This was a good week to avoid watching sports television. Listening to talk radio. Spending more than five minutes in the office. Leaving the house. All anybody wanted to discuss, from the point of view of either frustrated pink-hat fan or contrarian heckler, was the awfulness of the New England Patriots. It’s the sort of […]
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The Hot Corner: Sidelined seniors teach hard lesson
There are things about this adventurous life I’ve chosen that never get comfortable. Working nights and weekends isn’t a problem. I’ve almost learned to embrace the fact that I can never attend a concert, or a sporting event for the sheer purpose of my own amusement, the way everyone else on the planet can. Being […]
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The Hot Corner: Let’s keep our heads in this game
Happy to report that our local schools are getting a clear head about the issue of concussions. No, the injuries aren’t going away. Despite everyone’s best efforts to teach better technique and promote awareness of the epidemic to every stakeholder in youth sports, I see and hear of more high school athletes getting concussed than […]
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The Hot Corner: Football’s failures reflect society’s ills
We don’t have a football problem. We have a moral problem. A generation of men that doesn’t have the remotest suspicion how to be real men. Society that has pegged “disrespect” as the ultimate insult, without recognizing that respect is earned. Culture that has desensitized us to violence and the objectification of women, even as […]
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The Hot Corner: Coach’s one-and-done continues troubling trend
The inmates have won again with the resignation of Spruce Mountain High School boys’ soccer coach Larry Thornton after one (ayuh, one) game at the helm. Yes, I know we live in a kids-are-awesome, adults-are-wrong society, and that I shouldn’t be surprised. As someone paid to follow these patterns, however, I can’t help but notice […]
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The Hot Corner: No better time than the present
This business subjects us to tough questions. Sometimes we’re asking them, and sometimes we’re answering them. The most challenging one that’s ever pitched to me — and by far, the one I hear most frequently — is “what’s your favorite sport to cover?” I’ve perfected the copout answer: “Whichever one is in season.” Lame, but […]
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The Hot Corner: Tragedy we can’t (and shouldn’t) shake
It is the story that won’t go away. Easy in this culture that struggles comically to separate rumor from fact to wish that it would. Failure to learn from the blink of an eye that has linked Tony Stewart and Kevin Ward Jr. for eternity, however, would heap tragedy upon tragedy. Ward’s life inexplicably is […]
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The Hot Corner: Rice’s case evidence of deeper problems
So let me get this straight: There is video evidence of Ray Rice dragging a semi-conscious female out of a hotel elevator, with a domestic violence arrest to support what I see, and I’m supposed to be righteously indignant with Roger Goodell and Stephen A. Smith? Way to go, America. Once again we’ve directed our […]
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The Hot Corner: Benjamin perfect fit with select company
OXFORD — Geoff Bodine. Ralph Nason. Ben Rowe. Eddie MacDonald. Let’s see: One of the top 50 drivers in NASCAR history; an irascible, indomitable local legend; and two guys who are still winning races and championships by the fistful, fluffing up the engraved writing for their regional hall of fame induction plaques someday. Does Travis […]
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The Hot Corner: Local tradition juices up slow week in sports
This is notoriously the lamest week of the sports calendar year. That the Home Run Derby and ESPY Awards even exist are Exhibits A and B. Baseball’s almost forgotten All-Star Game (motto: “This time, it counts, because the year everybody was honest about the fact that it doesn’t embarrassed the crap out of us”) is […]