We have a chip on our shoulder

We have a chip on our shoulder.”It will not have escaped the attention of Washington devotees that another of their coaches, Joe Gibbs, lost his first five games when he took charge in 1981. Gibbs won three Super Bowls over the next decade: Schottenheimer, may yet have the last laugh.All smiles too for the much-maligned Pittsburgh quarterback, Kordell Stewart. Once hailed as the game’s next superstar, he has endured three seasons of mediocrity, his talent seemingly destined to remain unfulfilled. A strong showing at the end of last season offered hope, and he has continued the improvement into 2001.Under Stewart’s guidance, Pittsburgh negotiated an awkward trip to Nashville, their 34-24 win over the Tennessee Titans. Stewart threw for a season-high 254 yards, including two touchdowns, and also ran 48 yards for another.At the beginning of the season, Peyton Manning was regarded as a more likely Super Bowl quarterback, but his Indianapolis Colts have been one of the year’s major disappointments. Manning threw for 370 yards in his side’s 40-21 humbling at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers, but he also gave up four interceptions.The result effectively terminates Indianapolis aspirations, and may hasten the departure of their coach, Jim Mora.

“When you turn the ball over five times, four interceptions, you ain’t going to beat anybody,” he said “We threw the game away. It was pitiful, absolutely pitiful.”Unlike soccer, coaching casualties are rare during a gridiron season, but Mora is not the only man facing uncertainty. Tom Coughlin’s seven seasons at the helm in Jacksonville seem set to end following the Jaguars’ late capitulation against the Baltimore Ravens, while George Seifert’s three Super Bowls with San Francisco will cut little ice in Carolina, where the Panthers lost their 10th game in a row, 10-3 against Atlanta. Dick LeBeau may also be seeking employment following the Cincinnati Bengals’ lamentable 18-0 effort against the Cleveland Browns.No such concerns for New England’s Bill Belichick. When he lost his quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, early in the season, Patriot hopes looked bleak.

Bledsoe’s replacement, Tom Brady, has been the surprise of the season, however, and his four touchdown passes helped upset the New Orleans Saints 34-17.. Laura Hillenbrand struck a blow for female sportswriters yesterday when she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, worth £12,000 in all to the winner. Now, she is working on the movie version, which is expected some time next year.Seabiscuit (Fourth Estate) tells the story of a written-off race horse, trained by a nearly mute trainer and ridden by a one-eyed jockey, who in the late 1930s and early 1940s captured the imagination of the American sporting public with a string of victories.Asked what compelled her to write the book, Hillenbrand said: “I believe this is the greatest underdog story in sports history, not only because the horse was an underdog, but because the owner, trainer and jockey were as well. This is the kind of story that journalists wait a lifetime for.”Hillenbrand, who lives in Washington DC, collected a prize of £10,000 cash, a £1,000 free bet and a specially commissioned bound copy of her book, at a ceremony at London’s Sportspages bookshop.The other short-listed titles, each of which won £1,000 cash and a £750 free bet plus a leather bound copy, were: A Voyage For Madmen by Peter Nichols, about the fateful 1968 Golden Globe yacht race; Full Time, Tony Cascarino’s straight-talking autobiography told to a former William Hill winner, Paul Kimmage; Looking For a Fight, David Matthews’ account of his foray into professional boxing; and Kevin Mitchell’s examination of that sport’s brutality, War, Baby: The Glamour of Violence..

Britain’s faint hope of staging the 2005 World Championships in Sheffield following the collapse of plans to host it in London was swiftly eradicated yesterday. UK Athletics can apply and it will be evaluated with the other applicants.”A UK Athletics spokeswoman said: “This didn’t come as a great surprise… all the interested parties need to decide now whether Sheffield should bid.”The response in Monaco should make it clear that the way forward for UK Athletics is not via Sheffield. Instead, Moorcroft will turn his attention to ensuring that his sport gets the maximum share of the money saved by abandoning all intent of hosting an event that Tony Blair personally guaranteed would be held at Wembley stadium.Up to £40 million of Lottery money had been bid for to support the Sheffield bid, and Jowell has guaranteed the sport will receive another £8m for improvements around the now rejected Picketts Lock site in north London. Moorcroft’s task is to ensure that such funds do not shrink or become absorbed into regenerating sport in general at grass roots level.Meanwhile, the Council has rejected an appeal from the women’s triple jump world record holder, Inessa Kravets, against her two-year suspension imposed after testing positive for the male hormone testosterone in July last year.