Rewind one year and remember how meaningless the last few weekends were in the NFL regular season. It’s all much different now, because there will be drama in this finish.
NO. 1 — SANFORD SAYONARA (249 points)
The situation was clear entering the season: Mike Sanford needed to go at least 6-6 and take UNLV to a bowl game or he was out as the Rebels’ football coach. After five losing seasons, change finally occurred at the top of UNLV football.
When he’s not getting sacked, Aaron Rodgers is one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks, and his maturation has helped turn around the fortunes of the Green Bay Packers this season.
Rancho boys basketball coach Melvin Shivers insists his team’s forwards can be difficult to defend.
Media scrutiny of Tiger Woods has shifted from his alleged romances in Las Vegas to the man credited with his recently robust physique.
A Christmas Day garage fire displaced three adults and four children, continuing a rash of fires that have displaced more than 100 people over a two-week period in the Las Vegas Valley.
When Michael Jackson died, Miss California talked her crown off and Tiger Woods drove his marriage into a tree, everybody knew it was only a matter of time before Las Vegas got involved.
You know the guy at the end of the New Year’s Eve party who’s puking in his glittery top hat?
The lousy economy. U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s infidelities. Michael Jackson’s death and subsequent investigation. The swine flu panic. They all made headlines in 2009, and they all made the top 10 news stories of the year, as voted on by the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s staff.