Professional athletes from Ivy League schools — like the Jaguars' Colin Cloherty, who scored a touchdown last week — have their academic background brought up whenever they make headlines. But do their brains really help them on the field?
It’s the home stretch, people — another week and change until winter break, and for most of us that means a trip home. Go ahead — sleep in your own bed until two in the afternoon, enjoy regular access to a car, forget everything you’ve learned in the last 12 weeks — no one is going to stop you. The holidays are about family, and ... oh man, family. Listen: I have no doubt there are those among us who are grateful, loving children. Good for you. But as for the rest of us?
Lois Anderson didn’t just run into the history books on Thursday afternoon — she high-stepped into them, scoring, as time expired, to lift her side to a much-needed victory. On a day that saw the third largest family turnout of the century, Lois was the hero, and she knew it.
The talent in the football team's backfield is undeniable: Chuck Dibilio, who seemingly is breaking a new freshman rushing record every week, hasn’t been worn down by the considerable workload placed on his shoulders — in Princeton’s last three games he has 32, 29 and 31 rushes. Even more remarkable is that he and the offensive line have managed to be so successful without a credible passing attack.
I was at the New Meadowlands (or MetLife Stadium, as the many, many signs will remind you) this past Monday night, with tickets courtesy of the Butler College Office, to watch the Jets play the Dolphins, and it should have been an experience good enough to fill a column. I’ve probably watched somewhere in the ballpark of 300 NFL games on television in my life (or 900 hours, or ... 37.5 days, yikes), but this was the first one I had ever seen in person. More than that, it was Monday night.
By a large margin, Super Bowl XLII was the most fulfilling experience I’ve had in my dozen or so years as a sports fan. Let me put it another, less rational way: I could say with a fair amount of confidence that the Giants’ win over the Patriots in February 2008 fits somewhere in the middle portion of a list of the twenty greatest moments of my life.
Here’s a hypothetical exercise: Three Ivy League students — a math major, a computer science major and a politics major — are bored on a Friday night. “Moneyball” is playing at the local theater. Although the three have little interest in sports, they decide to check it out — it’s free for students, after all, and they have nothing better to do.
The story of “Moneyball,” which opened in theaters this weekend, is, for the most part, the story of Billy Beane. Appointed as general manager of the Oakland Athletics in 1998, Beane inherited a 65-win team that, because of the limited market, had little payroll flexibility.
