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I think I detect a theme.

Yep. I definitely detect a theme.

Eli Manning is about to head off to New York Giants camp for the sixth time. And as much as the young quarterback looks forward to his time in the upstate New York countryside each summer, he admits he is motivated to get the one camper badge that has long eluded him.

"I have most of my badges," said Eli, beaming. "I have my badge for starting quarterback, my badge for being team captain, look — I even have my Super Bowl badge! But, golly — I still can't get my accuracy badge, even though I try my darnedest," he added, kicking at a pebble.

"Eli is one of our camp regulars," said Tom Coughlin, leader of the New York Giants. "He comes from a good family — and he's been coming here since he was a little boy, back when he was even more innocent than the fella you see today, if you can believe that. So I'm hoping he gets that elusive accuracy badge this year. He tries hard and he wants it really bad. But, you know, I bet I want him to get it even more than he does."

Despite getting all the way up to a Super Bowl badge, Manning has a 55.9-percent career completion percentage and has thrown 74 interceptions in 73 career games.

"Even the best pass he ever threw, it was so off-target, one of the other campers had to catch it with one hand off the top of his helmet," said Coughlin. "That makes for a great memory — something I'm sure they both told all their friends about later on when they got home — but it's not what I'm looking for here. Eli's parents send him here to learn how to throw, not hit receivers in the helmet with passes or try to kiss girls."

When Manning's parents drop him off at camp this week, they will leave him with encouraging words.

"It's hard for the little guy, and not just because he misses us a lot," said Olivia Manning. "We always sent his big brother, Peyton, out to camp in Indiana, and he got his accuracy badge from early on. So that only put more pressure on Eli. I think people expect Eli to be accurate, too, because it came so easily for his brother. But he just isn't. Eli is special in his own way, you know? And he claims it doesn't bother him, but I know he's just saying that. The tears tell me the truth."

Eli's father, Archie, says he'll be rooting for his son.

"Getting that badge means a lot to Eli," said Archie. "And I think he can do it this year. And once he does, I'll bet the bed-wetting stops immediately."

Steve Spurrier confirmed today that he was the coach who left Tim Tebow off the ballot for 1st Team All-SEC quarterback. Spurrier accidentally submitted Mississippi's Jevan Snead.

It turns out the Ol' Ball Coach has a bit of a track record with such mistakes. Look at the Personality section of his Bio in the South Carolina media guide:

Favorite Movie: 2 Fast 2 Furious

Favorite Food: poison

Favorite Drink: liquid poison

Favorite Leisure Activity: colonoscopy

Favorite Book: "Reader's Digest Condensed USA Todays"

Favorite Baby:Any but the Baby Jesus. I hate that stupid Baby Jesus.

Personal Hero: Can cancer be a hero?

Career Highlight: My tenure with the Washington Redskins

Favorite Kind Of Large Lizard With Big Teeth: crocodile

Favorite Way To Shade Your Eyes From The Sun While Still Allowing The Top Of Your Head To Breathe: I got nothing here. ??????

Over 13 years in elementary, middle and high school, in addition to another three years at Auburn, no one could convince star linebacker Derek Wilson that literacy served any purpose.

"I'm going pro," he always said. "Reading and writing is a waste of my f—king time."

But then Twitter came along and the All-American sack machine heard on television how superstar athletes such as Shaquille O'Neal, Chad Ocho Cinco and Stephon Marbury use the micro-blogging tool to grow their fan base.

"I want to be a huge star, so I have to be on Twitter," says Wilson. "But that means I have to learn how to make those squiggle things everyone looks at in books."

And with that goal in mind, Wilson has set about utilizing many of the educational opportunities he never realized a school provided, such as education.

"I thought schools were nothing more than just places with good weight rooms. But they can teach you how to read up in this f—king sh!t, too," he said. "That's tight. I told them I just wanted to learn how to Tweet, but they said they can do me up all the way. I might even be ordering off menus soon. I don't have to just say 'burger me' anymore. Although I probably still will. I love burgers. I could go for one now, actually."

Maria Tollefson, who serves as the chief academic tutor for the Tigers football team, says she is ecstatic that one of team's players — its star player, no less — has taken an interest in literacy.

"Usually my job is just to write their papers for them and get people to take their exams — whatever it takes to keep them eligible and on the field," she said. "But actual teaching, helping someone learn things — well, that's the reason I got into education in the first place. I'm probably a bit rusty after all these years of working with the football team, but I'm sure it will come back to me."

Tollefson says she has found Wilson to be a quick study.

"People think guys like Derek are dumb, but he just needed the right motivation," she said. "And for whatever reason, getting on Twitter was it for him. Now he's on his way to literacy. In fact, he even posted his first Tweet today."

"I posted: 'Where dem bitches at?'" Wilson beamed. "And I wrote it all by myself. I'm feeling smart and sh!t. No homo."

CONNOR FRIEDMAN

CHERRY HILL, NJ > Baseball

Connor, 18, won the New Jersey State American Legion championship for his team on Monday night by stealing home in the bottom of the ninth inning, his fourth stolen base of the game. Friedman will play at USC on a scholarship he earned by stealing the homework from many of his classmates.

After Tim Tebow's Florida Gators lost to Ole Miss last year, he famously made "The Pledge" — a promise that fueled the Gators to the national title and is now forever memorialized in plaque form on Florida's campus.

Today Tebow made a new pledge at SEC media day and vowed he will remain a virgin until he is married.

I wasn't there to hear Tebow's comments, but I imagine they went something like this:

To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I'm horny. I'm extremely horny.

You were hoping to do me. That was your goal, something no one has ever done to me down there.

I promise you one thing: a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will this season. You will never see someone with more untapped energy and frustration as I will have this season and until I get married.

You will never see a guy harder than I will be the rest of the season. And I mean that literally. I am so hard right now.

Goddam!

With Michael Vick facing the biggest interview of his life this week with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell,new accusations have been levied against the one-time NFL star Michael Vick. According to numerous sources, Vick has worn shoes made from the skin of murdered cows for the entirety of his college and professional career.

“Yes, it’s true,” said Vick’s attorney, Roger Martin. “We maintain that he sincerely regrets his role in the dogfighting ring, but he does have a history of wearing cow flesh on his feet. He’s not proud of it, but I think this admission proves that we have nothing to hide. Ohmigod … did I say hide? That was totally unintentional. Honestly. I'm not trying to make light of this with a poor pun. Please believe me. I don't want Roger Goodell to think we think this is funny.”

But while Vick’s camp admits to his dark history of wearing discarded animal hides, the story is not likely to die there.

“These cow skins he has been wearing are taken from cows that were systematically slaughtered for use of nothing but their skin,” said a source within the federal prosecutor’s office. “We think this shows a pattern of animal cruelty in Michael’s past. Many of the cows had their neck’s slit or were electrocuted or shot – methods no less cruel than how Michael and his friends executed their dogs.”

Many of Vick’s supporters say the troubled quarterback is being singled out for something that many people take part in.

“Wearing shoes made of cow skins is a cultural thing,” said Vick’s brother Marcus. “There are parts of the country where dogfighting is not a big deal. Just as there are other parts of the country were slaughtering cows in order to make comfortable, stylish footwear is accepted, too. I doubt Goodell is going to show up to their meeting wearing shoes and a belt made out of recycled newspapers, you know?”

Marcus Vick's statement suggests his brother may also wear some sort of animal flesh around his waist.