I watched (bits of) a couple of basketball games last night for the first time in ages: Syracuse put up a good fight for a bit more than a half before being put away by a really good Connecticut team, and North Carolina blew Duke away late to win their fourth straight in Durham. These… Continue reading Why Do Sports Media Hate Me?
Category: Sports
Congratulations to Pat Summitt
Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt got her 1000th win last night, a record that will probably stand for a good long while. Nobody else in college basketball really has much of a shot– the record for men’s basketball coaches is Bob Knight at 902, and the most wins by an active coach is Mike… Continue reading Congratulations to Pat Summitt
Thank God for Barry Bonds
As you may or may not have heard, the evidence in the upcoming perjury trial of Barry Bonds was unsealed yesterday, and includes a number of positive drug tests. And, really, my main reaction was “Oh, thank God.” It’s not that I’m enthusiastic about hearing steroids-in-baseball talk again, but the alternative was most likely another… Continue reading Thank God for Barry Bonds
Point Spreads, Again
I’m listening to “Mike and Mike” on ESPN radio, as I usually do in the morning, and they just spent the better part of five minutes talking about the point spread for the upcoming Super Bowl. The opening betting line has Pittsburgh favored by seven points, but some Las Vegas organization or another told them… Continue reading Point Spreads, Again
Final Football Thoughts
Somebody really needs to arrange a game between the Giants and the Titans, so they can have an inept-off. Tennessee thoroughly outplayed Baltimore in just about every way, but coughed the ball up twice on stupid plays (LenDale White carrying the ball like the proverbial loaf of bread, Todd Heap trying to hurdle a defender),… Continue reading Final Football Thoughts
The Football Positioning System
It’s NFL playoff time, which means that sports fans will be treated to the sight of the most high-stakes farce in sports, namely the ritual of “bringing out the chains” to determine whether a team has gained enough yards for a first down. We’ve all seen this: the play is whistled dead, a referee un-stacks… Continue reading The Football Positioning System
Why Do I Bother?
I generally enjoy Gregg Easterbrook’s football writing– he gets a little repetitive, and the shtick is starting to overwhelm any insight, but he makes some good points, and is usually entertaining. For example, I really enjoyed his take on the Dallas Cowboys at the end of this week’s column (schadenfreude is a powerful thing). Easterbrook’s… Continue reading Why Do I Bother?
Sports, Test Scores, and the Difference Between Science and Journalism
Inside Higher Ed has an article on athletics and admissions based on an investigative report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The report compares the SAT scores of football and basketball players to those of other students, but what it really highlights is the difference between science and journalism. The basis of the report is pretty simple:… Continue reading Sports, Test Scores, and the Difference Between Science and Journalism
Athletes and Academia, part II
I got a bunch of really good comments to yesterday’s post about athletes and attitudes toward education. Unfortunately, yesterday was also a stay-at-home-with-SteelyKid day, and she spent a lot of time demanding to be held or otherwise catered to, so I didn’t have a chance to respond. I’d like to correct that today by responding… Continue reading Athletes and Academia, part II
Baseball Statistics Are Crap
October is almost upon us, which means that we’ve been subjected to a bunch of long segments on Mike & Mike about baseball. These serve to remind me just how little use I have for baseball, and baseball statistics. I’ve long thought that baseball fans are stat-obsessed dorks, but my opinion changed somewhat when I… Continue reading Baseball Statistics Are Crap