Sports

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

If all goes according to plan, tomorrow is the day the sun shines bright, the people are gay, and the birds make music all the day, for it is the first Saturday in May, Kentucky Derby day. But long before the horses are off racing in the greatest two minutes in sports - that's a trademark phrase, by the way - there is one man all eyes will be on, and his name is Mike Battaglia. He sets the morning line at Churchill Downs and has joined us from a trailer next to the racetrack to tell us about handicapping horses.

It's spring, the season when many college students are cramming for final exams. But it's also when some college seniors must prove they can literally stay afloat.

A swim test is still a graduation requirement on a handful of U.S. campuses, mostly in the Northeast. For seniors who have been putting off the exam, it's time to sink or swim.

A Shrinking Tradition

On a recent evening, a handful of seniors at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., gather nervously at the edge of the campus pool, waiting to take the last swim test of the school year.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Tomorrow, as we look ahead to this summer's Olympic Games in London, we'll report on one event and the one country that's best at it. Today, a word about that event. It's the one that crowns the world's fastest human. Four years ago, in Beijing, that was a Jamaican named Usain Bolt.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And a fair start. Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt is also out well. Here they come down the track. Usain Bolt sprinting ahead - winning by daylight.

News recently broke that New Orleans Saints' coaches were giving bonuses to their players for hard hits. The NFL responded by suspending coaches and now, players. The sports world was also shocked by the apparent suicide of Junior Seau, who played for the San Diego Chargers. Host Michel Martin talks with sports reporters Dave Zirin and Pablo Torre.

NEW YORK (AP) — New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma has been suspended without pay for the entire 2012 season by the NFL. He was one of four players suspended Wednesday. Defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove, now with the Green Bay Packers, is suspended for eight games, while Saints defensive end Will Smith is barred for four games. Linebacker Scott Fujita will miss three games and all of the suspensions are without pay. 

While the signs so far point to suicide, there aren't yet any really revealing clues to why former NFL star Junior Seau apparently killed himself Wednesday.

About all there is so far is a hint that, in retrospect, Seau may have said some goodbyes. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that:

Former NFL linebacker Junior Seau was found dead of a gunshot wound to the chest, in what authorities believe is an apparent suicide. His body was discovered at his home in Oceanside, Calif., Wednesday. Seau was 43.

At 28, long jumper Shameka Marshall is training for her last shot at the Olympics. Her attempts to make the team in 2004 and 2008 didn't work out, so this year, she's working hard toward the U.S. track and field team trials in June.

Just 5-foot-2, Marshall also coaches track and field at Temple University in Philadelphia. But before Marshall or her students can practice the long jump, they need to clean the sandpit. On this day, it's Dylan Pensyl's turn.

The prosecution at the perjury trial of baseball great Roger Clemens suffered another major setback Wednesday. One of its key witnesses, pitcher Andy Pettitte, conceded that he may have misunderstood his former teammate as saying he used human growth hormone (HGH).

Clemens is charged with lying to Congress when he testified before a House committee that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.