By James Furbush | September 11th, 2009 | 6:50 am PDT
Wait, what? Michael Jordan isn’t already in the Basketball Hall of Fame? I swear he was inducted to Springfield like six years ago. I guess not, because it’s happening this weekend and in honor of (one of) the greatest player(s) ever, ESPN is counting down with video of his 23 most memorable moments.
Not sure how it’s going to end, but if “the flue game” against Utah in the 1997 finals is #6, then I can’t begin to imagine what the top 5 holds for us. I’m guessing the layup against L.A. in the 1991 finals, the 68 he dropped against the Celtics in the 1988 playoffs, etc.
“This summer, it’s back. It’s big — big enough to be legible in photographs. And it’s everywhere: on his shoes, on his belt tab, on his duffel, on his jackets, on the plastic bags his new rackets come in. Forget all the subtle functions a monogram used to perform — discreetly personalizing a gentleman’s wardrobe, helping the servants sort the shirts. What three years ago seemed a plausible, if affected, personal flourish on the part of an athlete whose style of dress and style of play had positioned him as the Fred Astaire of tennis — light on his feet, with a penchant for tuxedo black for night matches and a Rolex commercial in which he shows off his serve in a two-button suit — had somehow escalated into a master-of-all-he-surveys exercise in personal branding.” Roger Federer’s monogram reads like an interesting intersection of marketing, personal branding, fashion, design, sportsmanship and history. And yes, the US Open is descending on Flushing Meadows this week.
But after watching the race over and over and slowing it down to watch his stride and just marvel at his conservation of energy, we noticed that it looked like he was fully across the finish line in 9.3 flat. According to the competition rules, the sprinter’s torso must be breach the finish line and again it looks like Bolt has accomplished that.
9.30 seconds is an absurdly low time and yet seemingly contradicts the study by two scientists which puts the human limit at 9.51 seconds.
Think about that for a moment. It’s been calculated (erroneously or not) that the absolute fastest time a human can run 100 meters is in 9.51 seconds and Usain Bolt is already clocked in at 9.58 and from the look above it might be possible for him to run closer to 9.30. That alone makes him, in my book, the fastest human being to ever exist.
Holy moly. While most of the sports watching world was engaged in Tiger Woods utterly choking away his first major, track speedster Usain Bolt of Jamaica set a new world record in the 100 meters. Anybody see this race? Bolt’s stride and gallop is a thing of artistry. Amazing what happens when an athlete pushes himself to greatness by his own desire and from the competition of others.
If you’re counting, Bolt has now set the world record at 9.72, 9.69 and now 9.58.
Huh. So they made a movie out of Michael Lewis’s book, The Blind Side. Looks like it could be decent, if not schmaltzy. Hopefully, this is more like Friday Night Lights and less like a Lifetime Original.
Nice to see Sandra Bullock looking good and doing something other than a terrible rom-com. It even looks like she may be using Michael Oher to open a lane to Oscar-baiting daylight.
For those scratching their heads, Michael Oher was the Baltimore Ravens’s #1 pick in this year’s NFL draft. But back in high school, before the football glory, he was struggling to live in a Memphis ghetto; then he was adopted by a white family in rural Mississippi and given a second chance. Because he was built like a Mac Truck, with the grace of a ballerina, the high school football team turned him into a left tackle, one of the NFL’s most highly sought-after positions.
Let’s pretend for a second that you are a 23-year-old New Zealand taekwondo Olympic hopeful. You want to compete in the 2012 London games, but you need the funds necessary to do so.
What’s the easiest and most profitable way to do so? Open a 14-room gentleman’s club. Prostitution is, after all, legal there.
“Selection takes into account not just performance but also the athlete’s ability to serve as an example to the youth of the country,” Team NZ funding manager John Schofield told the country’s Sunday Star Times newspaper.
Still, the financial rewards of running a legal business are enough for him to risk that.
To take the financial strain from his parents Campbell has gone into partnership with Hugo Philiips, a 20-year-old accountancy graduate, to set up what the pair insist is a “high-class” escort agency.
He hopes to take a couple of years off to work full-time on the new venture, before returning to training in 2011 with a NZ$300,000 Olympic kitty.
When people think of a pimp they think of a guy standing around on a street corner with gold chains,” he told the Sunday Star Times.”Pimps are more tough-type guys. I’m an owner of an escort agency.”
He accepts that his chosen profession carries with it a certain reputation.
“Mum was hesitant but she met the girls, a couple came over to her house and she was sweet as. She realised they were just normal people supporting their kids and stuff.”
In 1998, Elvis Grbac, a backup quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs stunned the sports world by being named People Magazine’s sexiest athlete of the year.
If you’ve ever seen a picture of the goofy looking QB, you would know why htis was inherently funny and quite puzzling. But now, a full decade later, the story behind Grbac’s selection makes the story that much better and manages to generate a little simpathy from us.
One of my favorite all-time stories is about Elvis Grbac (left), Rich Gannon (right) and People Magazine’s Sexiest Men issue from 1998. It is both outlandish and 100-percent true.
Back in the day I knew many People staffers, and they were all cool, fun, intelligent-and woefully ignorant about sports. Every year, in planning the Sexiest Men issue, People’s editors would ask a bunch of us at Sports Illustrated for suggestions and insight. In 1998, for a reason I’ll never understand, they decided not to seek out help.
The magazine chose Rich Gannon as its Sexiest Athlete. At the time, Gannon was a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. Still a couple of seasons removed from his golden tenure with the Raiders, Gannon was 33, handsome and likable. In other words, a solid choice. Yet People, being People, simply informed the photographer assigned to the piece that the Sexiest Athlete was the Chiefs’ quarterback. Hence, he took pictures of the Chiefs’ quarterback. Well, one of the Chiefs’ quarterbacks: Elvis Grbac.
Yup.
The pictures made their way back to the New York offices, and editors were dumbfounded. This was their Sexiest Athlete? Yet upon learning the truth, no one with the magazine had the heart (guts?) to tell Grbac that an unfathomable mistake had been made. As a result, Elvis Grbac reigns as People’s 1998 Sexiest Athlete.
The article’s final line says it all: “His personality makes him sexy.”
Obviously, there’s a lot of editing going on here. Not necessarily in the shots shown, but I imagine for every shot like this hit he had to take dozens or maybe a hundred attempts. That doesn’t make these shots any less impressive.
Also? Shaq is offering the kid a $1,000 to play him in HORSE.
As a Patriots fan, we should all extend a hearty thanks to Robin Leed, sister of Tommy Leed (a member of the Buffalo crew) for rescuing Tom Brady.
Brady’s kayak tipped over on the Charles River and Robin was there to save him. The best part of this story is not the actual story, but the comment thread over email between all the guys from Buffalo, NY. They weren’t congratulatory at all, but rather peeved that a Buffalonian would sabotage the Bills season before it began. And that’s why I love the Buff.
To wit:
Wil Shephard: “Dude that’s crazy. I can’t believe she didn’t let him drown. Obviously not a real Bills fan.”
And Seamus Gallivan: “My first reaction was texting Robin to congratulate her on becoming a real American hero. But I’ve since come to regret it and consider her a traitor to her hometown – if she would’ve let him drown, the Pats would have to sign JP Losman, and the Bills would have a much better shot at winning the AFC East, both of which would greatly improve the quality of life for all Buffalonians.”
Composed of stainless steel, aluminum and sheet moulding, the torch was designed to evoke snow, ice, skiing and skating, but to many, the metre-long white torch looks suspiciously like a marijuana joint, especially when lit.
The observation has become so common in this city that it’s hard to know who was the first to say, “Hey, doesn’t that look like …”
But the torch’s resemblance to British Columbia’s biggest cash crop was evident right away to Jodie Emery, editor of Cannabis Culture magazine.
“A lot of people come to Vancouver because it’s marijuana-friendly, so I think people who already enjoy a joint themselves will feel a little more kinship to the Olympics,” said Emery, who ran as a Green party candidate in the provincial election this month.
The alternative, of course, is that the sleek torch is supposed to resemble futuristic skiis. All I see is a squiggly bullet train, a shiny pen and dental equipment. Don’t ask, but I love having my teeth cleaned.
Olympic Champion Usain Bolt set a world-record in the 150-meters Sunday running it in a blistering 14.35 seconds on a temporary surface set up in Manchester’s city center. Right away, you’ll notice that the other schlubs running with him are no match for the Jamaican lightening bolt.
Despite cool temperatures, and a reported lack of fitness thanks to a few minor injuries sustained in a car-crash about a month ago, Bolt’s first big showing on the world stage in 2009 lived up to the hype (Bolt’s love of speed extends beyond the track, apparently. The Jamaican taxi drivers are reported to have a nickname for him – “lead-foot”).
The 150m dissected – splits and projections
Bolt’s running is anything but lead-footed. He ran the first 100m in 9.90 seconds, which is an extra-ordinary time and a sign of things to come. But even more amazing, the final 100m (from 50m to the finish line) were clocked in an astonishing 8.72 seconds! That is being reported, though it’s so fast I’m almost skeptical.
I first got a whiff of the new Malcolm Gladwell essay when he engaged in a three part (part one, part two, part three) email exchange with Bill Simmons from ESPN. Gladwell looks at underdogs and innovation in sports and why the two don’t necessary follow each other, even though they probably should.
Both exchanges are worth reading, if for nothing else than they’re sports food for thought. The most memorable aspect is Gladwell’s thoughts on sports drafts and his suggestion that there shouldn’t be a draft, but rather college players should go on job interviews with their respective teams.
That suggestion alone, is worth wading through 20,000 words or so.
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