// archives

Archive for September, 2009

Arnold Palmer’s Blueprint

Legendary golfer Arnold Palmer is receiving still another honor — the Congressional Gold Medal today in a ceremony at the White House. Palmer, who recently turned 80 years old, is collecting an award extended 141 times, the first to George Washington in 1776. Palmer, whose career victory total includes seven majors, offers a perfect model […]

Detroit, Sports, and You

Detroit has been inspiring writers this year. Back in January, columnist Mitch Albom wrote a moving piece on the city, on its troubles, its values, and its affection for its sports teams. Currently the city is featured on the cover of Sports illustrated, with the Tigers playing a four-game series against the Minnesota Twins that […]

What Made Sandy Koufax Great

Hall of Fame baseball player Sandy Koufax comes to mind today because in 1965 he declined to pitch in Game One of the World Series and instead attended synagogue on Yom Kippur. At the time, Koufax was the best pitcher in the world, and the Dodgers sorely missed him in Game One. He came back […]

Soccer for Four-Year-Olds

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching my grandson play in his first soccer game. He is four years old. What a wonderful day, full of moments to remember. One of the goalies was facing away from the field, content to play with the mesh of the net. When the game started, no one moved […]

Pre-Game Speeches

Our team got a kick out of this post of a little boy reciting Herb Brooks’ speech to the U.S. Olympic hockey team before its game against the Soviet Union. Maybe you can use it, too. Some rhetorical points worth noting: Brooks created sense of history by using the phrase “great moments.” He then mentioned […]

Keith Smart on Leadership

Two items today. First, I forgot to include a link to the article in yesterday’s post. It profiles a high school football team that has made a commitment to “go for it!,” and never punts or attempts a field goal. And here is a link to one of the research papers that suggests the team’s […]

Going for It

Have you ever debated football strategy while watching a game? I suspect you never debated it quite the way David Romer did in 2005. Romer, an economist at UCal Berkeley, studied fourth-down situations to see whether teams should punt as often as they do. He concluded that teams should go for it more often. A […]

International Scouting

Today’s guest blogger is writing from China on the topic of “International Scouting.” His name is Tom McCarthy, and he has 22 years of experience in Asia. Here is his report: While today I run a sports marketing company in China that primarily focuses on tennis, I still consider myself a “Basketball Guy” and scout […]

Teaching Values

Every time you see a sports team with an extraordinary winning streak, you immediately ask, “How do they do it?” Thanks to the eagle eye of Larry O’Connor, who pointed out a recent story in the New York Times, we get another chance to analyze the question. This time it’s Smith Center, Kan., home to […]

Loving the Big Moment

In a game filled with fun moments last night, the best came in the last four seconds of the Giants-Cowboys contest. Lawrence Tynes was waiting to make a kick that would either give the Giants a last-second victory or leave them one point short. The Cowboys were trying to mess with his mind. And Tynes […]