Safin and Federer: A Three-and-a-Half Year letdown

By bsd987, Section Other Sports
Posted on Fri Jul 04 2008 at 10:49 AM EST
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Now I know what three and a half years feel like. Of course, I'd rather not have this feeling, not yet, but there's no denying it.

In 2005 at the Australian Open, Roger Federer and Marat Safin played one of the greatest tennis matches of all time with Safin upsetting the world's number one ranked player 9-7 in the fifth set. For four hours and 28 minutes, two of the best players in the world dueled, playing some remarkable tennis for a spot in the Australian Open final. Safin's victory of Aussie Lleyton Hewitt in the finals was almost a letdown after the semifinal.

And so too was today's semifinal.

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Glimpse of Greatness

By bsd987, Section Other Sports
Posted on Fri Jun 27 2008 at 2:02 AM EST
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Every now and then we are surprised by greatness. Usually it comes from redundant people and we expect it: from Tiger Woods and Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant and Albert Pujols.

Sure, these people don't always succeed, but when we see their greatness, we can only admire it.

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Tiger, and nothing else

By bsd987, Section Other Sports
Posted on Mon Jun 16 2008 at 5:27 PM EST
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Tiger. I have nothing else to say. Nothing.

Monday at Torrey Pines, going head-to-head with the world's 158th ranked golfer, Tiger Woods officially earned the designation of the greatest golfer of all time.

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Hypocrisy in Bristol

By bsd987, Section College
Posted on Sun Jun 15 2008 at 1:30 AM EST
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Few things in sports go hand-in-hand as well as ESPN and hypocrisy.

Sure, there are the high-profiled bashings of spring college football two days before ESPN decides to send Gameday to the University of Florida's spring game. And then there is ESPN's talk of high journalistic standards, the same standards that lead one of its primary writers to announce that Les Miles had accepted the head coaching position at the University of Michigan just an hour before he publicly announced that he had not taken the job.

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The True Villain

By bsd987, Section Other Sports
Posted on Thu May 08 2008 at 11:39 PM EST
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Eight Belles wasn't the only sign of death on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Horse racing will die too, at least in the United States. It must. I don't want to say it and it hurts, but there seems to be no other alternative right now.

Sure, there are solutions, fixes if you will, but nobody is going to listen; nobody, that is, with the power to listen.

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No Need to Make a Splash

By bsd987, Section Journals
Posted on Mon Dec 31 2007 at 2:44 AM EST
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The next head coach of the Atlanta Falcons lies in Emmitt Thomas. So what if he's 64? The players want to play for him. And in my decade of being a fan, there has NEVER been a coach before that the Falcons wanted to play for.

Look at the Miami Dolphins: in 2004 they wanted to play for Jim Bates, even beating the New England Patriots in a remarkable comeback. But instead they hired Nick Saban and look where they are three years later?

Even if you only get three years out of Thomas, you're going to get three years of tough, grind-it-out football, the type of football that no previous coach had been able to motivate the Falcons to play. Thomas is the right choice and should be offered the job. That's my two cents.

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One Shining Moment (The Football Version)

By bsd987, Section College
Posted on Sat Dec 22 2007 at 3:08 AM EST
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Rarely is there a moment that everyone watching hopes will never end.

Of course, there was Muhammad Ali lighting the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Games; there was Jack Nicklaus walking up 18 at Augusta in 2005 for the final time; there was the tiebreaker between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. Ali was moving, Nicklaus was cyclical, and Borg-McEnroe, well, you didn't care who won, so long as the tiebreak went on forever.

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The First Annual Burton DeWitt College Football Awards (with corporate sponsors!)

By bsd987, Section College
Posted on Tue Dec 04 2007 at 1:41 PM EST
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Instead of wasting print space writing a super introduction, I'm going to go straight into the first annual Geico Burton DeWitt College Football Awards presented by State Farm underwritten by Prudential. And trust me, these awards mean a lot.

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Franchione deserved worse

By bsd987, Section College
Posted on Fri Nov 23 2007 at 10:04 PM EST
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As expected, Dennis Franchione stepped down Friday night after Texas A&M's regular season finale, a 38-30 upset of the rival Texas Longhorns. But before he did, he made sure that anyone who had not been paying attention knew that he was still the biggest scumbag in collegiate athletics since Dave Bliss.

Franchione was approached by ABC camera crews right after the conclusion of the game and was asked a few questions. His response to the final question was anything but shocking.

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An Essay of Sorts on Why I'm Entirely Responsible for the Success and Failures of my Team

By bsd987, Section Other Sports
Posted on Tue Oct 23 2007 at 1:30 PM EST
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If I'm to believe a recent survey, and I'm not, then 20 percent of sports fans believe that their actions influence their team's performance. Do you know how silly that sounds? One-in-five think that they have an impact on the game?

Firstly, only one-in-five admits this; I know an additional one-in-five are too embarrassed about it and another one-in-five can't mention it because speaking about it would jinx their team. And secondly, we don't think that we alter the event; we know it.

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