Today, we start with some sports trivia, a chance for all you smarty-pants fans out there to flash your brilliance.

Who's Russell Michael?

Come on. Russell? Michael?

Stumped? You're kidding, right? Turn in your smarty pants for some silly shorts, pronto!

Russell Michael is currently the fifth best American male tennis player, according to the ATP rankings. He's in the sort of spot once occupied by the likes of Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe.

Yeah, that's all.

Give yourself 500 points if you knew this and another 500 bonus points if you also knew the guy's name actually is Michael Russell.

Yeah, it's Michael Russell, and he is one of our reigning stars in the sport of professional tennis.

Don't worry if you had no clue. Neither did we. But not knowing our Russell Michael from our Michael Russell says more about tennis than it does about the rest of us.

Like boxing, the mallet and Brian Bosworth, everything in sports is subject to the powers of popularity. And as a society evolves, popularity can dissolve.

The Buffalo Bills once were famous for losing Super Bowls. That's right, kids, just ask your parents. The sorry Bills even reaching a Super Bowl today seems as likely as the sorry New York Islanders winning four consecutive Stanley Cups. Never happen? Sorry, it already did.

Yet, nothing better captures the concept of faded fame than tennis does, an entire sport now recognized as a has-been. If tennis was as person, it would be Yakov Smirnoff.

People used to follow tennis and actually appreciated Martina Navratilova's body of work. Today, most of us would be oblivious to the fact that one of the sport's majors is taking place right now if something about the Australian Open hadn't just crawled across the bottom of our TV screen.

The event is a Grand Slam for tennis fans still, but a Grand Spam for everyone else, just more nothing filtered from our in-box. If tennis was a TV show, it would be "She's the Sheriff." Again, kids, ask your parents.

The women's top 10 currently includes Samantha Stosur, Francesca Schiavone and Victoria Azarenka. Honest. We know this because we looked it up, twice actually, because we weren't sure how to spell any of their last names.

Seriously, have you ever heard of these three women? And, please, don't e-mail us their exploits. Obviously, they've achieved enough to crack the top 10, and that just makes our point for us. Stosur, Schiavone and Azarenka are among the most accomplished women's tennis players on the planet, and most people wouldn't hear their names without responding "Gesundheit."

Tennis, of course, isn't alone. Remember when the Bob Hope Classic used to be something? Well, the event is happening again this week and, quite frankly, judging from the field, it appears to be as healthy as Bob Hope himself is these days.

Among the top 30 ranked players in the world, only two - Matt Kuchar (No. 13) and Tim Clark (No. 20) - are entered.

New Year's Day college football once was a big thing, too. Today, it's as watered down as Lake Havasu.

January 1 used to determine what school was the sport's national champion. Now, it determines if Connecticut is five or only four touchdowns worse than Oklahoma.

And, hey, didn't you used to be horse racing? University of Michigan football? Tyrone Willingham?

Even the sport of competitive fishing has lost status. Yes, we know, sad but true. A two-person team from the University of Oregon won the National Guard FLW College Fishing Western Division title on Lake Shasta over the weekend. Not surprising. Shouldn't Ducks be at home on a lake?

Anyway, afterward, one of the winners was asked for reaction.

"It was a slow day," William Crowl - seriously - said. "I think it was our patience and ability to slow down our fishing that made the difference."

In other words, Crowl and his partner took the world's most boring sport and did it even slower, with less action, and that's how they became champion fishermen! Up next for the Oregon duo: The World Dewey Decimal System Organizing Finals!

Sorry, kids, that's another dated reference. The Dewey Decimal System is used in libraries, buildings that were popular at one time before fading in the rise of personal technology.

Today, if a library was a sport, it would be tennis.