Lots going on over at ESPN this week. And you know what’s really interesting? We haven’t heard a peep from Jason Whitlock’s bojanglin’ best buddy, Scoop Jackson (far left in this photo). We poked around in his archives today and noticed Scoop hasn’t written in a week. Nothing particularly surprising there. Before his Sept. 21 column, he wrote on Sept. 11, a 10-day lull. Except that when an ESPN source wrote us this email, it got us thinking:

[Nobody] knows how perplexed the home office is at this point about what to do with Scoop. There are varying levels of exasperation when his name [comes] up. Is he done? The real question is about when his contract is up. I can’t imagine a renewal at this point … the boys are very worried about things. [Scoop] was supposed to run a column on Tuesday, but [I’m not sure what happened].

Don’t expect him to take Whitlock on … he’ll want to, but he won’t. I don’t think [Kevin Jackson of ESPN.com] and [John Papanek of ESPN.com] want this going any further. In spite of whatever bluster [Scoop] may show at times, he doesn’t have it in him to launch a full-on offensive against someone like that.

Well that’s good. What fun is there in watching two writers slug it out? Just so bloggers don’t get a bad name calling for Scoop’s head, we’re going to direct you to the following quote, which was pulled from a June 4, 2006 New York Times article (penned, it should be noted, by a freelancer):

As is often the case with sports publications, ESPN.com has committed its share of crimes against literature. One of the site’s ”national voices” is Scoop Jackson. Like the ESPN alumnus Ralph Wiley, Jackson tends to write about sports through the lens of race — by which I mean that Jackson, who is black, takes his own view and determines that it should represent that of an entire race. A Jackson column usually begins with an audacious pronouncement: in an essay on the Duke lacrosse scandal, he wrote, ”On March 13, 2006, something happened.” Which is no doubt true. From there, Jackson haikus his way through strange proverbs (”Every tree has roots. The roots are the lifeline of every tree. Attack or cut down a tree, the roots stay alive. They still grow. The roots are deeper than the tree.”) before arriving at an amusingly harebrained conclusion. Several months ago, Jackson was watching the R&B singer R. Kelly perform the national anthem at a boxing match; the crowd booed lustily, since Kelly was not only butchering Francis Scott Key but also under indictment for child pornography. What did Jackson deduce from this unusual intersection of sports and culture? That Kelly ”forced many blacks to feel something we haven’t been forced to feel in a long time: patriotic.” Huh?

Anyone think Scoop will have a column Friday? Maybe the Worldwide Leader will run it alongside George Solomon’s ombudsman column.

[Update: And checking in on the Terrell Owens situation is none other than Scoop Jackson. Release the hounds.]