EDYTA > GEORGE NOVAK, WANNY, SABAN...

Anyone else intrigued by the ongoing Jason Taylor saga? If you haven't been paying attention to the Miami Dolphins' offseason, you probably aren't aware that the former Defensive Player of the Year (and Pittsburgher) is rather focused on his dancing/post-football career these days.

The blog Sean's Ramblings noted that on the recent season finale of Dancing With the Stars, JT remarked that dancing partner Edyta Sliwinska was the best coach he ever had.

And while she's certainly in better shape than legendary Woodland Hills coach George Novak (who coached Taylor during his teenage years), it was a pretty big shot at all of Taylor's former coaches, a list that includes Jimmy Johnson, Nick Saban, and Dave Wannstedt. Although I'm pretty sure Edyta is a better coach at anything than Cam Cameron and Jim Bates.

It's pretty easy to see where Taylor is going with this. He knows that his football career is close to the end, the Dolphins were 1-15 last year and in total rebuild mode, and now they're being run by a tyrant and all of his minions who are already giving him the cold shoulder. His ongoing soap opera with The Tuna has become to Profootballtalk.com what Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie are to WWTDD, with daily updates on who said what.

The Dolphins attempted to deal Tayor to the Jaguars, but that now looks like a dead end. So it may come down to who blinks first. Taylor is apparently not going to attend offseason workouts or training camp, usually the precursor to a lengthy holdout. Check that, it's actually the definition of a holdout.

So how far is Taylor going to take this? Only Coach Edyta may know.

Anyone Want Mark Cuban's Yearbook?

It's not too often that a piece of Mt. Lebanon High memorabilia comes up for sale, but we finally have one: the 1975 Mt. Lebanon Log yearbook, featuring future billionaire Mark Cuban.

This is the yearbook from Cubes' junior year, which would ultimately be his last at any high school. Cuban went on to become a Pitt Panther for one year before transferring to Indiana University's Bloomington campus.

Half of the proceeds from this auction will go to Cuban's Fallen Patriot Fund, which was established to help families of U.S. military personnel who were killed or seriously injured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Fallen Patriot Fund will be matched dollar for dollar from the general funds of the Mark Cuban Foundation, up to $1 million.

I never knew that Cuban had any such involvement with anything related to the military. So while doing some background research for this story, I found out that amongst the Mavericks, the Pittsburgh ownership flirtations, The Benefactor, Dancing With the Stars, Blog Maverick, and HDNet, Cuban sparked quite a debate with his editing of the movie Redacted, which was based on the Mahmudiyah killings (the rape, murder, and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, in March 2006 by U.S. soldiers, who also killed her parents and younger sister):

During a New York Film Festival press conference for the film, De Palma mentioned that Redacted is itself redacted, due to Magnolia Pictures owner Mark Cuban "being disturbed" by the ending montage's imagery. A voice from the audience called out "That's not true"; with the speaker identifying himself as Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures. The producer of the film later appeared on stage to explain that the images were taken out not because they were disturbing, but because of concerns about the possibility that relatives of the dead persons appearing on the photographs might bring lawsuits for emotional distress and the like. Magnolia, he said, had been put in "an untenable legal position" making the movie uninsurable.

So Mark Cuban is now editing movies involving the conflict in Iraq. Amazing.

I must admit, it's easy for Cuban to come across as incredibly annoying, especially during his Pirate/Penguin-buying attempts. But you have to respect a guy that can have his hand in sports, entertainment, technology, media, and philanthropy and still make it work on some level. You may love him, you may hate him, but he's one example of a successful person born and raised in our city. For that, you should at least respect what he's accomplished in so many different fields.

Mark Cuban 1975 Yearbook [eBay]

Fallen Patriot Fund [Fallenpatriotfund.org]

Mark Cuban [Wikipedia]