Posted: March 12th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays | 55 Comments »
Adrian Burgos Jr. is Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois and is the author of the fine book “Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos and the Color Line.” He has written an essay about Torii Hunter and his comments, which I post as follows. I will post my own comments feeding off this post in the next couple of days.
Posted: March 11th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays, Other Sports | 66 Comments »
In this week’s Sports Illustrated, I wrote a little something about the Kansas Jayhawks and the challenge of being the tournament favorite. Along the way, I spent quite a bit of time with Bill Self. He’s one of my favorite people in sports. I actually think that Self is about as good a coach as anyone in America, any sport. I dropped this opinion at a dinner the other day. It’s fair to say that not everyone at the table agreed.
But to me, when you look at the whole coaching package — coaching, recruiting, building a program, selling the program, dealing with the media, building an atmosphere — Self is as good as anyone. The thing about coaches and managers (with Gardy being Exhibit A) is that you can always argue that it really isn’t about them. It’s about the players who actually do. A coach with great players should win. A coach with lousy players should lose. There will always be some serious questions about the worth of any coach because it’s hard to define what the coach actually does … and whether or not the team would have won or lost anyway.
In any case, I think Bill Self is terrific. And I find him fascinating. And so, I wrote the following insanely long piece about him.
Posted: March 3rd, 2010 | Filed under: Essays | 51 Comments »
I had no idea … but Herschel Walker was born one day after Wilt scored 100 points in a game. Of course, there’s actually no reason WHY I should have known this. But there’s something right about it, something fitting, as if the sports gods said: “Oh, you think that 100-point game was something? Well, take a look at THIS guy.”
Here is the Herschel story I wrote for this blog about 2 1/2 years ago … it’s long, and it’s reverential, and its premise remains: Even as Tim Tebow leaves school, I think Herschel is the greatest college football player I ever saw.
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Filed under: Essays | 67 Comments »
You can read this at SI.com as well now, below this oh-so-awesome picture.
Quick question: They couldn’t have gotten a little bit nicer piece of paper than that? The man just scored ONE HUNDRED POINTS. And what did they write 100 with … a piece of charcoal? Amazing that one of the most iconic photos in sports history could have such a crummy prop.
Posted: February 26th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays | 47 Comments »
Here’s something goofy that I think about sometimes: If aliens from outer space came and down and asked me what it means to be human, what I would tell them? What would I show them?
Posted: February 18th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays | 96 Comments »
I would rather not tell anyone, except my daughters, what they should say. I tell my daughters all the time, of course. Say please. Say thank you. Tell Grandma you love her. Tell your friend you’re sorry. And so on. Parents are nags.
I would rather not tell people I don’t know what they should say. Trouble is, being a sportswriter, I find myself doing that quite often. You should have said this. You should not have said that. When you said this, well, it sounded stupid. You should have instead said that. It’s a hazard of the job, I suppose. And it’s a flaw of mine. I do tend to be a nag.
That said, the following is NOT intended to tell Tiger Woods what he should say when he finally speaks tomorrow. He and his multi-million dollar team will figure that one out. I’m only playing the “If I was Tiger Woods” game. It’s a fun game to play when you can then go back to your own life.
Posted: February 12th, 2010 | Filed under: Essays, Other Sports | 69 Comments »
People often come up to me and say: “You don’t really have a Cleveland Browns bowling ball.” Well, I guess it depends on how you define “often.” It has happened at least twice.
Posted: December 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Essays, Pop Culture | 61 Comments »
I wrote the following after seeing the movie “Up in the Air” with George Clooney. I have not seen many great movies the last few years. I hardly remember any at all. I think “Up in the Air” is a great movie. I cannot tell if it was a great movie for me and people like me because of the subject, or if it’s greatness is universal. It doesn’t really matter. The movie sparked a lot of feelings and this rambling essay.
Posted: November 20th, 2009 | Filed under: Essays, New Words | 117 Comments »
I remember talking to a colleague of mine and, for some reason, Amelia Earhart came up. And he said: “Who is she?” I have to say at this at this point that this colleague is very smart and knowledgeable about any number of things, and has a million facts as his disposal on a million subjects. That’s why it was so startling to me. And it was. I was stunned. He did not know Amelia Earhart? How was this possible? I said she was the woman pilot from Kansas who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to fly around the world.* His face registered some sort of vague look of recognition, though he might have wanted to move on to move comfortable ground.
Posted: October 28th, 2009 | Filed under: Essays | 102 Comments »
Here’s a weird one … me trying to talk about political philosophy and sports. It’s something I’ve been toying with for a little while. It’s exactly the sort of oddball thing that makes it fun for me to have a blog. And it’s also exactly the sort of oddball thing that might make no sense to you whatsoever. Don’t worry though … there are no politics in it.
Read the rest of this entry »
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