedly commits murder, and everyone is shocked. Arizona State tailback Loren Wade--arrested in the killing of a former ASU football player--had remained on the team despite reportedly having made threats against at least two ASU female athletes. Shouldn't coach Dirk Koetter have kicked Wade off the team then? it wasn't "helping" to keep Wade around.

         THEN                  Go Time                    NOW

                            Hal Mumme then
                              (Kentucky)
                                 vs.
                            Hal Mumme now
                          (New Mexico State)

     Incomplete,              Offensive           At least we're not
     incomplete,              philosophy          running the option.
incomplete. Go for it
   on fourth down.
 Free admission to UK       Sales pitch to       The first atomic bomb
     hoops games.              recruits           was exploded here!
      40-34 over             Biggest win            Somehow landing
   Alabama in 1997.                             another Division I job.
A glass ceiling in the        Prospects          A couple of seven-win
  SEC East Division                                seasons, and some
under Florida, Georgia                           desperate BCS school
    and Tennessee.                                will take a chance.

What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?

Two quick thoughts:

The beauty of it is the comedic irony: Last week, a Texas state senator introduced a bill that would ban state teams from playing in postseason championship games that are not part of a national playoff.

* What's more important in Texas: a) college football or b) the economy, the education system and illegal immigration along the Mexican border? Wait, don t answer that.

* We now can say Texas fans have officially given up on beating Oklahoma, winning the Big 12 and claiming the same BCS grail everyone else is after.

Why else would Sen. Jeff Wentworth, the bill's originator, try to push through a system--odds are a gazillion to one against it--that must "consist of at least 16 teams competing in successive elimination games resulting in a final game for the national championship of that entire division or level of intercollegiate competition"?

Holy moly. I feel like I'm watching Blazing Saddles.

The esteemed Mr. Wentworth: "I didn't get a Harumph! from that guy!"

Meek senator concerned about education: "Harumph! Harumph!"

Get beat in the Holiday Bowl, and embrace humility. Win the Rose Bowl, and bring back the bravado, baby.

Please, for the love of God, just beat Oklahoma.

INSIDE DISH