This past weekend was notable for its sheer breadth of sporting events—NBA and NHL playoffs, great golf from North Carolina, intense NASCAR racing from Talladega, baseball, soccer, and the Kentucky Derby all combined to make for a smorgasbord of sporting delights. What caught my attention, however, was the reminder that sometimes sports is not about…
Read More »As a fan of Liverpool Football Club, this has been a challenging year. With their fourth manager in the last four years, the storied Reds have not exactly been a model of stability (for that, take a look at the New England Patriots or Pittsburgh Steelers). But when 39-year-old Brendon Rogers was hired last summer,…
Read More »With this weekend’s festivities at Homestead, Florida, the NASCAR season came to an end. A season that had begun in February at Daytona finally concluded when the checkered flag was waved to conclude the Ford Ecoboost 400. But, not only did that checkered flag signal the conclusion of the race, it brought to an end…
Read More »With NFL training camps underway, some of the best athletes in the USA are being tested in every area of their lives. When we think of training camps, we usually think (appropriately) of the physical tests athletes will endure. Lifting weights, conditioning exercises, grueling drills, hours and hours in the hot summer sun. All those…
Read More »In the award-winning film Chariots of Fire, one of the characters chronicled (alongside Scottish sprinter and missionary to China, Eric Liddell) is legendary British sprinter Harold Abrahams. Abrahams is obsessed with winning, but in a preliminary 100-meter dash leading up to the 1924 Olympics, he is soundly beaten by his rival, Liddell. His response is…
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 »This past weekend was one of my favorite pro golf events of the year: The Players Championship from the TPC Course at Sawgrass, Florida. The distinctive course design, featuring the famous island green on the 17th hole, and the strongest field of any tournament held during the year, make for high drama and challenging moments….
Read More »Yesterday, the final games of the 2011–2012 Barclay’s Premier League season were played. At one end of the table, teams were fighting to stay out of relegation (where the bottom three teams get demoted to the next division down), while at the other end, teams were fighting for the privilege of playing in the UEFA…
Read More »How pitching has changed over the years. Cy Young (who has a rather prestigious award that carries his name) won 511 games in his storied career. Bob Gibson, Cardinals great from the 1960s, averaged 270-280 innings pitched in a year. Then came the advent of the modern bullpen with its cadre of specialists. Long relievers….
Read More »This past weekend, in the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs, the Houston Texans did more than just make their first postseason appearance in the history of their franchise—they won it handily, defeating the Cincinnati Bengals, 31-10. But the fact of the playoff berth and the means of victory were not what made this maiden…
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