Category: Sports

O'Brien, No Ordinary Joe

A Grand Experiment: Why Sports Belong in Higher Education

July 24, 2012

In January 1998 Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno and his wife Sue gave the school $3.5 million to endow faculty positions, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate scholarships, mostly in the College of Liberal Arts. Gushed Penn State president Graham Spanier, “I’m the luckiest University president in the United States.” When retired historian Michael … More A Grand Experiment: Why Sports Belong in Higher Education

Italian Fan, Euro 2012

Soccer and Nationalism

July 2, 2012

Yesterday in Kiev, Spain routed Italy 4-0 to win the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, a tournament that (for many Europeans and no small number of non-Europeans) is only slightly less significant than the other international sporting competition with which it shares a quadrennium. As I wrote about early in Euro 2012, one match between … More Soccer and Nationalism

New Bill James Historical Abstract

Play Ball! – My Favorite Baseball Books (part 2)

April 5, 2012

Yesterday I celebrated the official start to the Major League Baseball season by describing my favorite book written by an active baseball player: pitcher/shortstop/lawyer/labor organizer John Montgomery Ward’s 1888 how-to guide, Base-Ball. But I’m enough of a traditionalist to believe that the honor of starting the season ought to belong (as it did for decades) … More Play Ball! – My Favorite Baseball Books (part 2)

Jeremy Lin

“J Lin”

February 12, 2012

2/12/12 – Last night marked the first time since their playoff run in 2004 that I actually wanted to go to a Minnesota Timberwolves game. The New York Knicks were in town, which meant that Rubio-mania ran headlong into Lin-sanity. (Final score: Lin-sanity 100, Rubio-mania 98, alas.) For more on Knicks’ point guard Jeremy Lin, … More “J Lin”