If you’re like me you thought there was nothing endearing left in the monstrosity known as the Super Bowl. But then this comes along:
Love that lady, love that idea. Good work Indianapolis.
Brandon Vogel
A reckless number of interests carefully considered.
Filed under Sport …
The best sports story of 2012
I know we’re only 11 days in but the best sports story of 2012 has already been written. It’s Thomas Lake’s profile of Clifton ‘Pop’ Herring for Sports Illustrated. Who is Pop Herring? The Wilmington, N.C. high school basketball coach who famously “cut” Michael Jordan as a sophomore at Laney High.
I, like Lake in the story, use “cut” because, as a child who was infatuated with Jordan and reading, I never really bought the story of how Michael Jordan didn’t end up on varsity as a 5-10 sophomore. He was a sophomore. He did grow eight inches by the time he went to college. There are any number of strategic decisions that would’ve made cutting Jordan feasible. I knew all of these things as a 12-year-old who adored “Come Fly With Me” and would regularly watch 70-plus NBA games a year, but needing a big man — the actual explanation — will never trump cutting the eventual best basketball player in the world. That’s a hook that will grab even non-sports fans’ interest.
That Jordan, the most ruthlessly competitive athlete we’ve ever seen, used the snub to become the greatest basketball player in the world also made for a convenient backstory. But thirty years on from when Jordan first emerged on the national scene as a freshman at North Carolina, nobody had ever stopped to ask one simple question: Was it actually true? That led to a better question: What ever happened to Pop Herring b.k.a. “The Man Who Cut Michael Jordan?”
It’s not a story, like so many sports stories, of an extraordinary triumph over unbelievable odds. It’s an ordinary story of an ordinary life the was, to this point, known only as a plot point in the vast machine-made mythos of Michael Jordan. That’s why it’s the best sports story of the year.
Nebraska @ Michigan – Photos
Now that all the Big Ten road trips are done, I’d rank them this way in terms of desirability: 1) Wisconsin, 2) Michigan, 3) Minnesota (a narrow loss to the other UM), 4) Penn State. I’ll explain precisely why at a later date.
National Anthem
Northwestern @ Nebraska – Photos
Nebraska has had troubling home losses under Pelini before, but none of the previous five had come this late in the season. A crippling loss? Perhaps. Lot of Husker fans rooting for Hawkeyes this week. What is the world coming to?
Last stand?
Michigan State @ Nebraska – Photos
The 11 a.m. kickoff begat chili and cinnamon rolls. With apologies to the Runza – or all the various homemade iterations of the same (my grandma called them cabbage burgers) – I’m nominating the seemingly odd combination as the official foodstuff of Nebraska. As for the football, it essentially went like this: Nebraska’s season could have ended on Saturday. Instead it begins.
Chili & Cinnamon Roll at Memorial Stadium
Bilbao is better than Detroit
I’m in love with this paragraph from novelist/Grantland college football writer John Brandon:
If reading a regular book is like getting on a plane to Detroit and winding up in Detroit (which is good because you’ve got business in Detroit and a hotel room booked and one of your old buddies lives there now and you’d like to meet up for a beer with him), then reading The Tennis Handsome will be like getting on a plane to Detroit and winding up in Bilbao, Spain. It’s an inconvenient turn of events because you’re going to miss your meeting in Detroit and you’re not going to see your friend and you don’t speak Spanish and what the hell time is it and who knows when there’s another flight back to the States and they’ve never even heard of Outback Steakhouse. … If you just look around and take a breath, you’ll realize that Bilbao, Spain, is better than Detroit. Forget Detroit. Buy some comfortable clothes and order some Tempranillo and tapas.
From “Will Texas Man Up Against Oklahoma State?“, Grantland.com, 10.12
Ohio State @ Nebraska – Photos
The season was, for all intents and purposes, over. With seven minutes left in the third quarter Nebraska was trailing Ohio State 27-6. Then Lavonte David strips the Buckeye’s QB Braxton Miller. Touchdown Martinez. Then Miller hurts his ankle. Touchdown pass Martinez. Ohio State decides to throw the ball after pounding Nebraska on the ground for the entire first half. Martinez scrambles, finds RB Rex Burkhead in the flat, he makes the move of his career. Tie game. Then converted WR Stanley Jean-Baptiste – making his debut at corner in a seven point, must-win game – makes an interception. Touchdown Burkhead. Season, and a state’s sanity, saved.
12-yards out, 900 miles from home
Morrison Stadium, 2011
In honor of Creighton’s home opener Sunday night against Drexel (7 pm), here’s a repost of a story I did last year on Creighton midfielder Jose Gomez. Originally published in El Perico, this is, I believe, it’s debut in English.
Jose Gomez had been pounding the goalkeeper with shots all night long. Creighton’s sophomore midfielder from Santa Ana, Calif. had fired off seven shots, putting four of them on goal but had yet to score. Surely, with one shot left from the penalty spot, this one would find the net.
Creighton was only here due to the cruelest of bounces. The Bluejays had dominated seventh-ranked SMU on their home field in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, outshooting SMU 27-14 and holding a 2-1 lead in the final minute of the game. Then SMU’s Arthur Ivo launched a desperation kick from 30-yards out that deflected off a Creighton defender and into the goal with 15 seconds left.
Two scoreless overtime periods later and Gomez was up. He had one more chance to beat SMU keeper Craig Hill. Standing on the field on the night of Nov. 21 in Dallas he was 12 yards out from goal and about 900 miles away from where his soccer journey began in Mexico City.
