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Talking about sports. Thinking about other stuff.
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“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.
“Why no Gatherer-sports?”
September 4, 2010
There’s an old adage one hears in business schools to describe managers with a limited range of management skills (and presumably limited career prospects): if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And if the only two tools you have are a hammer and a saw, every problem […]
We are more. And less.
February 16, 2010
As a Canadian expatriate — some might say, ex-patriot — I have to say, those opening ceremonies in Vancouver were brutal to watch. If I’d watched them in a room full of friends here in North Carolina, I would have been apologizing on my native country’s behalf. And, of course, my friends here would have […]
Of balls and brains
February 13, 2010
(Originally posted 8 Feb. 2010) In a world steeped in traditions and wives’ tales, it takes courage to be sensible. Prairie women of my grandmother’s generation were sure that the best way to kill germs in milk was to boil it. But it turns out this also kills “good” bacteria, which makes milk more susceptible […]
Thus Spake Football Outsiders
February 13, 2010
(Originally posted 7 Feb. 2010) If you don’t think you have the stomach (figuratively and, perhaps, literally) for several hours of pre-game hype on TV today, but would actually like some useful pre-game analysis, spend some time with this lengthy breakdown by the stat-inventin’, amateur play-chartin’, number-crunchin’ wizards at Football Outsiders. If you don’t know […]
Football fallacies
February 13, 2010
As I begin typing these words, the NFL season has 25 hours and one game to go. I have listened to about 13 days of chatter about who will win that one game and why. And in general, a season’s worth of prognosticating is fresh in mind. Brian Burke argued, in a NYT blog post […]
Art follows life
February 13, 2010
Some of us like sports for the same reason we like, say, movies. For the drama. I am often mildly troubled by the fact that spoiler-alerts are even more important in sports than they are in movies. Why does the drama depend so heavily on our ignorance of the outcome? I typically record games rather […]
The sporting soul
February 13, 2010
David Brook’s column today is one of the relatively rare ones on those two pages of The New York Times to fall right into the wheelhouse of this blog. The fact that it popped into the NYT’s current “top-10 most popular” list gives me some hope there could be an audience for This Sporting Life. First, a […]
Prognosticating big games
February 13, 2010
Brian Burke’s explanation of his skepticism about his own Super Bowl predictions in a NY Times blog is the best thing I’ve come across over in this fortnight between the NFL conference championships and the Big Game. This is a period of time when the ratio of chatter-to-football approaches infinity. What’s most interesting is not […]
Some-stars game
February 13, 2010
I can’t remember the last time I watched the NFL’s all-star game, which is mysteriously called the “Pro Bowl.” My dad watches it every year. But he’s an NFL junkie, and coming a week after the Super Bowl, it was always his only available hit of football methadone to ease him into a long winter, […]
Wayne Norman
This Sporting Life 
April 30, 2011
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