| Mar 4, 2015 | Economy / BusinessIn Murfreesboro, Tennessee, less than an hour’s drive from my childhood home, two high school girls’ basketball teams just made national headlines — by trying to lose to each other. The basketball gods must have cringed at the late-February matchup between...
| Jan 28, 2015 | Economy / BusinessWhat should sports fans do when our heroes turn out to be frauds? Maybe you grew up watching Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire breaking home run records, as I did, only to find out that they (and just about everyone else in professional baseball) had been using...
| Jan 21, 2015 | Rights / DemocracyI recently addressed a rather odd topic for an audience of political progressives: “Who was your sports hero growing up?” Of course, sports today is very political — from billionaire team owners demanding that taxpayers build sports palaces for them, to...
| Jan 7, 2015 | Economy / BusinessGrowing up in Texas, I learned that God and guns were important, but football — well, football was the real religion. So I can understand the hyperbolic exuberance of a radio hypester in Montgomery, Alabama, who declared that the December 20 Camellia Bowl was “going...
| Dec 30, 2014 | Economy / BusinessIt’s been nine years since the last high schooler was selected in the NBA draft. That’s because back in 2005, the NBA raised the minimum age for eligibility to 19. With this rule in place, the days of high school students going straight to the pros are...