By Joel Huerto
OneManFastBreak.net

USA Basketball recently announced the 20 finalists who will compete for the 12 spots on the senior men's national team that will represent the U.S. in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Among the finalists are holdovers from the 2008 gold-medal winning team in Beijing: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Carmelo Anthony. Assuming all eight accept invitations to London, there are 12 players fighting for four spots which leaves USA Basketball president Jerry Colangelo and head coach Mike Krzyzewski the dirty task of having to cut star players without embarrassing them in public.

Injuries will certainly play a big part of the selection process, especially with Bryant (wrist) and Wade (foot). Both have hinted they would love to play in London, but it'll depend on how their teams finish and if their injuries will get worse should they play through the summer. Not having Kobe or Wade in the Olympics will be a huge blow to Coach K but those two were the go-to guys in Beijing. When Team USA needed a basket in the fourth quarter, Coach K called on Kobe's number first and then Wade was a very close second. That was evident in the gold-medal game against Spain when Wade was the catalyst in the first half and Kobe closed the deal.

Imagine a job description that reads:

-- Dynamic company seeks energetic individuals accustomed to high pressure environment.
-- Must be able to adapt.
-- Must be flexible ... literally.
-- Minimum four years flying experience ... (and we're not talking about on an airplane).

You might think it would return very few applicants, but in the fantastical world of Cirque du Soleil, the opposite is true. Their sign might as well read "NOW HIRING: Positions include upside-down, one-armed handstand and twisted in a pretzel." It's a company, and a show, unlike any other.

And that's exactly where someone like Raj Bhavsar might choose to send his resume, one filled with prior experiences most human resource directors do not typically come across. For you see, 31-year-old Raj is a two-Olympic gymnast earning a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

After spending his post-Olympic career doing gymnastics clinics, speeches, some coaching and some marketing, he came to the realization. "I had this constant urge to be physical," he says backstage at his new office, the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. It's where he finds his urges satiated by his exciting new vocation as part of the newest Cirque creation "Iris" (pronounced "Ee-REECE" due to its French-Canadian beginnings).

"A number of our acrobats were gymnasts in a former life," says Leticia Buckley, the show's marketing and public relations manager. "Our 'Buster' [the lead played by Raphael Cruz] is a skater. And lots of different performers come from clown school. It does run the gamut."

Imagine a game where men, women, young and old can compete on an even playing field. Now imagine that it's a game you already know -- a game you haven't played in years, maybe decades. That was Spud Alford's vision. A game for the whole family. A game that anyone can play just about anywhere.

Welcome to the National Finger Football League.

You might know it as paper or tabletop football. No matter what you call it, the game is familiar to anyone who folded a piece of notebook paper into a triangle and had some time to waste in grade school. Alford and his company, Zelosport, have taken it to a whole new level, though. On Jan. 31, just down the street from where the Super Bowl will be played in Indianapolis, one person will be crowned the king of the first-ever White Castle Slider Bowl -- earning $2,500 cash and White Castle hamburgers for life.

But founding Zelosport and launching the NFFL has not been easy. In fact, it's been a test of will, determination and faith for the 56-year old Alford. The Finger Football championship has been 23 years in the making. The struggles and life lessons of perseverance that led to this success, though, began long before that.