Back in 1992 when I graduated from high school and went to college, I fell in love with the best morning sports show in the world, ESPN Sports Center.  This show not only gave me great sports coverage, it presented sports in a way that had never been done before.  It was funny, it was engaging, and it was memorable.  One of the key components of Sports Center was Keith Olbermann, and he was awesome.

I remember when Olbermann left Sports Center. While I still enjoyed the legacy he left behind, the show was not the same.  Life simply was not as good without Keith Olbermann at ESPN. You might be wondering, how did Mr. Olbermann change from the greatest person in the world to someone that Mike wants to slap?  MSNBC... that is how.

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In my last post I talked about how much I love the Olympics and it is true, I do.  However, there is a part of the Olympics that drives me crazy and I am talking about the announcers.  To be fair, I rarely like the announcers in any sport, John Madden in for Sunday Night Football drives me to drink sometimes.  “The team that scores the most points will win the game.”

I realize that the announcers are a necessary evil and when there is no sound it can be annoying.  I think it is the excessive talking that bothers me the most followed by the over hyping.  Every athlete is the best athlete in the world, be it Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, the list goes on and on.  My favorite is when they will say not only is he the best in the world but he is the best in the universe.  Really?  How many athletes have you been able to cover outside of this little ball of soil and water that we call Earth?

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A good friend of mine (hi, Travis) coaches his son’s Pre-K soccer team. It fascinated me to find out that when it comes to keeping score at that young age, they don’t. Or at least they’re not supposed to. Without a score, there isn’t a winner or a loser. But try telling that to the kids. When one of my friend’s players asks him, “What’s the score?” he always tells them, “It’s tied, so you better play hard.” To which the kids will sometimes answer, “No it’s not. We have way more than they do.”

The youth soccer organization my friend coaches for probably put the rule there to protect the feelings of the children and deemphasize competition; to promote love of the game and defang rabid parents who live vicariously though their young children. Continue Reading

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(President Jimmy Carter jogging. Public Domain Photo, courtesy of Wikipedia.)

My mom keeps telling me to “walk, don’t run” (which is, by the way, the title of Cary Grant’s very last movie shot in 1966).

I love my mom. But what she doesn’t know is, walking and running are like water and gasoline. They are two totally different categories of metabolic burn. Walking simply does nothing for me in terms of weight loss.

In my decade-long battle with fat, it always comes to this: I either get out and hit the pavement or watch myself turn into the Goodyear blimp, real fast.

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(Photo: Peggy Noonan)

Here are some my favorite American journalists who rarely fail to amaze me with their wit and erudition, powerful prose, and clarity of thought.

Peggy Noonan

She writes for the Wall Street Journal. Her Friday columns is a must reading for me. She used to be Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter. A devout Catholic and a committed Republican that I trust, despite the fact that I’m neither.

Her recent comments on Hillary Clinton’s turbulent candidacy should be enough to give you a sense of her depth and brilliance as a political commentator:

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SI’s senior columnist Frank Deford is one of my favorite writers. Not only he knows sports inside out but he is a terrific writer as well.

It’s always a pleasure to read what he thinks on any topic.

Deford’s recent column on Olympics again got me thinking about the whole hoopla around the Olympic torch, the Tibet issue, etc.

First off, did you know that the Olympic torch itself was invented by the Nazis, in 1936?! I certainly did not know that.

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Popularity: 6% [?]