Tennessee’s Lofton quietly faced and beat cancer. Just an amazing, must-read story that’s really well done. It’s easy to get cynical about ESPN, especially when you see it warts and all on a daily basis, but this story and one earlier this week about an opponents carrying an injured softball player around the bases washes over all that for me. It makes me a little prouder than usual to be working of the worldwide leader in sports.
President Bush appearing on NBC’s ‘Deal’. This is a meta moment. Two years ago Paul Weitz directed a farce called American Dreamz which had an unpopular Bush-like president appearing on a reality show to boost his image. Dreamz was a good idea for a staire, but didn’t quite have the guts to be as dark and truthful as Network. Still the fact that Bush has time to make appearances here and at the Nationals game earlier this month makes me think he’s more focused on waiting out the last months in office.
NY Times: Changing Speeds to Go the Distance. Take that Bob Costas. Instead of the clichéd triumph-over-tragedy stories, the Times is writing about the mechanics of training. Today in text, graphics, and video they showed what a typical workout routine is for runner Sara Hall with tips for the non-Olympic runner.
Bill Clinton: Older voters too savvy to fall for Obama. Obama is elitist, Clinton is ageist. The whole extended primary process is just getting uglier every day. My response to President Clinton is a saying they had when he was my age: Don’t trust anyone over 30.
Jock tax: Competing in multiple states means more complex filings. The state of California apparently makes $100 million in taxes from visiting athletes. Typically I’m not to sympathetic about the tax burden of multi-millionaires, but this gets pretty ridiculous. I guess everyone wants to get a piece of the A-Rod deal. (source: TrueHoop)
NFL Gear Not Going To Waste. I’ve always wondered what happens to the losing team’s shirts and hats in the Super Bowl and other championship events. Apparently the Pats stuff went to a hurricane-torn region of Nicaragua, where it was worn by a girls soccer team that went on to win their championship. Kind of poetic.
My First Chipotle, originally uploaded by Steve Clancy.
@ Chipotle in Rhode Island
Watching the Phils on my TV via my laptop and MLB.tv
The end of the Cosmo: A Dining Commons tradition runs its course. For outsiders, the Chicken Cosmo is a tastier version of a McChicken sandwich and a staple of the undergrad diet. It’s hard to imagine residential dining without Cosmos. Why couldn’t they have canceled herb chicken instead?
Johnny Gilbert’s Perfect Sweet 16. Some 3.5 million people submitted brackets on ESPN.com’s Tourney Challenge game and after this weekend’s upsets only 2 had all the sweet 16 finalists (nobody has a perfect one). One of them was this young boy, Johnny Gilbert, a Ohio State fan who says he got all his picks from reading the morning paper and reading up online. Way to go!