Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

Some athletes just don’t get it. I guess it’s because of how far removed their lives are from those of the average fans. When you make millions of dollars a year for playing a game, it must be easy to lose sight of what it’s like to have to save to take your family to a game. That’s the only way I can explain comments like those made by Kobe Bryant this week, discussing the fact that Carmelo Anthony is being booed by his home fans in Denver. Bryant called the fans of the Nuggets “stupid” for daring to boo Anthony, the team’s star player who is trying to force a trade to the New York Knicks. Apparently, those fans should stay quiet about the giant middle-finger that Anthony is sending their way. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. We expect confidence in our sports figures, don’t we? I think it is a necessary component to a successful athlete. Arrogance? Well, it is certainly not a rarity among the superstars, but I am not sure it is necessary. I could be wrong, though. Maybe a certain amount of arrogance is needed to differentiate the truly great from the simply good. The amount of control players have over that arrogance has a lot to do with how we as fans feel about them. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

This may seem so apparent that it need not be said, but yet I must say it, however quietly: Screaming is not coaching.

Despite how obvious this may appear, people in that most important of coaching places, youth sports, sometimes find screaming as a primary communication method.

[Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
8 Comments »

Football season is over. For me, anyway. Sure, I’ll continue to watch the playoffs and the Super Bowl. My heart won’t be in it, though. On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles lost to the Green Bay Packers, 21-16, and that ended it for me. In a way, that might be a blessing. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
3 Comments »

It is very easy to complain about officiating. I have done so in this column several times. As a fan, it is much easier to blame a loss on a bad call than it is to accept that your team may just not be good enough. Occasionally, a call is so egregiously bad, though, that you can’t help but yell and scream and know your complaining is justified. One of these instances occurred in the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Considering the supposed offense, the point in the game at which it occurred, and the enormous significance to the game situation at the time, this was one of the worst calls I have ever seen. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

Someday, I would like to do some real research into the NCAA. If you are not aware, it is the organization that essentially governs college athletics. I am sure that it serves some kind of positive purpose, but I can’t claim to be aware of what that purpose might be. More often, it seems that the decision makers of the NCAA arbitrarily hand out punishments to schools and players for a variety of infractions in the areas of recruiting and player eligibility with little regard for fairness or consistency. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

I don’t spend a lot of time writing about women’s sports. That’s likely because I don’t spend a lot of time watching women’s sports. This week, though, I need to dedicate some column-space to a couple of remarkable accomplishments that are truly noteworthy, and both occurred in the world of women’s college athletics. One involves the Penn State women’s volleyball team and the other the women’s basketball team from the University of Connecticut. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

Dear NFL,

I write you as a friend to express some concerns. I may be writing only from my own pure — and perhaps misguided — nostalgia, but I worry about the future of my great game. (I apologize in advance for moments of incoherence and inconsistency, but like many long-standing passions, the one I have for you defies articulation — and reason.) [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
6 Comments »

The parents of an eleven-year-old boy who was hit in the head with a line-drive while pitching in a Little League game near Chicago have filed a lawsuit against the company that manufactures the bat that hit the ball. Apparently, the boy’s parents feel that Easton-Bell Sports makes their bats too hard, allowing injuries like this to occur. Jake Schutter now has brain damage from the incident. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
5 Comments »

I love baseball, but baseball has problems. As a Phillies fan, it has been easier, in recent years, to overlook the fact that the league has no salary cap, as the Phillies have one of the league’s highest payrolls. Still, I am able to look past that and see how difficult it must be to be a fan of one of the have-nots, going into each season knowing that only a tremendous amount of luck will get your favorite team to the playoffs. I have long thought that if those low-payroll teams were forced to spend a league-specified minimum amount on their players, it would be a step in the right direction. What I was forgetting, of course, was that those bottom-feeder teams might not spend their money in the wisest way if they were to actually spend it. The Washington Nationals demonstrated this very possibility on Sunday, signing outfielder Jayson Werth to a seven-year, $126 million contract. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

I don’t know which is more shocking: a professional sports team being found to be cheating, or the fact that the cheating is discovered so rarely. Sports are big money, and jobs hinge on wins and losses. I imagine that there is a whole lot of cheating that occurs that is never revealed. Steve Scarnecchia, the video operations director for the Denver Broncos, seems worse than most at hiding his indiscretions. For the second time in recent years, Scarnecchia has been connected to the illegal videotaping of opponents. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

It is time to start talking about NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson being one of the greatest sports figures of all time. Whether you are a fan of NASCAR or not (I am), there is no denying the monumental feat Johnson and his team accomplished on Sunday, winning their fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship. This year’s edition was the closest one in recent history, with the top three drivers separated by less than 50 points going into the final race of the season. It appeared to me that most of the experts were picking Denny Hamlin, the points leader headed into the finale, to win the title. I would say that was wishful thinking, more than anything else. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
No Comments »

Recently the boxer Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins accused Manny Pacquiao of being biased against blacks. Why? Because they’re apparently the only people on Earth the phenomenon from the Philippines hasn’t been beating into comas. After all, recently Manny’s fought Hispanics (Antonio Margarito), whites (Ricky Hatton), and blacks (Joshua Clottey). Oops! When pointed this out, Hopkins amended his accusation to say Pacquiao was avoiding African-Americans, since even though Clottey was born in Africa and now lives in America, he technically is an African in America, not to be confused with an African-American (or a plain American, such as Bernard’s business partner “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya, whom was clobbered into retirement by Manny). Still with Bernard? Let’s continue. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, sports by Sean Cunningham
No Comments »

When kids are young and are playing sports, it is natural for adults to want to protect them from being embarrassed. If playing sports is not fun for a kid right from the beginning, there is little chance that he or she will grow up wanting to play. Organized sports for young children have developed ways to protect the participants from the harsh realities that will eventually hit them when they get older, as far as losing and not being good enough. Games are played without keeping score, rules are changed so that everyone gets equal playing time, and everyone gets a medal at the end. I am okay with these things as long as they are restricted to games involving only the youngest children. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
3 Comments »

When I first read that Brock Clarke’s new novel was called Exley, I felt a mixture of admiration, envy, and even a hint of betrayal. To an extent, I felt scooped for a story, but one I wasn’t certain that any one had the right to tell. How dare Clarke appropriate Frederick Exley for his own purposes? How dare any one of us stoop so low as to piggyback off the fame (even in a doubly derivative “lack there of” sort of way) of A Fan’s Notes? Indeed, I had three pages on Exley in my own new novel, and I had considered deleting these in the last revisions because it felt like theft—no, well, er, actually, because I was worried that part seemed too sentimental. (My solution, if you were wondering, was to add a paragraph to make the scene more absurd.) [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, books & writing, sports by Alex Kudera
1 Comment »

It has been a very bizarre couple of days for me. I went to a hockey game and met a hair band legend, I have mice in my house, and I drank one of the malt beverages that the media is up in arms about and facebook is all abuzz over. Ahh, the highs and lows of a 34 year old father who still thinks he is 22. [Read more →]

Tags: drugs & alcohol, Marty digs, sports by Marty O'Connor
No Comments »

In the last several weeks, the NFL has made a lot of noise about penalties, fines, and suspensions for hits it considers to be violent or dangerous. Helmet-to-helmet hits, in particular, are being closely examined and are to be dealt with harshly. Many players have expressed concerns about what the new rules will do to their ability to play aggressively, and for many of them, non-aggressive play means non-successful play. A momentary hesitation when tackling can be enough to make the defensive player miss the tackle entirely. I appreciate the league’s position, as studies continue to show that the long-term effects of concussions are far worse than was previously believed. My assumption is that the players will adjust, finding ways to be aggressive and hit hard without leading with their helmets. Watching the Eagles-Colts game on Sunday afternoon, though, made me think that professional football may be genuinely damaged by this new focus. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
4 Comments »

Interview with Alex Kudera, author of Fight for Your Long Day

I have known Alex Kudera since 1996 when he and I met in the café of Borders Bookstore in Center City, Philadelphia. A couple years later, Alex and I worked together as adjuncts at Temple University and at Drexel University. Alex has now written a novel, the just-published Fight for Your Long Day, and it is a bracing, painful, and sometimes funny look at the life of an adjunct college teacher in the early 2000’s.

Although Alex currently teaches full-time at Clemson University in South Carolina, he is quick to note that working full-time does not mean tenure. I recently interviewed him about Fight for Your Long Day, published by Atticus Books.

Below are some of the excerpts.

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, books & writing, education, family & parenting, race & culture, sports by Robert Anthony Watts
2 Comments »

There is no more storied college football program in the country than Notre Dame. The name conjures up images of the Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, Rudy, and the Gipper. Despite the fact that the football team itself hasn’t been particularly relevant since the early nineties, the college football world continues to pay an incredible amount of attention to the Fighting Irish. After five miserable years under egomaniac head coach Charlie Weis, new coach Brian Kelly was hired and the fan base was rejuvenated. This week, it became apparent that things have actually gotten worse than they ever were under Weis. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
3 Comments »