Monday's Fab Five: Bubba Starling, the next Nebraska star

1. Graeme McDowell is from Northern Ireland, which is a different nation from the Republic of Ireland. Which is more geography than you probably wanted here.

Rory McIlroy, the teen sensation, is also from Northern Ireland. I like to see adults win big events before teens do. It's the way things should always be.

2. Meanwhile, a Brazilian won the Iowa Corn Indy 250. Tony Kanaan is his name.

Like McDowell, he seems like a nice enough fellow.

The Iowa Corn 250 is a name that probably makes many Iowans wince. Not me. I think it's a good name. If a race were called the Idaho Potatoes Indy 250 or Maine Lobsters Indy 250, we'd think it was a good, distinctive name.

3. I love the World Cup. There, I said it.

I've heard and read a lot of comments from Iowans who don't like it. Fine. As Ricky Stanzi says, love it or leave it. Or words to that effect.

Soccer itself, I can take or leave. Like just about everything else in life, be it movies, breakfast cereals or pulling weeds.

An exciting soccer game is exciting, a dull soccer game is dull. Funny how that works.

But the World Cup is about far more than soccer, or football as they call it in so many of the countries with teams in the tournament.

It's entire nations wrapping their collective states of mind around a sporting event that only 1 of 32 can win. The disappointment and dread plaguing England, France, Italy and Spain because of poor World Cup showings to date is wonderful. The elation in New Zealand for tying Italy is terrific. Likewise, the (so far) surprisingly good results by Ghana, Switzerland and Serbia have those nations ecstatic.

Beats the heck out of the Summer Olympics, where superpowers generally dominate from start to finish.

4. A hot-shot prep quarterback from Kansas named Bubba Starling committed to Nebraska this weekend, spurning Notre Dame in the process.

He runs and passes with authority, but the reason he's a good "get" is simple. His name is Bubba Starling.

5. In Friday's Gazette, I wrote about grain farmer Duane Gerleman of Ridgeway, Iowa, who was about to play in the weekend's World Series of Poker Seniors Event. Well, Duane finished 30th out of 3,142 entrants in the $1,000 buy-in event, and won $11,282. It's his second top-30 showing there in three years.

Duane was kind enough to be interviewed by me recently, and welcomed a Gazette photographer to his farm not long after that. Jim Rome talks about his "jungle karma," of good things happening to guests who come on his show. Well, I've had the same kind of thing going on for quite some time and I could give you a long list of sports people who were cooperative with me and went on to greater glories.

Was that the reason? Modesty prevents me from saying so. But draw your own conclusions.