Cowboys leave fans tangled in web

The Dallas Cowboys took a walk deep into the past this week.

With another blowout loss Sunday night, America's Struggling Team returned to its inglorious 1963 season when it also lost seven of its first eight games. Upon the firing of coach Wade Phillips on Monday, fans were again thrown into the dark ages when they attempted to dial up the team's website, DallasCowboys.com.

The Dallas Morning News reported Tuesday that the Cowboys apparently failed to renew their registration of the website's domain name and the site was replaced with a generic page late Sunday.

For a time Monday, until the renewal was complete, the website showed a stock image of two children playing soccer -- probably more welcome than a photo of Phillips and owner Jerry Jones.

The website was back to normal Tuesday.

Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple had no information on the status of the website fumble. He said he only knows the website "goes down every now and then, they usually get it right back up again."

That's more than can be said about the down-and-downer status of the football team.

"Cowboys' team website vanishes as they are unable to string together three Ws," according to Fark.com.

■ SUBTERRANEAN RUNNERS -- The biggest names in the New York City Marathon on Sunday took more than five hours to finish the 26.2-mile race, a lot slower than winner Ethiopian Gebre Gebremariam's time of 2 hours, 8 minutes, 14 seconds.

Then again, Gebremariam didn't spend 69 days trapped in a Chilean mine like Edison Pena or rely on Subway sandwiches for nutrition like Jared Fogle, the event's media darlings.

Subway had confidence in pitchman Fogle. It took less than a day for an advertising blitz to promote the healthy merits of footlong subs.

The debate rages over which runner had the more grueling lead-up to the marathon.

■ TAILGATE POTTY -- Duke has canceled student tailgating activities for the upcoming Boston College football game after a teenager was found unconscious last weekend.

The Duke student newspaper, The Chronicle, reported the teenage sibling of a student was OK, but had been taken to an emergency room after being found unconscious in a portable toilet.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported the school's vice president for student affairs e-mailed students that the tailgate function "has long lost its value as a pre-football, spirit building activity and has become increasingly dangerous in every iteration."

How much more spirit-building can an event be than one where someone passes out in a porta-potty? And only Duke would use the word "iteration" in a message to its students.

Guidelines limited student groups to 30 cases of beer or nine cases per vehicle. Individuals were limited to a six pack.

Who wrote those rules, Budweiser or Coors?

COMPILED BY JEFF WOLF
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL