BY SEAN CHAFFIN
One morning in 2011, just after sunrise, a swarm of federal agents rolled quietly down a neatly manicured cul-de-sac in Southlake, the city police's SWAT alongside them. They gathered outside the home of their target, a $750,000 spread with five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a swimming pool, all sitting on a tree-lined half-acre lot in perhaps Dallas' most idyllic suburb. Around 7, they knocked on the door, and waited.

There was no made-for-TV chaos, no upturned tables or scattering underlings. After a brief wait, the man they were there for, 57-year-old Albert Sidney Reed, approached the door, sleep still in his eyes. He was in his underwear.

Reed's teenage son looking on, police calmly handcuffed their target, and black-clad SWAT officers shuffled inside to sweep the 5,250-square foot house. When the all clear was given several minutes later, Reed was un-cuffed and allowed to dress. He sat in a chair inside for four hours as investigators sifted through his belongings, looking for proof of what they already knew.

About an hour into the search, another IRS agent stumbled across a satchel in Reed's SUV and shuffled through its contents: printouts of wagers, collection notes, business expenses, printouts of how much his betting operation profited during football season, even notes from a big meeting upper-level owners in the organization had recently conducted. Later, he made sure to introduce himself to the satchel's owner.

"I'm Special Agent Mark Parsons with the Internal Revenue Service," he said. "We're investigating the Global International Corporation bookmaking operation, and you and I are going to get to know each other pretty well over the next six months. You can make it good on yourself -- or hard on yourself."

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Michael Furrh's shaft officially measures 19 feet, 5 inches, but he tells the ladies it's an even 20.

Everything you need to know about Michael Furrh you can learn from his outgoing voicemail message: Caddie Master at Caddie Club; golf ambassador for Rolling Hills Country Club; Guinness World Record holder.

Hopefully you didn't get bored and hang up, because that last part is key. At Arlington's Rolling Hills Country Club on Monday, Furrh used a 19-foot, 5-inch golf club to drive a ball 89 yards, thus penciling his name in the record book as the human who used the world's "longest usable golf club." We say penciled because records are made to be broken, this one in particular.

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A face even a mother couldn't love.

Here's another reason hockey is my favorite thing.

See also: Our British Texan Falls in Love With the Stars

Hockey has some real pantomime villains. Soccer, sure, there were some bad guys. Luis Suarez, for instance, is very keen on biting people, as you do. He was also suspended for being a racist. Joey Barton tends to spend more time suspended than he does on the field, for a series of petulant misdemeanors. Hockey, however, has the best bad guys of all.

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This picture is worth all of these words.

One of the realities of the salary-cap era in the NFL is that flawed teams can still win Super Bowls. The 2011 Giants lost seven games. The 2012 Ravens lost six, as did the 2010 Packers and the 2007 Giants. If a team can do one thing really, really well, league-promoted parity gives that team a puncher's chance to win the whole damn thing. That's why the Cowboys 6-1 start inspired so much hope. Throughout the six game winning streak that followed Dallas' season-opening loss to the 49ers, the team did one thing, run block, better than any squad in the league.

Over the last two weeks, that hasn't changed. Despite losses to the Redskins and the Cardinals, the Cowboys still block for their halfback better than anyone. They've dropped to 6-3 because the broken transverse processes Tony Romo suffered midway through the third quarter against Washington have upset the fragile balance protecting the rest of the Cowboys from being exposed.

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Cowboys running back Joseph Randle, he of the post-Seattle Seahawks victory underwear theft and subsequent underwear endorsement, had what can best be described as an amusing experience being booked by Frisco police.

See also: Cowboy Joseph Randle Gets an Underwear Endorsement Deal for Stealing Underwear

"This is a cool little publicity stunt though," he says in the first of two videos obtained by KTVT before asking the cop doing his intake if "this was going to be in the papers."

Correctly worried that it would be, Randle tells the officer that he isn't going to look "like a criminal" in his mugshot and asks to see it.

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The Loomis Agency via YouTube

Dr. Jerry specializes in pizza, rapping and back injuries.

Jerry Jones, who's served as the Dallas Cowboys' team physician since 1989, told KRLD 105.3 Wednesday morning that the team's quarterback, Tony Romo, will be medically able to play Sunday against the 6-1 Arizona Cardinals.

Romo, who had two back surgeries in 2013 -- one before the season to remove a cyst and one after the season to repair structural damage -- took a vicious Keenan Robinson knee to the back during the third quarter of the Cowboys' Monday night game with Washington.

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Mike Mezeul

Not sure about the cowboy hat, really. Wrong sport for that.

Here are some other things I like about ice hockey.

See Also: Our Englishman Falls In Love With Weird-Ass Hockey

There are approximately 11 billion shots per game (I discovered this number using a complex analysis that may or may not be flawed). There are so many shots that you need intermissions just to calm down. It's tiring watching hockey if you support a team. Your heart is in your mouth every 11 seconds.

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First, the obvious. In last night's loss to Washington, there were a few very small things that could have shifted the outcome in the Cowboys favor. If DeMarco Murray doesn't fumble inside the 10 with just under 13 minutes left in the second quarter, the Cowboys probably win the game. If Doug Free isn't hurt and an undermanned offensive line doesn't give up five sacks to a Washington defense missing its best pass rusher, the Cowboys probably win the game. If the Scott Linehan isn't struck down with a weird playcalling bug at the end of both halves and in overtime, the Cowboys probably win the game. You get the idea. Viewed on its own, October 27 against the Redskins was just one of those strange, snakebit games that can afflict any team, even a very good one.

Monday night's loss at Jerryworld can't be viewed on its own, though. It can't be viewed on its own because of what happened midway through the third quarter: Tony Romo taking a Keenan Robinson knee to the back.

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Chris Tank

The Observer will neither use, nor not use, the name of this team in print.

Several local and national Native American leaders were out to protest the Washington vs. Cowboys game on Monday night in Arlington. Their objection? The Washington team's name, which is a long-held racial slur toward indigenous peoples. The name that starts with the letter R. You know the one we're talking about.

The move comes as part of increasing opposition to the team's name. Media outlets across the country have pledged not to use the name of the team in publications. Some sources, such as NPR, are instructing limited use of the word. Politicians and Native American advocates have also come out in adamant opposition.

"Every civil rights group in America, half the United States Senate, literally every Native American organization, has said the name is not appropriate and it should be changed," says Joel Barkin, a spokesman for the Oneida Indian Nation.

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Troy Causey

Well before Wilmer-Hutchins High School basketball standout Troy Causey was beaten to death by a friend and on-court rival after being improperly recruited from Richardson ISD, it was clear to anyone paying attention that Dallas ISD's athletic department was rotten. Superintendent Mike Miles' subsequent house-cleaning was greeted as a righteous, if belated, step toward reform.

Among the 15 people who were fired, former athletic compliance director Anita Connally is the outlier, as DISD itself has admitted.

"Certainly she wasn't part of the problem. No one is suggesting that. Her job is compliance," Carlos Lopez, an attorney representing DISD during Connally's recent appeals hearing, told The Dallas Morning News. "The question is did she do that properly. Did she do that with the fervor that the administration thinks you need for that [position]? No."

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