Random Sports Stories

[Steve]

Being an Auburn guy, I hate 'Bama as much as the next person. However, his mother is tripping. She should support her son's decision. I wasn't an all american football player but I was widely recruited for track. I had very decent times. My parents stayed out of it. All they knew was that I was going to college free and that alone tickled them pink. Yes, they'd have liked it if I'd have gone to Dartmouth, Cornell or Penn (all three recruited me but they don't offer athletic scholorhips just a shyt load of financial aid). I'm sure they weren't too happy to know I was going to the state of Alabama for college. They never uttered a word about it but I can only guess being a black parent in the north it had to cross their minds.

Too many parents are too involved in these things up to and including getting paid by boosters. Basically pimping their child. Disgusting (except if done by an Auburn booster).

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/reason-landon-collins-mom-insulted-son-alabama-pledge-160147795.html

When the time came for Collins to decide between LSU and Alabama for his college football future, the defensive back -- who played his high school football at Geismar (La.) Dutchtown High -- chose the Crimson Tide.

As the world now knows, his mother was quite famously not entertained. She shook her head as soon as he said Alabama, and then told ESPN's Dari Nowkah that she thought LSU was a better fit for her son (if you want to jog your memory about the scene, you can watch ESPN's broadcast of it directly below). Weeks later, we now have one of the strong reasons for why April Justin (that's Landon's mother) felt so strongly about LSU: She felt disrespected by Alabama coach Nick Saban when the Crimson Tide head man visited the Collins household.

As reported by ESPN The Magazine's Christopher Schultz, Saban went directly into a pitch about Landon Collins' NFL prospects when he arrived in Geismar. It turns out that was not what April Justin wanted to hear; rather, she was more concerned about her son's academic future and how he would fit in on campus in Tuscaloosa.

"I think he stereotyped me," April Justin told ESPN.

[Julian2]

Umpire strikes back to kill spectator

 

A CRICKET umpire killed a teenage spectator in Bangladesh by hitting him on the head with a bat in a dispute over a contested decision, police said.

 

Nazrul Islam, 15, ran on to the pitch during an amateur game in the remote northern district of Kishoreganj and started an argument with the umpire, who took one of the players' bats and hit the teenager.

 

Islam showed no serious injury from the blow during the game on Friday but had an internal haemorrhage overnight and died in hospital the next day, local police chief Mosharraf Hossain told AFP.

 

"The two argued over a not-out decision by the umpire. He accused the umpire of bias. At one stage, the umpire became angry, took a bat and hit the young boy on the head," Hossain said.

 

The umpire was being sought for questioning but had gone into hiding, he added.

 

http://t2.thai360.com/index.php?/topic/56850-random-sports-stories/page__pid__1370439__st__20#entry1370439

[Steve]

America is one of the if not the most violent of the industrialized nations but other nations are more violent in sports. Football hooliganism comes to mind.

 

I recall a football book about a guy growing up in NE England years ago, '70s I think and an American was visiting and a police man asked him if it really was true that in America had all seater stadiums, seating nearly 100k fans in some places and fans of opposite sides sat together and did not fight and he confirmed it and the cop went away still not believing it and shaking his head in disbelief.

[Flashermac]

My sister had a friend who fiance was going to Alabama A&M on a scholarship. One day he mentioned to her that he had to study 2 more years to graduate - and he was already in his 4th year. She told my sister in disgust, "I thought he was going there to get an education, not just play football." She also said the guy could have gone to several other better known universities, but he kept waiting in hopes of getting an offer from Alabama or Auburn. Never happened and he finally ended up with nothing left but A&M.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Julian2]

America is one of the if not the most violent of the industrialized nations but other nations are more violent in sports. Football hooliganism comes to mind.

 

I recall a football book about a guy growing up in NE England years ago, '70s I think and an American was visiting and a police man asked him if it really was true that in America had all seater stadiums, seating nearly 100k fans in some places and fans of opposite sides sat together and did not fight and he confirmed it and the cop went away still not believing it and shaking his head in disbelief.

I found "Green Street Hooligans" an interesting movie, also released as "Hooligans".

Poorly done in a lot of ways and starring Frodo from LOR it still showed how football "firms" would plan their attacks on an opposing team's fans days before a match.

 

And of course a visit to "the Dogs Bollocks" bar in Patters used to be an experience in itself.

[Julian2]

And another thing; the bucket and brains behind Ali the champ

 

WHEN he passed away last week, the salute to Angelo Dundee was heartfelt. Across the sporting world, the tributes were loud and long. Yet nobody really knew what it was that Dundee did exactly. We knew, of course, that he was there in the corner for Muhammad Ali throughout the boxer's career. We remember him providing solace and sponges, words of advice whispered urgently in the pauses between the mayhem.

 

Those of an unforgiving bent will recall he was responsible for snipping his man's gloves when he was in trouble against Henry Cooper, buying some time in which the future champion could fashion an escape from a pummelling; those of more recent memory will recall he was the man who threw in the towel that signalled the end of Ali's magnificent career, when he was taking a fearful pounding from Trevor Berbick during an ill-advised comeback bout.

 

Those, at least, were the visible functions. Mundane, mechanical, frankly anyone capable of catching spit in a bucket could have done most of them. It was the less visible stuff that carved Dundee his sizeable place in sporting history. The stuff that helped make Ali the most substantial sportsman of all time. We will never know precisely what that was, but those who know the game believe that without Dundee, Ali would have shuffled rather than danced.

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A little man in the land of hulks, he was a vital thing for his champion: he was someone he could trust. Stepping into the ring is the loneliest of occupations. In an orbit as ferocious as professional boxing, where everyone you come across is trying to part you either from your wits or your cash, having someone on whom you can unequivocally rely makes all the difference. Dundee was sounding board and sympathetic ear, counsellor and adviser. He was a man who smoothed the rough edges and polished the dull bits.

 

At 20 years Ali's senior, he was a father figure, too - closer, in fact, than the great man's own family ever were. He even, if legend is to be believed, contributed much of the rhyme to Ali's versifying.

 

Behind many a great champion there is often an unseen hand. Rafael Nadal has his uncle; Tiger Woods had his father; Jonny Wilkinson had his kicking coach, Dave Aldred. These Boswells of court and green, all of them prepared selflessly to subsume their own ego into the cause of promoting their charge, are happy to live their own life entirely through the success of the other. As Margaret Thatcher said of her own corner man: everyone needs a Willie.

 

Dundee was the greatest Willie of them all. And not just because Ali was the greatest. Dundee was the best because, after his first masterpiece had succumbed to the inevitable debilitations of this most brutal trade, he did it again. Not once but 18 times. He coaxed and cajoled 18 champions, including the incomparable middleweight Sugar Ray Leonard.

 

Looking back on the era he bestrode, recalling the way in which his fights really did seem to stop the world with their import, is to remember when boxing mattered. Indeed, it mattered so much that the bloke in the corner with the bucket became a star.

 

These days, after a generation in which the sport has rapaciously destroyed itself from within, no one would even notice he was there.

 

Now all that remains is irrelevance.

 

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/boxing/and-another-thing-the-bucket-and-brains-behind-ali-the-champ-20120204-1qywu.html#ixzz1lVnMNeNE

[Steve]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/jeremy-lin-starts-knicks-lives-brother-living-room-225157808.html

Jeremy Lin starts for the Knicks, lives in his brother’s living room, ‘has his own couch’

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Lin

 

[Steve]

Since my post Lin has beocme the darling of the NBA, deservedly so after scoring 38 points on Kobe Bryant and outdueling him. Great story.

 

Too bad boxer Floyd Meriweather had to try and make himself stay relevant with some racist shit.

 

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take/201202/floyd-mayweather-plays-race-card-jeremy-lin

Floyd Mayweather Hits Jeremy Lin On Race

"Jeremy Lin is a good player," Mayweather tweeted Monday, "but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise."

 

No Floyd, you're wrong because no one black, white or purple has come out of nowhere and outdueled Kobe Bryant who is arguably the best player on the planet.

 

Hate to see that kind of talk from anyone, no matter their hue.

 

Anyway, all the best to Lin. I'm going to start watching him.

[Steve]

This is going to end up a made for TV movie one day....lol...actually I recall one years ago when there was a white quarterback for Grambling and a movie was made about it. Don't like the 'white boy' comments though. The reverse stuff is not cool at all. Anyway, another interesting story.

 

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201202/white-star-black-school-landon-clement-face-upstart-north-carolina-central

White Star, Black School: Landon Clement Is The Face Of Upstart North Carolina Central

That's how Landon Clement is referred to by a lot of students here on the historically black campus of North Carolina Central University. When he first arrived two years ago, the term was not exactly a compliment.

What's White Boy doing here?

Students couldn't help but notice Clement, and talk. He spent all his time with black teammates. He had a son with a black girlfriend. And from that came another, more scathing suggestion:

Oh, he's trying to be black.

There are plenty of whites playing sports at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), but most play traditionally white sports such as golf and tennis. Landon Clement played basketball, and he was the only white on the team.

[Flashermac]

I was a bit pissed off in the 1990s when the federal courts said that "traditionally white" universities had to recruit more black students, faculty and employees, while "traditionally black" universities did not have to recruit or hire any white folks. Sort of like it's wrong for white folks to be racist, but it's okay for black folks. WTF?