Professional sports coverage
A clever lede can make a ho-hum attempt at creative content into something so much more than it is. A few wildly obscure adjectives or odd homages from something distant in memory but close enough to be accessible, and you have yourself a hit. Ledes, the (hopefully) short opening paragraph that introduces a reader to…
After seven months of deliberation and the formation of a committee headed by none other than Condoleezza Rice, Tuesday morning the NCAA finally announced a plan to address the FBI investigation and related scandals that have plagued college basketball. It's passing the buck to the NBA and NBA Players Association. That was the takeaway as Rice began…
A Twitter thread recently came across my timeline, wherein an NBA blogger declared New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday would be the best player on roughly a dozen teams. Now, I am not typically one to base an entire column off the premise of a single tweet, unless it contains something newsworthy (like Rick Steiner's…
The following feature ran on Sports On Earth in April 2016. The site was shuttered earlier this year. Bronko Nagurski’s backstory reads like a Paul Bunyan tale. One of the most celebrated athletes in American history, he made an indelible impression on collegiate and professional football as a two-way standout for the Minnesota Golden Gophers,…
Trust The Process. Sam Hinkie. Adam Silver deciding The Process was no good for the NBA. The last handful of years of Philadelphia 76ers basketball was nothing short of a cult meeting whistle-blowing watchdogs. There might not be a build to any (good) professional team as polarizing as this one. The Process is a strategy…
It's pretty well established among sports fans that the best single weekend of the calendar year is the first of the NCAA Tournament, while the best overall month is probably October. October boasts college football and the NFL in midseason form, the start of the NBA season, and the MLB Playoffs. However, this first weekend…
$26,000. That is what Darius Bazley is deciding to take over a chance to play for the famed Syracuse Orange. There's more to it than just that. Theoretically speaking, Bazley is betting on himself benefiting from working within the professional atmosphere of the G-League. To use the coaches, facilities, and acclimation to the professional lifestyle to up…
In most ways, Lawrence, Kan., and Philadelphia, Pa., couldn’t be much different. Lawrence is an idyllic college town with a population approaching 90,000, not quite close enough to Kansas City to be considered a suburb. It has tree-lined avenues with very little crime. It’s a quiet place, unless the Kansas Jayhawks win big and the…
There’s not a lot to criticize when it comes to The Americans, whose final season debuts Wednesday on FX. It's technically brilliant and emotionally engaging with an unsurpassed attention to detail. Several critics have called it the best show on TV, and it's hard to argue. But, in a show featuring Soviet spies embedded in…
March beckons casual fans to tune into more basketball than at any other time in the year, in part due to the promise of unlikely underdogs catching fire. In 2018, some of the most astounding Cinderella stories in recent memory emerged: UMBC. Loyola Chicago. The Indiana Pacers. OK, so the NBA might take a backseat…
Entering Sunday's Air Canada Centre matinee vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, the vibes around the Toronto Raptors were at an unprecedented levels of positivity. On a double-digit winning streak -- including a handful of come-from-behind wins -- the Raptors were flying high with Russell Westbrook and the Thunder. This showdown of the surprising Eastern Conference…
Nostalgia overtakes The Open Man as I write this entry. With conference tournament basketball on the TV and an empty duffel bag waiting to be packed, memories of spring break flood my mind. Of course, circumstances in 2018 differ: I'll pack my bag in anticipation of a 24-hour trek to Las Vegas, which is very…
Not all college basketball stars translate to the NBA -- hello, Marcus Fizer -- but most of the NBA's best who went to college shined at that level. Consider last season's NBA Finals MVP, Kevin Durant, who put up 25.8 points, 11.1 rebounds and two steals per game in one season at Texas. This year's…
The NFL Draft Combine is afoot, kicking my least favorite season on the football calendar into high gear. Yes, dear friends of The Open Man: It's Slander Season. This year's primary target for the annual gauntlet of criticism and, at times, misinformation? Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson. Now, anyone who followed Jackson's exploits in college saw…
A Virginia Beach high schooler took to Twitter this Valentines Day eve to ask Canadian Olympic figure skater Gabrielle Daleman if she would attend his prom in exchange for hitting a certain number of retweets. Now, these stories surface with some regularity -- today marks the one-year anniversary of tennis pro Genie Bouchard joining a…
