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Fox Be Damned: Why a Packers Victory is the People’s Victory

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Amidst the bombast, the Packers won the Super Bowl. But the broadcast did what it could to hide the truth of the team's radical ownership structure.

Washington Football Owner Dan Snyder Offends Everybody

A billionaire gets zinged by a local rag with a modest readership and proceeds to trivialize the Holocaust and blackmail the paper with financial Armageddon. All in a day’s work for Dan Snyder.

Soccer Clubs Central to Ending Egypt's "Dictatorship of Fear"

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Over the decades that have marked the tenure of Egypt's "President for Life" Hosni Mubarak, there has been one consistent nexus for anger, organization, and practical experience in the ancient art of street fighting: the country's soccer clubs. Over the past week, the most organized, militant fan clubs, also known as the "ultras," have put those years of experience to ample use.

Invoking Dr. King, Charles Barkley Stands Strongly for LGBT Rights

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Charles Barkley felt a responsibility to use his platform on a TNT pregame show to speak out for Gay Rights. Given who spoke before him, we should be grateful that he did.

"I'm a Negro who speak up”: Remembering Football Great Cookie Gilchrist

With the passage of time, there are two establishment responses to the great political rebels in sports. You either see them commodified and defanged – think Muhammad Ali – or they are simply erased from history. Count Carlton Chester “Cookie” Gilchrist is among the erased. Gilchrist, a former Buffalo Bills running back, died of cancer on January 10th at the age of 75. His legacy as both a player and athletic rebel are well worth restoring.

Roger Goodell’s Message to NFL Players and Fans: Drop Dead

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued an ill-timed letter laying out the state of negotiations with the NFL Players Association. Both sides are striving to secure a new collective bargaining agreement and avoid labor armageddon, but based on Goodell's letter, that's where the similarities end.

On Dimples and Dog Whistles: Why Tucker Carlson Dehumanizes Michael Vick

Michael Vick, whether he wants to or it, is humanizing the struggle to find redemption after serving time in a maximum security prison. After all, if a star quarterback doing hours of community surface can't regain a foothold in society, who could? Tucker Carlson's efforts to dehumanize Vick and paint him as a disposable, killable individual, cuts in a way that transcends the idiocy of Murdoch's 50 state southern strategy of dimples and dog whistles.

The Top Seven 'Edge of Sports' Moments of 2010

Here we have what are indubitably and without argument, the top seven collisions of sports and politics in 2010 that didn’t involve an elbow and Barack Obama’s mouth. Why seven and not ten? Deflation!

When Domes Collapse

The spectacular collapse of the Metrodome's roof on Sunday bolsters every reason why the Twin Cities do NOT need a publicly funded stadium. But the "conventional wisdom" seems to be moving in the other direction.

Cam Newton and College Football’s “Neo-plantation”

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Pity the sports columnist who reaches for sanctimony in the Gomorrah of college football. Two voters for the 2010 Heisman Trophy, the sport’s top award, have announced that they won’t vote for Auburn quarterback Cam Newton because of their moral qualms about Newton’s “integrity.”