In the week we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut, I am reminded of a quote by Branch Rickey, the Dodgers legendary General Manager who signed Robinson to that contract. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

HOFMAG.com recently published a list of the Top Ten Most Influential People in Sports History. Jackie Robinson finished third on that list. The name Dana White was nowhere to be found.

However, if we were to publish the same list for the period 2000-2007, Dana White might be # 1, topping even Tiger Woods. What Dana White has accomplished as President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in the past seven years is – or should be – a Harvard Business School case study of marketing brilliance.

White was an aspiring fighter, then a gym owner who became a fight manager in Vegas during the 90s. White sensed opportunity in 2000 when he heard the corporate owner of the UFC, a mixed martial arts competition, might be looking to dump its struggling entity. Acting quickly he contacted his boyhood friends, the Fertitta Brothers, who brought the cash to purchase UFC and the foresight to install White as its president and chief executive officer. Again sensing opportunity, White struck quickly to create a Survivor-like UFC competition, The Ultimate Fighter, for the new Spike TV network.

Ratings for The Ultimate Fighter went through the roof, and Mr. Opportunity scored another knockout victory. The Ultimate Fighter secured not only the UFC brand but the survival of Spike TV as well. Success followed success.

White’s formula combined the savagery of war, with the pageantry of pro wrestling, without sacrificing any of the legitimacy. He coupled America’s tastes for short, sustained action with internet marketing wizardry. Have you been to the UFC website? He turned Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz into household names. When Warner Brothers needed a spokesperson to promote the new movie 300 this spring, WB turned to White and Liddell. The movie is a smash, topping the $200,000,000 mark in domestic box office revenue this weekend.

Having mentioned Tiger Woods, did anyone watch golf Saturday? Didn’t think so. Expect golf ratings to be down until Tiger returns to the tour in a couple of weeks. He’s skipping the Bryon Nelson for the first time in years this season, but with both The Players and Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial coming up, we’ll be seeing plenty of Tiger in May…On the topic of golf, look for America’s # 1 celebrity golfer George Lopez in the Wednesday Pro Am for this weeks Zurich Classic PGA Tour stop in New Orleans…

I see Roy Halladay pitched a 10-inning complete game on Friday for the Blue Jays. I didn’t read anywhere that his arm fell off after the game. It was a refreshing change in a day that a pitcher can go six innings, give up three runs (4.5 ERA) and get credited with something called a quality start…

Finally, it’s TV pilot season in Los Angeles, and everyone is pulling out all the stops to find the next great hit. ABC is even developing a comedy based on the Geico caveman commercials. Two cavemen try to make it in contemporary Atlanta. Making it in Atlanta might be a lot easier than making it through pilot season. Wanna bet?

As nice as it is to see Tony Soprano back on Sunday nights both Tony and the series are looking a little tired. Let’s hope for a satisfying end to the TV classic…Speaking of Sunday nights on HBO, I have known few agents like Ari Gold on Entourage, however Rex Linn’s portrayal of Ari’s put-upon-assistant Lloyd is spot on…Andy Hill reports that although Coach Wooden is feeling great, his doctors have decided to keep him in the hospital until Saturday citing an elevated heart rate. According to Andy, it’s Coach Wooden’s opinion that the reason he has an elevated heart rate is because he is in the hospital…I was glad to see justice done in the Duke lacrosse case. Still, with a little more adult supervision by the coaches, the unfortunate situation might not have occurred in the first place. Hopefully it was a wake up call for coaches everywhere. Your obligation doesn’t end when you put down your whistle….Hey, Don Imus, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

So, that un-funny fossil Don Imus finally got taken to task for trying to outdo Howard Stern. Imus was supposed to be a smart man’s Howard Stern or Jay Thomas, whose acts he has copied for years. He was never popular with the masses, only those Beltway elite would admit to listening to the original “shock jocks” Thomas and Stern.

But then again those Beltway elite are the same people who think Garrison Keillor and Mark Russell that piano player are funny – speaking of Imus, Jim Huber reports that today’s front page Atlanta Journal Constitution story on the Imus “nappy hair ho” incident is written by someone named Kenneth Ho. You can’t make that up…speaking of Huber, how great was his blog from the Augusta Tuna-Ment last week?…Expect former Michigan basketball coach Tommy Amaker to take the Harvard job this week. I wonder what Cole Wiley thinks about that…

Gas in California is up to $3.25 per gallon for regular this week. Highest average price in the country. Then again, it’s 75 degrees in Southern California as I write this…How big a weekend is this for the Minnesota Twins. On Friday Justin Morneau received his MVP award, on Saturday Johan Santana collects his Cy Young award, and on Sunday Joe Mauer picks up his Batting Title hardware. The classy Twins will bring in Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew for the festivities…Hall of Famers George Gervin and Artis Gilmore were in LA this past weekend to shoot a cameo in the new Will Farrell movie. Remember the ABA. Farrell plays the owner of the fictional Flint (Michigan) Tropics.

AUGUSTA, GA. – If you like the best of Middle America, your new Masters champion will suit you just fine…Zach Johnson is as clean and nice and friendly and yet focused and driven as anybody on tour…You wonder, however, if this is the beginning of something very large for him or if we have yet another Ben Curtis, Shawn Micheel or Larry Mize on our hands…Johnson is, after all, 31 years old and has won only once before…though he dominated the Nationwide Tour, he hadn’t made much of a dent with the big boys until Sunday…He’s getting to like Georgia, however, since his only other victory on the PGA Tour came a couple years ago in Atlanta…

How many of Tiger’s f-bombs did you catch Sunday? If you were walking with him, you might have heard about 45…

Still wondering, as we did all last week, about the Europeans and the Australians…been since 1999 that the last European won at the Masters and an Australian never has…Justin Rose and Stuart Appleby had their chances but something always went awry…

It was, in the end, a rather lifeless tournament for the first time in memory, dulled by the yellow-green pollen, blown by the ceaseless wind and chilled by temperatures more readily found in December around these parts…a Masters shaken, then, but not stirred…

AUGUSTA, GA. – Don’t know whether you noticed or if you did, whether it struck you odd yesterday but we had the potential of a Gary McCord or Jack Whitaker moment here at the Masters…McCord was banished years ago from the CBS telecast for saying the greens had been laced with “bikini wax” and Whitaker gone for mentioning the “mob” following one player…you just don’t tarnish the pristine image of Augusta National with such frivolous throwaways…there are certain standard rules: they are not fans, they are patrons…it is not a championship, it is a tournament (or “tuna-ment” down here) ..

So Saturday when David Feherty (who else?) was desperately trying to describe how beautiful and yet how wicked the day was, he slowly said “it’s…it’s like…um…it’s like being tortured by…um…tortured by a beautiful woman”…You could sense the indecision in his voice, wondering whether to say it or not and then, sorta “oh, what the hell”…the resounding shudder was like a 4.5 earthquake rumbling through the land…there were gasps… there were “oh, my, he didn’t say that, did he?s”…everyone immediately looked for the first green jacket he could find to check reaction…and though it’s only been a day, nothing so far, thank God…

What’s with the Stuart Appleby hair, by the way? Does everyone from Australia have to look like they’ve been chasing sharks?…

This is the 15th Masters to finish up on Easter Sunday and where better to celebrate the great day? Though it is bone cold, I continued what became a tradition for me years and years ago by wandering down the hill to amen corner for a bit of introspection and conversation…It is as magnificent a cathedral as man has ever tried, for sure…

AUGUSTA, GA. – Don’t know if you saw it or not but on the 13th tee Friday, as Tiger Woods was on the downswing of his drive, a bird flew out of the bush directly across the tee box…and Tiger was somehow, unbelievably, able to adjust his 120-mile an hour swing and avoid the ball…you can do that, the rules say so…well, you can’t do that…imagine the strength and timing…

It is blowing a bit and cool this morning as the largest weekend field since 1966 showed up for the third round…And who gets the worst of it? Shouldn’t be this way but the leaders don’t tee off until 3 p.m. eastern time and thus, finish right about dusk with temperatures headed toward the thirties and similar winds…congratulations on leading…don’t get used to it…

Think putting really wins this event? Stats don’t work, then, because Stewart Cink is tied for the lead with fewest putts through 36 holes—and is tied for 46th place, ten shots off the pace…

Popular thinking today around here is Vijay Singh might be the man, even par, just two shots back…and the last time any of us can remember conditions quite like this, it was Saturday 2000 when Vijay came out of the pack, ignored the weather and took control on his way to a victory…

AUGUSTA, GA, – Well, this is what the men behind Augusta National had in mind five years ago when they installed the teeth in this course…For the first time since then, there will likely be no rain through the four days and with the wind blowing and the temperatures nearing record lows, it has officially become a bear…Add to all of that the fact that while the fairways are awfully soft because of watering and the greens are drying to parking-lot consistency, Sam Snead’s record set back in 1954 of one over par as the highest winning score could very well be in jeopardy…

Augusta National Golf Club may be many things but you would think cheap would not be one of them…Yet, while it has donated over 29 million dollars over the last eight years to charities around the city and country, it has never raised prices…sandwiches have been $1.50 for decades, same with the $2 beer and though you have to go through a lottery to get a practice-round ticket, it only costs you $36 once you get there…balcony seats to see “A Prairie Home Companion” costs more…course, the jokes usually aren’t as good here…

Confused at birth: Jeev Milkha Singh and Borat?…The latter, of course, had the lead here early Thursday or…

AUGUSTA, GA. – What an odd and yet poignant sight this morning as Arnold Palmer, the Masters’ newest honorary starter, took his usual furious swipe at the ball off the first tee, turned and waved and then walked to the clubhouse, through for the day…and yet Gary Player, long Palmer’s contemporary, went off a while later to play in his 50th Masters…no ceremony there, he’s still dead serious about this game…

Been since 1999 that a European (Jose Maria Olathabal) has won here and, in fact, since later that year (Paul Lawrie at the British Open) that a European has won ANY major championship, 29 in a row…but for the first time in Masters history, at least the odds have changed a bit this year…International players outnumber Americans in this field 50-47…

The club yesterday honored 14 men who had covered the Masters for at least 40 years and what stories they tell…

Eddie Pope of the Miami Herald, who started coming here in 1946, said when he was shown to his first seat in the old press Quonset hut, there was a table, a chair, and a half-full bottle of whiskey awaiting…same for everyone….This is my 22nd and I must honestly report that tradition must have been done away with at least 23 years ago…

Augusta, GA.—Sniffling toward the Masters…If azaleas and dogwoods are your thing, this is your place, as always…if allergies are your thing, however, you need Augusta, Maine, instead…

Hot rumor of the week thus far: Tiger Woods is reportedly buying a portion of the Golf Channel…how much of it and for how much hasn’t leaked yet…Since it is located in Tiger’s backyard and remembering Arnold Palmer was behind the channel from its origin, this shouldn’t come as any great surprise…

About this global warming thing: I can recall what seems like hundreds of 90-plus degree days covering this event over the decades…It’s not supposed to get close to the mid-sixties here this weekend…

This Masters, as they all seem to, celebrates significant anniversaries—Gary Player’s 50th, the 20th year since Larry Mize chipped in to beat Greg Norman in the playoff, and it has been a decade since Tiger Woods won his first green jacket, establishing a scoring record that many this week have plainly said will never be broken…it is a far, far different Augusta National they face these days, tighter, longer, deeper, much tougher…last year, for instance, Davis Love III hit driver, wedge into 18…yesterday, he hit driver, six iron…what Tiger wrought…

In the course of 30 years as a reporter and many a travel story in far-flung paradises – Tahiti, Fiji and a dozen tropical heavens included – no place on earth can touch Nashville. For starters, the city speaks America’s three native languages as its triple mother tongues: Country, gospel and bluegrass. And when those are not heard, the blues and jazz are around every corner. For German, Italian and French – Beethoven to Verdi to Berlioz – the Nashville Symphony has but a few national rivals.

Last month I threw a dart at the calendar and picked five days and six nights in Music City, Nashville’s adopted moniker. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price just happened to be in town. World-renowned pianist Peter Serkin came to perform with the Nashville Symphony. Loretta Lynn played the Grand Ole Opry. On a Sunday night, I had to make tough choice between George Jones at the Ryman Auditorium or Roseanne Cash at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. And Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra played there too mid week. Throw the dart a little to the left or right on the calendar, and the Van Cliburn winner, Billy Joel, Martina McBride, Vince Gill or “Whispering” Bill Anderson headlined some poster some night somewhere in Nashville. And that’s simply the Hall of Fame A-list…

All this week HOFMAG.com editor John Budris tours the Music City - Nashville, Tennessee.