Atlantic Division News Blog @newzblogz.com

Just because Sam Mitchell and the Toronto Raptors don't have a pick in this week's NBA draft doesn't mean the team is taking an extended vacation.

The summer, in fact, has been quite busy as Mitchell and the Raptors try to build on the franchise's first Atlantic Division title. In just his third season as Toronto's head coach, Mitchell led the team to a franchise-record-tying 47 wins. Despite holding home-court advantage for the first time in the franchise's history, the Raptors lost to New Jersey in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

And that left Mitchell and his team with plenty of work to do.

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Clemson football fans know coach Tommy Bowden isn?t one of those ?It-is-what-it-is? guys who give the media some impenetrable explanation of the game that just ended, the season in review or what might happen next with his team.

Instead, Bowden has a mischievous streak in his dealings with the media, always trying to offer a counterpoint to what he senses could be a mistaken general impression of himself or his team.

So it was, after a disappointing bowl game loss to Kentucky last year, that Bowden deconstructed the season and offered up a one-point corollary.

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 The Multi-Million Dollar Club for local chief executives is getting a little bigger. With a solid economy helping companies drive up their profits and the stock market rallying once again in 2006, 17 local executives earned pay packages that were worth more than $1 million last year and 11 of them managed to top the $2 million mark.

While membership in the Million Dollar Club was down a bit from 20 members in 2005, the number of executives whose total pay reached into seven figures was 40 percent more than it was in 2004 and was at its second-highest level since The Buffalo News began surveying local CEO pay trends in 1992.

It was the Multi-Million Club that was growing last year, with membership jumping from eight executives in 2005 to 11 in 2006 — the most ever.

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COCOA - Considering the significance to the W-League standings, the competitiveness of Thursday's women's soccer game between the Brevard County Cocoa Expos and the Charlotte Eagles was appropriate.

One spot separated them in the Atlantic Division, and the two teams battled through a game that ended 0-0.

Coach James Kryger had conflicting thoughts on the outcome after the team earned one point in the standings for the tie.

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