Not sure how many people saw THIS article on ESPN.com today. It seems that a professional Rugby player in England tested positive for Human Growth Hormone from a blood test. As many of you know the reason given by Major League Baseball and the National Football League for not testing for HGH is because of the lack of a valid blood test. They now have no more excuses. It is time to step up and prove to all of us that your sports are clean. The fans are not naive. None of believe that all of the athletes who play baseball and football are clean. Actually we believe the opposite. Does anyone really think that Alex Rodriguez is not on HGH? I don’t know any. The balls in your court professional sports league and the court of public opinion is judge, jury and executioner.
by Guest Writer Rob P.
Well maybe with the whole Tiger Woods “apology” facade out of the way Alex Rodriguez may get some credit for being so “honest” during his press conference last year when he admitted his steroid use. After all A-Rod or Roid didn’t need a podium or a script and in fact took questions, albeit probably pre-screened, during his apology/forgiveness speech. Too bad Tiger let a camera into his conference, he had me going for a minute when I was listening to the live stream and I actually told a colleague of mine that he was doing a “pretty good job”. After watching a good portion of the televised speech I realized that Tiger’s apology speech was as bad an idea as a Backstreet Boy reunion tour, he would’ve done a lot better if he’d done a one-on-one interview to apologize for his actions or at least release a tape of a recorded speech from “rehab”. He constant stumbling and robotic approach showed that he wasn’t speaking from the heart and clearly didn’t review his script before he took center stage. The only “from the heart” moment was when he talked about his 2 ½ year old daughter being stalked by the paparazzi, where he actually showed emotion and demanded the attention only be on him and not his family. Note to the wise if you need to apologize for something, do it from the heart and don’t let your publicist write an apology that you truly don’t believe in. That’s my take, Bill Simmons take shots at Tiger’s speech here. If you want an inspirational story read an OTL report here.
I know I’m a little late writing about the Olympics, but I’ve been watching… Read the rest of this entry »
In my last two “How to Fix NASCAR” posts I focused on the parts of the sport that NASCAR needs to change to bring back the casual fan (remember, it’s the casual fan that drives growth. In racing terminology the hard-core fan would be the chassis, but the casual fan is the engine). It wasn’t exactly rocket science. Anyone can
figure out that if you implement the changes I proposed you will gradually bring fans back into the sport. Unfortunately it’s not as simple that I made it out to be. There is one major correlation that needs to be made. How the on-track death of Dale Earnhardt affected both the rise and recent fall of NASCAR. Read the rest of this entry »
I just wanted to pass along an article by Dana O’Neil from ESPN.com chronicling the struggles of the University of New Orleans athletic department in the post-Katrina New Orleans. It is easy to be blinded by the Saints recent Super Bowl victory, but New Orleans as a whole is not complete. Of course there are a myriad of more important issues still plaguing the city post-Katrina, but this offers a small glimpse through the eyes of sports of what the city is still struggling with…
If you read my earlier “How to fix NASCAR” column you know that I believe the 
sport to be broken and how it needs drastic changes to put it back on the level of the NFL and MLB. For this segment I am going to focus on race day changes NASCAR needs to make in order to improve the spectator experience both live and on television. Read the rest of this entry »
With Speed Weeks in Daytona upon us, I am going to review different aspects of
NASCAR and determine how they can be fixed. NASCAR is broken right now. The seats are empty and they are purging TV viewers and sponsorship money. I am going to focus on the NASCAR season/schedule in my first installment. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, the Super Bowl is upon us, and with it, the end of the NFL season. As it stands
we have the two teams that went longest without losing playing in the Super Bowl; The Indianapolis Colts from the AFC and the New Orleans Saints from the NFC. Who will win? We’ll have to wait and see, but here’s how I see it playing out. Read the rest of this entry »
With National Signing Day Upon us I thought it would be a good time to clear up any misconceptions out there regarding recruiting and recruiting rankings. We tend to get too caught up in rankings and overreact when players that are not highly ranked get signed by our favorite programs. I hope this clears up some of the issues regarding recruiting and why we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on rankings. Read the rest of this entry »
I found an interesting article on ESPN.com by David Schoenfield. The thought of baseball realignment is something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. Mostly because of the sympathy I feel for the Orioles, Blue Jays, and Rays. They have to beat out the Yankees and Red Sox every year to have a shot. The traditionalist in me doesn’t like it, but his rotational divisions make sense. It also allows the games best players to play more games in more cities. Read the article and let me know what you think…
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove09/news/story?id=4869912
