While it is the goal of many children to grow up to be professional athletes, few will make it there. The ones who do are considered to be incredibly lucky to get to make their living playing games. There is some risk involved too, though, especially in contact sports. In football, it is generally accepted that injuries are just a part of the game. With research into head injuries showing dramatic negative effects, we are starting to see players leave the game rather than expose themselves to debilitating injury. The big stories this week involved Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker and San Francisco 49ers linebackers Patrick Willis and Chris Borland, who all retired unexpectedly.

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Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Have you ever disliked a public figure but not been sure why you felt that way? It happens to me all the time. I am a person of strong opinions, and that often leads to strong feelings in both directions. In sports, there are guys of whom I am a huge fan and there are guys that I despise. One of those on my bad list is Jim Boeheim, the head basketball coach at Syracuse. I have always disliked him, but never had a really solid reason for it. Until now, that is. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I find the fact that things can be reported as news these days with no basis in fact whatsoever to be abhorrent. All that needs to happen is that someone, anyone, says something that seems interesting or controversial and it spreads like wildfire. Many times, there isn’t even any “saying” involved, as Twitter and other social media allow people to speak to an incredibly wide audience with little effort and less personal risk. Anyone with any kind of connection is considered an “insider,” and facts don’t seem to be a necessary component of anything. A recipient of this sort of reporting this week was Tiger Woods, who was said to have been suspended by the PGA Tour for a month, even though nothing of the sort had happened. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I normally restrict my stories to things that happened through Sunday night. I guess that is a leftover from when I used to schedule this column to post first thing Monday morning. My laziness has given me the opportunity to extend this window, but thus far I have not done so. I was not going to do it this week either, despite the presence of a story that was right up my alley, but a Facebook post by my cousin made me think twice about it. The story to which I refer involves ESPN personality Keith Olbermann, and his tone-deaf comments about Penn State and THON on Twitter the other day. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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As I noted before, during the first two months of the year, part of my Saturdays are spent in gymnasiums … one in my church, and another in the public high school across the street. The Upward Basketball and Cheerleading season is well underway here, in Midland, Texas. Volunteers are helping the program in a lot of different ways … as coaches, referees, time/scorekeepers, and delivering devotionals to the fans during halftime breaks … I’m one of the volunteers doing the devotionals, and here was my presentation for this past Saturday, inspired by what I observed of the youngsters on the court …
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Tags: religion & philosophy, sports by Jeff McDonald
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When I was a kid, I enjoyed playing sports. I wasn’t a great athlete, but I wasn’t terrible either. I didn’t participate in the organized stuff to any great degree, but I played lots of different sports in my backyard with my neighbors. I did play Little League baseball for a few years. I got to play second base and I got to pitch (although the pitching opportunity was likely more due to my dad being the coach than any great skill on my part). It was a fun and innocent experience. Anymore, though, it seems like the one thing you can count on with sports for kids is that adults will find a way to mess them up. The recent Little League World Series is a great example of this. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Professional sports team owner would seem to be a pretty cushy job, don’t you think? I mean, sure, there is likely some pressure to put a winning product on the field, epecially in the larger, sports-crazed cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. Outside of that, though, the owner watches his or her fortune grow and grow, sometimes into numbers that end in “billion,” while getting to hobnob with the athletes, celebrities, and politicians. It’s remarkable how often these guys screw this up. New York Knicks owners James Dolan seems to be having a tough time of it, for example. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday evening, you received a treat. What a fantastic game. Two great teams, quite evenly matched, played a game for the ages that was decided right at the very end by some huge plays. We got an awful lot of good, mixed with a bit of bad, in the biggest sporting event of the year. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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We are in the midst of Super Bowl week. The two weeks that separate the conference championship games and the Super Bowl are usually a time filled with discussion of the game and everything that goes along with it, like proposition bets, commercials, wardrobe malfunctions, and the like. Mostly the game, though. This year, it has been nearly impossible to find any actual game talk. Instead, the news has been dominated by the fascinating subject of the air inflation levels of some footballs. By “fascinating,” of course, I mean “mind-numbingly dull and pointless.” [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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As I noted before, it’s the start of a new year, and that means part of my Saturdays are spent in gymnasiums … one in my church, and another in the public high school across the street. The Upward Basketball and Cheerleading season is well underway here, in Midland, Texas. Volunteers are helping the program in a lot of different ways … as coaches, referees, time/scorekeepers, and delivering devotionals to the fans during halftime breaks … I’m one of the volunteers doing the devotionals, and here was my presentation for today, inspired by the story of a an alumnus of the college where I work …
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Tags: religion & philosophy, sports by Jeff McDonald
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There are wacky stories and then there are wacky stories. Occasionally, you read something that seems so completely bizarre that it feels like it almost has to be true, because why would someone make that up? The sports world is no exception to this phenomenon, and this week, it was NASCAR that could have appeared in the Weekly World News. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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As I noted last week, it’s January, and that means part of my Saturdays are spent in gymnasiums … one in my church, and another in the public high school across the street. Upward Basketball and Cheerleading season is underway here, in Midland, Texas. Volunteers are helping the program in a lot of different ways … as coaches, referees, time/scorekeepers, and delivering devotionals to the fans during halftime breaks … I’m one of the volunteers doing the devotionals, and here was my presentation for today, inspired by the fact that bad news here, in my part of western Texas – a motor vehicle accident that claimed ten lives, and effects of the continuing decline in oil prices –  made it into national headlines this past week …
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Tags: religion & philosophy, sports by Jeff McDonald
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Hall of Fames (Halls of Fame?) are kind of silly if you think about it. Similar to the Oscars and other awards shows, HoFs are ways for different sports to congratulate themselves. We are a society that likes lists, though, so we appreciate the fact that they tell us which players and coaches are worthy of this high honor.  The choices that are made can be perplexing sometimes, of course. A good example happened this week when Jim Tressel was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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It’s January, and that means part of my Saturdays are spent in gymnasiums … one in my church, and another in the public high school across the street. It’s the start of the Upward Basketball & Cheerleading season here, in Midland, Texas. Volunteers are helping the program in a lot of different ways … as coaches, referees, time/scorekeeprs, and delivering devotionals to the fans during halftime breaks … I’m one of the volunteers doing the devotionals, and here was my presentation for today …

Good afternoon, everyone … and happy new year to all of you! Let me have a show of hands here … how many of you made New Year ‘s Resolutions for 2015? … okay … now, how many of you are still keeping those resolutions?
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Tags: religion & philosophy, sports by Jeff McDonald
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What’s worse than a terrible call that changes the outcome of a game? How about a terrible call that does that same thing but does it in a playoff game? The result is the same, but the stakes are so much higher. That is exactly what happened in the game between the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, and the Lions are finished for the season because of it.

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Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Some sports franchises just seem to be cursed. A few teams seem to live magical existences, making one good decision after another, and even the bad ones that are mixed in there don’t seem to hurt. Other organizations just can’t seem to get out of their own way. Usually, it seems pretty obvious to outside observers that some of the decisions these teams make are doomed from the start, but the people actually making those decisions don’t seem to see it. The Cleveland Browns are one of these franchises, and this past weekend was evidence of that. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Hey all – no column this week due to travel and timing.

One thing to highlight: Penn State’s women’s volleyball team won its 6th national championship in the last eight years this week. Amazing. Congratulations to them.

See you next week.

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Unlike a friend of mine, I am not one of those people that has ten televisions and the ability to watch all of the NFL games at once. That’s not to say I don’t wish that I were, but it is not my reality. On Sundays, if the Eagles are not playing at 1:00, I look at FOX and CBS to see which games they are carrying and I pick one to check out. Most often, I end up watching FOX, as they are usually carrying NFC games, and I am partial to that conference. This past Sunday, I was totally confused when I put on FOX and saw a game between the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals, two AFC teams. I had never seen that before, so it made me curious. It turns out that the reason was a predictable one: Johnny Manziel.

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Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Students and fans of the University of Alabama-Birmingham were dealt a tremendous blow this week when the school decided to shut down its football program. No one is more directly affected than the players and coaches, who will see the work they have done to build this program flushed away with barely a thank you. Although there was not a lot of history in this program, as it only started in 1991, the team just finished its most successful season in a decade and things were looking up. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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One of the favorite pastimes of sports fans is complaining about officiating. I like nothing better than yelling at the television in anguish as a referee makes brutal call after brutal call. Well, let me qualify that. I like well-officiated games the best, and I really hate when one of my teams gets screwed by a terrible call, so I shouldn’t really say that I like all the yelling. However, watching sports would not be the same for me if I didn’t get worked up and indignant a time or two while doing so. If I am watching a game in which I have no real rooting interest, especially, it really does add to my enjoyment, although it may not do the same for the people around me at the time. On Saturday night, Alabama played Auburn in a game that is known as the Iron Bowl. There were several bad calls and confusing situations in this one, but the worst one involved a “simultaneous catch” in the second half.

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Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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