Sports

Building a New Football Stadium at UNT

I have a letter to the editor in today's North Texas Daily, the student newspaper I edited back in the Mesozoic Era, to support a student fee to build a new football stadium at the University of North Texas: As an NT alumnus and former Daily editor, I'm disappointed that the current staff of the newspaper didn't endorse the athletic fee referendum. Fouts Field is an eyesore that detracts from the university. It's the fifth-oldest building on campus, the conditions inside are abysmal, the ... (read more)

2008/10/14

Review: 'Netherland' by Joseph O'Neill

Over the years I've become an obsessive Anglophile, following British football and literature with the kind of unvarnished joy that can only come from being completely ill-informed on a subject. I don't know enough about either one to become jaded, though my adoption of Tottenham Hotspur as favorite team is beginning to change that. My love of British books is exercised by following each year's Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious literary award for fiction in the U.K. The prize goes through ... (read more)

2008/08/28

Boston Herald Should Name Its SpyGate Source

On Wednesday, the Boston Herald apologized for a Feb. 2 story by John Tomase that reported the New England Patriots surreptitiously videotaped the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough practice before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed. Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Herald neither possessed ... (read more)

2008/05/16

Judging Annie Leibovitz By Her Cover

In a column this morning for TownHall.Com, David W. Almasi calls me a "race-monger" for pointing out the racial implications of the LeBron James/Gisele Bundchen Vogue magazine cover. Annie Leibovitz's photo was a recreation of a famous World War I military recruitment poster, with James in the role of the woman-lusting gorilla and Bundchen as his prey. People who see King Kong in the cover are not far off the mark. Citing Chris Rock's Saturday Night Live character Nat X, Almasi, the executive ... (read more)

2008/04/02

Doug Glanville: From The Show to The Times

As I mentally prepare myself for the season in which the Texas Rangers will finally win the World Series, I posted Doug Glanville's latest essay on SportsFilter to mark baseball's opening night: Doug Glanville: Baseball and the Plankton of Opportunity: "Since a baseball player has the memory of an elephant, my first spring training with the Chicago Cubs might as well have happened yesterday," nine-year Major Leaguer Doug Glanville writes in today's New York Times. "My first roommate was a ... (read more)

2008/03/30

Vogue Makes King James Look Like King Kong

Today on SportsFilter: Critics Go Ape Over Lebron James Magazine Cover: A picture of NBA star Lebron James and the model Gisele on the cover of April's Vogue is attracting controversy over their pose. The shot taken by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz has been compared by some detractors to King Kong holding Fay Wray. ESPN.Com columnist Jemele Hill called it "memorable for all the wrong reasons." The photo is remarkably similar to "Destroy This Mad Brute" a famous World War I recruitment ... (read more)

2008/03/27

Ezra Klein's an Athletic Supporter

I'm a fan of liberal blogger Ezra Klein, but this may be the worst sports metaphor ever: Since all political commentary is powered by sports analogies, let's take football here. The Clinton team is playing as if this will be decided on points. But in fact, it will be decided by judges, some of them empires, some of them representatives of the crowd, some of them big donors to the stadium. And those judges are terrified of pissing off their loyal fan base. The strategy here should be making the ... (read more)

2008/03/26

Blade Runner Can't Compete in Olympics

When he was 11 months old, Oscar Pistorius had both his legs amputated below the knees because of a congenital condition. Now 21, Pistorius is a sprinter who runs on artificial legs called blades, as he did in July at the Golden Gala competition. Pistorius can't compete in this year's Summer Olympics in Beijing because those blades have been ruled an unfair advantage. It's a shame he won't be allowed to compete. Seeing him round the turn in the 400 meters and take off, moving at world-record ... (read more)

2008/01/15

Hail to the Racial Slur

Joe Gibbs abruptly resigned today, ending his second stint with Washington's football team on significantly less successful terms than the first. In posting the story on SportsFilter and the Drudge Retort, I made the conscious decision to avoid referring to the team's racist mascot name. Original lyrics to Washington's team song: Hail to the Redskins Hail Vic-tor-y Braves on the Warpath Fight for old Dixie Scalp 'em, swamp 'em -- We will take 'em big score Read 'em, weep 'em, touchdown -- we ... (read more)

2008/01/08

College Football is Huge in Clemson's Death Valley

While looking for a photo of the entrance to Clemson's Death Valley football stadium, I found a bizarre form of photography that's exemplified by this picture: Take a close look at the larger sizes of Steven Bower's image, which is called a tilt shift, and let me know whether you think it's a photo of a real scene or a miniature. ... (read more)

2007/07/16

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