Each week, The Reporters put their thumbs out to the good and the bad in the world of sports. This week, they discuss the NCAAs revenue sharing, Don Zimmer, soccer language and Super Bowl 50. Dave Naylor, TSN Radio 1050: My thumb is down to world of big-time American college sports, which reminded us again this week there is no end to hypocrisy when it comes to sharing wealth with its players. This week Alabama football coach Nick Saban and Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari were rewarded with contracts worth more than $50 million each. This comes just as the NCAA is about to begin defending its right not to share revenues with players; in the lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed OBannon, which starts on Monday. How the NCAA can argue theres not enough money in the system to compensate players when coaches like Saban and Calapari can earn more than $6 million a year should be interesting. But we just know theyll find a way to do it. Dave Feschuk, Toronto Star: My thumb is up to baseball characters. May they live forever in our memory, even as they leave us. The game lost an unforgettable one this week with the passing of Don Zimmer. In a sport built on stories, his was a pure classic. Zimmer met Babe Ruth as a boy, got married to his high-school sweetheart at home plate of a minor-league park, played with Jackie Robinson and won a World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hell probably be remembered best for charging Pedro Martinez back in 2003, when Zimmer was in his 70s at the time. As he said later, "I sure wasnt going over there to kiss him." Baseballs heroes arent always so easy to embrace. So often today we focus on money and moneyball. Zimmers life was about finding a love and fighting to keep it. He loved baseball so much, it nearly killed him. As a player, he survived two fastballs to the head. One put him in a coma, another caved in his face. He kept playing after both. He got fired four times as a manager, but he never retired. Nobody ever wanted him to. For characters as unique as Zimmer, there are no replacements. Michael Farber, Sports Illustrated: As I said four years ago, and plan to say again in 2018, my thumb is down to anybody in this country who plans to speak world cup soccer English for the next month. I dont want anyone saying a goalkeeper had a clean sheet. Clean sheets are in your linen closet. He had a shutout. The score, maybe, was one nothing, not one nil. And please dont tell me the United States needs a result against Ghana. A loss is a result, not a good result, but a result. And just so were clear, its not football here, its soccer. Alright, now carry on and keep calm. Dave Hodge, TSN: My thumb is up, though not for long, to the National Football League for deciding to ditch the Roman numeral "l" for super bowl 50, to be played in February of 2016. The use of Roman numerals began with super bowl 5, sorry, "v", and it has proved to be very successful - in creating confusion. Now that couldnt have been its intention, but what else, pray tell, was it supposed to do? Make the event seem bigger than it is? It needs no help from an ancient alphabet. But, as I said, the NFL is praised here only briefly, because it will return to Roman numerals for super bowl 51 - LI - and theres no end in sight, unless its super bowl 59, which will read LIX, and maybe the NFL wont be fond of Super Bowl licks, which come to think of it, was last seasons super bowl - Denver taking its licks from Seattle. Javon Wims Jersey . Top-seeded Djokovic, who is making only his second appearance this year after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, was a 6-3, 6-3 winner over 54th-ranked Istomin of Uzbekistan. "It wasnt as easy as the scoreline indicates," said Djokovic, who has won in Dubai on four occasions. 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If not for terrific goaltending by Braden Holtby the Jets would have had two points in regulation.Each week, The Reporters put their thumbs out to the good and the bad in the world of sports. This week they discuss J.R. Smiths antics, Dennis Rodmans trip to North Korea, Toronto FCs spending and the inspiring story of a California high-school basketball player. Bruce Arthur, National Post: My thumb is down to J.R. Smith, the illegitimate clown prince of basketball. The New York Knicks are their own unique brand of farce, but Smith takes it to a different, dumber level. This week he was fined $50,000 for trying to untie an opponents shoelace again, after being warned by the NBA, hey, dont try to untie an opponents shoelace again. This had literally never happened before. He had already been suspended in his career for fights, for drugs, and even for reckless driving causing a death, and he has said over and over, "Ive learned." But he never learns. Hes a player with talent, no desire to shape it, no thoughts of consequences, and the brain of a slow-ish ostrich. Someone should tie his shoelaces together, and be done with it. Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun: My thumb is down to Dennis Rodman and his bizarre egotistical nonsensical attempt at diplomacy with his latest visit to North Korea. This isnt the Richard Nixon days, when ping-pong began to unfreeze the relationship between the United States and China. This is today, and this is the clown Rodman, trying to look serious in a political arena. The situation becomes all the more troubling when you consider Rodmans patty-cake friendship with dictator and admirer Kim Jong-un. While in North Korea, Rodman suggested that American tour guide, Kenneth Bae, jailed 15 years for state subversion, was at fault for being held captive and after saying that, bllamed his verbal outburst on drinking too much.dddddddddddd Dennis Rodman is, was, and remains something of a sporting embarrassment. The fact he is playing a more difficult game here only makes it worse. Michael Farber, Sports Illustrated: My thumb is up to Toronto FC for its showy efforts at ending its culture of failure. This week the club repatriated Canadian midfielder Dwayne De Rosario. It then made a global splash by acquiring striker Jermain Defoe from Tottenham and signing another midfielder, American international Michael Bradley, who had been languishing at A.S. Roma. MLSEs $100 million moves faintly echo President Tim Leiwekes investment in David Beckham when Leiweke was in Los Angeles, although labeling MLS most dismal team a "super club" is wildly premature. The last Toronto team to "win" an offseason was the blue jays last winter. Howd that turn out? Dave Hodge, TSN: My thumb is up to California high-school basketball player Austin Hatch, and this story will explain itself. In two airplane crashes eight years apart that killed his father, mother, stepmother, brother and sister, Austin Hatch narrowly escaped death himself. The most recent crash in 2011 left Hatch in a coma for two months. 10 days earlier, he had committed to a basketball scholarship at the University of Michigan. This week, he played in a high-school game for the first time since the crash - his first shot was a three-point attempt, he made it - his schoolmates roared and his teammates jumped from the bench and stormed the court, causing an emotional celebration....and a technical foul. Hatch still looks forward to Michigan, where his scholarship will be honored. Thumbs up all around. Indeed. ' ' '