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Talking about sports. Thinking about other stuff.
“Wage sport on war”
Nike makes the case for sport. It’s not the whole case — hey, it doesn’t even talk about why sports is great from the couch. And it doesn’t consider the case against. But in two minutes they make a beautiful case.
Posted in: Uncategorized
Still wondering about the Wonderlic test
March 26, 2011
I just read another extremely typical, and unhelpful, treatment of the relevance of the Wonderlic test for predicting the prospects of young quarterbacks in the NFL. It comes from SI.com’s “Cold Hard Facts,” via the Beacher Report. I raised this issue in the previous post, “Your brain on sports.” Like everything I’ve ever read or heard […]
Posted in: cognitive bias
Your brain on sports
March 24, 2011
Does playing sports make you smarter? Or is it just that smart people play (and excel at) sports? The studies referred to in a New York Times blog post today won’t settle that debate. But they do highlight ways in which the jock’s brain seems to be smarter and faster than the nerd’s. The main […]
Posted in: cognitive bias
Ridin’ with the King
March 22, 2011
It was my great pleasure yesterday to meet my long-time hero King Kaufman, who I name-checked and quoted in the very first post on this blog. King famously described his groundbreaking sports column (or we might say “sports-on-TV” column) as ”Like talking to the guy on the next barstool, if the guy on the next barstool […]
Posted in: broadcasting, sports connoisseur
Which sports are best and worst to watch live? Part I, general observations
March 17, 2011
At one point in the highly entertaining Champions League match between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan a couple of nights ago we were treated to an extended period in which Bayern’s back four passed the ball back and forth across the pitch. You might have thought they were simply time-wasting, except that it came at […]
What’s in it for the paying spectator?
March 9, 2011
I’m guessing, conservatively, that 98% of the sporting events I’ve watched in my lifetime have been on TV. And I’m guessing that this fact does not make me stand out among sports fans. Properly speaking, I am a big fan of sports-on-TV, not of sports as such. And sure, I have always enjoyed playing sports; but […]
Is there nothing we can’t sportify?
February 22, 2011
Sumo, discussed in the previous post, is a rare example of a sport that is threatening to desportify. Perhaps the last one to do this was “professional” wrestling, which began as a version of one of the oldest competitions known to humans — hell, to beasts — and replaced the entire competitive element with scripted […]
Posted in: partisanship, what is a sport?
Wayne Norman
April 30, 2011
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