When University of Arizona athletic director went to Twitter and Facebook to announce a "big announcement for the football program" via a Google Hangout live feed today, the interwebs quickly became a beehive of speculation.

New uniforms?

Stadium naming rights?

Replacing Wilbur with some Disney-created abomination that resembles the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland?

In the end, the news didn't turn out to be that earth-shattering, but still a big deal: Arizona and everyone's favor devoutly Mormon college, Brigham Young, announced a three-game football series that will include a neutral site game at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.

The catch? None of this is happening for another three years.

The UA and BYU will meet in Glendale on a date to be announced (though likely around Labor Day weekend, to milk the most from the TV money teet) in 2016, with the Cougars coming to Tucson in 2018 and the Wildcats heading to scenic Provo, Utah in 2020.

The non-conference series is the first major football deal inked by Byrne since taking over the athletic department. Previous deals had been made with Nevada (2014 at home, 2015 in Reno), Texas-El Paso (2017-2018, sites TBD) and Hawaii (2019 in Hononlulu, 2020 in Tucson).

It was speculated the UA was trying to line up a big-time opponent to open the 2013 season, thus bringing in a big TV audience to christen a renovated Arizona Stadium complete with its fancy new seatbacks in the north end zone (seats that yours truly has secured a pair of for all six home games this fall). Many thought that foe would be West Virginia, where UA football coach Rich Rodriguez had gained so much previous fame and from where Rodriguez stole defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel.

Instead, we got another game against Northern Arizona to open the 2013 slate.

Don't be surprised if other major-level opponent series get locked in by Arizona in the next few years, especially if RichRod is able to keep the program moving in the positive direction it did in 2012. That could mean a much hoped-for matchup with Michigan, the school Rodriguez went to from West Virginia and flamed out at in three spectacularly bad seasons.

Some advice, though, UA schedule-makers: avoid Notre Dame. Despite the fact the Fighting Irish just aren't as good as their national reputation leads you to believe, they're also backer-outers. Just ask our neighbors to the north at Girls Gone Wild University and Casino, which is playing Notre Dame in Dallas this season but appears to have lost its 2014 home game against them Irish.

Cyclists around the region were honored this week at the Pedal the Pueblo awards breakfast. Find out who Tucson's advocates and commuters of the year.

Looking for a bike? Want to unload one of your own? Check out the spring Bike Swap this Sunday.

Bike Fest is this month and organizers are giving away prizes just for riding your bike. There is a new push to get people out for short trips. Find out how you can win.

We're hopping on this bandwagon a bit late, but with the Tucson Padres entering their final season of being a Tucson-based team, we figure they need as much support as they can get — they deserve it, after all.

The T-Pads are offering their Facebook fans a chance to throw out the first pitch at the home opener tomorrow, April 12 at 7:05 p.m. The catch: you've got to comment your favorite memory of a T-Pads game on one of two posts for the contest, then have the greatest number of people liking your comment.

Oh, and one more thing: the contest ends at noon today.

From what it looks like, a gentleman by the name of Jason Brean is currently in the lead with 403 likes, so anyone starting now would have an uphill battle, but hey: if the Diamondbacks could beat the best closer of all time to win the World Series, then surely you drag 500+ people to click a link and get you to throw a ball, right?

Either way, AAA baseball is back in the Old Pueblo — and maybe for the final time. Head out to tomorrow's game (and every Thirsty Thursday, sponsored by Tucson Weekly!) and have some fun, folks.

The connections to Tucson continue for Grand Canyon University's men's basketball program, which moves to Division I hoops next fall under the leadership of well-known Phoenix hoops celebrity Dan Majerle.

Majerle filled out his coaching staff Wednesday, adding former Canyon del Oro High School standout Chris Crevelone as an assistant.

Crevelone was most recently on the staff at Texas, where he was a graduate assistant and video coordinator. Prior to that he played collegiately at Adams State in Colorado. Crevelone, who according to Majerle will be used heavily in the recruiting world, likely will tap into contacts made from when he used to work Lute Olson's summer basketball camps at Arizona.

Majerle is taking over a program that announced two years ago it was planning to go to Division I, and at that time it appeared that transition was going to be done under former UA interim head coach Russ Pennell. Pennell and the school, though, reached a 'mutual' decision (read: they wanted a flashier name, and paid Russ to go away) to part ways after Pennell led the Antelopes into the Division II playoffs.

Arizona's men's basketball team may have only made it to the Sweet 16 in this year's NCAA tournament, but an annual survey of college hoops programs' overall value considers the Wildcats to be a Final Four contender.

A professor from Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus (say that five times fast) has ranked Arizona No. 4 on a list of men's basketball programs in terms of overall net worth, putting the UA at a value of $224.1 million if it were to be bought and sold.

The only programs ahead of Arizona: NCAA finalist Louisville ($291 million), Kansas ($259.3 million) and North Carolina ($228.6 million).

The Wall Street Journal only listed the top 10 programs, the other nine of which are all east of the Rocky Mountains.

So, there's that for UA fans hoping to cling onto something associated to the basketball season for just a little bit longer...

Model, Olympic gold-medalist, wife, and mother Amanda Beard has had her share of success and happiness through her career and her family, but as well as many hardships.

"In The Water They Can’t See You Cry", a memoir written by Beard with Rebecca Paley, is an honest and raw account of her life in the spotlight as a swimmer and her battle with clinical depression.

In three Olympic games, Beard won a total of seven medals. Her first Olympic appearance was in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games when she was only 14, tightly holding her teddy bear, Harold. She was a student at Irvine High School in Irvine, Calif. at the time and managed to take home two silver medals and one gold medal.

She also competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. On top of her swimming career, Beard also got into modeling, gaining status as a sex-symbol.

With all this success came an immense amount of pressure. She found herself feeling unhappy and unworthy of all that she had in her life, unaware she was suffering from clinical depression.

Dubbed by many as one of the greatest stories in sports (as a long-time tennis player, I’m a bit biased) the lives and careers of sisters Venus and Serena Williams are now the subject of a new documentary.

Released on iTunes today, Venus and Serena follows the sisters during the 2011 season, as they publicly battled health concerns that threatened to end their success on the court (Serena was just returning from a year-long absence for blood clots while Venus was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease).

But exposing fans to a tumultuous time in their pro careers, now nearly two decades old, had its benefits. From USA Today:

The season ended in dramatically devastating fashion five days ago, and many Wildcat fans are probably still in mourning (not to mention contemplating their existence), which means now should be a time to move on past the University of Arizona basketball team for a while. In fact (shameless plug!) I wrote a column about that for this week's issue of the Weekly.

But it seems the universe doesn't want UA hoops fans to catch their breath — not considering the news that has broken in the last two days.

First, and most notably (or notoriously, depending on your outlook), was the revelation that the person in charge of officiating in the Pac-12 conference apparently has a hate-boner for UA coach Sean Miller. Though the offer to give $5,000 or a trip to Cancun for any referee who T'd up or ejected Miller from the Pac-12 tourney was meant as a 'joke,' that didn't stop one official from issuing a technical simply because Miller mentioned that #HeTouchedTheBall.

The saddest, sickest part of this scenario is that, at least so far, the Pac-12 is standing behind Rush, who was also involved in slimy doings while working as a referee in the NBA. If he's not fired, expect any number of Cancun-themed puns to be yelled by fans at McKale anytime a call goes against Arizona next season.

Next up, and much more of a positive nature, is the commitment by highly rated high school senior Aaron Gordon to join Arizona's 2013-2014 team. He's likely a one-and-done player, as evidenced by his theatrical decision to wait until a press conference associated with a prep All-American game — the fact that such a game has a press conference speaks volumes to the overall problem of college recruiting, but that's a different issue — to announce his choice of where to 'attend' college, but he also increases the overall strength of a Wildcat team that next season should be a favorite to make the Final Four.

Okay, no more UA hoops talk!

Once upon a time Tucson had three bike corrals. Now the city is down to just one. That is changing however. Find out where the new ones are going in.

The woman who hit a cyclist and then fled the scene will face sentencing on April 15. The father of the injured cyclist is requesting help from the bike community.

My inbox just flashed with an URGENT message from the NCAA. Thinking it was going to tell me that I'd won some raffle (that I didn't enter) to give me free tickets to Thursday's game in Los Angeles, I opened it quickly and with much anticipation.

Shoulda known better: it was for merch.

Not surprisingly, the Sweet 16 t-shirts are in ample supply online via either the NCAA or University of Arizona athletic department Web sites.

There appears to be a decent selection of choices (including the standard 'hey, we made it this far!' version shown below), and the prices aren't too bad. However, if you want your new gear in time for the big game, don't bother ordering it online: I got a warning message saying that, since this was a 'special' order, it wouldn't be shipped until April 2.

By then we all should be purchasing Final Four gear anyways, right?