Former Illini James Augustine was waived by the Orlando Magic Tuesday. The 6-foot-10 forward appeared in only a total of 27 games since being drafted in the second round of the 2006 draft.
In 25 games last season, Augustine averaged 1.6 points and 1.2 rebounds per game. The Magic’s current roster features forwards Rashard Lewis, Brian Cook and Tony Battie and are trying to resign Adonal Foyle after he opted out of his contract after last season.

Entry was written by Kevin Kaplan

As the new intern at the DI, this is my first day at the office.

Luckily for me, I did not have to spend much time pondering what this first article would be about since this day coincided with one of the most attention grabbing broadcasts in all of sports. As a welcome change of pace, this announcement did not involve steroids, NCAA violations or an arrest of any kind. Instead, it simply marked the departure of one of the most popular and successful athletes in sports history.

At a press conference in the early hours of Tuesday, March 4, Brett Favre announced his retirement effectively the end of an era. Maybe some expected him to quit after going 4-12 in 2006, but surely not after a season that had him firing a career-best 66.5 pass completion percentage. Regardless of outside perceptions, Favre called it quits, citing the fact that he did not have the mental strength left to win another Super Bowl.

As all of the cheeseheads begin their mourning, the rest of sports nation must figure out what to make of this. As an admitted fan of all St. Louis sports, I spent 2007 with modest hopes that my Rams would have a better season than the Miami Dolphins. It turned out to be no-contest, as the Rams went on a run towards the end of the season to triple Miami’s win total.

Unfortunately, the future doesn’t look particularly bright for the Rams, and the quarterback situation in St. Louis is in a state of uncertainty as starter Mark Bulger has faced his share of injuries in recent months. While I was still waiting for the Rams to win a game halfway through the season, Favre was busy dominating the NFC North, all the while looking like his old self and pushing memories of a 29 interception season behind him.

While this resurgence after 17 seasons in the league was inspiring in the eyes of many, it may have hurt the eyes of fans of another Midwestern team: the Chicago Bears.
Living in the conveniently centrally located city of Champaign, one may find fans of any variety of teams, but by far the largest fan-base is that of the Chicago Bears. With so many fans of “Da Bears” around, a person doesn’t have to spend much time in Champaign to find some animosity towards Favre. After all, as Favre cleaned up the NFC North en-route to a playoff loss to the eventual NFL champion New York Giants, the Bears found themselves at the bottom of the division with some major quarterback questions.

With a love-hate relationship between fans and Bears starting quarterback Rex Grossman and the trade of Brian Griese for a draft pick, Bears fans are left with about as much certainty as the Packers with likely 2008 starter Aaron Rodgers.

This puts fans of local NFL teams in interesting spots, as each of them face a degree of uncertainty with their quarterbacks. The thing is, regardless of what will happen in the future and no matter how good any of these teams become, there will never truly be another Brett Favre.

Rex Grossman can’t be mentioned in the same sentence as Favre, but neither can the current most famous/infamous Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Favre’s appeal was on a much higher level than just skills. Despite his problems, which he had just like every other human being, Favre symbolized all the good things about the game.

Now he symbolizes a different era of football that has now officially ended.

The showdown is set for Super Bowl XLII and it could be one of the less sexy match ups.

This Super Bowl has the potential to be a dud, as the 18-0 Patriots will look to beat up on the somehow still alive Giants, and repeat their performance when they came out on top in Week 17, 38-35. My lack of enthusiasm could be rooted in the fact that I am sick of the love fest that is Patriots and Tom Brady. (Does every guy have a man crush on him? It must be his new cologne.) The only thing that would have made this Super Bowl worse would have been if the Packers and “I must hate Aaron Rodgers because I won’t retire” Favre were the NFC Champs. (By the way, nice job on throwing that interception to pretty much end the game and possibly your career.)

Honestly, the Pats seem like they are on a mission and won’t be stopped until they win it all. They want to go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest team in NFL history and become the next ‘72 Dolphins, especially after the whole “Spygate” scandal.

As for the Giants, they definitely took the hard route to the Super Bowl, having to beat the Bucs, Cowboys and Packers, all on the road. Plus they received the honor of playing in the third coldest game in playoff history (minus-3 degrees temperatures and wind-chill of minus-24), which was clearly evident based on Tom Coughlin’s frostbitten face.

Eli Manning has had to play his best football and he has done just that. In 85 pass attempts this post season, Manning has zero interceptions. No other post season quarterback this year can say that. And yes, we are talking about the right Manning. While Peyton does have a Super Bowl ring, it took him much long than his younger brother to have that chance. Eli is currently in his fourth year in the NFL. It took Peyton nine years to get to the Super Bowl.

And now Peyton is taking advice from Eli.

Lawrence Tynes should be thanking the stars that he made that 47-yard field goal because I’m pretty sure Coughlin would have cut him before he had even gotten back to the sideline. Tynes hit the game-winner, which was the longest made by a Packers’ opponent in their playoff history.

Hopefully this game turns out better than I think it will. The Giants did play some of their best football of the year against the Pats and had many opportunities to close them out and win the game. The Giants are yet again in charge of preventing the Patriots from reaching perfection, this time from 19-0.