After listening to Tiger Woods apologize over and over Friday, and reading and watching countless pro and con discussions of what he said and how he said it, I’m sticking with a gut reaction which was the same as that of ABC’s George Stephanopoulus. Simply put, it was the most extraordinary confession by a public person I’ve ever heard. Everyone who has belittled Woods, who is skeptical of his sincerity, who thought he was too robotic, should try to stand up before a world-wide audience and confess the most grievous sins in their life. The most powerful person in sports has been humbled, humiliated, ridiculed, become a punchline for jokes, taken a financial beating and may still lose his family. So what else do we want from him? In this opinion, he’s not an actor and that wasn’t a contrived performance. For those who knock him for reading off a script, what difference does it make if he wrote the words and they came from the heart? One thing that fairly screamed sincerity to me was that golf remains on the back burner. To me, that indicates he’s making a total commitment to try and get it right with his wife. Why that conclusion? Because this was the year the stars were aligned for him to win two, maybe three majors and close in on Jack Nicklaus’ 18. But back to the point about this being the most extraordinary confession by a public official. Could John F. Kennedy have done what Tiger did, had he not been president when the media looked the other way? We know Bill Clinton and so many other elected officials and religious leaders who got caught red-handed couldn’t have. We know Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and many other sports stars can’t. Give the man credit for giving himself such a harsh public flogging, and be patient enough to see if his long-term actions ultimately lend credence to his words.

Memorial will easily be making the longest trip of any high school football team in Southeast Texas next fall. Titans coach Kenny Harrison, scrambling to get a game in week three, finally settled on a home-and- home with 4A Alice. If you think that’s almost to Mexico, you’re right. The deep South Texas city of 20,000 is 90 miles from Nuevo Laredo. Harrison’s only other option at the time he agreed to play Alice was DeSoto the week before Memorial opens District 21-5A play against North Shore. Like many coaches, he prefers to have an open date before district play starts. After talking to former TJ coach Mike Owens about DeSoto, and being told they are a physically-punishing type team, Harrison swallowed hard and took the games with Alice . . . Owens, by the way, will be bringing his Tyler Lee Red Raiders to Beaumont to play West Brook on Sept. 25. West Brook coach Craig Stump, of course, was the quarterback for Owens’ very first TJ team in 1982 and led the Yellow Jackets to a 10-1 record before signing with Texas A&M.; His Bruins should be loaded next year, but they face a daunting schedule that includes Katy and Tyler Lee back-to-back . . . The folks at Texas Football were obviously paying attention to what Brandon Faircloth accomplished in his first season at PN-G. Faircloth’s Indians, coming off a 11-1 season, will open their 2010 schedule against Gregory-Portland in San Antonio’s Alamodome as part of the Toyota Tundra Texas Football Classic on Saturday, Aug. 28. Indians fans should take note that kickoff time is set for 3:45 p.m.

Lincoln ex Jordan Babineaux played so well and was so durable in his first season as the Seattle Seahawks starting free safety that he trigged an incentive clause in his contract the Seahawks never expected to have to pay. Babineaux, aka “Big Play Babs,” was on the field for 1,008 of Seattle’s 1,024 defensive plays in 2009, earning himself a contract bump from $1.45 million to $2.6 million. He ranked second on the team with a career best 104 tackles and was second with 75 solo tackles. He also had 1.5 quarterback sacks, two interceptions and a forced fumble. Jordan is an amazing story for a guy who played college football at out-of-sight Southern Arkansas and stuck in the NFL as an undrafted free agent . . . If Jerry Jones calls to ask me what I think the Cowboys need to do to upgrade their receiver position, I’d tell him to trade Roy Williams to Denver for Brandon Marshall. The Broncos are desperately trying to move Marshall because of “attitude problems” and the Cowboys are stuck with trying to justify all the draft picks they gave away for the underachieving Williams. Everybody would be a winner in this deal because Wade Phillips is the kind of coach who could get the best out of Marshall, while Williams, despite his shortcomings, is probably a better player than Denver is going to be able to get from any other team . . . Here’s one of the main reasons the University of Texas is listening to overtures from the Big Ten. Numbers provided by ESPN show the Big Ten made $242 million in TV revenue last year. The Big 12, meanwhile, made approximately $80 million. Some folks in the know are saying Missouri and Texas A&M; will join Texas to make the Big Ten the Big 14 by 2015.

Count me among the ever-growing list of critics of former Indiana and Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight as an analyst on ESPN’s Big Monday. Knight is too technical for the average fan, gives the impression that he’s flying by the seat of his pants rather than coming in prepared and seldom goes three possessions without ragging on somebody for taking a shot too early in a possession. He and play-by-play man Brent Musberger are a huge step down from the duo they replaced — Ron Franklin and Fran Fraschilla. A radio station in Kansas City, WHB, got so many calls from fed up viewers it purchased the Web address byebyebrentandbob.com. In addition to targeting the efforts of Knight and Musberger, the site encourages upset viewers to sign a protest petition that will be presented to Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe at the conference tournament . . . Has a No. 1 ranked team every fallen faster and farther than the University of Texas? By losing for the sixth time in nine games Wednesday night at Missouri, Rick Barnes’ Longhorns pretty much guaranteed they will drop completely out of the top 25 a mere five weeks after sitting atop the AP poll. Among other shortcomings, UT’s 61 percent free throw shooting ranks 323rd in the nation. That’s right 323rd. Without Port Arthur freshman J’Covan Brown, who is No. 3 nationally at .913, on 63-of-69, the Longhorns would no doubt be at the very bottom of the barrel. If you can’t shoot free throws, you can’t win close games . . . How tough is conference play in college basketball? So tough that only four teams — Kansas in the Big 12, Butler in the Horizon, Murray State in the Ohio Valley and Sam Houston State in the Southland — were undefeated in league play entering the weekend.

The winter issue of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football is out, featuring reviews of 2009 college and high school seasons, a recruiting analysis and the All-Texas high school and college teams. Congratulations to PN-G defensive back Dre Dunbar for being the only player from Southeast Texas chosen to the All-Texas High School first team. Dunbar authored the biggest single-game impact I saw by a defensive player all year in the Indians’ season-opening 21-20 victory over Barbers Hill. He returned a fumble 41 yards for a touchdown, returned three interceptions for 141 yards and had a 51-yard kickoff return. West Orange-Stark’s Earl Thomas, a big-hitting, big-play safety at UT, was the lone area player on the All-Texas college team . . . After the NBA All-Star game at JerryWorld drew a record crowd reported at 108,713, league officials are talking about putting the Arlington venue on a short list of stadiums that will host the blowout every few years. And Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is hinting he might be inclined to play a regular season game or two in Jethro’s billion dollar facility. One footnote about that attendance. It wasn’t all paid. Included in the count were 1,500 media members. And the cynic in me says there were many thousand give-aways . . . Most ridiculous aspect of the Tiger Woods fallout from Friday was a couple of his lounge lizards claiming they were upset that he didn’t apologize to them. Say what? Isn’t it enough they willingly participated, took payoffs to keep quiet, then sold their stories to the scandal sheets and TMZs of the world? Now they want an apology for their 15 minutes of fame?

Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net.