For more than four years, David Velasquez had brought the basketballs out before practice and put them away when it was over.

He’d edited film for the coaches, put out uniforms before games, driven the head coach to the airport and gone to the gym to rebound when players wanted to work on their shot.

As a manager for the San Diego State men’s basketball program, Velasquez wore his Aztecs polo shirts with pride and felt like a valued part of the team. He was a guy who got thousands of assists every season without ever getting a chance to score a point.

Then, one day in January of 2007, that changed.

In his fifth season as a manager, Velasquez -- who’d played in high school and served as a point guard for the scout team in San Diego State practices for a year and a half -- got to live out the dream of everyone who’s ever handed out a towel.

Coach Steve Fisher made him a player.

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He might be Johnny Football, but he's not allowed to be Johnny Cash.

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel is the favorite to become the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, but all the fame that comes with college football's most prestigious award can't be capitalized on.

It's an incredible Catch-22 for the kid who wears No. 2.

They say history repeats itself, but there's never quite been a business storylike this one.

It goes something like this:

Kid comes out of nowhere from a small town in Texas to become the starting quarterback at A&M. As he wins game after game in the school's first season in the most competitive conference of them all, Aggies fans clamor for his jersey, which can't get to stores fast enough. On his way to breaking the single-season record for most offensive yards in SEC history, Manziel and his Aggies shock No. 1 Alabama in mid-November -- in Tuscaloosa. The business surrounding his number, name and likeness went from a cottage industry to a small economy.

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What is the one thing LeBron James can't live without?

"SWAG 16" gives LeBron fans 16 answers to that question before James works it down to one final answer in a single-elimination tournament format.

The answers, and his final answer, may surprise you.

The video, produced by Los Angeles creative agency Zambezi in August, was posted on YouTube by Champs Sports to coincide with the Monday release of the holiday issue of SWAG, a sports-lifestyle digital publication for Apple and (coming in the days before Christmas) Android mobile devices.

James is the cover athlete in this issue and, in the video, picks the one thing he couldn’t live without from a list of 16 of his favorite things. The list was compiled after conversations with some of his friends and inner circle.

The 16 items are: NFL Sundays, "The Hunger Games," candy, road trips, fresh haircuts, Twitter, "The Godfather," fingernail clippers, "Madden," Brandon’s oatmeal (from LeBron’s personal chef), Thanksgiving dinner, "SpongeBob SquarePants," "Martin," ice baths, "Boardwalk Empire" and Bruce Wayne.

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It was an emotional weekend in sports, featuring some memorable highs and, for the tragedy-stricken Dallas Cowboys, the lowest of lows. See the drama in our collection of the best photographs from around the world:

Check it out: Playbook's Weekend Gallery: Monday, Dec. 10

Just how competitive was the 1970s supergroup The Eagles?

Eagles record producer Bill Szymczyk wanted the band, which was recording in Miami in the mid-1970s, to get out of the studio for some fresh air to stop all the bickering about the music.

The fivesome of Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner first tried fishing. The hope by Szymczyk was to bond while doing something recreational.

"Bill was tired of us having studio tans. We were in Florida so we tried fishing," said lead guitarist Felder, who was born in Gainesville, Fla. "Not me but some of the others in the band were getting green in the gills being on the water. So we tried golf next."

The guys, who were as competitive on the golf course as they were in the studio, would play a few holes and then head back to the studio to finish up their latest album.

Thirty years later, Felder is still playing the game to relieve stress.

"The number on the golf card at the end of the day isn't important," said Felder, who has seen his handicap climb to 12. "It's more important the number of laughs with friends and the number of hours away from the tedium of your life. It was my own little sanctuary."

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From Supermen dancing at All-Star Weekend to Blake Griffin annihilating Kendrick Perkins and the rim, the NBA’s YouTube page surpassed a billion all-time page views on Sunday night, making it the first professional sports league to reach the milestone.

Since partnering with YouTube in 2005 and launching its official channel in ’07, the NBA has committed to making highlights, features and historical clips accessible to fans on the video-sharing website, and the league attributes a small part of its global growth to its fans sharing YouTube clips through social media.

“Our fans are young, multicultural, and they’re digitally savvy,” said Danny Meiseles, the NBA’s executive vice president for programming and broadcasting. “Our thinking has been to give the fans what they want, and they want accessibility to see our highlights in real-time. YouTube has given us that platform.”

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