Chicago -
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
All narrative roads lead to Ryan Pace. Plus: The President Of The United States Is Pro-Brain Damage; The Best Part Of The Cubs’ Week; White Sox Making Believers; Blackhawks Backup Goalie Sitch; Wade Era vs. Glennon Era; Millennials Killing Football; Rick Pitino Was Just The Worst; and Schweinsteiger!
Posted on September 29, 2017
By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report
Bullying is not a newly discovered problem. But there is no denying it has been exacerbated by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. His singling out of sports heroes Steph Curry, Jemele Hill and Colin Kaepernick for their stands against bigotry is more evidence that Trump takes a literal interpretation of the bully pulpit idea. How these black sportsmen and women form a team against racism offers tormented youth a playbook on how to deal with bullies.
One in four children are bullied. That’s the main finding of a new study conducted by YouthTruth, a national nonprofit that conducts student surveys on educational issues. The results repeated last year’s findings.
When I shared the one-in-four stat with a father of two, he told me, “Power plays happen in all kinds of social settings. Schools aren’t different.” He went on to say, “Part of an education is learning how to deal with mean people.”
Posted on September 27, 2017
By Lynn Sherr/BillMoyers.com
Midway through Bobby Riggs’ cocky telephone pitch to Billie Jean King in 1973 – a nationally televised tennis match with a $100,000 prize between her, the top-ranked female player, and himself, the fading superstar – Riggs brands the event: “Male chauvinist pig versus hairy-legged feminist,” he says, succinctly defining the cultural stakes.
Although Riggs instantly walks back his hustle with a glib, “No offense,” it sets the terms. Yes, Riggs, 55, needs the money (and the renewed fame); and yes, playing against the eye-popping King, 29, will make for great tennis and must-see TV. But this is a boy-girl smackdown, a commercial appeal to the gender wars then agitating the country.
King, beyond offended, ultimately agrees to defend her titles and her sex – after she sets him straight. “By the way,” she says quietly, “I shave my legs.”
That scene, in Battle of the Sexes, the smartly engaging and depressingly relevant new movie about the match, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell, is a blast from the past loaded with lessons for the future, an eerie reminder that today’s rebloom of sexism is a scary echo of decades – actually, centuries – of innate and cultural misogyny. And it’s a handy playbook to get through our current crisis. Crises.
Posted on September 26, 2017
By Jim Coffman
Marcus Cooper did not showboat.
The Bears cornerback committed a massive blunder, the sort that goes down in the annals of greatest sports, yes, bloopers (it is indeed Cooper’s Blooper – which someone else thought of well before me, let me assure you).
But he wasn’t showboating after he picked up Sherrick McManis’s blocked field goal as the last six seconds of the first half ticked away, sprinted almost 70 yards, and then pulled up just short of the end zone, only to have the ball swatted from his hands, costing the Bears a touchdown.
Posted on September 25, 2017
By Roger Wallenstein
Had the White Sox been in a pennant race, the closing play of Friday night’s 7-6 victory over Kansas City would have assumed a prominent place in the team’s annals.
As it was, turning a struggle that easily could have gone into extra innings into a game-ending shocker illustrated the uniqueness and unpredictability of the game of baseball. And I missed it.
Posted on September 25, 2017
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Pulling Strings, Pushing Tin. Plus: Maddon’s Musical Chairs; The White Sox Are Still Playing – Some Of Them Well!; Extend The Freakin’ Nets Already; The Blackhawks’ Very Short Preseason Is Underway And Almost Over; Hey, Doug Collins Is Back; Schweinsteiger!; Bears Barf; and Aaron Hernandez, 12-Year-Olds & CTE.
Posted on September 22, 2017
By Christina DiTerlizzi/Boston University School of Medicine
A new study has found an association between participation in youth tackle football before age 12 and impaired mood and behavior later in life. The study appears in Translational Psychiatry.
Researchers from Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center studied 214 former American football players, including 43 who played only through high school and 103 who played only through college.The average age of the former players at the time of the study was 51.
Participants received telephone-administered cognitive tests and completed online measures of depression, behavioral regulation, apathy and executive functioning (initiating activity, problem-solving, planning and organization).
Results from former players who started playing tackle football before the age of 12 were compared against those of participants who started playing at age 12 or later.
Posted on September 22, 2017
‘Because Black People Are Getting Killed And Nobody’s Going To Jail’
“Every player on the Cahokia Quarterback Club football team (8 and under) took a knee during the national anthem ahead of Sunday’s game at Little Devil’s Field in Belleville,” Fox 2 in St. Louis reports.
“One of the kids asked me if I saw (people) protesting and rioting in St. Louis. I said yes; I said, ‘Do you know why they are doing it?'” said Coach Orlando Gooden.
Coach Gooden said his player responded, “Because black people are getting killed and nobody’s going to jail.”
Posted on September 22, 2017
By NASCAR
“From Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott grabbing stage wins to Martin Truex Jr.’s strong run to Victory Lane, a recap from Joliet.”
Posted on September 21, 2017
Produced And Directed By Alex Braverman/GQ
“Football killed Zac Easter. But before it did, before the head trauma inflicted by concussions became too much to bear, he recorded it all in his diary, hoping that his story might ensure that what happened to him wouldn’t happen to others.”
Posted on September 20, 2017
