SI View The Week in TV Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 1/12--SUNDAY 1/13

NFL Wild-card Games
ABC 4:30 PM AND 8 PM; SUNDAY FOX 12:30 PM, cbs 4 PM Imagine a
world in which the Eagles play the Bucs every week. Ugh! Even
though we're stuck with a replay of last week's drab 17-13
Philadelphia win, wild-card weekend gets some luster with
49ers-Packers at Lambeau Field. But the Niners better pray for a
heat wave in Green Bay: Packers quarterback Brett Favre is 5-0
in the playoffs when the game-time temperature is 34[degrees] or
below.

SUNDAY 1/13

Australian Open
ESPN2 11 PM A pox on Lleyton Hewitt's house? That's the word from
Down Under, where the world's No. 1 tennis player has contracted
a case of chicken pox. With Hewitt under the weather (he expects
to play) and Pete Sampras simply underwhelming, the men's half of
2002's first Grand Slam event (whose early rounds continue
through Friday on ESPN and ESPN2) can be expected to feature
upsets. Speaking of which, upset is what fans of Anna Kournikova
(page 32) will be if their favorite pinup gets eliminated faster
than you can say, "G'day, mate."

MONDAY 1/14

Bud Greenspan's Favorite Stories of Winter Olympic Glory
SHOWTIME 10 PM Greenspan is to the Olympics what Aesop was to
fables. With the Salt Lake City Games around the corner, the
seven-time Emmy Award-winning documentarian offers a fascinating
examination of nine Winter Games athletes: from champions like
British ice-dancing icons Torvill and Dean, to Colin Coates, who
competed in six Olympics for Australia as a speed skater,
including the 1988 Calgary Games at age 41, without winning a
medal.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

COLOR PHOTO: ERIK HEINILA/TNT

Don't Miss

MONDAY 1/14

Monday Night Mayhem
TNT 9 PM This fast-moving, two-hour TV movie (based on the 1988
book by Bill Carter and Marc Gunther) documents the rise of
Monday Night Football--along with the conflicts between its
players--and is dominated by the forceful John Turturro, who
marvelously portrays Howard Cosell, a man of equal parts bravado
and insecurity. Turturro's rendition of Humble Howard doing
halftime highlights alone makes the film worth watching. There
are stellar performances from John Heard (above right, with
Turturro) as ABC Sports president Roone Arledge and Turturro's
brother, Nicholas, as director Chet Forte, though we wish Shuler
Hensley hadn't made the affable Keith Jackson (MNF's first
play-by-play announcer) seem as engaging as a Doberman pinscher.

THE ZAPPER

The PGA Tour rolled out part of its laser-based statistical
system, ShotLink, at the Mercedes Championships. Topographical
maps drawn with the aid of the global positioning system
enhanced ESPN's coverage by pinpointing ball location to the
foot. The network also used Virtual Spectator to create vivid
animated flyovers of the Plantation Course on Maui. ESPN didn't
use the part of ShotLink that measures putts to the
inch....College SportsCentury: Juan Dixon (ESPN, Friday, 7:30
p.m.) profiles Maryland's All-America guard, who in high school
lost both parents to AIDS.