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By SHARON FINK, ROY LEBLANC, ANTHONY PEREZ, MIKE STEPHENSON and JIM TOMLIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 24, 2000
Highs
BROOKE BENNETT: The Valrico swimmer has become Tampa Bay's golden girl with two victories last week.
KEYSHAWN-JETS WEEK: It's over today, isn't it?. Please.
FSU-FLORIDA FOOTBALL: Sure, it's early, but being ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the country still is impressive, especially as often as these programs achieve it.
NBC'S OLYMPIC COVERAGE: America held hostage, Day 10.
OLYMPIC GYMNASTICS OFFICIALS: Picture the outcry if in the seventh inning of Game 7 of the World Series, somebody figured out the pitching mound is only 59 feet away from home plate. Or in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, one end zone is found to be only 9 feet deep. Now contrast that with the Olympic gymnastic world, where athletes train for their entire lives on a piece of equipment, doing complicated vaults off an apparatus that's of a precise width, depth and height. Except on the biggest day of these competitors' lives, the equipment is 2 inches off, and suddenly elite athletes are flopping like flounder, ruining their chances at glory. And the best Olympic officialdom can come up with is "Geez, we're sorry about that."
THE ORLANDO BROWN SAGA: Speaking of officials.... Of all the recent instances of incompetence by NFL officials, this is the saddest. A man's career, in limbo after he was released by Cleveland, might be over because a ref can't throw a flag down without beaning somebody and the NFL office doesn't much seem to care.