Column Archive

Tennis Anyone? What Li Na's Grand Slam Win Tells Us About China

Li Na's victory at the French Open is a cause for celebration. Just don't think all of China is equally ecstatic.

The NCAA and Jim Tressel: Giving Eric Cartman the Moral High Ground

In the process of leading the Ohio State Buckeyes to annual glory and becoming the highest paid public employee in the state, Tressel gave the appearance of a humble, God-fearing small-town Ohio coach who had somehow landed his dream job. But Tressel is just a symptom of a far bigger rot at the core of "amateur" athletics.

Joakim Noah, the NBA and the 'New F Bomb'

There are two conclusions we can draw from this unprecedented recent collision between the National Basketball Association and the politics of LGBT rights. The first is that the Phoenix Suns organization is stepping up to challenge homophobia. The other conclusion is that while outbursts of invesctive are still very much a part of the vocabulary of professional sports, more and more players are saying this is not acceptable.

Why Lance Armstrong Will Survive 60 Minutes and the Feds

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is now up against former friends, teammates and the federal government. I wouldn't bet against him.

Santana is Booed for Using Baseball's Civil Rights Game to Speak Out for Civil Rights

Atlanta was a brutally awkward setting for Major League Baseball's Civil Rights Game because Friday saw the Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, sign HR 87, a law that shreds the Civil Rights of the state’s Latino population. Fortunately Carlos Santana was there.

Brick by BRIC: How Global Sport Has Declared War on Brazil's Poor

The Olympics and the World Cup are coming to Brazil. For the poor living in the favelas, the message should be clear: be afraid, be very afraid.

“This law has no place in a democracy”: Atlanta Hawks' Etan Thomas Stands Up to Georgia’s Immigration Crackdown

Atlanta Hawks basketball player Etan Thomas refuses to be silent, especially when the state of Georgia seems poised to take a major step backward toward its dark past.

Shut Up and Play? Patriotism, Jock Culture and the Limits of Free Speech

In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the sports world embraced the public eruption of patriotism. Yet some athletes dared to buck the trend, and in the process have learned a tough lesson about the limits of free speech in the jockocracy.

Sports, bin Laden, and the New Normal

Howard Cosell said that "rule number one of the sports jockocracy" was that sports and politics didn't mix. And yet last night, at the ballpark in Philadelphia, we received another reminder that some political expression is deemed not just acceptable but glorious.

Taking Back the Dodgers

On Friday, I wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times that put forward a common sense solution to the current ownership disaster that is the Dodgers franchise: public ownership. Last week, Major League Baseball (MLB) and its Commissioner Bud Selig took the unprecedented step of seizing the team from Frank McCourt, its bankrupt chief executive. Don't look now, Selig, but it may be picking up some steam.