For example, his recent profile on Michael Jordan turning 50 goes to a place few sportswriters go: Deep thoughts.

Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia. Most people live anonymous lives, and when they grow old and die, any record of their existence is blown away. They’re forgotten, some more slowly than others, but eventually it happens to virtually everyone. Yet for the few people in each generation who reach the very pinnacle of fame and achievement, a mirage flickers: immortality. They come to believe in it. Even after Jordan is gone, he knows people will remember him. Here lies the greatest basketball player of all time. That’s his epitaph. When he walked off the court for the last time, he must have believed that nothing could ever diminish what he’d done. That knowledge would be his shield against aging.

Beautiful. More here.

A lot of rabid olympic spectators in America are understandably upset. NBC has spoiled the tape-delayed results on more than one occasion, either with an evening newscast or even a promotional commercial in between events which announce interviews with eventual gold medalists that still haven’t won on tape delay.

Worse still for cord-cutters like me, authentication of a cable subscription is required to watch events live online, even though NBC is a free broadcast channel. Even still, the live stream app reportedly crashes a lot.

At the same time, the number of people watching NBC’s olympic prime-time and tape-delayed coverage is off the charts. Record ratings even. NBC’s tape delayed approach is even boosting they’re revenue, so they’re approach is obviously working, even if it upsets a lot of people.

So why is everyone so pissed off, and by everyone I really mean just a loud vocal minority? (more…)

I owned my fair share of Air Jordans growing up. But as a jack of all trades, I always had a soft spot for Bo Jackson, his amazing talent, and his cross training shoes. In fact, I probably owned more Bo Jacksons than Air Jordans. I certainly drew more cross trainers than basketball shoes.

Unfortunately, Bo Jackson was only superhuman for four years until he suffered a hip injury. But for those four years, he was arguably bigger than even Jordan, as this wonderful profile of him suggests. Bo, it turns out, really did know.

In a blow to vendors, concessionaires, and local restaurants today, grateful and down-to-earth professional basketball players rejected a 50/50 split of income with team owners from the National Basketball Association.

“It’s not like fans come to see us in really nice, well-stocked, underwritten, and climate controlled arenas with the help of mass marketing campaigns,” said one informed player. “Fans come to games because they know the precise dates and times that we’re on the court. They don’t care about teams, community, or a good time. They just come to watch our amazing skills, like they have in droves on the blacktops we grew up playing on.”

Whatever the case, the real losers in all of this are tattoo artists, experts say. “Inking these walking billboards up is like 70% of my non-drug related business,” said one parlor owner from Los Angeles. “Most players are still only 50% covered, so this work stoppage really impedes us from not only increasing our invoice per customer, but contributing to society in a meaningful way, like tanning salons do.”

When asked for comment, a player’s union representative said his constituency is “crawling in their skin to get tatted up,” and that the union is considering making NBA owners pay for all future tattoos, since they’re “very becoming” to the overall product on the court.

Variety show host Jimmy Kimmel and his bit about “suffering tattoo artists” contributed to this report.

Interesting story by USA Today on how ESPN allegedly enticed the ACC to poach Pitt and Syracuse from the Big East, after the latter conference refused a TV deal from ESPN.

I suppose it’s only logical that profiteers would move to high school basketball, having already compromised professional and collegiate hoops.

That said, the below is a must-read summary for any athletic parent, youth coach, or sports fan:

A jarring look at youth basketball: Part 1 | Part 2

Note: The above story is a review of the eye-opening Play Their Hearts Out by George Dorhrmann.

Notable feature stories I’ve written recently:

• How visitors beat the home team (Deseret News)
• How fantasy sports have changed how we cheer (Seattle Times)
• Perhaps unintentionally, Internet bringing down cost of higher education (Fox News)
• Gaming pioneer on gamer abandonment, masterpieces, and approaching death (IGN)

Similar to Madden NFL, the cable sports network now highlights the playmaker with a under-ring (as seen 1:05 into video). Me likey.

From NPR’s book review of Scorecasting:

When they examined attendance data for the Cubs, one of the unluckiest teams in professional sports who have not won a World Series in 102 years, the authors found it to be remarkably stable — around 90 percent — no matter if the team was at the top of the league or on a losing streak. Fair-weather fans, it seems, actually incentivize a team to win; team owners and coaches will work harder to win games so they can sell more tickets.

Not only are fair-weather fans better for the organization, though. Being one is better for oneself, as fair-weather fans are more at liberty to chose entertainment options that “work for them,” as opposed to staying involved with a mediocre (aka boring) team.

In other words: Go, Cougars! (So long as they’re winning.)

Self-Correcting Golf Balls That Always Fly Straight (Fox)