Monday, July 6, 2009.

If you get the Sporting News, you may have been flipping through the new issue when it arrived. And when you got to page 56, the first thing that caught your eye was a two-page color photo of a Boise backdrop, with a familiar face in the foreground. It was a four-page feature on Boise State coach Chris Petersen and what makes him tick--and his desire to stay here. "Mountain Man," reads the headline, as the story differentiates Petersen from his BSU predecessors. "By always preparing for the worst, Chris Petersen has turned Boise State into the best non-BCS program in college football--and a place he'd like to be for awhile," writes SN's Matt Hayes.

Dirk Koetter, Dan Hawkins and Petersen have taken BSU to unprecedented heights the past 10 years. Hawkins and Petersen appeared to be joined at the hip in their years together with the Broncos. But while Dan Hawkins is the eternal optimist, Hayes labels Pete a "pessimistic perfectionist," who can work out of negatives and be successful. "When you're a pessimist, you always have an answer for the worst-case scenario," said Petersen in the story. Like 4th-and-18 at midfield with 18 seconds left in the Fiesta Bowl. The comment served as a launching pad for Hayes' sharing of the story of the coach's son, Sam, and his battle with cancer (that's now gone). That was a worst-case scenario with a very happy outcome.

The common thread through the article is why "the best young coach in college football" is stuck on Boise. Hayes traces the rise of the program back to 1997, Houston Nutt's one year with the Broncos. Said Nutt, "There's something about that place. If that opportunity [to return to my home state and coach at Arkansas] hadn't been there, I could've been perfectly happy coaching in Boise for a long time." Dirk Koetter, of course, got the school its first Division I-A conference championship and bowl win. "If I would've known what I know now, maybe [leaving for Arizona State] wasn't the greatest move," said Koetter.

Hawkins, who is still trying to make it happen at Colorado, waxes poetic about Boise, too. But what matters right now is Petersen, who said, "The thing I figured out is a bigger stadium has nothing to do with my happiness. It's the city you live in, the people you're surrounded by; that's what it's all about. The grass isn't always greener--or bluer--on the other side."

This was released late Thursday, on the cusp of the holiday weekend, but I've got to include it today. That would be Kyle Wilson's naming to the 2009 Playboy Preseason All-America team. The magazine doesn't go two-deep--this is an elite group. And it's a good omen for Wilson, since former teammate Ryan Clady was also a Playboy Preseason All-American in 2007. All Clady did was draw a first round draft selection by Denver the following spring. One important entity, USA Today, has already projected Wilson as a first-rounder in 2010.

What once looked unthinkable is a remote possibility for the Boise Burn. The door to an af2 West Division championship is slightly ajar after a shocking loss by Spokane Saturday night. The previously undefeated Shock went down at the hands of the Iowa Energy, 54-48, and suddenly the Burn are one game behind in the West. What has to happen? The Burn need to win their next two games, and Spokane needs to lose one to set up a winner-take-all matchup for the division title in the regular season finale between the two teams July 25 in Qwest Arena.

The Boise Hawks, trying desperately last night to break a five-game losing streak, rapped 10 hits in the first five innings, all of them singles. The 7-2 lead they consequently took in the fifth over Eugene was their largest of the season. But nothing is a given for this summer's struggling Hawks, as the Emeralds scored five runs in the ninth to tie it at 7-7. Then in the 10th, Emmanuel Quiles boomed a solo home run over the leftfield wall, and it looked like it was going to be another one of those. But the Hawks' George Matheus singled in the tying run in the bottom of the 10th, and while Matt Williams was trying to go from first to third on the play, Eugene let a throw get away. Williams scored, and instead of a monstrously deflating 8-7 loss, Boise notched a 9-8 win. The Hawks face the Ems again tonight at Memorial Stadium.

Now that Andy Roddick was part of the greatest Wimbledon men's final in history, we'll dust off the fact that he was once part of Boise's World Team Tennis franchise. Roddick played for the Idaho Sneakers during his first days as a professional, as a 17-year-old in the summer of 2000. He gave Roger Federer a match for the ages yesterday, finally falling in the fifth set 16-14, the longest final set ever in a Grand Slam event.

This Day In Sports...July 6, 1933:

Called the "Game Of The Century" and played in conjunction with the Chicago World's Fair, baseball's first All-Star game is played at Comiskey Park. Babe Ruth rose to the occasion, smacking a two-run homer in the third to lead the American League All-Stars to a 4-2 win over the National League. The Sultan of Swat's Yankee, teammate, Lefty Gomez, got the win before over 49,000 fans.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB's Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 1350 KTIK/The Ticket. He also handles color commentary on KTVB's telecasts of Boise State football.)

---