The "Sports Articles Your Mom Enjoyed Last Night" thread

[Reason]

NEW ORLEANS -- Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed said former NFL linebacker Junior Seau, who police say committed suicide and reportedly had brain damage from repeated concussions, "signed up for it'' when he came into the NFL.

Reed, who has been in the league since 2002, also said Tuesday he already has experienced issues that he believes stem from past concussions.

"I feel effects from it,'' Reed said, speaking during Super Bowl media day. "Some days, I wake up and I'm like, 'Where did my memory go?' But I signed up for it.''

While being asked about the hot topic of concussions, Reed repeatedly said he and other players know football is a violent game and realized the dangers going in.

That prompted a reporter to ask if Seau had signed up for it.

"Did he sign up for it?'' Reed said. "Yeah, he signed up for it.''

Reed then said several more times that all players accept the potential risks before turning back to Seau.

"Junior gave everything he had to football,'' Reed said. "I'm sure he's looking down and has no regrets.''

[peanut butter]

So I've been on a binge of reading old Sports Illustrated articles (mostly basketball) from the mid-90s and found some pretty fascinating stuff. One article was about the 95-96 Celtics denying that they were tanking their season in order to have a better shot at drafting Tim Duncan. Another was Tim Kurkjian writing about basketball(!), and how 96-97 the Clippers were prepping for a playoff run. Another, written by Jackie McMullin, was focused on former Syracuse star John Wallace, and how he felt about being selected in the draft after guys like Kobe, Jermaine O'Neal and Peja. After the draft, he said: "When you evaluate this draft in three years, you'll see my name at the top of the [best players from this year's draft] list."

I'll try not to overshare and post each one I find compelling, but the following one is pretty special. Its a profile of Scottie Pippen, done shortly after the trade he demanded out of Houston was completed, and he was sent to Portland. The story does a great job of illustrating how much of a confused weirdo that Pip was. Among other things, the article talks about the envy he felt for MJ, the beef he had with Chuck in Houston and how he was never really willing to just accept his own greatness.

Jordan was his role model, the one who taught him about winning: what it took, how it should be handled, when to know it is over. Jordan taught him how to pause professorially before answering a question, how never to appear half naked before the cameras, what kind of earring to dangle from his left lobe. Jordan showed him the little things that go into acting like a success, and Pippen absorbed them like a thirsty child. Now a man who was once poor has a 74-foot yacht and a contract that pays him at least $14.75 million a year for the next three years and a wife so beautiful that she seems molded out of plastic. Younger players look to him for guidance, and few (if any) of his peers can teach him a thing.

That is why, before home games, Pippen rarely tries to read his opponents during warmups or watch a teammate to see how he carries himself. No, before every game in Portland's Rose Garden, Pippen only has eyes for one. He'll let his gaze drift over to the courtside seat occupied by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft and owner of both the Trail Blazers and the Seattle Seahawks, a man with a personal net worth of $40 billion. Pippen looks at his employer's geeky exterior and wonders, much as he wondered about Michael, How does he do it? Make no mistake: After a year adrift, Pippen has himself a new role model.

"He's an amazing guy to look at, man," Pippen says, his voice rising. "What does he have? Forty billion? I want to know: How can I make a billion? I just want one of them! What do I need to do? But I don't want to approach him like that. I don't want people coming up to me just for what I do, and I'm sure he doesn't. So I have to let that relationship grow a little bit. Like, win a championship, and then I can say, 'Tell me how I can make a billion dollars. Tell me how I can become a billionaire.' "

He cannot help himself. What he wants, what he needs, what he deserves—Pippen has never been able to keep all this contained. Throughout his career he has said and done things unimaginable for a superstar, vented spleen and spewed bile, displaying for all to see megadoses of pride, wrath, envy and avarice. That's four of the seven deadly sins; throw in his two out-of-wedlock children and you've got lust, too, five of the Big Seven in all. And that's not quite the resume corporate America seeks when it looks to sell underwear or a new long-distance carrier.

This is great in the context of Pip thinking about being a billionaire in 1999, and filing for bankruptcy only about a decade later.

The rest is here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm



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[peanut butter]

A brief article Chris Cohan, the former Warriors owner. This should give you some perspective on what brand of ineptitude we as Dubs fans were dealing with for a decade an a half.

Now, after just four months of Cohan's stewardship, the only pressing question about the Warriors is whether they will replace the L.A. Clippers as the NBA's most inept team. "Cohan doesn't know what he's doing," Webber said in December, after Cohan overpaid—reportedly $139 million, or about 50% over market value—for his plaything. "He's a kid with a lot of money. He doesn't know what he's getting into."

For starters, Cohan handled Webber's contract negotiations in October the way former San Francisco 49er running back Wendell Tyler used to handle a football. During contract talks with Webber, Cohan came to believe that the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year and Nelson could not coexist. Not only did Cohan make this decision without calling the two parties together—Nelson and Webber hadn't spoken to each other since July—but he also lamely concluded that the Warriors would be a better team without their marquee player than without their coach. So Cohan threw his support behind Nelson and, having lost all leverage in the marketplace, traded Webber to the Bullets for forward Tom Gugliotta and three draft picks. At this point Gugliotta looks like Ernie Broglio to Webber's Lou Brock, only Broglio probably went to the hoop with more authority.

By all accounts Cohan is a well-meaning guy, and he should be commended for finally cutting his losses with Nelson. But Cohan has the public relations savvy of Prince Charles. At the recent All-Star Game in Phoenix, in the midst of a weekend in which he was finalizing the buyout of Nelson's contract, Cohan recoiled in horror when he saw a couple of Bay Area reporters heading toward his seat. Cohan grabbed his wife and made a mad dash through the arena, careening into fans, knocking over drinks and turning around nervously to keep track of his pursuers. "It was like a scene from The Fugitive," says one of the writers involved, Matt Steinmetz of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Cohan escaped by leaving his wife behind, dashing up a flight of stairs and entering a luxury box.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm



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[Reason]

damn.


http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Ge ... amage-done

[Pronay]

A Leg Rebuilt, a Life Renewed for Jay Williams

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/sport ... liams.html

it's not a downer article, but the downer parts are the most interesting

Williams sustained a total knee dislocation in the accident. He tore every ligament. He dislocated his pelvis. He ripped through a nerve in his left foot that took a year to regenerate, the pain comparable to that of childbirth, so severe it would wake Williams in the middle of the night. He severed an artery. He tore the hamstring from the bone.

As he lay in the hospital, his leg atrophied. He lost muscle, then tone, until the leg withered away and looked to Williams like a pencil, or a toothpick. Doctors told Williams he might never again be able to get an erection, despite all the pictures of scantily clad, beautiful women his friends jokingly left during hospital visits.

He went from regimented Duke, with every day planned to the minute, into a looser environment, with millions of dollars in his bank account and more free time than hobbies with which to fill it.

“I didn’t know how to handle it at first,” Williams said. “I didn’t know how to be around it. Guys were on the bench, trying to kick it to girls in the stands, having ball boys run over. I mean, some guys were high.”

Asked to clarify, Williams said: “There were guys smoking weed before games. Guys asking in the middle of the game, ‘Do you smell popcorn?’ ”

The Bulls’ front office helped Williams beyond its contractual obligations, with his medical bills and other expenses. It paid some of Williams’s second-year salary, too. But his teammates in Chicago? Never heard from them.

most depressing paragraph?:

He even joined the Austin Toros in the Development League, where his coach, Dennis Johnson, promised to get Williams back into the N.B.A. Then Williams tore his hamstring and ended up back in the hospital. While he was recovering, Johnson died of a heart attack.

[peanut butter]

Thanks for that Jay Williams piece. He was so fuckin good in college, for the first time in my life, I couldn't hate Duke.

Here's a fantastic story about Pete Carrol. Well its kinda about Pete Carrol. I mean, the main character. Kinda. I dunno, actually. But its really fucking good. Don't read it if you enjoy hating Carrol though. Or maybe it will make you hate him more. I guess. Just read it.

http://www.lamag.com/features/2007/12/0 ... rroll-does

I can’t count the number of times I hear Carroll being pithy with a reporter, e.g., “I always think something really good is about to happen” or “Sleep is overrated,” then say the same thing to another reporter a day or two later. Worse, when he does say something new, something legitimately juicy, he gives my tape recorder the big eye and says—Off the record. He goes off the record like Lindsay Lohan goes off the wagon. I like him (another reason I can’t profile him, shouldn’t profile him), but I’ll never forgive him for declaring one particularly delicious rant against a fellow coach—an “asshole” and “a fucking asshole”—off the record.

I guarantee he was talking about Harbaugh there.

I’m watching him watching film. In one hand he holds a laser pointer, in the other a remote control, which freezes the action, runs the play backward and forward at different speeds. Without taking his eyes from the screen, he casually asks Nick Holt, his defensive coordinator, how things went at the doctor. Holt, sitting to Carroll’s right, grunts that a thing on his skin is precancerous and will need to be removed. Like the players on the screen, Carroll abruptly stops, midmotion. He stares at Holt, unblinking, gauging Holt’s level of concern. He stares until Holt lifts his head from what he’s reading and looks Carroll straight in the eye. “It’s nothing,” Carroll says.

“Yeah,” Holt says, and shoots Carroll a grateful grin.

No earthshaking words. No grand gesture. Just a sudden payment of attention, despite an attention debt, because attention is the thing most needed. Just a focus of his personal laser, as precise as the one in his hand. In my notebook it says:

It’s noth—
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t jiggle leg
Just stares
In my memory it feels like much more.

PEACE

[ric]

@peanut butter
that carrol shit is awesome

[peanut butter]

Fuck all the hero worship you'll be exposed to about Michael Jordan @ 50 years old over this coming all star weekend. Wright Thompson wrote a realistic vision of the legend, dealing with the crossroads of his past and his future. Its fantastic.

He discovered old home movies, seeing his young kids. They're all in or out of college now. Warmups had collected dust alongside his baseball cleats and a collection of bats and gloves. The astonishing thing to him was how much he enjoyed this. "At 30 I was moving so fast," he says. "I never had time to think about all the things I was encountering, all the things I was touching. Now when I go back and find these things, it triggers so many different thoughts: God, I forgot about that. That's how fast we were moving. Now I can slow it down and hopefully remember what that meant. That's when I know I'm getting old."

He laughs, knowing how this sounds, like a man in a midlife crisis, looking fondly at something that's never coming back.

"I value that," he says. "I like reminiscing. I do it more now watching basketball than anything. Man, I wish I was playing right now. I would give up everything now to go back and play the game of basketball."

"How do you replace it?" he's asked.

"You don't. You learn to live with it."

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Mi ... t-building



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[Brougham33]

Great read:
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Mi ... t-building

[peanut butter]

Oh fuck me




PEACE

[Pronay]

the last boat I worked on was docked next to Mr. Terrible for weeks, saw them all the time

[peanut butter]

In light of Jerry Buss passing, I revisited the SI article in 98 about him and his effort to pick an eventual predecessor from the family. Its pretty remarkable how candid his kids are when discussing their disdain for one another. And they all sound like shitheads. The article makes Jeanie seem like the most qualified to run the Lakers, but obviously Jim got the job. Here's a great quote that really clarifies the type of leader he is:

"I always wanted to be a G.M.," he says. He thinks sizing up a player is no different from assessing a stallion. "With a colt, you watch his stride and how he pops to extension," he says. "I just have to learn the qualities to look for in humans."

Jimmy's tutor, [Jerry] West, may be the shrewdest judge of talent in the NBA, and Jimmy has tagged along with him and general manager Mitch Kupchak on several scouting trips. "I've gotten a ton of knowledge from him," Jimmy says of West. "For instance, that watching how a player acts on the bench is as important as how he acts on the floor. [West] looks at what a player does when he comes out of a game and how he interacts with his coach. He'll walk up to a prospect and say, 'How ya doin'? I've got word that you beat up a woman.' And I'm sitting there thinking, Wow! Is this legal?" Yet Jimmy thinks scouting is vastly overrated. "Evaluating basketball talent is not too difficult," he says. "If you grabbed 10 fans out of a bar and asked them to rate prospects, their opinions would be pretty much identical to those of the pro scouts."

That comment mystifies West. "I have great admiration for what our scouts do," he says. "If the job is so easy, then why do some teams always have more success than others?"

Jimmy doesn't take West's rejoinder personally. "I don't mind criticism so long as I'm comfortable with what I'm doing," he says. "No matter what I accomplish, I'm going to be ridiculed until I win five championship trophies."

Here's the rest of the article: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... AG1014465/

Once you read more about these people, you can understand how Jim might be petty enough to hire D'Antoni instead of Phil Jackson, all over some hurt feelings about Jeanie. And as bad as this article makes Jim seem, atleast he's not Johnny. Holy shit that guy seems like the worst.



PEACE

[naturalborn103]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.0 ... ng_pr.html
That is more in response to that article you posted in the betting thread, but I am not sure you check that a lot.

[peanut butter]

Nice article in the new ESPN mag about Goodell. I dont know how much it brings to the forefront that we didn't already know, other than some previously unreleased documents about Bounty Gate. It provides some interesting perspective on him though from the owners, players and other various groups that are subject to his tyrannical rule

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Ro ... game-rules


PEACE

[peanut butter]

Simmons talked with the author of the Goodell piece.

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=9019925

Its a nice component to the article. Crazy that the NFL/commissioner's office denied comment five separate times. I love hearing from authors who write this kind of story, and the insane amount of work that goes into it. And its a footnote to the conversation, but I agree with both the author and Simmons when the talk about how ESPN deserves credit for hiring world class talent, and giving them freedom to create quality work. ESPN does justifiably get shit on a LOT for its role in sports media. But for a Disney network worth billions of dollars, that needs to maintain close relationships with all the major sports leagues, ESPN still does do some good old fashioned journalism that pumps out really kickass content. Recently, both this and the Jordan article are prime examples of that.



PEACE

[Reason]

He's no doubt a talented writer and storyteller and gets a lot of access, which is frequently why he is so readable. But he also acts like a holier than thou piece of shit. Here's a good example of him getting called out for taking the reigns on his high horse: http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/201 ... whole.html

He also loves to attack the subjects of his columns and articles. Even in that piece you posted, he was content to trash Snyder because he was an easy target. Not because there are a gaggle of folks who are going to line up to voice their disgust for him, but because he flamed out in a highly visible position and came from a privileged background. In the portion you quoted, he talks about how people doubt that he's happy, but none of these people are introduced. Is it unlikely he's happy? Sure. But Pearlman claims that many people are talking about Snyder, without introducing anyone other than a blogger and internet rumors as a source. How do we know these people even exist? Plus I love the way the audience is made to feel like Snyder is personally preventing bums from being able to take a shower. Its a classic hitjob.

Not to mention the book he wrote about Walter Payton soon after his death, which looked like an opportunity make money from dishing dirt on a legend whose body was still warm.


PEACE

did not konw this...word.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

^
awesome story about ansah

[Reason]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the ... 50883.html

[Reason]

fucking sad. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wi ... story.html

[Reason]

Reebok signed him to a huge endorsement deal, including a deferred trust worth more than $30 million, a lump sum he can’t touch until he turns 55.

that's kinda nuts though. i'd be like, let me just get to 55. lol

[Reason]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/ja ... ory_3.html

[naturalborn103]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/ja ... ory_3.html

You linked the 4th page. Me being a idiot didn't notice until the end. The whole time I was thinking this is the worst story I have ever read and what the hell is going on here?

[Reason]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/ja ... ory_3.html

You linked the 4th page. Me being a idiot didn't notice until the end. The whole time I was thinking this is the worst story I have ever read and what the hell is going on here?

LOL my bad

[Reason]

holy fuck. this shit was cray...article came out in 1992...lasorda had a gay son who died of aids complications and he denies it and is homophobic and shit



his son

http://thestacks.deadspin.com/the-brief ... -485999366


and some more random stuff about lasorda's homophobic side

When it was discovered in the late-’70s that Dodgers centre fielder Glenn Burke was gay and had befriended Lasorda’s son, Tommy, Jr., Burke alleges that he had him traded to the A’s.

Later on, at the time Lasorda’s AIDS-ridden son was gravely ill, another gay player, Billy Bean, alleged that Lasorda was still telling rough, unfunny, homophobic locker room jokes.

[peanut butter]

Fuck Tommy Lasorda forever.

Anyway, I've got a ton of shit to share that I'll do later. For now I'll only note that its really unfortunate that ESPN doesn't have an archive of old Page 2 articles that is easily navigated. It's possible to find old stuff that you know you are looking for, but there's no easy way to go back and scan it like the SI Vault, unfortunately.



PEACE

[Reason]

^^
word. seems weird too cuz espn was born on the internet kinda

[peanut butter]

Here's a good story from 2004 comparing Josh Hamilton and Josh Beckett, who were picked #1 and #2 overall in the 1999 draft. At the time, Hamilton was getting high and out of the game, while Beckett was on his way to winning World Series with the Marlins.

This is an excerpt of folks close to Hamilton speculating what caused him to stray off the tracks:

Although many cite the accident as the beginning of Hamilton's downfall, no one is certain. (None of the Hamiltons would talk to SI last month for this story.) It is a mystery, chock-full of clues and theories but lacking hard evidence. There are those who recall him arriving at spring training in 2001 with six tattoos adorning his body, strange for such a clean-cut kid. "I didn't understand it," Jennings says, "but maybe that's because I'm not a tattoo guy." (Since then Hamilton has added 20 more, turning his body into a multicolored maze of tribal seals and funkadelic designs.) Others in the organization quietly expressed concern that Tony and Linda seemed unwilling to let their son sprout into manhood on his own. When Hamilton signed with the Devil Rays, he paid off his parents' debts, allowing them to retire. From that point the couple followed their son everywhere, even trailing the team bus from town to town. Linda cooked all of Josh's meals and did his laundry.

"His parents played a big role in everything he did," Pigott says. "He could never say he wanted to go have a beer with the guys or go hang out at a club. I wouldn't say [parental involvement] caused what has happened, but it could have made him want to change his life."

Were the tattoos a form of rebellion? Tony Hamilton has long disputed this claim, telling SI in 2002, "We're raising him the best way we know how. Josh knows it's the best way."

In 2002 Hamilton spent the season with Class A Bakersfield, where he hit .303 with nine homers in 56 games. But for the third time in four years his season was cut short by injuries, this time to his left shoulder, lower back and rib cage.

When he reported to spring training in 2003—his parents were in St. Petersburg as usual but not living with him—his decline accelerated. Though new manager Lou Piniella was wowed by Hamilton's quick bat and was considering him for the club's every-day rightfield job, the skipper became enraged after the 21-year-old Hamilton was late for practice a second time. His first excuse was car trouble, his second oversleeping. He missed at least two more workouts for unspecified reasons and was reassigned to the minor league camp. Several Devil Rays told the local beat writers that Hamilton had developed an affinity for the nightlife.

"Josh hadn't had the freedom he needed," says Cedrick Bowers, a former Tampa Bay prospect, of the constant presence of Hamilton's parents. "So when he finally got it, he didn't know what to do with it."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm



PEACE

[peanut butter]

A stunning article written about Tyson in his prime by the incomparable Gary Smith.

Tyson's face darkens, he shakes his head no. His explanation has spilled out of the locker room and into a restaurant. "I'm not an athlete, don't call me an athlete. How can you compare me with Billie Jean King or Magic Johnson? They're athletes. Athletes have careers. Athletes have to prepare. At any moment, I'm ready. I never liked sports. Sports are only social events. I'm a warrior, a missionary. What I do is an obsession. If I wasn't in boxing, I'd be breaking laws, that's my nature."

Abruptly, his face turns, shines as it must have before he knew that a human being could behead a bird, and to the waiter in a restaurant that serves half a dozen Gulf Shrimp Garibaldi for $24.75, he asks, "Do you have ice cream on a stick?"

"Once I was supposed to meet a girl," he says, "but on the way I saw an icecream store. I knew if I went in, I'd miss the girl. I didn't know what to do. I went into the store, and while I was eating the ice cream, I was very happy, I didn't care at all about the girl. It was only when I was done that I wished I'd met the girl."

He laughs and grabs his listener's shoulder, his head nuzzles against it, almost like a puppy. Does anyone understand how painful it is to be this—and in the blink of an eye or the ring of a bell to be its inverse? Opposites rubbing each other, throwing sparks: This is his everyday life.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm



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[capable_keL]

reading that piece was like a flowing stream of semen

[Reason]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/l ... uss-604909

[peanut butter]

^^ Did you read the article I posted earlier on this page about the Buss family?

Today's submission:

See Mr. Arthur Ashe, the famous tennis player, on a good-will tour of Africa in 1971. See Mr. Ashe play with little Yannick on a mud court littered with furry insects. See Mr. Ashe's eyes bug out. "First he serves right down the middle past me," recalls Ashe. "Then he whaps one clean into the open court. Here was this little chocolate-colored person knocking the absolute hell out of the ball. I said to myself, what is this? He hit it then the same way he does now. Only now he's a giant." Ashe laughs. "Our next Great Black Hope."

On Joakim's dad, Yannick Noah.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm



PEACE