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EVERY SCRUB ATHLETE HAS THIS STORY

    If you’ve got one, then you’re a scrub athlete. And that’s not a bad thing.   Talking to college stars and professional athletes, one thing stands out: They’ve played a lot of games. Far too many for one moment to stand above the rest. Ask if they remember one game, one opponent, that […]

SPORTS BOUNDARY FOR JASON WITTEN COWBOY FANS

  How serious is a sports boundary? Ask a Cowboy fan.   You’ve been at gatherings where there’s a game playing in the TV room. Maybe it’s a family reunion, or a party, or a guy in the neighborhood’s house. Someone catches you watching the game. “Oh, you’re one of them?” they say, and leave. They […]

OREGON DUCKS vs COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S BIGGEST LOSERS

Any team the Oregon Ducks lost big games to qualify for this homer.   Oregon Ducks vs Auburn, 2010. All these years later it feels like it’s time to move on from 2010, to get on with new teams and new eras. Not for this Duck fan. Like the alleged Russian hack of the 2016 […]

GREAT ATHLETES, GREAT PARENTS. BETTER RESULTS?

First place is what great athletes aim for. In the beginning competition reflected the nature of mankind. Whether you cheer for the first life-form slithering from the sea, or the Garden of Eden story, first place is the only place. First place is the happy place. Losers get disappointment and bitterness. They all come after […]

NORTH BEND BULLDOGS WIN BIGGER THAN FOOTBALL

A win for North Bend Bulldogs reaches across decades. A hundred years from now North Bend Bulldogs will remember the first football championship. Two guys more than forty years out of uniform explain: “This is a big deal?” “A huge deal. Yes. That big.”

THE ELEVEN TIGERS OF 6A FOOTBALL

The 6A Football Semi-Final. “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again.” That was Grantland Rice in 1924 writing about college football. “In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of […]

PARTICIPATION TROPHY FOR WINNERS, LOSERS

Participation trophy for cheating sports dads. About that participation trophy deal: A rant from an adult started, “Dear Everyone Older Than Me…” It was hilarious. Turns out he didn’t want the trophy then, and doesn’t want to hear about it now. That makes sense. Who doesn’t enjoy knocking little kids hopes and dreams into the […]

OLD MAN LEBRON STILL GOT GAME

Old man LeBron not old enough to be old. If you watch sports for life lessons, then watching LeBron is a graduate course. He’s been in the finals for six straight years and two different teams. So we think we know him. And we’re wrong. The only reason LeBron seems old is by the dewy […]

WRITER’S EYE TREATMENT FOR LEBRON JAMES

It’s not pink eye, it’s writer’s eye, and LeBron James lives it everyday. There’s a story about Mark Twain cussing so much that his wife finally took it up. She cussed and cussed to show him what it sounded like, trying to shame him into cleaning up his mouth. Apparently it didn’t work, and he […]

AMERICAN CTE: FOOTBALL AND DRIVING

The last thing good baby boomer helicopter parents wanted was their precious getting his brain rattled loose. But they have friends, friends with dads who coach youth football. “I hear your boy’s a good kicker. He want to play some ball?” And he’s on the team, from sixth grade kicker to pulling guard on a […]