He’s certainly been in enough of them.

The Missouri Valley tournament later this week in St. Louis will be the fifth conference meet in which Davis has appeared.

"I guess so," he said today. "I’ve never counted them up before."

Drake’s first-year coach sends his team into a 9:05 p.m. game Saturday against Wichita State. He earlier has been on the bench—but not always the head coach—in postseason tournaments in the East Coast Conference, Big East, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big Ten.

The one he wanted to be in, but wasn’t, rankled some other coaches.

"When I went to the Pac-10 (to coach Stanford), they didn’t have a postseason tournament," Davis explained. "I worked really hard, along with some of the other coaches, to try to get a tournament started.

"We got it passed, then I left (for Iowa). Some guys weren’t happy with me. Lute Olson said, ‘It wasn’t good that you got us in that tournament.’ There was a lot of disagreement on whether it was good for the Pac-10.

"They had it, then dropped it and now they have it again. My experience is that the players and the fans like postseason tournaments, but sometimes the coaches don’t enjoy them."

Drake lost its regular-season finale last night to Illinois State, 73-68, after blowing a 17-point lead in the last half.

Going into the game, Davis said the game "didn’t mean anything in the standings or the postseason."

But, upon further review, he said today, "I hate losing. Thinking back to when I worked camps when I first started in coaching, I hated losing. It just tore me up to lose, and that’s how I felt after last night’s game. I felt terrible."

I was the author of six parts of that package. SI contacted me about six weeks ago, asking if I’d give them my choices for the "Who and Where" segment, the "Hot Spot," the "All-Time Best," the "Memorable Quote," the "Greatest Moment" and "Numbers."

Over the years, I’ve done a considerable amount of free-lance work for Sports Illustrated, dating back to when I sent weekly football and basketball features about Iowa and Iowa State to the offices in New York City on Sunday mornings.

I pretty much had my mind made up about what I was going to write for SI on the "50 States in 50 Weeks" project. But I also picked the brains of fellow sportswriters Gene Raffensperger, Buck Turnbull and Dave Stockdale – all of whom are members of our mid-week lunch group – so they could offer suggestions on what I might send to SI.

I thought the choices turned out to be very good ones, and obviously SI agreed for the most part. The editors went along with my idea that Nile Kinnick, the standout player on Iowa’s 1939 Ironmen football team, should be the centerpiece of the state’s "Greatest Moment" because he starred in the upset victories over Notre Dame and Minnesota, and gave the most eloquent Heisman Trophy speech ever after winning the award later that year.

For the "Hot Spot," I picked 70,397-seat Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City because it not only is filled with emotion and history but it was sold out five times last season—a year in which the Hawkeyes had a 7-0 home record.

However, SI overruled me, giving the "Hot Spot" award to Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena. And, of course, the editors get the final vote. After all, it’s their magazine.

Don’t let it get around, but I still like my choice better. Carver-Hawkeye on its best Saturday night doesn’t have nearly the fire and the life that Kinnick Stadium has on its best Saturday afternoon.

When Brooks says something, I usually believe him. After all, he knows more about University of Iowa football and basketball than just about anyone I know. He was in the football stadium when Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Ironmen upset both Notre Dame and Minnesota in 1939, and he was kind enough to tell me a number of outstanding Hawkeye stories for my book, "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines."

However, excuse me while I tease Bob for a few seconds. He can occasionally be off-base. But I’m willing to forget what an observant eastern Iowa reader told me last November -- that Brooks predicted Washington of Cedar Rapids would beat Valley of West Des Moines in the state high school playoffs.

I’m afraid Bob was then letting his Cedar Rapids partiality show. Valley dominated Washington in a 17-7 victory at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls for its second consecutive state championship.

Maybe you didn’t know it, but there’s a guy who hangs around with the Chicago Cubs who is in uniform, sometimes pitches batting practice and flies on the team’s charter plane – but never plays.

His name is Julian Martinez, and he’s called Sammy Sosa’s assistant.

Just exactly what Martinez has to do as Sosa’s assistant isn’t clear to me.

But the Chicago newspapers say Sosa pays his salary and the Cubs provide him with meal money and a hotel room on the road.

And now Martinez’s job appears to be in jeopardy. He apparently is being thrown into the category of being called a "personal trainer." And baseball doesn’t think players such as Sosa and the New York Yankees’ Jason Giambi need personal trainers.

It’s all because of the current steroids investigation.

The only way the Cubs may have a way of keeping Martinez around is to name him the batting practice pitcher.

Stay tuned.

"The best solution is to cancel your subscription," I replied. "It works every time."

"Important message from Rush Limbaugh. Rosie O’Donnell is getting married in San Francisco. If you want to send her a gift, she is registered at Snap-On-Tools."

Lo and behold, this horse – a very long shot – won the race! Bubba was most interested to see what the priest did in the next race.

Sure enough, he watched the priest step out onto the track as the horses for the fifth race lined up, and placed a blessing on the forehead of one of the horses. Bubba made a beeline for the window and placed a small bet on the horse.

Again, even though another long shot, the horse the priest had blessed won the race. Bubba collected his winnings and anxiously waited to see which horse the priest bestowed his blessing on for the sixth race.

The priest showed, blessed a horse, Bubba bet on it and it won! Bubba was elated!

As the day went on, the priest continued blessing one of the horses, and it always came in first. Bubba began to pull in some serious money, and by the last race, he knew his wildest dreams were going to come true. He made a quick stop at the ATM, withdrew big money and awaited the priest’s blessing that would tell him which horse to bet on.

True to his pattern, the priest stepped out onto the track before the last race and blessed the forehead, eyes, ears and hooves of one of the horses. Bubba bet every cent, and watched the horse come in dead last. He was dumbfounded.

He made his way to the track and when he found the priest, he demanded, "What happened, Father? All day you blessed horses and they won. The last race, you blessed a horse and he lost. Now I’ve lost all my savings, thanks to you!"

The priest nodded wisely and said, "That’s the trouble with you Protestants. You can’t tell the difference between a simple blessing and the Last Rites."

"Nice story on Gruber. He’s a workhorse and I’ve enjoyed watching him in the PTL the last few years. The UNI guys really make their mark in the PTL and sometimes I wonder why Iowa didn’t pick up a few of them.

"I mean, Grant Stout for Ben Rand is a no-brainer."