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by "Late Night" host Fallon. The late-night franchise is also returning to its roots, leaving California for a New York studio.
• The thinking is clear: Leno is 62, his hair graying. The eager Fallon is 38, looks younger, hangs with his ultra-hip house band the Roots and slow jams the news with President Obama.
• All Leno does is consistently rank No. 1 in his field, a status not many people at NBC can claim these days.
• The "Today" show was tops a year ago, too, or at least running neck-and-neck with ABC's "Good Morning America." Then the toppling of co-host Ann Curry spread a black cloud. Ratings tumbled, executives lost their jobs, Matt Lauer's popularity plummeted and "GMA" is now the most popular morning show.
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Ousted Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice goes from 'crazed' by the game to out of it entirely
• PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Jamie Dixon hired Mike Rice as an assistant at Pittsburgh in 2006, drawn by Rice's passion and ability to get into the living room of a prized recruit and close the deal.
• The son of a coach cut very much from the same cloth that allowed his father, Mike Rice Sr., to carve out a career at Duquesne and Youngstown State, Rice's competitiveness was the stuff of legend.
• It also came in a package that inspired loyalty and respect, which made Rice's dismissal from Rutgers on Wednesday for physically and verbally abusing his players all the more stunning for the people that knew him long before the video surfaced of Rice manically flinging basketballs at his Scarlet Knights.
• "I think the people know him here, they know he's a good person," Dixon said Wednesday, hours after Rice was fired. "He's acknowledged he's made some mistakes."
• Dixon choked up while talking about Rice, whose future in coaching remains very much in doubt.
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(Continued on page 37)
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