It has now been a couple of months since the London Olympics, and, with college and pro football in full swing and the baseball playoffs underway, it would be easy for the Games to slip quietly into the darker, less-visited places of our memories. However, when I was told that “excellence” would the subject of…
Read More »Last Thursday, when pro golfer Steve Stricker teed it up at the TPC Deere Run course in Silvis, Illinois, for the John Deere Classic, he was stepping into an extraordinary opportunity. He had the chance to win the John Deere tournament for the fourth straight year. While not one of golf’s major tournaments, the Deere…
Read More »Earlier this year, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic faced a crisis point in his career. The much-sought-after “Superman of the NBA” was facing the trade deadline and had the opportunity to leave the underachieving Magic and go to a contender. For days leading up to the trade deadline, all the talk on sports TV…
Read More »This is an Olympic year, and because of that I find myself thinking often of Eric Liddell. For many people, all they know of Liddell is that his life was part of the primary story for the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire. It is a compelling story, as we follow Liddell, a world-class sprinter,…
Read More »So, here it is—the final race of the long NASCAR Sprint Cup season. What began in Daytona back in February is going to be resolved on Sunday as stock car racing’s top series descends on Homestead, Florida. This weekend, there will, as usual, be 43 cars on the track—but the chase for the championship is…
Read More »Last Saturday, America’s women handily dispatched the Colombian women for their second win in the group stage of the 2011 Women’s World Cup—the most significant women’s soccer competition on the planet. The final score was 3-0, and that would seem to be a very thorough victory. In fact, it was thorough enough that it made…
Read More »When we think of compromise in sports, it can appear in several forms. It can take the form of laziness—or, put another way, compromising by not giving our very best. Cutting corners in the film room or in the weight room or on the practice field always comes back to haunt you because eventually your…
Read More »Last Thursday was opening day for Major League Baseball, and, on that day, something happened that had never before occurred in the history of American professional sport—any sport. As the Detroit Tigers took on the New York Yankees at the big ballpark in the Bronx, three Yankees—Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera—began their 17th…
Read More »As spring training continues and players prepare for the start of the Major League Baseball season, every team has two kinds of players—established starters and role players. The fourth outfielder who also occasionally DHs and the utility infielder are examples. In fact, I have heard big league ballplayers say that the more gloves (infield glove,…
Read More »I remember that cold winter’s day in the 1969 Super Bowl, watching as Joe Willie Namath dismantled the vaunted Baltimore Colts defense and bested the legendary Johnny Unitas to bring the AFL its first ever Super Bowl win—a game that was historic because it validated the merger of the two leagues into one. I remember…
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