Convicted child sex offender and murderer Jesse Joe Hernandez took his love for "America's Team" literally to the grave.

Before receiving his lethal injection Wednesday, Hernandez "blessed" the audience attending the execution and then shouted "Go Cowboys!" according to the Associated Press.

As the drugs took hold, he again thanked the viewing gallery and said, "I can feel it, taste it. It's not bad."

Hernandez's execution, the fourth this year in Texas, was carried out after he was convicted in the beating death of 10-month-old Karlos Borja, whom he was baby-sitting in Dallas 11 years ago. Borja's 4-year-old sister was also found with similar injuries but survived. Hernandez was already a convicted child sex offender at the time of the incident.

While there are no complete records on this, Hernandez is far from alone in invoking his favorite sports team just before being executed by the state.

In October, 2010, convicted murderer Jeffrey Landrigan was executed in Arizona for an apparent robbery-turned-killing. A prison official said Landrigan's final words were, "Boomer Sooner."

Landrigan, though executed in Arizona, hailed from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and was a big fan of the Sooners.

At one time, there was no more famous nor more sought-after basketball player than Allen Iverson. Dubbed "The Answer" to a Michael Jordan-less NBA, Iverson scored numerous record-setting deals and endorsements.

In NBA salary alone, he earned about $154 million, according to basketball-reference.com.

Now, a judge in Georgia has ordered Iverson to pay the $860,000 he apparently owes a jeweler, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The problem is, he didn't have the cash to pay the jeweler, so the judge has ordered his bank accounts commandeered and his earnings garnished.

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After being a defensive All Star in the NBA for nearly two decades, Dikembe Mutombo made a name for himself as a humanitarian and champion of good causes in his native Africa. He even built a hospital and named it after his mother in his home country of Congo.

That profile stands in sharp contrast to a Houston Chronicle report that the world-renowned humanitarian has been implicated in a scheme that saw a Houston investor shorted more than $10 million in a deal to buy 1,045 pounds of gold from the mines of eastern Congo in November, 2010.

In fact, the deal went down just two weeks after Mutombo had met with State Department officials to discuss the problem of illegal mineral sales from the deeply troubled and mineral-rich eastern Congo region.

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As the lockout-shortened NBA season quickly approaches, and a frantic free agency period prepares to kick off, one of the league's star players appears to be trying to leverage a move not unlike LeBron James' flight from Cleveland before last season.

Chris Paul, the All-Star point guard for the New Orleans Hornets, told the team through his agent that he won't sign a contract extension with them, reports Yahoo! Sports.

Paul's agent also said he is seeking a trade to the New York Knicks, where one of his best friends, Carmello Anthony, currently has a starring role.

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Two Iranian soccer players have been suspended from the country's professional soccer league and may face a public lashing on the pitch for an "immoral" goal-scoring celebration, according to numerous reports.

Mohammed Nosrati of popular Tehrani club Persepolis was seen on television squeezing the backside of teammate Sheis Rezaei during a goal celebration. In a scene that was viewed live by millions in the strictly conservative Islamic Republic, Nosrati appears to try to shove his hand between the buttocks of Rezeai, who had leaped on top of other teammates in celebration of a game-winning goal.

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The voice of Hank Williams Jr. has become one with Monday Night Football, and he has opened the telecast for nearly 20 years, rhetorically asking America: "Are you ready for some football?"

Apparently, ESPN, the newish TV home of the NFL's Monday night telecast, wasn't ready for Hank Williams Jr.'s rant on the Fox News show "Fox and Friends." (Clip below.)

Williams was being interviewed via telecast when he was asked what he thought about President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner playing golf together recently.

Williams responded: "That'd be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu."

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By many independent accounts, the Cincinnati Bengals stink, and their longtime quarterback, Carson Palmer, was very vocal about his dissatisfaction there.

Many dismissed Palmer's threat to retire at the age of 32 unless they traded him as a ploy, but the Bengals said Tuesday that they expect him to make good on that threat.

"I honesty like Carson Palmer. He was a splendid player for us," the Bengals' owner Mike Brown said Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. "He is a good person. I wish him well and he has retired. That is his choice. I'm not expecting him to be back. Carson signed a contract, he made a commitment. If he is going to walk away from his commitment we aren't going to reward him for doing it."

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The ethos of toughness in football can be boiled down to seven words: If you can walk, you can play.

That probably had a lot to do with the negative reaction of many current and former NFL players when Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler did not go back on the field after only a few plays in the second half of the NFC Championship Game on Sunday.

Now, however, reports from the Chicago Sun-Times and team officials indicate those nay-sayers who doubted Cutler's toughness in the Bears' 21-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers were wrong.

It turns out, Cutler could not really walk.

Cutler had a medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury to his left knee in Sunday's game, the team said. The Sun-Times called Cutler's injury a "Grade II tear, meaning it will take three to four weeks to heal."

The Bears said Cutler would have been "questionable" had the team made the Super Bowl.

Cutler underwent an MRI on Monday and was at Halas Hall, the Bears' practice facility, the Associated Press reports. He did not make himself available to the media and declined comment on the criticism after the game.

Among the many current and former players who piled on Cutler after the game was legendary former Bears coach and current ESPN analyst Mike Ditka, who said: "I can't speak for Jay Cutler. I can't speak for anybody. Myself, I would have had to have been paralyzed to come out of the game. I don't want to say that word. I would have had to be completely knocked out to come out of that football game."

Bears coach Lovie Smith tried to take some of the heat off Cutler when he told ESPN on Monday that Cutler "wanted to go back in."

Lance Armstrong has tested negative for performance enhancing drugs on countless occasions. He counts among his friends and supporters former presidents and some of the world's biggest celebrities. He is also among the most prominent spokespeople for eradicating cancer and helping those suffering with it.

Regardless, journalists and federal prosecutors just won't let the now-retired legendary cyclist be.

A federal investigator experienced at probing performance enhancing drug use in U.S. sports who already nabbed track star Marion Jones and baseball great Barry Bonds has barely concealed his continued investigation into Armstrong's alleged use of PEDs.

Now, Sports Illustrated magazine has sent two of its investigative journalists on the trail to uncover evidence of Armstrong's alleged use of PEDs. They will report the full findings in the magazine on newsstands on Wednesday, but in the meantime, they have leaked evidence that they believe may link Armstrong to "the saddest deception in sports history."

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The Oakland Raiders have hired Hue Jackson, their offensive coordinator last season, to lead the team, according to the team's website.

The Raiders fired former coach Tom Cable, despite turning around the franchise after several embarrassing years, following the end of the regular season. In three seasons, Cable accumulated a 17-27 record, always finishing third in the AFC West. In his last season, he went 8-8.

Cable's relationship with the Raiders was a rocky one. He allegedly punched out an assistant coach before the start of his first full season as head coach in 2009. During the last season, he filed a grievance claim against owner Al Davis, claiming the team had withheld $120,000 from his paychecks, NBC Sports reports.

Jackson, 45, was brought to Oakland from the Baltimore Ravens by Davis to fix its struggling offense in 2010. In his first year as offensive coordinator, the team finished sixth in the NFL in scoring, with 25.6 points per game, and doubled its scoring total from the previous year.

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Apart from the New England Patriots' post-season dominance in recent years, the New York Jets and their AFC rivals, the Patriots, have a surprisingly even head-to-head record; they are 51-51-1 in all-time matchups.

Yet off the field, they have remarkably different ways of going about their business. Ahead of Saturday's Divisonal Playoff matchup between the teams, the Jets, led by their larger-than-life coach Rex Ryan, have been hurling invectives in the Patriots direction.

The Patriots players, perhaps taking a cue from their all-business head coach Bill Belichick, have been relatively quiet.

The verbal jabs began right after the Jets beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Wild Card round of the Playoffs.

Ryan told reporters: "There's nobody like (Colts quarterback Peyton Manning) in the league. Nobody studies like him. I know (Patriots quarterback Tom) Brady thinks he does. I think there's probably a little more help with (New England coach Bill) Belichick with Brady than there is with Peyton Manning."

Translation: Brady thinks he's all that, but he's no Peyton Manning.

Ryan followed that up by saying: "This is about Bill Belichick vs. Rex Ryan. There's no question. It's personal. It's about him versus myself, and that's what it's going to come down to."

Belichick responded as he often does, providing little in the way of good tabloid fodder: "They're a good football team across the board: good on offense, defense and special teams. They beat the Colts in Indianapolis. We all know how tough that is. Everything concerns me [with them]. They're good across the board."

Pete Prisco: Pre-Game Babble is Meaningless

Everything's all good now, right? Not so fast. Jets Cornerback Antonio Cromartie then ripped into Brady, calling him an "a**hole," adding, "That's the kind of guy he is."

Brady responded as cool as a cucumber: "I've been called worse. I'm sure there is a long list of people that feel that way."

The Jets then claimed that Brady was only putting on a front, adding that, in fact, Brady really does enjoy taunting them.

Ryan claimed: "They're saying a lot worse about me and others here, maybe it just wasn't printed"

During the 45-3 drubbing the Patriots handed the Jets at the end of the regular season, Brady allegedly taunted them from the field.

Jets defensive lineman Shaun Ellis said: "It's just his body language and things like that. When they scored, he'd look over to our sideline and do a little body language and all that. He doesn't like the Jets. Any time he gets a chance to rub it in our face, he's going to do it. For us, it's just a matter of we want to see him on the ground as much as possible."

With barely 48 hours to go until all that talk must become action, there is plenty of time for the Patriots to rise and take the Jets bait. If they do, we may never hear about it.

Patriots tight end Alge Crumpler perhaps summed it up best, telling reporters, "As I said the last time we played, their team takes after their coach. We take after ours. It all boils down to what you do on the field."

His quarterback is doing what many say is the right thing by shunning instant millions and staying in college to pursue his degree. Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh, however, is striking while his popularity iron is hot by bolting down the road to the struggling San Francisco 49ers franchise, reports ESPN.com.

The deal between the two sides is for 5 years and is worth $25 million, ESPN reports.

Harbaugh will leave behind what some say is the country's best college quarterback, Andrew Luck, a projected number one overall pick in this year's NFL draft, who announced Thursday he was spending one more year in sunny Palo Alto.

The 49ers have had a pair of disappointing seasons in a row with Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary as their head coach, whom they fired with one game remaining this season and two years left on his contract.

Harbaugh is 58-27 overall as a college coach and 29-21 in four seasons at Stanford. He took over a 1-11 team when he was hired in December 2006 and quickly transformed the program. The Cardinal set a school record for victories this season by going 12-1.

Standford capped their successful season with a 40-12 Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech.

Harbaugh had reportedly also mulled offers from the Denver Broncos, Miami Dolphins and the University of Michigan, where he once played quarterback.

Continuing his long road to recovery from paralysis, Rutgers Football defensive tackle Eric LeGrand now has movement in his shoulders and "full sensation" in his body, reports the Newark Star-Ledger.

In an earlier announcement, the school had said LeGrand only had feeling in his hands.

LeGrand, a native of Avenel, N.J., was paralyzed while covering a kickoff Oct. 16 against Army. He is rehabbing at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, the Star-Ledger reports.

In his first interview since the injury, LeGrand told ESPN that he he had "the fear of death" and that he felt he "could pass out and die" lying on the turf at New Meadowlands Stadium immediately after the injury, the Star-Ledger reports.

LeGrand, who has been breathing without a ventilator since November, said that he tried to give a thumb's up to the crowd as he was carted off the field but couldn't. He said he felt as if "1,000 pounds was on this thumb" as he tried to move it.

The full interview with LeGrand will air during the 9 a.m. edition of SportsCenter on ESPN Friday. After it airs, it will be posted in its entirety on scarletknights.com, the Star-Ledger reports.

CHEEKTOWAGA, New York (CBS/AP) - Russia's Junior Hockey Team celebrated their stunning comeback from a 3-goal deficit in the finals of the World Junior Hockey Championships a little too long and hard this week.

About 30 members of Team Russia were booted from their Delta Air Lines flight from Buffalo, N.Y., to Atlanta Thursday morning, "to ensure the safe operation of the flight," a Delta spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

The team was "displaying unruly behavior," the spokeswoman said. Buffalo radio station WGRZ said they were drunk.

Russia's Junior Hockey Team consists of players all aged 20 and younger.

While there are no confirmed reports the hockey players themselves were drinking, the AP reports that, an hour and a half after the upset win, several Russian coaches and trainers came on the ice - one holding a bottle of Crown Royal Canadian whisky and others sipping from paper cups - to pose for pictures in front of the scoreboard that had been lowered to ice level after the game.

Russia's junior players celebrated wildly after they overcame a three-goal deficit in the third period to stun Canada 5-3 in the gold-medal game Wednesday night, the AP reports. It was the country's first gold medal since 2003.

Buffalo Niagara International Airport spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer told the AP that, after leaving the flight, the group headed to the baggage terminal to collect their belongings, which were taken off the plane.

Tournament officials had no immediate comment.

The Russians proved to be the comeback kids during the 11-day tournament, the AP reports. They reached the final by overcoming third-period deficits to win their previous two games.

They weren't counted among the favorites in a tournament that featured Canada and the defending champion United States, the AP reports. Russia was also coming off an embarrassing sixth-place finish last year.