Marc Buoniconti Honored
This Saturday will be like so many other late September Saturdays. College football, spirits high, marching bands at full throttle, will romp from goal post to goal post in the idyllic fading light of early fall all over the country. Rivalries, from small liberal arts colleges to huge football-elite universities, will bring hundreds of thousands of students, townies, and alumni into stadiums, from Maine to Florida, from Ohio to Oregon. But Saturday will be particularly special at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Marc Buoniconti will take the field at his old alma mater at half time. His number, 59, will be retired and there will no doubt be few dry eyes in the stands during that ceremony... Aired Thursday, September 28, 2006. [MORE]
Favre Farewell
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There’s a veritable Greek chorus of sports announce voices rising in a collective crescendo each week of this young NFL season. It’s a blow-hard, unemotional, flat, “I told you so” drone: Brett Favre should have hung up his jock strap last year...
Aired Thursday, September 21, 2006. [MORE]
Sideline Coaching
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I love everything about the NFL. The hype, the weekly dramas, the division of labor by skill positions, the new cameras allowed on the field down inside the 35-yard lines. Even the uniforms these guys wear are pure eye candy. Animators would be hard put to come up with super-hero threads any cooler or more colorful than the uniforms of the electric blue Jacksonville Jaguars. There's only one NFL aspect that annoys me and that's the huge sideline coaching staff...
Aired Thursday, September 14, 2006. [MORE]
US Open Night Magic
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A myriad of thoughts and emotions flooded my brain and heart in watching Andre Agassi's retirement match last week-end at the U.S. Open. The champ played his heart out for 21 years, a remarkable tribute to his discipline and, in the end, it wasn't his desire or focus or fitness that faded. It was his body...
Aired Thursday, September 7, 2006. [MORE]
Agassi, One of a Kind
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The farewells to Andre Agassi pouring in from far and wide, during this and next week's U.S. Open, are deep and heartfelt. This is the last time we will see the champion play the game he partly reinvented and there is no doubt that he will be sorely missed. It's not that men's tennis doesn't have its charismatic stars at the moment. The dual between polar opposites, the debonair and flapless Roger Federer and the fiery matador Rafael Nadal, brings excitement and intrigue to every major tournament. The fluidly athletic Andy Roddick, my pick to win the Open this year, openly emotes, as did his new coach, 5-time Open-champ Jimmy Connors, and that kind of vulnerability is always a draw. Andre's retirement won't leave a void, but we will surely miss him...
Aired Thursday, August 31, 2006. [MORE]
NBA Stars Overkill
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Are you a basketball fan? Second question. Are you following the World Basketball Championships? They say if you're a true fan of a sport, you'll watch a game at any level at all, as long as the competition is close. There are Major League Baseball teams reportedly tuning in to the Little League World Series right now on their dugout and locker room monitors. So I ask you: Are you a hoops fan and are you watching the World Basketball Championships? Aired Thursday, August 24, 2006. [MORE]
Landis in Denial
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I'm sure you've heard quite enough of Floyd Landis over the last week. But I just can't help myself. I keep wondering what's being whispered within his innermost circle at the moment. The same way I wondered just what O.J. Simpson told Al Cowlings that day they were speeding around on the LA freeways in the white Bronco. Was/is O.J. in utter denial, a true sociopath, out of touch with the reality of what he had done? Or was/is he plenty aware…and did he spill his guts to his buddy Al Cowlings that day in the Bronco? Aired Thursday, August 10, 2006. [MORE]
Fidel the Sportsman
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News of Fidel Castro's failing health, perhaps imminent death, is playing differently in different circles. Leftist leaders of Latin America lament the potential loss of their spiritual leader. Exiled Cubans in Miami celebrate the demise of the man they view as a monster despot. But for the Cuban athlete, there’s bound to be mixed feelings...
Aired Thursday, August 3, 2006. [MORE]
Landis Crisis
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I'll bet anything you responded just the way I did when I first heard the news today. American Floyd Landis, surprising victor of the fabled Tour de France this past Sunday, has been accused of cheating by way of steroids in this year's race. I couldn't believe my ears. Everyplace I've been today, colleagues and merchants and strangers on the street are sharing disbelif...and dismay...
Aired Thursday, July 27, 2006. [MORE]
Retired but Busy
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I've been thinking of a couple of retired athletes I truly admire this week. Argentina's Gabriela Sabatini, inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame this past week-end, is one. Sabatini was a beauty... dark, brooding, classy and the first woman from her country ever to win a Grand Slam title, which happened when she took the U.S. Open in 1990 at the age of 20, in innovative fashion to boot, by morphing her game radically from deep behind the baseline to an aggressive serve and volley...
Aired Thursday, July 20, 2006. [MORE]
Tour Suffers Sans Lance
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I distinctly remember watching the final day of last year's Tour de France, the day Lance Armstrong took his farewell laps up and down the Champs Elysees for the seventh and last time. Some say his accomplishment, with the added element of surviving near-fatal cancer, is the greatest feat in the history of all of sport. Aired Thursday, July 13, 2006. [MORE]
World Cup Fever
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Now that World Cup immersion is nearing the end of its month-long, world-wide fever, with the France/Italy final to be played this Sunday, let's talk about just how hot the fever boiled here in the U.S. over the month of the tournament...
Aired Thursday, July 6, 2006. [MORE]
Agassi Good-Bye
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Andre Agassi announced his retirement just before Wimbledon started this week. He addressed the press in England, on the grounds of the All England Lawn and Tennis club, such a fitting setting in that he won his first Grand Slam tournament on the Wimbledon grass back in 1992...
Aired Thursday, June 29, 2006. [MORE]
Woe is the WNBA
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Four days in a row recently, I'm riding in my car and tune in to various sports talk shows. Two of those days I was at home here in Los Angeles. Another day I was in New York. Another in South Carolina. Each time I wind up in the middle of one of these typical 3-hour yack cycles with two or three male hosts who yell on top of each other and rarely offer a unique or intelligent insight...
Aired Thursday, June 22, 2006. [MORE]