Whelliston.com

Failures of Imagination

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Back in the late 1990's, I was one of the dreamers. I was one of those people who thought that the internet would save the world from itself. I honestly believed that limitless information would lead to limitless knowledge, and that a new generation of enlightened master thinkers would transcend manipulation in all of its guises.

What I didn't figure on was that users would organize the World Wide Web into narrow ecosystems of selective knowledge. I had no idea that folks would gather together around cut-and-pasted selections of fact-bits in order to validate long-held beliefs. I was honestly surprised that very few minds were opened or changed or awakened. I downplayed the allure of non-physical virtual confrontation, and I was wrong to be optimistic. I thought the internet would teach us something other than what we already knew.

I thought the internet would forever destroy the boundaries that separate creators and consumers. Instead, the web is where consumers discuss consumable products with other consumers. Created works are judged and consumed so quickly, with such ruthless efficiency, a lot of creative types don't bother trying anymore. America has had superconsumers for a long time, but the Web birthed in a new breed of metaconsumer. Now, we have hundreds of thousands of users with alphanumeric names and .JPG avatars, all submitting star ratings and "hot or nots," complaining about stuff, marking things FAIL or WIN, creating content without creating anything at all.

I fell in love with this medium over a decade ago, and watched as the interactive wonderland of the future turned out to be nothing more than Super TV. Search engines never forced people to put two or more disparate items or objects together, to force neurons to snap and crackle in new and uncomfortable ways. The W3C Consortium never bothered to include a tag in the HTML 4.0 specification. There was far more thought and energy put towards making a universe of online porn than there was towards challenging deep-seated assumptions.

Instead of changing everything, the internet made us more of what we already were.

---

I don't know how to coach a basketball team. I led Team Light Blue at my local YMCA to a 1-6 record 11 years ago, and that's my lifetime record. I'll never forget my first win as a coach; only three players from the other team showed up, so it was a forfeit. I was ready to cut down the nets.

Nowadays, I deal with a lot of Division I head men's basketball coaches. I do enjoy talking to players after games; I'm about as tall as the average point guard and weigh about the same, so I can hang without being made fun of. But they're always careful of what they say around me, because they've been trained well about what one media-related slip-up can lead to, how it can define a player's career. Besides, I usually think their music sucks... so that's awkward.

I have more in common with the old white guys, except for the coaching knowledge part, so I'm usually with them. Every year, I talk to over a hundred coaches who toil below the Red Line every year.

If I can be allowed to over-generalize, head coaches generally fall into one of four categories. Some are determined to move on to greater things, and when they see the "mid-major guy" coming, they get bristly, over-professional, and abrupt. I don't forget those encounters, and I keep a list. When they take a million-dollar job in a Big Six conference, I cross them off. After 2008-09, all the names on my list are gone, as expected.

Some head coaches aren't quite as ambitious as that. They're comfortable in their positions, working at schools that don't treat men's basketball as a high priority. They feel content and bulletproof, and can withstand a few 20-loss seasons. Others are scared for their jobs, and I can see it in their eyes. They're nervous, jittery, always making excuses for losses. I've had a few blast me with angry messages when I've written things that reference the poor play of their teams.

I can't judge the scared ones. I can't call them out publicly; I understand their predicaments, and I know they're not fools. They've chosen a profession that demands perfection now and improvement later, to quote a dear friend. These coaches work as hard as they can, with wives and children counting on their continued employment. They all know they're one horrible season away from going back to high school, or working for a sleazy internet scouting service.

That's why I've never called for a coach that loses a lot to be fired. It's why I've never celebrated a termination based on poor performance. I know a lot of bloggers do things like that, but they have the luxury of distance. This is a serious business, and these are my friends. These are men who work in public with thousands of strangers filing regular job evaluations on them. I could never do that, could you? I could never put myself on the line every day like they do, and they have my full respect.

There's a fourth type of head coach that I run across, the rarest kind. There are some team leaders who aren't afraid of taking chances, who stay away from the best-athlete-available model that turns so many teams into mediocre messes. They dare to build their teams around fixed concepts conceived in advance, targeting recruitable players who will fulfill the mission and the dream.

Sometimes a team is built around the singular vision of one innovative coach. Other times, there's a tradition handed down from one staff to the next, over the course of a sustained period of basketball success -- the kind of run that typifies a winning tradition. This is what's meant by "brand of basketball," but there aren't that many programs at any level that qualify. Most teams' master plans are to outscore the competition, to put the ball in the basket more times than the other guys. They rely on hustle or guts or some other chicken-soup-for-the-soul.

But no matter how beautiful the season might be, or how pure a 0-0 (0-0) record looks right now, many of the 251 seasons in the Mid-Majority are over before they've started. Most teams are destined to simply survive the next four months, or to be college basketball's walking dead. Maybe your team is one of those that will fall short. You probably already know it, and it's making you hesitant to invest. If you can't sum up your team's identity in five words or less, your team's probably in trouble. That doesn't mean you have to stop paying attention; it's important to learn how to lose.

These hundreds of impending failures will have nothing to do with how unfair the world below the Red Line is, or how stacked the deck is against Division I's smaller schools. You don't have to spend $2 million on men's basketball to buy an imagination, and a unique approach to the art and craft of leading a team has nothing to do with TV time. Every coach has the freedom to stand out from the crowd, to take 100 shots and 50 3's a game or run cartwheel plays. The greatest coach in the history of Our Game won ten national championships in the pre-money era by finding parallels between teaching English and coaching hoops. The possibilities are endless, but rarely explored in full.

The reason why a lot of coaches don't go the creative route is because it's dangerous. Failure of the everyday kind is one thing, but a special catastrophic class of loserdom is reserved for those who fail with unfamiliar methods. They're made examples of, and system-wide chilling effects result.

So too few programs have pre-existing plans and recruit to an ideal, and too many find the best athletes available and hope everything works out. But every mid-major school that's won two or more games in recent years has had a clear and well-formed identity that has set them apart from the rest, and there's a lesson in that too.

---

Our popular culture is full of stories, parables and assorted digestible stuff about the power of imagination. All Hollywood children's movies have some sort of overarching message about staying true to your aspirations, no matter how crazy or impossible your goals might seem. If your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme.

But there's nothing warm, fuzzy, safe or wonderful about imagination. Dreams can be dangerous, disruptive and destructive. Following your heart is such a subversive act that we only allow the least powerful people in our society -- children -- to do it. Active adult imaginations are severe liabilities, high risks. Fantasies are doors into failure and madness, desperation and insanity.

Imagination can lose you your job and livelihood, and put you out on the street with no place to turn. Imagination can lose you your life.

If you're going to be a visionary, much better to crib from those rebels and renegades who came before. Try modeling yourself after those folks in the Apple "Think Different" ads. Imagination worked out for those folks, and most of them didn't have to die for their dreams.

Before The Mid-Majority, there was never a website about traveling to small-college basketball games, one that's been as much about roadside philosophy as hoops. If there was, it didn't have a talking basketball as a mascot and didn't sell overpriced plush toys to survive. And there still hasn't been a website like this that's been financially successful or sustainable. I lost my job to protect it, I lost my wife to continue it, and I lost my health to sustain it. As far as paying the price for new ideas goes, I got off pretty easy.

My rewards haven't been financial or career-related. I've seen what it's like in Big Media, and I never want to go back. I've learned that it's more important to have a good audience than a big audience.

I've had the opportunity to live a very interesting life for the past five years as an accidental sportswriter, and The Mid-Majority has brought a lot of wonderful, brilliant, creative, imaginative and fearless people across my path. I'm can't wait for another season of your prose and poetry, your goofy songs and your refrigerator cartoons. I can't wait to see your snapshots of Bally's worldwide travels on our new message board. If this site inspires you to think about basketball in new ways, and to create interesting things, that was the point all along. Your efforts, in turn, inspire me to continue.

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...And Then We Moved The Capital

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Dayton, you had a good run.

There are so many reasons why the Birthplace of Aviation was the first capital of Hoops Nation. No other city's fans can match its awesomeness-to-population ratio; the University of Dayton Arena will always be packed, no matter if the Flyers are 28-1 or 1-28. Ever since the Atlantic 10/12/14 tourney left Philadelphia's Spectrum, no other city has hosted the event with as much class and diligence as Dayton. The NCAA chose wisely when it picked UD as the perennial host of the Play-In Game, "the most honest game in college basketball." In no other place would people care to wave "GO #65 SEED" signs.

"Hoops Nation" is a concept nearing its four-year anniversary. Our definition has little or nothing to do with this Hoops Nation, which is a fine and well-written directory of pick-up playgrounds from coast-to-coast. Ours is a land of individual entities bound together by a shared struggle and a common dream, under a wide banner of 251 stars. Our Hoops Nation is the country at-large, which hardly ever gets at-large bids. Hoops Nation is not the constantly-shifting Top 25. It is the united foundation of Division I college basketball. If you live below the Red Line, you hold automatic citizenship.

For our purposes here, the term was born nearly four years ago, in one of those old ESPN.com Insider blog entries about a UD-Wright State doubleheader I pulled in February 2006. The piece is covered in so much digital dust that Google can't even find it, but Dayton was declared the capital and few disputed it. The University of Dayton Arena became Hoops Nation's Congress. The South Park Tavern was its House of Representatives, a place to gather every March to root for the SWAC or the NEC in the P.I.G..

Moving a capital is serious business. It's not an entirely unprecedented event, though; it happens all the time. In the early days of the United States, the capital moved eight times before 1800, when it settled in some cheap land in the District of Columbia. There was the whole Constantinople thing back in Roman times. Just this year, the Indonesian island province of North Maluku moved its capital from Ternate to Sofifi. A capital is where the heart is.

And now we're moving. The spiritual center of Hoops Nation is moving 117 miles to the west. We hereby declare Hoops Nation's center of democratic power to be Indianapolis, Indiana.

The importance of Indianapolis to the college basketball world should be obvious. It's the self-described and rightfully-named Amateur Sports Capital of the World. It's the location of headquarters buildings for both the NCAA and AAU. In the city center, there's a Westin Hotel where the gatekeepers to the Big Bracket meet on the 15th floor every March, to decide whose dreams live and die. (For the people of Hoops Nation, most of them die.) But we know how hard those decisions can be, from direct experience.

Indianapolis is home to Sports Bubble Stadium, where the 2010 Final Four will be held. And the 2015 one. The Women's Final Four in 2011 and 2016 will be there as well. And a few other events take place, but not enough to fill out an actual calendar.

But the NCAA matrix is merely a sideshow and shadowy parallel in our new capital city. Hoops Nation doesn't need some oversized Monopoly hotel as a congressional hall; we have an 81-year-old U.S. National Historic Landmark, one of the two true cathedrals of Our Game. There's no dome on top, just a convex arced roof with windows that make the interior look like church in the afternoon and 1928 at night. The baskets are 10 feet high, just like at your gym -- that's democracy. You can address all relevant and appropriate political correspondence to 510 West 49th Street.

Indianapolis is the location of the hottest thing going in the mid-major world right now, Butler University, but that's merely a timely coincidence. Our new associate, Damon Lewis, lives there too. The latter certainly has more to do with this than the former, but this city is our capital because of what it has represented over time.

Indianapolis is a city of underdog dreams. It's where Bobby Plump hit a last-second shot to complete the Milan Miracle, and it's where he went on to open an fantastic restaurant in the Broad Ripple district. At the 1987 Pan American Games, Hinkle was where the Brazilian men's volleyball team completed a stunning marathon upset over a United States team, which held the Olympic and World Cup titles at the time. Indy was the Final destination of George Mason 2006 -- an NCAA journey that began in, of all places, Dayton.

Indianapolis is a city of crazy brilliance. A lot of things have been the "best thing since sliced bread," but this is where sliced bread was actually invented! It's where some guy said, "Hey, why don't we make a huge speedway out of bricks?" Indianapolis and innovation both start with I, and the individuals who live there are pushing the envelope of progress.

Indianapolis is a city of inspiration and hope. It was the birthplace of a barefoot coaching movement that changed a million lives. Four decades ago, it was the site of one of the great forgotten speeches of the civil rights movement, one delivered by Robert F. Kennedy after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. He said, "The vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land."

On the night of April 4, 1968, every American city with a sizable black population erupted in fiery violence. Each, that is, except Indianapolis.

---

Hoops Nation's capital city is where we keep our headquarters. It's a magical building that holds a special place in Mid-Majority history, and I want to tell you about it.

ESPN flew me to Indianapolis to cover the 2006 Final Four, and once again to cover the epic 2007 BracketBusters clash between Butler and Southern Illinois -- a classic game that featured two schools destined for that year's Sweet 16. Both times, I flew into the city's 30-year-old terminal. It was charming and precious and low-ceilinged, like a little boutique airport, but on Final Four weekend it was overmatched by the endless lines and sweatsuit herds.

Back then, the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport (formerly a Holiday Inn) was the best hotel that the airport had to offer. It was right across the street from the terminal, a two-minute walk. It had everything you'd expect from a four-star facility -- a grand courtyard with fountains, seven conference rooms, an indoor pool and hot tub, three restaurants (including a French place on the fifth floor) and an executive lounge. It was always full... and always expensive. I never got to stay there.

The city grew so fast that it needed a new airport. On November 11, 2008, all inbound flights to Indianapolis were diverted to a new terminal. The local authorities built a gleaming steel/glass structure with 1.2 million square feet of floorspace and 40 gates. As the only major air passenger facility built since 9/11/2001, it has the most advanced security features of any American airport.

The new IND took years to complete, but Google Maps hasn't caught up yet. If you type "IND" into most GPS navigation systems, you'll be led to the wrong place.

In January of this year, I drove to Indianapolis through a snowstorm to write an ESPN.com story about the second season of Samaritan's Feet's barefoot coaching initiative. My auto club gave me a cut-rate deal at the CPIA, and the sudden change in local topography was a bit of a shock. Satellite photos of the area still show a terminal in full operation, but all that's really left now are vacant parking garages, cracked asphalt runways, and a deserted Hertz rental center with a chain-link fence and "kepe out" signs. High School Road, the north-south service artery that parallels the Interstate, is a street of ghosts. Everything's gone.

The Crowne Plaza International Airport never changed its name, even though the terminal is now six miles and a 15-minute shuttle ride away. Airport Blvd. is now Sam Jones Blvd., and all the directional signs are gone. Driving by on I-465 at 70 miles per hour, you'd never know there was ever an airport there.

Lonely, obsolete hotels might be expected to close down or cut back on amenities and services, but not this one. All the staff at the CPIA is still in full uniform -- the desk attendants in their beige suits, the bellhops with their clean white shirts, the shuttle drivers with black blazers and police-style hats. The restaurant and catering workers all wear coats and ties. Even though the place is 90 percent empty on most nights, the staff never eases up or takes a night off. Nobody's stopped caring, hardly anybody's watching, but no one takes less pride in their work.

I like to imagine that there's a connection between an ethos of an unremembered hotel and the graceful disposition of an outdated arena. An underworked yet overeager lodge staff has a lot in common with the players and coaches and SID's at a sparsely-attended small-college basketball game. It takes a special kind of pride to ensure that everything you do lives up to Division I status, no matter how neglected and forgotten it may be by most. This is a spirit I can understand.

There's a special kind of energy there that inspires me to create. I wrote that article about Samaritan's Feet in a room on the third floor; that story led to my being asked to write a book about the charity's founder, Manny Ohonme (it's called Sole Purpose and it'll be out this winter). Hours after I filed that story, I received an e-mail that informed me that my ESPN contributions (and income) would be cut in half. I took a deep breath and stared out the east-facing window. And then I wrote this, which was good enough to get me fired.

Later on in the season, I often returned to the CPIA. That's where I'm sitting with Bally on the cover of Sports Bubble Blues. In March, I drew this cartoon there. Finally, after Season 5 was over, I polished up the epilogue from a room on the first floor. Colleagues, friends and fans came to the CPIA in September for our first annual Season Symposium, and it was the kind of fun I hope we get to repeat next year.

There's a set of ropes to learn, a CPIA mythology. A room on the fifth floor gives you free 24-hour keycard access to the executive lounge, where there's a refrigerator full of drinks and a cupboard full of cereal. There's a player piano in the second-floor Gallery that plays a bizarre rotation of digital rolls ranging from Motown to classic rock to pop, and a life-sized puppet named Guido sits at the pneumatic keys. At 5 p.m., Guido gears up for yet another surprise theme evening; it might be girl groups, the Doobie Brothers or the hits of 1994. As the sun goes down outside, those soft and mellow chords echo throughout a courtyard dotted by golden lights.

And never order the "vegetables florentine" at The Landing restaurant.

I'm not sure why this is a place where ideas come so easy. Thoughts that are so jumbled elsewhere fall into neat order among the dark woods. When I'm sitting in the Gallery at 2 a.m., overlooking the wide and empty sweep of the facility, listening to the fountain gurgle and splash, concepts click together and attach to other in interesting ways.

I can feel the city beyond those walls, a city with dreams bigger than its population, where progressive and positive thought trumps regression and destruction. There in Indianapolis, David and Goliath coexist in spite of each other. It's the Circle City, an unbroken wheel with asphalt spokes that reach into the distance in every direction, towards every far corner of Hoops Nation.

And this is the center.

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That Teenage Feeling

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

In 2,000 years, when a master race of warrior-thinkers has built their own seemingly infallible civilization, they'll have plenty of material with which to study us. They'll have the same big-picture perspective on the modern "first world" that we currently enjoy when it comes to Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia. They'll be able to pick and choose the lessons they want to learn from us.

I like to imagine that the great historians and philosophers of 4000 A.D. will be impressed by Western breakthroughs in regards to ownership. We've spent hard centuries hammering out a comprehensive set of property laws, and we should be proud of them. People own land, animals, food, companies, money and so much more. Many modern wars have been fought because one side wanted what the other had.

People have even tried to own each other; that didn't work out so well. But proprietary interpersonal rights live on with modern Western love, which is an implied covenant of ownership that culminates in "to have and to hold." This summer at the beach, I saw a fistfight over some natural resources; in this case, it was a stolen girlfriend. It was an epic battle between two determined forces, like Russia and Georgia fighting over strategic oil reserves... writ very small.

We've gone to such great lengths to define possession, it would blow ancient minds. If only we could explain "intellectual property" to a Mayan. Earlier peoples rarely signed their names to anything, and the idea of taking credit was often beyond foreign. But we've taken it to a new level -- paintings, architecture, poems, books and blog posts are all property of somebody. Ideas are copyrightable as patents. Visible, tangible things are all eligible for title and deed, but now concepts are as well.

Nowadays, everything is owned by somebody.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting opposite the scorer's table with my black notebook, waiting for the game to start and taking in all the rituals, I wonder about ownership. To whom does Our Game belong? There are many forces competing for the soul of college basketball, and everybody's registered a claim.

---

Over the past decade or so, the National Association of Basketball Coaches has pushed a vague concept called "Guardians of the Game." You might remember a November tourney with that title; maybe your favorite coach was given an award with that same name. You may even own the NABC-sponsored book, and perhaps it was a pleasant and unexpected holiday gift. (It's sitting on my coffee table at home.) You've probably spent a few seconds wondering what the phrase is supposed to mean.

"As coaches, we are 'Guardians of the Game,'" the NABC proclaims in a website mission statement, displayed alongside a slideshow of men making earnest facial gestures. "We have a responsibility to protect the integrity of student-athletes, coaches and the game of basketball."

But only a select few in the fraternity can afford to live up to those lofty ideals. Most of them simply don't win enough games, or have enough funding in their programs, to transcend temptation and compromise. When it comes down to it, coaches are guardians of their own jobs, like any of the rest of us, and they do what they can under their individual circumstances.

How much power do coaches really have? The game would fall apart without them; with nobody to guide performance or manage in-game substitutions, it would devolve into schoolyard chaos. But each individual coach is available to the highest bidder, a mercenary. Each is disposable in the case of failure, and a flight risk when success is sustained. When a player loses his coach this way, there's a real sense of betrayal, because somebody hasn't lived up to their responsibilities as a protector.

And each coach fades in time. There will always be 18-year-old freshmen and 22-year-old seniors, but the destiny of every coach is that college basketball will pass them by. Each gets older and farther out of touch from the players who play for them, from boom boxes to iPods, MySpace to Facebook and beyond. The father figure eventually becomes the grandfather figure, and the body and mind inevitably fail. All that remains are numbers, memories and video footage. Sometimes that will add up to an individual legacy.

Our Game does not belong to the coaches. How could it?

What about the journalists who sit on the opposite side of the floor; does this belong to us? College basketball writers transform action into narrative. We measure the present against history, and we're always making some kind of list or ranking or All-Whatever team. We're always trying to be hero-makers and diligent watchdogs. We celebrate victories, build eccentric personalities into grand totems, and root out corruption where it hides. We try to keep a keen eye on Our Game's integrity.

But if there's anything that five years as an accidental sportswriter has taught me, it's that everybody on press row has a private agenda that supercedes the sport's best interest. This is a competitive business, and most of these agendas involve attracting attention to oneself. There's a lot of self-validation and fantasy going on too.

One recurring trope in college basketball coverage is the Coach/Genius. In the popular press, famous coaches combine secret knowledge of sports alchemy with outstanding fashion sense. Those of us on press row are getting older too, and every year the players on the court get farther away in age and more difficult to relate to. It's only natural that sportswriters would gravitate towards those experiencing the same season of life, and that's why a lot of us write them up like übermen. Once you recognize this cycle for what it is -- middle-aged white men trying to make sense of their lives -- you'll stop taking college basketball journalists seriously, for good.

Individual colleges don't own college basketball, because they've signed their rights away to a central administration. Does the National Collegiate Athletic Association own Our Game? It has no exclusive rights to the sport itself. There are many American colleges outside its three-division structure, other leagues and other governments. There are the NAIA and NJCAA, where the games can be just as good as the games up here. As long as there are two evenly-matched teams on the floor, it's always a beautiful game.

The NCAA has the same problems that all sports administration organizations face, from the International Olympic Committee to FIFA to any of the professional league offices. They must balance pure, uncontaminated competition with the economic requirements of big business. To rule a sport, those in charge must set aside selfishness for the sake of the games. After a century of modern sports government, we can conclude that this is an impossible equation.

When you go to a game, the NCAA never seems to be around, like an absentee landlord. It's only the guardian of the gates. The NCAA only decides who's in and who's out, and provides judge and jury. When a school or coach runs afoul of its selectively-enforced laws, Our Game's governing body tosses them out of the walled garden. It rules by fear and relies on chilling effects.

In mid-March, a sanctioned NCAA committee guards the gates of the meaningful national postseason. The NCAA decides which consumer products are allowed through the door, and who the Corporate Champions are. Any venue designated for Tournament play must move inside those gates; if you've been to the Big Dance, you've seen arena ads might be covered with black tarps... but the NCAA gets to put logo water tanks wherever it wants.

The gatekeepers have become so convinced of their power that they feel they own the time and space within these walls. They can say that something that actually happened didn't really happen. But we trust our own eyes, and can't be fooled. We know that men in suits can't tell us what we have and haven't seen. In real life and real time, performances aren't measured by whether they're "Pontiac Game-Changing" or not. College basketball has nothing to do with American cars, "more bars" or Vitamin Water.

These are all distractions, perpetuated by people who claim ownership of something that doesn't belong to them. This doesn't belong to executives, corporations or administrators. It's not owned by typists in shabby brown sweaters, announcers in expensive suits, or coaches crouching on the sidelines. This has very little to do with old people at all.

College basketball is about college, and it's about basketball. Our Game belongs to those who are still young enough to play it.

College basketball is an experience that's only fully understood by actual students. There's a special bond between a student section and players (especially walk-ons) that's hardly ever captured in published words, much less "Coke Madness." As you watch from the bleachers, you know those players made the same choice as you did. You might not have been actively recruited like they were. But those are your friends and representatives, working on your behalf to validate a shared, life-altering decision about where to get educated.

College is a beautiful, intensely irrational world. It's a place where you can still survive on tomorrow's money. It's a safe sphere where you can still alter your own reality in order to make life feel less complicated.

In the gym, everyone is either a hero or a villain. It's an arena of unreasonable dreams, where everything is in black and white. Later on, the twenties and thirties will present overwhelming grayscale; but in college, everything points to the momentary success and failure of right now. It's about living and playing like there's no tomorrow. There is a tomorrow, but it will have to take care of itself.

A college existence is only sustainable for a short time. Some try to live at university forever, and some try to do so by becoming professors or coaches or college basketball writers. Everybody who leaves wants to return; college is a bridge that takes a half-decade to cross, but you'll spend the rest of your days trying to get back to that overpass between adolescence and adulthood.

You'll spend considerable effort, even desperate attempts, to recapture that feeling of perfect simplicity. You yearn to go to a place where everything makes sense again. You need to go back.

A college basketball ticket can be a way into that world again. A game represents two hours outside the time-space continuum, a temporary return to college. The cheerleaders are still young and pretty with bows in their hair, just like you remember. The players are still the same age they always were, running up and down the floor, with the name of your school in proud letters across the front of their shirts. The fight song hasn't changed, and never will.

And don't tell me that isn't magic.

For those of us whose eligibility has long since passed, autumn represents a reopening of that portal after seven months of sweaty melancholy. No fabricated soap opera, no product sales pitch, no manipulation or exploitation could ever take away our desire to come back to the gym.

It's November, and we've found the bridge again. We can go back, but we can never stay for long... this is not a home we can own, and there's no real shelter for us. All we can do is enjoy the opportunity to turn back the clock and become young again, two hours at a time.

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♫ Neko Case “That Teenage Feeling” Live 4/9/2006 @...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:50:39 -0800

♫ Neko Case “That Teenage Feeling” Live 4/9/2006 @ NPR

Emotional Investments

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Do you mind if I talk baseball? Just for a second.

This is an American League Central-centric college basketball website. I've loved the Minnesota Twins since I discovered baseball back in 1983. Our new colleague Damon Lewis, whom you'll meet next week if you haven't already, is a lifelong Tigers fan. So it was an interesting summer and fall here. The Twins chased down Detroit in the standings, erasing a three-game lead in the final four games. Then, they won the AL Central on an exciting extra-inning division tiebreaker. Thrills! Chills! Zach Miner!

There was the thrill of victory, and cold Diet Sunpop all around. There are certainly blog bragging rights for the next year if I choose to exercise them. But something didn't feel right.

The three-game ALDS loss to the Yankees was a fully expected result, so it wasn't that. It wasn't the guilty feeling that comes when you know you've expended all your sports karma points for the year (or, quite possibly, for the next decade). Back in July, there was a rough stretch of games that included a blown 10-run lead in a 14-13 late-night loss at Oakland, and that's when I gave up on the Twins' 2009 season. I withdrew my commitment to save myself a summer full of heartbreak, just like I'd done every year from 1993 to 2000. I spent my evenings writing books instead.

I know that it's self-centered and wrong-headed to give up on your ballteam like that. It's opportunistic and inconsiderate to only show up for the good parts, to be part of the September crowd of 50,000 and not one of the 18,000 scattered across the lower bowl in April. There's no such thing as a marriage made of honeymoons and vacations, and no human life is one long 80-year highlight reel. Front-running, bandwagoneering and lead-dogging are all empty and unrealistic sports fan experiences.

And I paid my price. On that cold Tuesday night in October, when Carlos Gomez dashed home with the winning run, I jumped up and down on my couch at home. I whooped and hollered for a minute or two. This being 2009 and not 1983, I texted and tweeted.

Then I called my 71-year-old dad. He listened to all 163 of the Twins' 2009 games, up in the woods of New Hampshire, on the XM radio I bought him for his birthday last year. He never let his exasperation eclipse his optimism, even during the losing streaks, the season-ending injuries and the failed personnel experiments. The last time I'd seen him that happy was when his third divorce was finalized.

His happiness was truly genuine, and I couldn't keep up. I was just going through the emotional motions, and I knew it. When I hung up, I sat alone on the couch with an weird feeling in my gut and chest. I didn't ride the whole ride, so I didn't get the full high. I didn't deserve to celebrate at all.

---

The desire to hitch a wagon to a sports champion is fully understandable. It's a basic human need that many sports fans have -- to deny private feelings of inadequacy by dressing up like a winner. It's why a good percentage of Association Nation traded in Bulls jerseys for Lakers shirts a decade ago, and why the speculative Cavaliers jersey market was so hot in recent years. Right now, it's wise to go long on the Boston Celtics.

People want to be in the right place, wearing the right costume at the right time. They want to have their happy-buttons pushed. If you're sitting in the Buffalo Wild Wings in your brand new off-the-rack No. 13 pinstripe jersey when the Yankees clinch the World Series title, your arms raised in glory, then you'll have put your chips on the right number. Well gambled, you chose correctly, and you have your own, small, insignificant share of that victory.

There's no reason to be anything but straight-up about this. Bandwagoning is the sports equivalent like rubbing one out in an airport bathroom stall. It doesn't compare to a hot, wet, sloppy lovemaking session with someone you've had your eye on for years. I've lived every minute and game of five world championship seasons in three major American sports, so let me tell you all about the difference.

In matters of life, love, or money, no yield is ever guaranteed. But with spectator sports, you get out what you put in, and that's bankable truth. The amount of time you spend on the thrillcoaster will parallel the size of your payoff. It'll determine the depth of your feeling. And isn't that why we do this, for the feeling?

Non-participant sports are unique in that they allow for complete surrender to an external locus of control, without a lot of the physical danger that capitulation usually involves. When you relinquish emotional control to a sports team, you let exterior forces have their way with you. To tie your emotional fortunes to a group of people who don't care about you is a true leap of faith indeed.

And because the sports industry has become so gigantic in the last three decades, there have been plenty of studies and bad science about endorphins and adrenalin and seratonin as they relate to fandom. There are a lot of fluids sloshing and electrical reactions going off inside us while we're sitting around, looking at athletes do stuff. Watching games and following teams allow us to feel Big Feelings, unleashing passions that a routine-driven existence just can't offer. Spectator sports can jailbreak us from ourselves.

Championships, wins and great plays produce lots of euphoria and happy chemistry. A world title for your longtime beloved team is right up there with first kisses and new children. If you've waited long enough for a title, it's even better than those! On the other hand, losses, deep deficits and ends of seasons bring darkness and desolation, especially if you had false hopes. The grief can be unbearable; sometimes, the only frames of reference for team elimination are ends of relationships and deaths in the family.

Winning is preferable, sure. That's why people buy North Carolina hats and Duke t-shirts at their local Sports Authority stores... even in Oregon. But what about losing?

Sports suffering can be a powerful motivator. Losses offer sharp focus that the endless .500 of 9-to-5 can never provide. A deficit measured in scores and statistics carves out a void that can be quantified and mapped; in the vague and indistinct deficiencies of daily existence, you never know how many points you're down by.

The Cub fan and the Clevelander and the Buffalo Bill know this. If you have a true understanding of loss, you're better equipped to recognize victory -- whether it comes or not.

---

Every March, there's always an increase in traffic. People just seem to show up. The Mid-Majority's server buckles under the severe strain, and I have to order more bandwidth from the web host. Incoming e-mail volume reaches ridiculous levels, and there's no way I could hope to answer even a small percentage of it.

I like to believe that it's because the quality of the work gets better then, that I'm really hitting my stride as a writer. I imagine that I'm rounding into true late-season form.

But that's my own kind of fantasy basketball. The truth is that The Mid-Majority becomes more relevant to more people in March, as casual sports fans prepare for the Big Dance.

The NCAA Tournament is a time when a lot of folks go "underdog shopping." They're looking for the next best out-of-nowhere story, the team most likely to spring the 15-over-2 upset. They want to know who the "next George Mason" is, and who has the weirdest and most lovable mascot. They want to cherry-pick their way into a big sports experience.

I fully accept that some folks treat us at TMM as one-dimensional extras in their consumer sports lives. I know they're looking for something to do before baseball season and will disappear as quickly as they arrived. And while I don't like being the friendly Green Grocer who helpfully recommends fresh Bulldog over out-of-season Wildcat, I've grown to tolerate it. I politely answer as many questions as I can, based on what I've seen in my extensive travels around Hoops Nation.

But I keep reminding myself of this: those who adopt-and-abandon will be left empty. Even if that cute underpuppy that they rented at the Mid-Majority 'Dog Pound wins a game or two, those come-latelies will never feel the same overwhelming emotions that students, alumni and true fans will. An afternoon of internet research in a cubicle can't possibly measure up to months and years of hoping and wishing; buying a last-minute t-shirt will never replace the investment of sitting through October exhibition games and hanging on every possession.

I mention all of this now, as the autumn leaves swirl in November, because this cycle will repeat itself all over again. It always does. Spring's flowers will bloom in March, and they'll be back.

But now, right here, this is the time to get on the ride.

Because if you don't ride the whole ride, you won't get the full high.

You might be an alumnus of one of the 251 colleges and universities below the Red Line. You might even be attending one now, and living in that pleasant time-window before the student loan bills start coming. If you didn't go to a small college, or if you didn't go to college at all, it doesn't matter -- you can still join in. But this -- right now -- is the time to jump on board, when the slate is clean and opportunities seem boundless. Even if you've never heard of these schools and don't know where they are, this is the time to adopt. Choose your allegiance now, and definitely not later.

But who's going to believe you five months from now? Don't worry. For the first time ever, TMM has a way for you to prove that you were here, at the beginning. It's fast, fun... and unlike most of the stuff on this site, free. You will be a confirmed and certified fan, with a document as real as anything Price Waterhouse has ever issued.

Use the form below. Enter your name and favorite team from The Other 24. When you press "Submit," print out the certificate that pops up! (Now 100% IE-friendly.)

This document is court-of-law solid. If you haven't yet, look over the schedule for your team, learn the players' names, buy a shirt, and do whatever you have to do to get connected. Live the experience. During the season, your boys might pop up from time to time here on The Mid-Majority. You can also get all sorts of stat-stuffs at our sister site Basketball State. If you can't make it to games, this is the internet age so there's probably a way for you to listen or watch games online.

When March arrives, and it will in four short months, your team's season might end in a conference tourney somewhere. You'll feel the kind of big, yummy heartache that will make you want to come back for more next year. Or maybe, just maybe, those players you've invested your energy and effort will cut down those nets and move on to the Big Dance.

When they do, and when they pull that giant 15-over-2 upset, I want you to hold up that certificate proudly in the Buffalo Wild Wings or the arena or your cubicle. I want you to show the world that you belong among the true believers, because you were there when it all started.

"I was there for the whole thing," you'll say. "My joy is real, and nobody can ever doubt it."

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Sportz Make You Stupid

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Sports are great. Actual participation is awesome, but watching other people do sports can still be pretty good too. These days, people can watch sports anytime, anywhere and in whatever state of undress they choose. These are truly the days of miracles and wonders! All thanks to the Sports-Industrial Complex, which brought you mantertainment, lite beer and the Sports Bubble.

When sports became industrialized in the latter part of the 20th Century, the S.I.C. became the conduit between the viewer and the games, between you and your sports. That was the original idea, anyway. What happened instead was that consumer intelligence was insulted in spite of the action. Instead of bringing sports to the public in absentia, the delivery mechanism ended up sending something else entirely -- non-analytical analysis, lifestyle features, reference comedy, "babes," sports that aren't sports, and a frat party that never ends. It's all something I call "sportz."

You probably know sportz-with-a-Z when you see it, because you feel it. It produces a visceral reaction that's unmistakable. Every time a television commentator says something like "a walk's as good as a hit" or "both sides of the football" or "upside," it makes you angry and sick. It diminishes your mental capacity. A world full of cumulative points should never decrease something like your I.Q..

The S.I.C. is made up of hundreds of television channels, thousands of websites, and a rack full of magazines. There are also 11 or 12 surviving newspapers, which all have websites too. All must have fresh content on a 24/7 basis, way too much for anyone to worry about constant high standards. Quality always suffers when there are too many glasses and not enough wine.

But that's too logical a reason for sportz, and it doesn't cover the true reality of the situation. The depth of this horrible conspiracy is far more sinister.

The internet brought opinion broadcasting to the masses -- there are bloggers and Serious Web Journalists Who Are Definitely Not Bloggers (SWJWADNB's) and message board legends and tweeters. In this, the worst decade in the history of modern American sports, they've all been priced out of the big arenas and stadiums. Most lack the education (or dumb luck) to get seats on press row. So without tickets, credentials or access, the new independent sports web is dependent on the filter provided by the Sports-Industrial Complex.

Some fall into a deep trap of temptation. They'll blog about all the stupid clichés on the highlight show, or tweet about some sports celebrity scandal. They might go on Facebook and post a status update about a former jock analyst and his huge ego, or start a message board discussion about how the studio hosts are killing everybody's brain cells. Some guy might even start openly speculating that he could do a much better job from his couch.

And that's when the trap snaps shut. That unfortunate sports fan has been manipulated into being a distraction from a distraction. By fighting what he most detests, he's become part of the problem. He's not discussing sports anymore, he's debating the quality of a delivery mechanism. It's talking sportz.

"Sports media criticism" is sportz about sportz. It's as boring as anything else that's two steps removed from a subject -- it's analysis of analysis. It's a hall of mirrors. It makes as much sense as reviews of Amazon reviewers, or music criticism criticism, and only invites sports media criticism criticism criticism.

Sportz is contagious, and doubles like mitosis as it spreads its stupidity. There is nothing smart that you can say about anything stupid -- especially something that's designed to be stupid. Ignorance and anti-intelligence spread like disease, infesting every context in which they are allowed to exist. That's as real a reality as the indisputable maxim that says big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games.

---

The Sports-Industrial Complex has no reason whatsoever to make you smarter about sports. There are no best interests to provide you good gambling advice (in fact, the opposite is more profitable). The S.I.C. is not in the teaching business, because it hates competition. It must perpetuate itself, and protect against dilution of power and dissipation of resources. It must maintain its relative exclusivity and separate standing; it has no room for you and your blog.

It has every motivation to make you stupid, and keep you stupid.

Around 20 years ago, the hive-mind of the Sports-Industrial Complex realized that the games weren't enough to keep fans interested, and that 82- and 162-game regular seasons are well beyond the average attention span. Sports for sports' sake don't drive traffic or peel eyeballs. Pure competition is only of interest to purists, and sports needed to go mainstream to capture more of the 18-34 male demographic.

So soap operas for men were born. Athletes became celebrities in a new world of "sports entertainment." There's now an assembly line of controversial, polarizing, generic figures (usually African-American football players who pretend to be Ali in 1970). The athletes get the attention they want, and the S.I.C. gets viewers and hits and ad revenue. It's all sold to you as sports programming, but that doesn't mean it's not sportz.

The Sports-Industrial Complex will be as stupid and obnoxious as its audience will let it be; it will bring as much tits, tail and T.O. as it can. It'll attract catty snark about how ridiculous it is, the kind once only found in nail salons and ensemble comedies about menopause. It will lull people into a false sense of superiority. Hardly anyone stops to consider that complaining about something draws attention to it. They're living in a sportz world, where they're considered consumers instead of fans.

The true and singular genius of sportz broadcasting is its wide impact zone. The S.I.C. gets all the sports-guys who buy lite beer for its "drinkability" and think the secret to a MegaDong™ can be found in an herbal pill. It convinces red-blooded dudes to buy body wash -- can you imagine that? At the same time, real actual educated people are being tricked out of enjoying sports every day with sportz. They're suckered into the cheap entertainment and fake controversy, and it's sad to see.

Every moment spent bitching about sportz is time not spent contemplating the excitement of experiencing actual human competition. It's time that can be used defining one's own relationship to spectator sports. Those are minutes and hours that could be spent creating real sports commentary of one's own.

Despite all the new broadcasting opportunities the internet gives us, being an alternative voice becomes more difficult as the years go by. This far into the sportz age, it's nearly impossible to keep from using the same language, techniques and methods that the Sports-Industrial Complex uses.

A whole generation has grown up with this kind of content, consuming its sports from Fox, ESPN, Turner, NBC and CBS. So a new breed of sports journalists has learned about eliciting reaction, instead of the art of drawing interest with information and perspective. Most of what you get nowadays are judgments on perceived quality, televised performances measured against other televised performances, lists and "takes."

Some in sportswriting's old guard have caught on to this new reaction-based reality. Some have given up on old-fashioned storytelling altogether, and push buttons in order to remain employed and relevant as new-school sportzwriters. I know some of these folks personally, and I've found them to be pleasant and upstanding people. They've just learned how to separate work and real life, to create print personas that are entirely different from their actual ones. I still pray for their sportz-loving souls, though. Sometimes I wonder if I could do that, if I could build a professional alter ego too. By that I mean a modern one.

The need to expand the audience beyond actual sports fans has blurred the lines between the games and popular culture. Is there really anything in sports history or future that has anything to do with Eric Stoltz having to choose between Mary Stuart Masterson and Lea Thompson? I've never experienced any sports moment that Beverly Hills 90210 or The Office or Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is a metaphor for. Seriously, have you? Reference comedy is nothing new (Bugs Bunny cartoons are full of celebrity gags that only old or dead people get), but reaching beyond the perimeter of the sports world for a cheap generational connection is pure sportz. Sportz manipulates our desperate desire for a shared consumer experience.

Sportz journalism is easy and effective. It's cheap to create, doesn't require a lot of thought to produce, and it's often free to publish. But for bloggers and SWJWADNB's, a lack of access, favor and discretion doesn't have to mean another online Us magazine for boys. New technology and new media are creating opportunities to tell new kinds of stories and parse tremendous amounts of data, and there's a lot of great independent work being done.

Sports knowledge is being distributed in ways that simply weren't possible 25 years ago. Many of the creative forces behind these efforts are our friends and inspirations, and very few are making a lot of money at this (the idea of getting rich off sports without owning a team is only about 40 years old). To list these legends is unnecessary; you can tell them apart by their basic approach. They strive to inspire and engage their readers, instead of instigating, insulting and ingratiating them.

We like to pretend that we've always chosen wisely, but we've certainly fallen short of those ideals on occasion. We've had our regrettable episodes. Over the years, I've learned a good rule of thumb about recognizing sportz in one's own work: you're part of the layer of static between the action and the audience when you're attracting that same static. If most of your audience feedback arrives in complete sentences and paragraphs, you're doing a good job.

Stupid is stupid. Stupid is a magnet that attracts everyone in the neighborhood, a stupid lodestone that draws people from far and wide. Dumb is a black hole that's always lurking just around the corner, waiting for you to fall into the dumb vortex. Brainlessness never announces itself, and wears a thousand brainless disguises.

Sportz is everywhere. There's so much of it that it's contributed to the inflation of all the numbers and values in the sports industry, and as a result we now have a Sports Bubble. It's up to each of us to stand up to the TV or the sports blog. We need to point the finger of shame and yell out, "That's not sports." We need to stick together, stand and fight, and somehow rise above what we've been sold.

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The Bloomer-Leg

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:24:31 -0800

I wanted to share one of my favorite passages from the book I helped Tony Ingle (the head coach at Kennesaw State University) write. The book is called I Don't Mind Hitting Bottom, I Just Hate Dragging. The forewords were written by basketball Hall of Famer (and current ESPN NBA analyst) Hubie Brown and multimillion-selling author Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). It's available for direct purchase, and ships this week. Buy it, you'll love it!

This is a story from 1978, when Tony was a first-year head coach at Cherokee High in Georgia.

Later on, we were playing at Marietta High School. Charlie Hood was the coach there, a living legend in Atlanta-area high school ball. His team at the time featured Dale Ellis, who went on to the University of Tennessee and hit a lot of 3-pointers for the Seattle SuperSonics. A lot of people forget that Dale had a twin brother named Darryl, who was an exceptional athlete in his own right.

And both Dale and Darryl were on this team. Marietta was a powerhouse, ranked second in the state.

Marietta had us down by 25 points at their place, and time was winding down. I called time out, and everybody came running over to the bench.

"Guys," I said. "Remember what Bart Starr said about champions? He said that you can always tell a champion, no matter if he's up 30 or down 30. He's still playing and giving the best that he's got. The game's never over. Remember when he said that?"

Said all the players in unison, "Yes, sir!"

"Well, this game's over," I told them. "We're getting beat like dogs."

They all looked at me, dumbfounded.

A guy on my team named Russell Simmons - I loved him for being such a competitor - spoke up. "C'mon, coach, we can still win!"

"Nope, game's over," I repeated. "We're down 25 points with a minute to play, and there's no 30-point shot in the rulebook. We're beat."

"But here's what we're going to do," I continued. "We're going to have some fun for the rest of the night. We're not going to let them destroy us, we're not going to be down and out and unhappy because they beat us like a bass drum. We're going to leave here happy. So who wants to bloomer-leg one?"

The players were stunned. They didn't know what I was talking about.

"Ummm, coach, what's a bloomer-leg?" asked Russell.

"You get the ball, you put it down between your legs," I explained. "Just like Rick Barry shoots foul shots. Then you underhand that ball with all your might up towards the rim. So who wants to bloomer-leg one from half-court? Kevin Foster, what about you?"

Kevin was kind of a shy kid. "Welllll," he said tentatively, before his face broke out in a big smile. "Okay, I'll do it."

I knew Marietta was going to sit in that 2-3 zone and stay off our shooters, so I had Kevin dribble the ball up to half-court where it said "M.H.S." in big letters. He looked over at me, and I gave him a little wink.

"Let 'er fly, big man," I said.

And he took the ball and put it down between his knees, and Kevin Foster bloomer-legged it from half-court. When that ball hit the rim, my whole bench stood up. They thought it was going in. But it rattled off the iron and bounced out.

Robert Thomas grabbed the offensive rebound and dribbled out to the top of the circle, and then he bloomer-legged one too. That shot almost knocked a hole in the backboard.

The game was over, Marietta won by 25, but we made our statement. They might have won the game and embarrassed us, but we weren't going to let it ruin our lives. We weren't going to leave that gym feeling sorry for ourselves.

The ESPN Years

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

History, as Winston Churchill once said, is written by the victors. I disagree. That only holds true for the quick sweeps of human affairs, the kind in schoolbooks and multiple-choice tests. Interesting failures have more to teach us; the trajectories of empires and civilizations are all headed toward failure and collapse, and the human spirit will never outlast nature or God. Losers provide better instructions about an existence that inevitably ends with an end.

One thing is for certain, though. No history is written by those noble, valiant, foolish people who hold their tongues and burn their diaries. Supposed stoics are always steamrolled by rumor-mongers and bridge-burners, and what is the reward of silence? To be defined by others.

This is the story of my four years as a contributing college basketball writer at ESPN.com. I know that the only people who care about those days, which concluded in January, are the folks who read this site. The parade's passed by, my archives are buried in distant databases, and in an ADD sports world where yesterday only happens in highlights, it's as if I was never there at all. Which is fine by me.

---

A few years ago, I was chatting with my sister Katie. She was recalling her memories of our times growing up together in the mid-1980's. We'd spend odd-numbered summer weeks at our father's house in New Hampshire. He'd take us to the convenience store, where we'd load up on penny candy, Yoo-Hoo and Cajun Spice Ruffles. Then Katie and I would sit around watching cable TV all day.

It was glorious. These were things Katie and I could ever do with our mother, who outlawed television and junk food. Our dad, always the willing enabler, gave us a 4,000-calorie, 40-channel paradise. And to keep the peace when it came to the remote control, Katie and I had an agreement. I chose the channel in the morning, and she took over in the afternoon.

ESPN was still a puppy back then. It was still an independent and vibrant outlet, and at the time, hour-long highlight shows and off-kilter catch-phrases were still a fresh and novel approach to covering sports. I'd always watch SportsCenter in the mornings, and then I'd watch the replay. When it came around again, I'd watch a third time. Once the cliff diving or the trick-shot pool came on at noon, my time was over; my sister would switch to Nickelodeon or the UHF channel that showed Heathcliff and the Smurfs.

My SportsCenter habit drove Katie crazy. How could I watch the same thing over and over? If I knew the score and had seen all the highlights already, what was the point?

"I'm not watching, I'm studying," I explained. "Someday, I'm going to work for ESPN. Just you watch."

Katie reminded me of that dream when it came true in a roundabout way. From 1997 through 2004, I ran a software company that specialized in managing medical databases. In the spring of 2005, the college basketball editor at ESPN.com offered me a summer trial run, and a weekly column if I proved myself good enough. I hadn't written a real sports article in 14 years (not since college).

But this wasn't some out-of-the-blue offer; I'd just completed a shoestring 100 Games Project on an internet blog website called The Mid-Majority. What I did was travel to 100 college basketball games and write about each one. People seemed to really like it, because they'd never seen anything like it before -- it was a fresh and novel approach to covering sports.

After the season, I received three generous offers to expose my work to wider audiences; I chose the one from the magical four letters that inspired me through my childhood. I wrote four 3,000-word conference previews, and the college sports division decided I was worth that shot.

In October of 2005, I received a simple assignment: "write stuff about the mid-majors." I was to file one weekly feature-length column, three ESPN Insider blogs and one hour-long chat each Friday. I received $400 per week for that. I was ecstatic; I was a real sportswriting professional!

I knew I could have done all that writing from home. I could have phoned in interviews with coaches, which was how other outlets treated the world outside the Top 25. What's more, I could have pocketed the money, because my wife and I really needed more than what my freelance computer work was bringing in.

But I wanted to get better, and I wanted to get good enough to make a real living off my new career. I wanted to continue the mission I started the previous season with the 100GP, and properly represent the mid-major experience, as I knew it, to a national audience. I wanted to smell gymnasiums and arenas, and I wanted to shake the coaches' hands. I wanted to go, and I wanted to feel.

So I spent all of my sportswriting income on travel, and expanded my scope from the northeast corridor to the entire country. I went to Texas and California and the Missouri Valley. Even though I saved money by sleeping in the car, I didn't make any profit off my writing that first season. Or the second season. When I was raised to $500 a week before my third year, I thanked them for the kind reward. Then I spent it on more plane flights.

The rush and thrill of the game experience kept me going, and I loved the excitement of being able to relay all of this to a national audience. But I'd file my stories, and a succession of editors and a fully-staffed copy desk would usually beat all the joy out of them, or push me in directions I felt were wrong and misleading. It was frustrating, and my relationships with editors bordered on adversarial. One time, I started the first five paragraphs of a blog post with the letters P, E, N, I and S. The story made it through.

When I finally grew up again, I just stopped reading the final published versions. It was just too heartbreaking. But even those wouldn't hang around for very long. Most of my stories were slotted at the bottom of the page, right above the link to the archives, and then they'd fall off the main college basketball page in less than a day. I was writing about Tennessee-Martin and Southeastern Louisiana and Monmouth, and there were always plenty of puff pieces about Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina squeezing me out. I came to accept it all as part of the job.

And it did become a job.

Every summer, I drove to Bristol to meet with the editors and higher-ups in the college sports division, and discuss the upcoming season with them. I was always asked the same question. "When you go to these places, are they grateful to see ESPN there?" I didn't need to read between the lines.

I never saw myself as ESPN.com's representative at mid-major games. I saw myself as the mid-majors' representative at ESPN.com, entrusted to do right by them. But my primary purpose was not to produce quality work or represent anybody, and it didn't matter if I traveled or not. My role was to provide coverage, to prove that ESPN.com cared about mid-majors more than the other big sites did. But that was a bargain I was more than willing to make, because I didn't care about the business end of things. I just wanted to go to basketball games, learn stuff, and be the best conduit I could be.

On December 19, 2008, I received an e-mail from one of the higher-ups in ESPN.com's college sports department.

I've been holding out hope that I wouldn't have to go down this path but I've just been given final word that I need to cut my budget, effective Jan. 1 ... so what that likely means is cutting back your contributions for the rest of the season - once we reach January ... if the end result for you is a 50 percent cutback, would you prefer to contribute every other week in the current fashion (feature, blog, chat) or to maintain a weekly presence at a reduced capacity?

It was a choice I couldn't make.

I have to be honest with you... I can't find any way for the travel to work if I'm making $1K/month from ESPN, I'm already stretched to the limit anyway. If I'm not traveling and going to games, I'm not much use to you as a feature writer. If this is where things are at, it might make more sense just to pull the plug on me altogether.

I am thankful that he didn't. He gave me a stay of execution by finding enough funds to keep me going at my then-current level of production. I thought that was very kind of him.

But the pressure weighed on me for weeks, and I didn't know how much longer I had. I knew I had a Southwest reward ticket that I could use anytime; I decided that if the final word came down and my contributions were cut, I'd return home and quit altogether. I'd have to quit ESPN.com, and close The Mid-Majority for good.

I always knew I couldn't sit at home and do this, because this was never about sifting through Google Reader and watching games on my couch. This was always about the road, from the beginning. I'd spent years openly mocking "mid-major writers" who scanned the Top 25 over breakfast on Tuesdays and called up any schools they'd never heard of. If I was going to cover small-college basketball at all, I had to do it well, because there is no point in doing it any other way.

On January 16, while I was sitting in a hotel room in Indianapolis filing a story about the second annual Samaritan's Feet barefoot coachng campaign, I received that final word. There was nothing anybody could do anymore, best efforts had failed. I was cut in half, effective immediately.

I took a deep breath, and exhaled. I did it again. I thought about cashing in the voucher online and catching the hotel shuttle to the airport. I'd write my final TMM post on the plane, and then... what, exactly?

I stood up and looked out the window, towards downtown Indianapolis. I fixated on the giant brick barn that looked so ridiculous against the skyline. Three hours later, I finished an essay called "The Sports Bubble" and published it. I had no idea that those would be the most dangerous words I'd ever written.

All I was trying to put across was that if ESPN couldn't afford to have me finish the season, hopefully my Mid-Majority readers would help. I was simply asking for donations.

---

The following Tuesday, Inauguration Day, I watched the world change from a frozen spot on the National Mall in Washington. Then I drove up to Philadelphia for a Drexel University basketball game. At halftime of that game, I received an urgent phone call.

It was the same person from ESPN's college sports division who'd been e-mailing me about all the budget cuts. I stood in a noisy anterior hallway of the Daskalakis Athletic Center, the phone pressed tightly against my ear. "You know that your blog post was read far beyond your Mid-Majority," came the voice on the other end of the line. "I was called out on the carpet this morning and asked to explain what you're doing with this."

I was fully aware that others knew about my site; thousands of others, in fact. Over the weekend, kind readers had donated over $4,000 so that I could finish the 2008-09 campaign. I felt the combined strength of those friends as this conversation continued.

"There were a lot of lies in that post," he continued. "You know full well that isn't true, about the budget cuts."

Instead of rehashing or reading back old e-mails, I replied as evenly and calmly as I could. "I'm out here on the road," I said. "You cut me back. I have to protect myself, my website, my career and my family, and I did what I had to do."

"You've put me in a very difficult position, Kyle," he continued. "So I have to inform you that you're no longer a contributing writer at ESPN.com, effective immediately."

"I fully realized that was a risk I was taking."

He congratulated me on my successful grassroots fund-raising, and said that I'd most likely be invited back in the summer when everything blew over. I told him that it was an awfully nice sentiment, but that I understood it was the kind of thing somebody says when they're trying to end a difficult phone call on positive terms. I thanked him and ESPN for taking a chance on a no-name writer who hadn't been published since college, and we hung up. Then I went back into the gym and watched the rest of the game.

I don't remember a thing about what happened in the second half, except that I logged into the wi-fi and posted this. I don't even remember which CAA team Drexel was playing that night. In the press room, I told the other writers that I'd been fired at halftime, and I was so deadpan about it that they thought I was kidding. When I left the DAC, I wandered around Powelton Village for 20 minutes trying to remember where I had parked. I was stunned.

In the days that followed, while I maintained my silence, Bristol chose to burn bridges. My former colleagues were informed that I'd trashed the company and posted lies in my blog. One of the feature writers there told a mutual friend on the "outside" that she'd been told I had a vendetta against the Worldwide Leader. He sent the link to "The Sports Bubble" back to her. "Does this really look like a vendetta to you?"

Several former colleagues on the Bristol campus wrote to me in the ensuing days. They used their private GMail and Yahoo addresses, because they'd get in trouble if they were found communicating with me with their official espn3.com accounts. There was an internal debate, so I was told, and many in the department went to bat for me. One executive, however, was dead-set about cutting ties; nothing anybody said would sway his opinion. I had to go.

I haven't heard back from any of those people since. And ESPN never did get back to me over the summer; I guess everything didn't blow over after all.

I am grateful for the opportunity that the Worldwide Leader gave me. I understand why and how it ended, because I understand corporate pride and oversensitivity to anything resembling criticism. My only regret about my four years there is that I never made the jump out of college basketball and into Olympic sports, which was my plan from the beginning. I worked the internal network for 12 months, and finally got myself a monthly series about champions and rivalries in lesser-known sports. I was supposed to go to West Point the day after I was fired to do a story about an odd rivalry in men's rifle shooting between Army and Alaska-Anchorage.

Actually, make that two regrets. My ESPN.com feature filing that week was supposed to be a Black History Month piece about the atmosphere at HBCU basketball games, in relation to the limited success of basketball in the MEAC and SWAC. The heart of the piece was a Howard University home game the night before Barack Obama's inauguration. That two-hour sustained explosion of joy in Burr Gymnasium that night was unbelievable, and unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life. I just wish that I'd been given the chance to take you there, so you could have felt it for yourself.

---

During my brief time working with the Worldwide Leader in Sports, I met a lot of people who truly love what they do. Most of these folks toil in the technical and research divisions, and don't get any public credit for their work. Many attended the mid-major colleges in the Bristol area -- schools like Fairfield, Central Connecticut State and Quinnipiac.

I ran across people who could give me an interconference BracketBusters record if I asked for it, but who would attach eight other related facts they found interesting ("Hey, isn't this neat?"), just because. I met people who carry that same real love for sports I could feel coming out of the television set in 1984, when I was a kid watching SportsCenter.

I remember watching the ESPN operation at the 2006 Final Four up close. Pushed out to the periphery by the rights-holders, many blocks away from the actual arena, a team of 30 engineers and technicians worked around the clock to make sure that the off-site studio spots went without a hitch. They were in perpetual disbelief that they were drawing salaries to be involved in bringing the sports world home to viewers. On Tuesday morning, they packed everything up in a matter of hours; it was the very picture of efficiency. Half were on to Boston for the women's championship, and others were ticketed to some early-season MLB game.

In Indianapolis that weekend, I also met some of the on-screen talent. I introduced myself to Dick Vitale in an elevator, and I mentioned something about the picture of him in the lobby at Calihan Hall at the University of Detroit -- he's there with the glasses and the crazy 1970's suit. I don't remember exactly what he said to me (but he did say "baby").

A month later, I bought a frozen pizza at the store. There was a contest on the back; you could win a trip to the Final Four and meet Dickie V. The chances of winning were one in 2,000,000. That reminded me again about how lucky I was to be living my ESPN dream, and the chances of it coming true were indeed somewhere around 1 in 2 million.

But in my four years, I could sense up close what is often painfully obvious through a TV set. Most of the announcers, analysts and assorted talent are doing a job, punching a clock. They've replaced a hot, mad love for the game with cold cynicism. Some have replaced journalistic hustle with the speed-dial. Others have an open contempt for the audiences that give them relevance, and have discovered that they can use the public like big panels of pushable buttons. They say controversial things, and there's always a huge response. Hubris naturally attracts ridicule, and there's no need for me to add anything there.

There are exceptions, of course, one very notable. Two months into the 100 Games Project, Pat Forde used The Form™. It was January 2005, long before ESPN took me on, back when this site attracted 300 visitors a day (mostly search index robots). "I'm impressed by your passion for the game -- especially the underexposed parts of the game," he wrote. "Very cool. Keep up the good work and I'll continue to visit." It's a message that's printed on yellowing paper, thumb-tacked on a tote board above my desk at home.

Mr. Forde, who eventually became a dear friend of Bally, is the real genuine article if ever there was one. His stories on ESPN.com are always sharp and bright, full of creativity and inspiration and passion. Pat Forde loves sports. In those rare times when I've been able to spend a game next to him on press row, he's always fidgety and excited before a game starts, his knee bouncing all over the place. He can't wait for the game to begin. When the ball goes up for the opening tip, he looks like he's ready to sprint out there on the court and drop a UCLA cut on somebody.

And could I restrain him if he did?

Whenever I run into him, he'll always say something like, "Have you been following this Louisville team? It's crazy!"

"Pat," I'll reply. "You know I don't give a fuck about Louisville."

And we'll both laugh.

---

A selective reading of this, one as selective as executive interpretation of "The Sports Bubble," might lead some to believe that my four-year stint as a traveling national sportswriter has left me jaded. But it was a true honor to represent those four interlocked letters, the ones that once stood for four actual words. Things are different now, and I was reminded of that every time I received a check in the mail with Mickey Mouse in the top left corner.

The original spirit of ESPN is still there, but it's hidden underneath a thick and impenetrable layer of corporate concrete. It's still the same company -- the same weird, lovable, vulnerable entity that dates back to the days when Tom Mees was the man.

But it turns out that the people who really let me down in all of this don't even work for ESPN at all.

I'm really disappointed in the coaches who won't return my phone calls now. Even though I write a column for a 25-year-old magazine that's nearly as old as the Four-Letter, there are sports information directors simply lose or refuse my credential requests. Folks who once told me my "stuff" was "great" don't have the time of day for me anymore. I understand that at ESPN, I was an interchangeable bullhorn to get a message out. But c'mon... don't lie to me and tell me it was ever about the quality of my work. For some, the context was always more important than the content, and to those people, I'm more than happy to be forgotten.

I didn't expect much from bloggers, message-board posters and anonymous online commenters, and many delivered accordingly. I know I didn't trash the Leader on the way out for a burst of disposable attention, as some were pressuring me to do. And it was interesting to see the Venn overlap between those who popped jokes about my firing and those in the anti-ESPN crowd. Some felt that the end of my Big Media run signified a huge #fail on my part. Those people are buying into a notion that ESPN is some sort of ultimate arbiter of quality. Now that's mind control.

To those who stuck with The Mid-Majority during those difficult and transitional times, those who were on board with us before and continue with us now, I will always remember your interest and concern. I'll never forget the kindness you bestow upon these efforts. This adventure will end, perhaps even soon. But no matter what, I will be always proud to call you friends. In the meantime, I will do everything I can to make sure that your continued support is warranted and rewarded.

I will never work for a company like ESPN again. I'll never put myself in another situation where I have to worry about what I say. I don't want to place my destiny in the hands of secret figures I don't know the names of. I never again want to be a part of a sports industry that produces sports-related things and sports-stuff, run by shadowy sports pimps. And why would I ever want to?

Why would you ever want to?

Sponsored Link: Introducing the TMM Ad Network!

Prologue: Everything's Different Now

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0700

On Monday, March 23 at four a.m. Central Time, on the dot, my cell phone alarm woke me up from a two-hour nap.

I was behind the wheel of a rented Hyundai Elantra, at a rest area off the eastbound lanes of Wisconsin's Interstate 94. I was in between -- headed to the airport in Columbus, Ohio, via Indianapolis, en route from a first-weekend subregional NCAA Tournament pod in Minneapolis. I had been on the road for five long months, and it was time to go back home to Rhode Island. My basketball season was over, and all that remained was the annual closing statement that I post to this website once all the small-college teams are eliminated. Epilogue, the Fifth was simple formality, because I'd written it in advance.

What I'd done was write the epilogue of epilogues. I explained why and how, I thanked everybody, and then I closed with an end.

In this world, we are judged by what we do, and what we do makes us who we are. You and I, as human beings among billions, are owed nothing -- no recognition, no love, and no resources. Regardless of belief, we earn rewards and penalties based on what we attempt and achieve, and each endeavor moves the world forward into the future. Inaction and inertia are their own punishments; the world simply forgets and passes over those who do not do.
I don't know what I will do next. All I know is that I can no longer do this. My body will not allow me to continue, and this mission no longer fits into my life in a way that makes sense. So I will stop here, at the end, with a loss. It always ends with a loss; everything does.

I'm reminded of what Neil Young wrote as he pondered his own disappearance into inconsequence. "It's better to burn out than to fade away," he famously said. I've thought a lot about this sentence during the last few months, and I've come to disagree. The explosion at the end may be glorious, but it's a big, selfish fireball that burns and transfigures all that precedes it. I choose to go quietly.

Sitting in that rest area, staring out into a night far more dark blue than black, I felt the full weight of the end. I contemplated everything that lay on the other side. There were persistent and unexplained health issues I needed to address, random seizure-like attacks and severely distorted hearing. I was also preparing to file for divorce; that was based on a mutual decision six weeks earlier. My first order of business after returning home was to move my wife's belongings into a mini-storage facility, before she returned from her year in Iraq with the Navy.

I no longer had a weekly paycheck, and I'd been relying on donations since being fired by ESPN.com in January. Without a sportswriting gig to directly support my travels, I knew my accidental career as a sportswriter was over. I had to close the site that I'd poured so much of my energy into, and go back to what college prepared me for: trading computer code for money.

Operating under the assumption that Season 5 was the last go-round, I traveled around the United States on a farewell tour. It was organized the way a farewell tour should be, with the goodbye at the very end. In Louisiana and California and Virginia, as I left arenas and gymnasiums and oversized shoeboxes for the final times, I lingered for a while. I was aware of the last conference tourney, the final Selection Sunday, and the last time I'd navigate through the blue curtains behind the scenes at the NCAA Tournament.

In the cold clarity of 3 a.m., however, my decision didn't seem so clear-cut anymore. Saying goodbye meant leaving behind friends who wouldn't have any further reason to stay in touch. It meant breaking promises, and letting a lot of people down. Throughout the five-year journey of The Mid-Majority, I loved the feeling that I was carrying several thousand readers with me in the back seat, that I was some kind of overenthusiastic tour guide driving through a unexplored alternate version of America that I'd unintentionally stumbled upon. I loved showing my readers what I found along the way.

As minutes and hours ticked by, as the sky changed, what was once a final answer became a 50-50 proposition. The sun rose against the far end of the fields, and it looked just like a shiny penny balanced on its edge. I internally debated if this was leaving or flat-out quitting. I prayed for lucidity, and wondered what the right reasons were. I weighed the burdens of reality against the madness of continuing a costly enterprise, one that I loved too much to leave behind.

In the end, I chose madness.

For two days, I sequestered myself in the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport. In a hotel long on atmosphere, which is also a cellular hotspot for good ideas, I tried to figure out fundraising and logistics for a fully reader-funded sixth season of The Mid-Majority. I was going out on a limb with this, and I had to figure out how to live there.

The change of plans necessitated a change in composition, so I rewrote Epilogue, The Fifth. I added 2,500 words and two Roman-numeraled sections, and the end went like this instead:

It always ends with a loss. But there's a caveat, an exception, an asterisk with some fine print so small you need a microscope to read it. College basketball is not like life, thankfully so, because that loss is never terminal. Though it's ruled by the greedy and corrupt, Our Game is not like many other sports; there is no strike or lockout or disruption to fear. There is always another season, just as beautiful as the last, and it's waiting for us on the other side of summer. It seems so far away now, with all these recent losses so fresh and painful, but it will come in time. Our Game always offers another chance... if you dare to take it.

And then the summer came.

---

Six weeks later, I sat in a hospital examination room in Providence. It was my first session with an HMO doctor who didn't know me as anything more than a manila folder, so it was more like a question-and-answer session in a psychiatrist's office.

"When did you first experience these attacks?"

I clearly remembered the first one. It was early April 2008, right after I'd returned home from Season 4. Ever since I started writing about sports for money, I struggled to get back in shape after five months of sitting, driving and eating Papa John's pizza in press rooms. I gained 30 pounds right after my last marathon in 2005, and I could never run faster than a 9-minute mile after that. I could never string together very many of those.

So I was huffing along on Daggett Avenue, through my quiet Pawtucket neighborhood, on the second mile of a six-mile loop. As I passed the gates of our local graveyard, I was hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

That's what it felt like, anyway. I doubled over, then tried to straighten myself. I puked up a mixture of items I didn't remember eating. My body went cold, like a quick wave that passed as soon as it came over me... it felt like I was being flash-frozen. My head was spinning. I sat down in a grassy area against the graveyard fence, my arms around my knees, and I waited for the feeling to pass.

When it did go away, the sky was darker than I remembered it. I'd blacked out for at least half an hour. Then I got up from the ground, dusted myself off, and completed my slow six-mile loop.

"How often do these occur?"

I had vertigo and tinnitus all through the summer, but I didn't have another full-on attack until November. I was driving at night through North Carolina. Suddenly, my head started to swim, and I felt that sudden freezing feeling again. The blue gas-food-lodging sign on the side of the road separated into three, a triple exposure, a lot like the CMYK color separations I remember from design school. I was instantly covered in sweat. I started breathing hard and rhythmically, because I felt like I would pass out if I didn't take in enough oxygen. I pulled off the highway, and somehow guided the rental car into a hotel parking lot through the white static in front of my eyes.

When I came to, it was morning.

Things like that started happening about once a week. The attacks happened at night, sometimes in the morning, and occasionally in the afternoon. I could never get them to cooperate with my writing schedule.

"When was the last one?"

It had been a couple of months. I remember that I was in Cleveland for the MAC tourney, which would peg it to the middle part of March. By then, the attacks weren't predictable but the routine was. I knew that I had to go somewhere quiet and tune out the world for a couple of hours, so things could take their natural course.

"It sounds like you travel a lot. How often are you out of town?"

From November to March. Basically, from the beginning of college basketball season to the NCAA Tournament.

"Of that, how much time do you spend driving?"

Lots. I fly into a city, rent a car at the airport, then drive around the area going to college basketball games. I can put in as many as 2,000 miles per week, and five or six games. I'm always on the go; I even sleep for a few hours in the car when I have to. Then I return the car after about a week, annd fly somewhere else. Then I do it all over again.

"Wait, rewind a little bit. Did you say you sleep in the car?"

Sure. It's really cost-effective, and I'm always on a very tight budget.

"With the car running?"

Well, if it gets cold enough.

"I'm going to strongly suggest that you not do that anymore."

He put me through a battery of tests, and performed a couple of scans that I figured would reveal a "preexisting condition" instead of an "initial diagnosis." But there wasn't any traceable state at all. I didn't have a tumor or real actual brain damage. Instead, I promised that I would take it easy on the carbon monoxide.

I was scheduled to fly to Nigeria in June with a Samaritan's Feet volunteer team, to help distribute shoes to the poor. Over the summer, I worked on a book with Manny Ohonme, the founder of the charity; my trip was supposed to represent part of my research. But Nigeria is one of a select few countries that denies entry to anyone who can't produce a "yellow card," which is printed proof of a booster shot to guard against yellow fever. It's a big problem in developing nations, and it can cause jaundice and kidney failure.

Most vaccines introduce a small amount of the disease to the body. That's so the immune system can recognize and repel the real thing. Because of this, the yellow fever shot is not recommended for those experiencing sudden attacks or seizures.

"Given your recent history, I'm going to strongly suggest that you don't take that shot."

So I went to Peru in July instead.

---

Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't my only health consideration this summer. Shortly after my first attack in April 2008, I woke up with damaged hearing after an afternoon nap. There was suddenly this weird layer of static over everything, like the noise between FM stations. Music sounded strange and distorted.

All through the summer, it was never quiet inside my head. There's that old game that bored kids at the seaside like to play, where they hold a shell to their ear to hear the ocean. For me, the shell was inside my left ear, and I couldn't get it out.

I couldn't understand what people with low voices were saying. When men talked to me, especially over the phone, it sounded like the wah-wah trumpets from "Peanuts." Because men's college basketball coaches are all men, and since most of them have the kind of deep voices that come with advanced age, writing 10 conference previews for ESPN.com was nearly impossible once summer came. The ringing and static became so bad that I couldn't sleep more than a few hours at a time.

Before my wife left for Iraq in June, I could still hear her clearly. She kept telling me to go see a doctor, but I never did.

My friends know that my right eardrum was punctured on a flight back in 1996, and they deal with me accordingly. I always tilt my head to favor my left ear. Back then, the doctors weren't able to do anything but tell me to wait for things to work themselves out. This time, I figured that my ear treatment was in my own hands this time too. A decade ago, I kept the ear clean until the infections went away; after that, I simply got used to partial deafness (80 percent hearing capability) in my right ear. I still can't use the phone on that side.

So I used the same approach in 2008 that I used in 1996. I cleaned out my left ear with vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and over-the-counter "swimmer's ear" solutions. Then I waited for the healing magic to begin. It never did. I started realizing I had made a big mistake.

All last season, I struggled with hearing issues, as well as the vertigo that came whenever my brain got too confused -- especially when I first woke up. I never told any of my interview subjects that I couldn't really hear what they were saying over the static; how does one put that across in shorthand? I tried to pass myself off as a non-deaf person as well as I could.

I became good at it. I learned to control the involuntary brow-crinkling that occurs when you don't hear something correctly. When I asked questions, I spoke softer than usual -- my attempts to talk so I could hear myself drew the wrong kind of attention. Nobody ever caught me writing loopy gibberish into my notebook, but I did it so I could look busy. I would listen to the tape later, in the car, at full volume.

As it turned out, Major League Baseball 2009 became the "season of the inner ear infection." Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds was on the disabled list for a while with a similar hearing condition. A player from my own favorite ballteam, Denard Span of the Twins, was sidelined with the same symptoms. Members of the 24/7 sports media would ask them questions about it, they'd answer, and I'd say, "Yup, I know what all about that's like."

By then, it was July, and I finally checked myself in to get my ears fixed. The doctor gave me all the proper antibiotics, which cut off the ongoing cycle of recurring infections for good.

I paid the price for my inaction, though -- the damage to my left ear was lasting. Over the summer, I made appointments with a brilliant young audiologist in Boston who tested my hearing. My challenge was to communicate to him which frequencies were affected.

So he had me play a little keyboard to identify which notes sounded "off." He asked me to bring in a CD of songs I'd heard beforehand, ones that I knew had "wrong notes" in them, to better identify my missing frequencies. I made an iTunes playlist called "140Hz Hell" of all the songs I'd liekly never hear correctly again. I was born with perfect pitch, even though I never used it for anything constructive. Now it was a curse.

In August, I ran out of office visits, and there was no way I could afford to pay out-of-pocket for a specialist. So I have to accept that there's usually to be a dissonant disconnect between the musician and me, especially if they're playing a cello.

---

A life lived online invites and inspires projections. When we share a selectively-edited existence with strangers, whenever our homes are turned inside-out so the public can see inside, we yield control of our "character" and our lives are given over to the interpretations of others. A collection of similar attributes might exist in the beholder's eye, creating the illusion of true simpatico; this is a dynamic as old as literature itself. Without it, storytelling has no power.

Cara and I met online in 2001, in a web community about a TV show we both liked. Through that site, she found my "online journal." (The word "blog" wasn't common yet.) That site was full of 2,500-word entries, just like this one is, but I had a gimmick. Each post was divided in three parts and centered around a particular, unspoken theme. (I was trying to do different stuff with the internet even back then.) As with websites I'd build later on, it attracted a devoted cult audience. I told stories about my childhood, my upbringing and my relationships, and I used that then-new medium to make some sort of larger point about love, religion, nostalgia, happenstance, or anything else I was thinking of.

She and I quickly became online pen pals. It was a safe and asexual context, since we were 2,000 miles apart. We were both in bad and stressful relationships at the time, and we offered each other advice based on the opposite gender's perspective. We both found ourselves with partners we came to know altogether too well. We had discovered weakness, flaws and unflattering frailties, all of which never surfaced during initial rounds of dating.

People usually don't communicate online unless they feel an immediate need to. So we fell out of touch for three years, until she e-mailed me out of the blue during the summer of 2004. We were both free of those bad relationships, and she'd moved from Phoenix to Boston -- a relationship made more sense now. We started talking on the phone, and during seven- and eight-hour conversations, a mutual fascination grew. In the fall, I took the train up from Philadelphia to meet her.

We decided to get married. It all seemed very natural, since we'd known each other for so long. It was as romantic as any of those stories in books; one day, we wandered around the streets of Wilmington, Delaware, searching for a church that would marry us. On November 1, 2004, it finally happened in a courthouse down by the Delaware shore.

Real life was a struggle back then, and 2004 and 2005 were times of great transition for me. In the early 1990's, I helped run a small software company that dated back to the dot-com boom; we navigated through the crash of 2001, but we were no match for a killer loop of outsourcing and offshoring. It was tough trying to cobble enough freelance work together to pay rent and bills, and pony up $1,500 a month in child support for my illegitimate teenage son. But I distracted myself during spare hours with a new basketball blog I'd created.

The Official Wife of the Mid-Majority and I lived separately for a year, as I dismantled the firm and tried to get my finances in order. She told me that everything would be alright, because love would always find a way. She traveled down to Philadelphia on the weekends, taking the cheap bus because we never had much cash between us. She'd undergo long layovers at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, sitting on that dirty tile floor for hours in the middle of the night.

In the fall of 2005, I left Philly behind and we moved into a house in Rhode Island together. We weren't prepared for the immediate shift in the winds; there were disagreements and arguments, separate bank accounts, and finally couples therapy. The halcyon days of endless phone calls, thoughtful e-mails, blog comments and bus rides were over. Proximity poisoned us.

That's when I began writing for ESPN.com, when I became an actual paid sportswriter. It was a seemingly impossible leap from one world to another, and it was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I went out on the road from January to March, trying to learn more about the game I'd been entrusted to cover. I tried to expand the scope of my first 100 Games Project, and I wanted to get better every day.

But when I came back home, my wife was usually nowhere to be found. She spent long hours at work. She enrolled in night school. During the weekends, she watched violent TV shows and courtroom dramas that she knew I didn't like. We became two strangers under one roof, with no common purpose.

Finally, she volunteered for the Navy Reserve in a time of war. She spent the summer of 2007 in boot camp and "A" school. So it was no surprise that in the spring of 2008, her unit was assigned to Iraq. There were tears when she left in June, but when I dropped her off at Logan Airport in Boston, that was the last time I ever saw her.

While she was overseas, we barely communicated. We talked on the phone only once. On the morning of February 7, five months into her tour, we calmly agreed on the inevitable, and we drafted up a verbal marriage settlement agreement. All the details were hashed out in two hours, over e-mail, with no lawyers. I would be the plaintiff.

In July, as I sat in the courtroom gallery before my walkover divorce hearing, I thought about how easily magic transmogrifies into mistakes. I contemplated the vanity of me right, you wrong. As I waited for hours (one of the downsides of having a last name that starts with the letter W), I watched husbands and wives exact revenge on each other for the simple betrayal of unmet expectations.

Underneath their disappointment, I sensed such yearning and hurt. As the parade continued on, I could tell that all the litigants wanted was to return to that simpler time, before the dopamine and norepinephrine and fascination burned off. Each chosen one was once an incomplete picture, back when the holes and breaks could be filled in with selfish hopes and dreams. Now the puzzles were all filled in, and the known quantities were offensive and detestable. Some had rediscovered that intoxicating feeling of newness with others. All that was left of the marriage bonds were broken homes, cursed children, and rich lawyers in expensive suits.

Not all of us are blessed with the ability to put words in compelling order. Most don't know where to begin. But we're all accomplished authors in our own respective rights. We create complex characters inspired by friends, celebrities, and people from movies and books. Then we expect those we cast in the roles to act out the parts in the exact same way we've sketch them. Deep down, we all want to direct.

I loved and adored my wife. Eventually, though, I finally realized that there were four people in that marriage: two real people, and two fantasy projections. She didn't break my heart, I broke my own.

---

During the late stages of Season 5, I would occasionally find myself driving between games on long, open stretches of empty two-lane U.S. highway. Once or twice, I might be cruising along at 80 miles per hour. The square top edge of an oncoming tractor-trailer would peek over the next hill, followed by the burning eyes of its headlights.

I thought about how easy it would be to unhook my seatbelt, wait, wait... and in one quick motion, yank the left side of the steering wheel down. The timing would have to be perfect, the impact would have to be precise. I didn't want to take anyone with me.

I wasn't depressed or crazy. I wasn't some tortured soul, undergoing some deep existential crisis. I was simply letting the end enter my mind, and I was thinking clearly and calmly about it. The more I thought about it, it started making a lot of sense, in a very casual and reasonable way.

I remember when the Atlantic 10 tournament was in Philadelphia at the Spectrum. There was a fan-participation game during time outs, sponsored by an airline. I hope I'm remembering the rules correctly here, but there were five logo discs placed on the court. A contestant would out of the tunnel with their suitcases, and they'd shoot baskets on successive discs until they missed a shot. That final disc would be turned over, and whatever location was on the bottom was where they had to go. The limo was outside, waiting to take them to the airport, and they had to leave right away. (The destination always seemed to be Washington, D.C..)

But that's how I saw death -- as a surprise ticket to a surprise place. I didn't pretend that my religious beliefs gave me any control over where I went; at the time, death seemed like just another portal in a hallway full of doors. I didn't have any romantic notions of the hereafter, and I knew that most of those concepts are constructed to keep people from feeling afraid. And I wasn't scared; I was damaged, hurt and breaking down, but I wasn't afraid.

All I knew was that wherever I ended up, it had to be better than where I was. Maybe there would be a cure for pain there. My body and heart wouldn't hurt anymore, and I wouldn't have to deal with sudden, unexplained and temporary debilitation. Maybe I'd get some new parts. I wanted to be able to hear Tony Banks' keyboard solo from "Cinema Show" again, the way it was originally recorded, and I couldn't do that here on earth anymore with the tools I had.

In retrospect, I wasn't taking death seriously enough.

Over the summer, my sensei died. Thomas Rubick, the best teacher I ever had, whom I wrote about at length in "Epilogue, The Fifth," died of brain cancer on a Sunday morning in July. It was the same week I left for Peru.

Before Thomas passed on, he wrote his own obituary. He titled it P.S. I'm Dead, and his widow sent it to us hours after he left. "Finally the cancer won and I died," he wrote. "And because cancers are incredibly stupid, so did it."

When I read that, I immediately recognized the gallows humor -- thinking about death in the spring didn't frighten me, but that did. I measured my own cavalier, speculative attitude about the end against the strength of a man whose body was taken over by a disease dead-set on extinguishing him. I felt so intensely ashamed, and I was despondent in my mourning. It was a devastating time, and a humbling period as well. But I didn't have time to lose myself in sorrow.

Four days later, I boarded that big, wobbly 777 airliner in Atlanta bound for Lima. I settled in for a long non-stop southbound flight over the Equator. All around me, there were Peruvians headed back to their own country -- good practicing Catholics flipping rosary beads, mumbling prayers in Spanish, intensely rocking back and forth. They didn't want to die before they returned home. I went ahead and crossed my brow and chest too, just in case, and prayed for protection.

I didn't want to make light of dying anymore.

---

Love for self can be difficult and frustrating; each of us is trapped in a machine that keeps breaking down, one that is guaranteed to stop working altogether someday. Love for another requires transcending selfish desire. Ultimately, that love becomes an exercise in disappointment management, and it's often unsustainable on its own merits.

But there is no love as ridiculous, irrational or tragic as that for a simple game. The game needs effort and attention to survive, but it offers so little in direct return. Any reward for this love is only a reflection of one's effort, and nothing more. The game will never belong to anyone; the game will always find other, stronger lovers. It will forsake all those with failed ability and exhausted strength. The game will forget you when you're gone, and keep on evolving.

Despite that, there is absolutely nothing in this world that I love more than college basketball. That's why I started this site five years ago, why I travel to over 100 games per season, and it's why I came back for more.

I had my human doubts and moments of weakness, but I managed the physical pain. I handled the end of my marriage, as difficult as that was. But I couldn't bear the thought of losing this. My love for the game explains everything I've done, and it's why I went through all of this. The game wouldn't stop to reflect or pause for a second if I disappeared or died... but it could never break my heart.

The Mid-Majority is a love story, about basketball. Season 6 is specifically dedicated for those who can truly recognize and comprehend why; to all others, every word will be written in language you do not understand. This season is for all who know the difference between pastime and life's work. It's for anybody who understands why this crazy and irrational devotion is so different from the scheduled and momentary flirtations that are often mistaken for this love.

Season 6 is dedicated to the darkness beyond the edge... the formless void that frightens away the casual, weak and the not-quite-serious. It's ascribed to the question, "How far would you go for something that can't love you back the same way?" This year, we want to embody that answer.

But everything's different now. Nothing that was so firmly in place a year ago today, when the picture seemed so big, is in place anymore. There are no more Sports Bubble subsidies to rely upon, no more guaranteed resources or promises of completion. The end is not built into the start this time; Season 6 could end at any moment. But love drove us to fix body and mind this summer, and come back stronger than ever. Love pushes us forward today -- back to the road, back into a complicated and unsure future. There is no time for fear or regret, there is only time to do.

Because in this world, we are judged by what we do, and what we do makes us who we are. You and I, as human beings among billions, are owed nothing -- no recognition, no love, and no resources. Regardless of belief, we earn rewards and penalties based on what we attempt and achieve, and each endeavor moves the world forward into the future. Inaction and inertia are their own punishments; the world simply forgets and passes over those who do not do.

We choose to do, because we choose to love.

Sponsored Link: Introducing the TMM Ad Network!

♫ ‘Til Tuesday - Everything’s Different...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:51:00 -0700

♫ ‘Til Tuesday - Everything’s Different Now

Hadn’t heard this in about two decades. Matthew Sweet and Jules Shear wrote it!

Apeshit in Puerto Viejo (via C-Monster)

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:31:14 -0700

Apeshit in Puerto Viejo (via C-Monster)

Weekday Newspaper Circulation 1990-2010 infographic (via...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:11:42 -0700

Weekday Newspaper Circulation 1990-2010 infographic (via theawl.com)

US Foreclosure Activity infographic (via Consumerist)

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:06:41 -0700

US Foreclosure Activity infographic (via Consumerist)

Rough On Rats (via FFFFOUND!)

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:17:09 -0700

Rough On Rats (via FFFFOUND!)

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1270 (by A. Koford)

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:52:53 -0700

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1270 (by A. Koford)

How to Raise a Street Smart Kid (via foundfootagefestival)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:58:55 -0700

How to Raise a Street Smart Kid (via foundfootagefestival)

Sandwich Police

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:21:06 -0700

Sandwich Police

suddenly, tammy! "Hard Lesson"

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:17:00 -0700

I had to wait 14 years to find this video; in other words, I got there when I did.

Japanese Mascot Summit (via asahicom)

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:04:27 -0700

Japanese Mascot Summit (via asahicom)

Gorilla Playing Saxophone (via FFFFOUND!)

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:24:42 -0700

Gorilla Playing Saxophone (via FFFFOUND!)

Never underestimate the power of a good story (via 20090319yoko)

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:08:42 -0700

Never underestimate the power of a good story (via 20090319yoko)

“Foxbase Alpha” Fine Art Print, by Norn Cutson

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:16:25 -0700

“Foxbase Alpha” Fine Art Print, by Norn Cutson

Tom Browne - Funkin’ for Jamaica (via lolowattrelos)

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:35:37 -0700

Tom Browne - Funkin’ for Jamaica (via lolowattrelos)

Courtship vs. Dating (via the mighty Video Home System)

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:22:53 -0700

Courtship vs. Dating (via the mighty Video Home System)

"For whatever we do, even whatever we do not do prevents us from doing its opposite. Acts demolish..."

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:49:13 -0700

“For whatever we do, even whatever we do not do prevents us from doing its opposite. Acts demolish their alternatives, that is the paradox.”

- James Salter

"Remember that it’s only a game but it’s the best game on earth and it’s our..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:36:00 -0700

“Remember that it’s only a game but it’s the best game on earth and it’s our privilege to watch it, that everything looks better in Legos, and that the word “ass” is inherently funny. And do Batgirl a favor—when your favorite player strikes out with the bases loaded or muffs a bunt or walks a guy in and the crowd around you boos, I want you to stand up and shout at the top of your lungs, heart bursting with unconditional love, THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND.”

- Batgirl

"Let’s be known for something in the world. Let’s be known for having the best pot. It sounds like a..."

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:02:39 -0700

“Let’s be known for something in the world. Let’s be known for having the best pot. It sounds like a good idea to me.”

- Memphis mayoral candidate Leo Awgowhat

“If I tell you these are mountains,” by Marc Johns

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:11:05 -0700

“If I tell you these are mountains,” by Marc Johns

Book #2

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:29:56 -0700

Is this a book you might be interested in?

I DON'T MIND HITTING BOTTOM, I JUST HATE DRAGGING
by Tony Ingle with Kyle Whelliston
with a foreword by Hubie Brown

Release date: November 2009

----

When Tony Ingle grew up in the government housing projects of Dalton, Georgia, he was so poor that he had to fish his first pair of basketball shoes out of a dumpster. And after a horrific knee injury during the national junior college basketball tournament ended his playing career, he set about chasing his championship dreams as a coach. His long climb up "the ladder" from high school to college was chock-full of high-octane offense and circus plays, culminating in a dream job as the interim bench boss at Brigham Young University. But after a nightmarish 0-19 campaign full of season-ending injuries and blowout losses, BYU put Coach Ingle out on the street. During his three years in basketball's wilderness, he performed a series of odd jobs to provide for his wife and five children -- including carpet salesman, TV pitchman, and stand-up comic. Coach Ingle's second chance finally came at Kennesaw State University, a small college near Atlanta, where he took the Owls from utter mediocrity to the Division II National Championship in just four years.

With a foreword by Basketball Hall of Famer Hubie Brown, "I Don't Mind Hitting Bottom, I Just Hate Dragging" will entertain, motivate and inspire. It is the engaging and unique story of a life full of resilience, perseverance, faith and family... told by a man the Deseret News once called "the Will Rogers of basketball."

Eco-Bally

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:33:13 -0700

Greetings, Hoops Nation. If I might interrupt your reverse-hibernation for a moment.

Mid-July is often the exact midpoint between the Epilogue and the traditional start of Essay Season. As of July 23, there are 100 days remaining until the beginning of Season 6.

Sports Bubble Blues: A Collection of Essays From The Mid-Majority's Season Five contains 221 pages of screeds and tweets -- all ~~recycled~~ previously-published content that everyday readers will recognize immediately. The 222nd virtual platen will bear a heretofore unseen seven-panel cartoon, featuring America's Favorite Talking Basketball™. There's only one problem, though: because the inside of the book is printed completely in black, white and grey shades, the cartoon is not in the kind of Technicolor the World Wide Web has featured ever since those federal standards were put in place back in 1997.

So here it is, in glorious RGB, for your mid-summer enjoyment. You've seen the whole book now, there are no secrets left.

If you still think it's worth it, though, you can order a paper copy of Sports Bubble Blues through this very website for $20, postpaid. The book will also be available on Amazon once the fall rolls around, and an exclusive excerpt will be published in the October issue of Basketball Times. Or you can read it for free (just like you did last winter) as a PDF.

(And hello, RSS readers! The middle of summer is the time when webmasters, journalists, scouts and SID's start thinking about thinking about the season ahead. For the first time, sister site Basketball State will be licensing custom stat feeds in 2009-10 -- in a wide variety of formats and frequencies. You can fill out the inquiry form if this is something that might interest you.)

Sponsored Link: Introducing the TMM Ad Network!

Thomas Rubick, R.I.P.

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:56:00 -0700

Thomas Rubick, "Return of the Return" - self-portrait ©
I lost my sensei today.

Thomas Rubick was my primary graphic design professor when I lived in Oregon, he was the best teacher I ever had, and he passed away Sunday morning just before 8 a.m. Pacific time. He had brain cancer; he and his doctors thought he had it beat with chemo this past summer, but it came back much worse once autumn arrived. I've promised to always speak of him in the present tense, a high respect afforded only the greatest of artists, but I can do so only when it doesn't end up confusing the timeline.

When he died, it was three hours later here on the East Coast, and what I was spending my Sunday morning doing was -- of all things -- drawing a three-panel cartoon on a bristol pad. I was having trouble rendering an expressive hand gesture, and I was thinking about him. I was remembering a time back in school when I stayed up all night on a deadline and completely screwed up an illustration by putting somebody's thumb where the pinky would be. Thomas made me draw 50 hands if I wanted to save my grade. Twelve years later, wearing through the pad with pencil scratches and eraser snibbles, I could swear I felt pressure coming from over my shoulder.

I didn't find out until much later in the day that he had died.

This wasn't a random spiritual experience or anything. I've been thinking a lot about Thomas for the past seven months, and I wrote extensively about him here back in March. Mostly, I've been racked with regret that I didn't keep in better touch beyond annual three-paragraph Christmas cards (his were always signed, "Your Sensei"), and that I never figured out the proper way to say farewell while I still could. But that's what people do. We're programmed to take things for granted, to forget about things when they're present and abundant, to despair and panic when their scarcity and absence become evident.

Heroes for the Desperate

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:17:25 -0700

Human loneliness, and the sheer desperation that too much of it inevitably causes, is the 21st Century's most potent and powerful driver of everyday action in the First World. I'm convinced of it. Nearly all bad life-changing decisions come from wild and selfish desires for human connection, and our municipal court hallways are littered with the endings and by-products of desperate acts: gang shit, quickie divorces, restraining orders, and children of ridiculous unions cursed at and by birth.

None of this fits into the narrative structure we've commonly accepted as entertaining or enlightening -- except maybe for the shows on the teevee down at the laundromat during which viewers are invited to pick a side whilst ignoring the larger picture. There's no place in Joseph Campbell's hero-story arc for a journey that ends in a victory over desperation; it tends to be a second-act problem for Good Guys, who are saved by quest completion, religion or a Good Woman. It's a first-act issue for villains.

The ability to refrain from making stupid decisions is not, sadly, considered a superpower. They'll never make a movie out of any of those old German novels in which the protagonist achieves a victory over a baser self by way of internal monologue, or from Saul Bellow's Herzog. As a result, there's no real cultural roadmap for breaking the desperation cycle, no hero to turn to. Is this, too, something the internet and its new complex media can help with?

(Image via DTMM)

How To Be an Internet Superstar

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:49:20 -0700

Here's a real Debbie Downer way to start a conversation: how many of your blog readers, Twitter followers and Facebook friends will come to your real-life funeral? There have been a lot or recent studies and magazine articles trying to make sense of new evolutionary shifts in 21st Century interpersonal communication, but I'm not paid by the word and didn't feel like pussyfooting around. Someday, you and I are going to be just as dead as 18th Century people. We'll be remembered, or we won't, and we'll each have our own lasting legacy based on our contributions -- that's an eternal equation that's not going to change for anything, not even MySpace. The modern way to make online friends with virtual strangers is to make soft, safe statements about popular topics. In June 2009, here are some good ones to start out with:

Iran's ruling government is bad
iPhones are cool, but AT&T's policies are bad
#inaperfectworld, cats would audibly speak in LOLcat language

All this will get you, however, is a tiny and anonymous place in a massive crowd, which can be a lonelier existential state than the emptiest room. Some internet-people rebel against this dejection by saying the exact opposite, in order to draw a sharp reaction. Examples include, "Ahmadinejad is awesome!" and "I like killing kitties with my gun." These people are called trolls, which is a bad name for them because there isn't anything particularly fearsome, powerful or Norse about them. They're just dicks.

So Sad

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:40:42 -0700

Sure I love Twitter. I love teh tweets so much that I ditched my "personal" account and opted into a read-only experience. Twitter is history's most advanced way yet of obtaining small blips of useful information... anywhere you are. On the desktop, on the phone, in the van, in the can. I'm not so convinced that its legacy is as a interpersonal communication tool.

A lot of people are going to point to recent situations on Moldova and Iran as proof that Twitter has come of age, supplanted traditional journalism, changed the world. These people won't likely mention that week of endlessly cascading Swine Flu misinformation and paranoia last month, or the service's losing battle against truth verification and endless spam. Try this: read 1,000 scattered updates from #iranelection, then read a dispatch from a BBC reporter who's lived in and studied the region for years. After that, go ahead and tell me what the future of journalism is all about.

Smoke, The Wonder Horse: A Loving Tribute

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:54:25 -0700

Recently, I came across the 1936 B-Western California Mail on Turner Classic Movies. The late Dick Foran, who had the worst teeth of any of the singing cowboys, has top billing, and there's a thin plot about romantic jealousy, mistaken identity, and the end of the Pony Express.

But the real star is Smoke the Wonder Horse, a grey palomino with an complicated harness who's credited as "himself" and is responsible for all the major plot turns. I was watching the movie in the "background" while doing some divorce paperwork on the couch, but halfway through, Smoke turns on a bad guy who's stolen and mounted him, throws him off, then kills him with his front hooves before galloping off and leaving the man for dead. I was, like, "Whoa! I didn't see that coming!"

Then, in the climactic chase scene, Smoke runs down another black-hat and stomps him until he dies. It's shown in quick-cut edits (because of the Production Code, most likely), back and forth from close-ups of the dying man's frightened, bloodied face to the rearing horse shown from an upward perspective. The blood-curdling neighs and the screams signaled the day was saved. I leapt from the couch and gave the film a standing ovation, much as folks in the theater must have all those years ago!

Finally, I checked the Internet Movie Database so I could find out what other movies Smoke appeared in. He was in 13 other B-Westerns from 1936 through 1941, forgotten films like Empty Holsters and Winners of the West. He's credited as Dick's Horse, Red's Horse, Rod's Horse, Chip's Horse. The grey wonder-steed never found a regular rider, never had the opportunity to be Silver to any Ranger, lone or otherwise.

NYTimes.com: Sweeping The Clouds Away

Sun, 31 May 2009 23:57:38 -0700

NYTimes.com: Sweeping The Clouds Away:

The concept of the âinner cityâ â or âslums,â as The Times bluntly put it in its first review of âSesame Streetâ â was therefore transformed into a kind of Xanadu on the show: a…

WSJ.com: French Open: In Tennis, the Cool Kids Love Clay

Fri, 22 May 2009 06:16:00 -0700

WSJ.com: French Open: In Tennis, the Cool Kids Love Clay:

In the tennis world, labeling someone a “clay-court specialist” was once a backhanded compliment — code for inferior players often hailing from sunny climes in Spain and Argentina who outlasted…

MyFoxAtlanta: Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Should Know

Thu, 21 May 2009 18:13:37 -0700

MyFoxAtlanta: Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Should Know:

RUH

The Circle of No Life (via recovering lazyholic)

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:11:01 -0700

The Circle of No Life (via recovering lazyholic)

Sifl & Olly Retrospective

Sun, 17 May 2009 13:02:11 -0700

“Fake Blood”

“Prostitute Laundry”

“Claire Danes”

“Llama School”

“Dude’s House”

“Laser Eyes”

Some Birds Talk Too Much (via bpx)

Sat, 16 May 2009 19:59:41 -0700

Some Birds Talk Too Much (via bpx)

NYTimes.com: A New Book Details Jack Kerouac’s Obsession With Fantasy Baseball

Sat, 16 May 2009 06:53:56 -0700

NYTimes.com: A New Book Details Jack Kerouac’s Obsession With Fantasy Baseball:

Almost all his life Jack Kerouac had a hobby that even close friends and fellow Beats like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs never knew about. He obsessively played a fantasy baseball game of…

Artist Unemployed, Will Take Any Job (via C-Monster)

Sat, 16 May 2009 01:52:17 -0700

Artist Unemployed, Will Take Any Job (via C-Monster)

Bloomberg.com: Crunch Fitness Bankruptcy Shows the Limits of Pole Dancing

Fri, 15 May 2009 21:52:53 -0700

Bloomberg.com: Crunch Fitness Bankruptcy Shows the Limits of Pole Dancing:

Crunch Fitness, the health-club chain with cardio-strip tease and pole-dancing classes, may have marked the end of an era when it filed for bankruptcy last week after about a 25 percent membership…

Brazil Poster, by Jeff Peppers

Fri, 15 May 2009 18:49:12 -0700

Brazil Poster, by Jeff Peppers

Twitter trending topics (via Meg Pickard)

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:09:08 -0700

Twitter trending topics (via Meg Pickard)

IMDb: Holiday (1938)

Fri, 15 May 2009 10:52:25 -0700

IMDb: Holiday (1938)

Nick's Flick Picks review of Holiday (1938)

Fri, 15 May 2009 10:52:25 -0700

Nick's Flick Picks review of Holiday (1938):

A lesser movie would invent some deus ex machina plot device to rearrange these characters where the final scene needs to find them. Holiday, enormously to its credit, never really does that. The…

SI.com - Campbell to leave Atlantic Sun

Thu, 14 May 2009 06:44:07 -0700

SI.com - Campbell to leave Atlantic Sun:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A person with knowledge of the decision says Campbell will leave the Atlantic Sun Conference and return to the Big South in the 2011-12 academic year.

ESPN Soccernet - Le Havre AC 2:4 St Etienne

Thu, 14 May 2009 06:44:07 -0700

ESPN Soccernet - Le Havre AC 2:4 St Etienne:

Le Havre’s relegation to Ligue 2 was confirmed tonight after a home defeat to fellow strugglers St Etienne. Mamadou Diallo and Massamba Sambou netted to put the hosts in the ascendancy after Ilan had…

LF Examiner: Is IMAX the next "New Coke"?

Tue, 12 May 2009 05:28:46 -0700

LF Examiner: Is IMAX the next "New Coke"?:

Yet this is the position in which Imax is now putting customers who pay $15 to see Eagle Eye: The IMAX Experience at New York Cityâs new AMC Empire 25 IMAX digital theater, with its 28x58-foot…

My Life With Editors (via christophniemann.com)

Mon, 11 May 2009 04:08:20 -0700

My Life With Editors (via christophniemann.com)

Wikipedia: Peter Herbolzheimer

Sun, 10 May 2009 10:25:25 -0700

Wikipedia: Peter Herbolzheimer:

Peter Herbolzheimer (* December 31, 1935 in Bucharest) is a German jazz trombonist and bandleader.

Dear Mom, Thanks a Bunch

Sun, 10 May 2009 08:14:54 -0700

Dear Mom, Thanks a Bunch

“Thank You For Your Mother” @ Tokyo Disneyland (via...

Sun, 10 May 2009 05:14:24 -0700

“Thank You For Your Mother” @ Tokyo Disneyland (via Japan Probe)

Excellent Birds

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:28:13 -0700

I like the Twitter a lot. I live-Twittered 109 college basketball games last season, and I've even created several Twitter robots. One of them has sports scores from America, and another one has soccer results from places that are not America. I even made a special robot that tells me what the weather's going to be today where I live. I like Twitter so much I own a Fail Whale t-shirt to help support the artist who drew it. I've been on Twitter long enough that my KyleWhale avatar is usually somewhere near the top of follower lists ranked by tenure. In that time, I've defined my relationship to Twitter, as one must eventually do with any technology, and I've made my decisions about what it is.

Millions of other people have made that decision for themselves, too. Twitter is telegrams without the news, a ball-point pen, a subway platform conversation, maybe even the second coming of the telephone itself. Twitter challenges creative folks to shoehorn big thoughts into 140 characters, and it's a way for others to consume celebrity culture in unprecedented ways. What's fascinating to me is that such a uncomplicated data construct is capable of being so many different things to so many different people.

Epilogue, The Fifth: Who Cares Least

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:08:35 -0700

I. Into The Wild

INDIANAPOLIS, Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Airport, March 25 -- One of my favorite books of the past 15 years is Into The Wild. It was a national New York Times bestseller that was made into a major motion picture (Emile Hirsch was great in it). It's the non-fictional story of a young student-athlete named Chris McCandless whom, after graduation from college in 1990, renamed himself Alexander Supertramp, gave his savings to charity and hitchhiked around North America. He ended up dead in a remote region of Alaska, where his decomposed body was discovered by hunters.

The book is so powerful, and contains such immediate language, that it's pretty much made Catcher in the Rye obsolete as a meditation on young American male restlessness and wanderlust. And it hits quite close to home, too: that was same era during which I was thumbing my way around the United States, separated from my family with a new name, aloof to the dangers of the road. In the summer of 1989, between my junior and senior years of prep school, I hitchhiked from New Hampshire to California and back, looking for something pure that I never found. In Indiana, on my way west, the driver of an El Dorado stabbed me with a hunting knife while trying to take my backpack. I still have the scar, a two-inch permanent sunburn above my right hip.

But perceived simpatico is not why I love Into The Wild. Two-thirds of the way through the book, author Jon Krakauer slides into the narrative all Kilgore Trout-like, and tells his own adventure story in two cutaway chapters. In 1979, a young Krakauer made a solo 20-day expedition to Alaska and successfully reached the summit of the Devils Thumb -- a 9,000-foot unclimbable peak in the state's Boundary Range. It was a difficult ascent up a diorite wall covered in feathery ice, a climb that repeatedly came close to costing him his life.

Upon his return to civilization, however, Krakauer learned a sobering lesson: it didn't matter.

The euphoria, the overwhelming sense of relief, that had initially accompanied my return to Petersburg faded, and an unexpected melancholy took its place. The people I chatted with in Kito's didn't seem to doubt that I'd been to the top of the Thumb; they just didn't much care.

...Less than a month after sitting on the summit of the Thumb, I was back in Boulder, nailing up siding on the Spruce Street Townhouses, the same condos I'd been framing when I left for Alaska. I got a raise, to four bucks an hour, and at the end of the summer moved out of the job-site trailer to a cheap studio apartment west of the downtown mall.

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to a obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

This was not a popular section of the book with most readers, and I've heard it described as grandstanding, unnecessary filler, narcissistic even. Hollywood had little use for Krakauer's tale -- the film version edited him out altogether, and opted to make Chris' sister the primary narrator instead. But for me, this threw the entire book into a five-dimensional perspective, give the work ballast and true weight. Without the inclusion of the two chapters on the Stikine Ice Cap, Into The Wild is a third-hand, third-rate version of Catcher -- a point proven, perhaps, by the massive story exaggerations contained in the movie script.

The author never had to announce it in so many words, but he was detailing exactly why he felt so compelled to give this particular ghost a new life and a new voice, why he cared enough to spend three years and hundreds of pages writing this biography. Without a chronicler, nobody would give a crap about Chris McCandless. Without Jon Krakauer to tell the story, this great adventure of Alexander Supertramp is worthless -- like so many million other great adventures. Without Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless is a human dead end, an uncelebrated thrill-seeker who brought back no lessons for anyone else.

A dead end, just like I would have been if I hadn't twisted out of the way awkwardly that day on the flat blue leather seat, if that knife had found its intended mark. My life might have ended meaninglessly, with no curious biographer to document it. Roads, after all, make poor receptacles for dreams too.

Sponsored Link: Introducing the TMM Ad Network!

The Waiting Room for the Exit Interview

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:53:29 -0700

MADISON, Wisc. -- I've long felt that the word "heartbreak" doesn't do a proper job as a member of the English language. It implies shatter or malfunction, and sounds so dry. The true feeling is more of a burst -- so closely related to the challenge of capacity that joy brings, but with a method of fluid release that's painfully different. A heart can fill up with desire, then suffer from complete structural failure.

But you don't need poetry to illustrate this. For instance, put two basketball teams on a court in an elimination game, one side with eight or ten times the available resources than the other. One measures itself against perfection, while the other has to fight for the opportunity to even show up on the same court. If the score is close near the end of the game, and the fight falls away, that's a graphical depiction of the border between hope and heart-collapse that any spectator can understand.

Now repeat this 20 times, until the heart can't fill up and collapse any more, and that's what these past four days have been like.

In the remaining pool of 16 aspirants to the National Championship, there are two programs that come from schools that should be too small to compete with the power-conference Goliaths and their unlimited funds. Of all the teams that we've talked about this year, only one remains. Among the institutions that don't refuse to be labelled as "mid-majors," none remain at all.

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Second Round: Sunday's Games

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:40:52 -0700

MINNEAPOLIS -- You work in an office. It's a big office with hundreds of people. You all have hard jobs: everyone toils at their stations every day, struggling to put in efforts that will be recognized. When you get a pat on the back and a "good job," it always seems so fleeting... nobody remembers your name the next day. You just can't seem to get ahead in the world.

But there's that one guy, let's call him Mr. G. He's a real junior achiever, he's got big dreams and plans. He's handsome, he's from a mysterious place far off the grid, and the mere mention of his name is a conversation starter (how do you pronounce that?). The ladies love him. He's like the most interesting guy in the world from that beer commercial. And the bosses have taken notice: because of some dazzling numbers he put up a while back, he's getting perks and benefits that you just can't get access to. Executive washroom keys, a spot at the big-boy lunch table in the caf, invites to private parties with valet parking -- considering his humble beginnings, Mr. G's a great story.

Such a great story that he survived a stretch when he wasn't bringing in the big numbers like he used to. Mr. G was coasting for a while. It didn't matter, though: he was so dashing, so in with the in crowd, he was given the benefit of the doubt... something you can't seem to get no matter what you do. Mr. G, you look tired, I believe you'll be alright.

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Second Round: Saturday's Game

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:22:36 -0700

[12] Western Kentucky vs. [4] Gonzaga - 8:10 pm ET
South Region - Portland, OR
Athletic Budgets (2008): WKU: $19,957,908 GONZ: $11,009,859

Gonzaga beat the MAC champions from Akron by 13 points, but it's a DVD that I plan on giving to anybody who thinks that scoring margin, adjusted or otherwise, matters for anything. There was a late Zag run, whoopee. We prefer the metric that measure average scoring margin within the game (used extensively in Basketball State's rating system) and that was Akron +2.6. The twin lessons from that game are that a.) Gonzaga doesn't look good against teams that play hard and scrappy, and b.) don't blink when you're playing this team because it has ass-torching capability when the court is open.

Western Kentucky has plenty of big bodies that they can throw at the Zags (like Jeremy Evans and D.J. Magley), and it's crucial that they create mass chaos down low. The Hilltoppers are also well-positioned to exploit Gonzaga's Achilles' heel, which just so happens to be shaped just like a heel! The arc is the place to get them -- Akron hit 10 3's, if you'll recall. This will give Orlando Mendez-Valdez, a man who had little input into the 2008 Sweet 16 run (11 points in three games, a total he matched against Illinois on Thursday a chance to become a national name (yes, a very long and hyphenated one too). The Sun Belt POY has hit 94 3's in 230 attempts for 40.9 percent. And do not give up an extended run to this hot-shooting team -- if Akron hadn't yielded that 13-0 late spurt, this would be a Zip-Top affair instead of a Zag-Top one.

Upsetability: Medium-high.

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Minnesota: It's Bally Territory!

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:22:36 -0700

It's the NCAA Tournament, and Bally's got a front row seat! Our little orange friend got so close to the first round action that the refs almost snatched him off the press row table and put him into the game! Not that he'd complain about that!

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Respect, Resilience, Joy and Despair

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 09:05:57 -0700

MINNEAPOLIS -- Just so we're clear, we don't care about your brackets. We know you want to talk about who you "have," about how three of your eight website entries are totally and thoroughly busted, and how you'll never win that $84.50 in the office pool now. We don't want to hear about how you knew that Illinois was overrated, about how much you know about a sport you were ignoring six weeks ago. (We also don't care that UNC's mission is not to let you down this time.)

This must be a lot of fun for you, this March Madness. It must be pleasant to rally behind something until you have no use for it anymore, to adopt and dispose the efforts of a team, to judge its efforts without any real consequence. But the idea that your gambling stories are somehow as thrilling as the on-court action is misguided at best. The delusion, however great or small, that any of the participants care who you've picked in your brackets is the luxury of narcissism. It's the same Princess of the Universe mentality that turned a lot of our country into soulless suburbs, each two-bedroom ranch an island unto itself.

Our respect is reserved for those who have invested much more than lunch money or barroom bragging rights. First and foremost, our admiration is for the players, coaches and staff members who fought for five long months to win the championship of a lesser-known league and earn a toehold on this Big Bracket. They didn't do it for the sympathies of strangers, or for the opportunity to stand in front of a Vitamin Water tank on national television.

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NCAA First Round: Friday's Games

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:01:16 -0700

MINNEAPOLIS -- There's no day more exciting and more highly anticipated than First Round Thursday, and there's no 12 hours quite as difficult to get through. As soon as the games begin, the NCAA Tournament teaches a hard lesson about the perfection that's necessary to compete against enemies with more available resources.

There's no margin for error for teams on this side on the line, none at all. The shot has to go in. One series of mistakes, three bad minutes within 40, and it's the end of the line. It can come early on, like the 9-0 deficit that Butler found itself in before any other games had started, or the four quick turnovers by Northern Iowa that began its contest. It can come late, as happened to undaunted American or brave little Cal State Northridge or tough overachievers Akron. In all cases, a single stretch was the difference between historical footnote and national headliner, why each season epitaph is the standard "These coaches, players, fans and community should be proud of this team. These guys played their hearts out today, they have nothing to be ashamed of." They were not perfect. And that is why these days are so very cruel indeed.

At least it was better than last year. The fat lady didn't sing (we chose the right Buffalo Wild Wings this time), but both of us were very difficult to be around. We had to wait until the very end -- well past 1 a.m. Eastern time -- for a team that showed just enough perfection, as Western Kentucky held the line and eliminated Illinois in Portland. So there's one team through to the weekend, and we hope that Friday is as bountiful as last time. In fact, we're counting on it: our season ends when none of our teams are left.

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My Napoleon Dynamite Pilgrimage

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:47:53 -0800

On the evening of New Year's Day, I was sitting in a hotel room in Pocatello, Idaho, flipping around the channels, and "Napoleon Dynamite" was on E!. It was an amazing feeling -- watching the best movie ever made about Idaho in Idaho. It's been five years since it was made for $400K and made over 100 times its costs back, but everybody's over it because in America, sensations die easy. Napoleon's legacy lives on well into 2009, however, because he's screwing up the Netflix Prize.

During one of the 379 commercial breaks, I checked the map to see how close I was to the town where the film was shot. Too close not to make a pilgrimage, it turned out. On my way south to Utah, I slid off the interstate down the one-lane mountain road to the small town of Preston. I'm not the first to make the trip, and it's to the point where it's organized religion, but my trip was flippin' sweet anyway.

The Olympics This Week - December 1, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:08:47 -0800

We're coming up on 14 months to go until Vancouver, and those who laid out hundreds for VIP ticket packages are finding it difficult to find places to stay. The recently-held Beijing Olympics featured no problems with hotel shortages due to the Chinese government's highly restrictive visa rules, but the recent Olympic tradition of skyrocketing lodging costs will return when the Winter Games commence in February 2010.

Also, the Olympic year 2008 is coming to a close. For those in the United States (or with a web proxy) looking to get back on "the bus" and relive as much of the Beijing Games as possible: the revolutionary free on-demand service that offers thousands of hours of international-feed broadcasts will be shutting down on December 31. You have one month left.

Watching the events of four months ago may remind you of one of the few failures of Beijing 2008, and probably the difference between "remarkable games" and "the best ever." The events were technically sold out, but pictures sent around the world showed thousands upon thousands of empty seats. The International Olympic Committee is taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again, with the added challenge of a global financial crisis that, if it lasts, will surely depress ticket sales for London 2012. Last week, IOC and LOCOG officials met in London to mull over lessons learned from Beijing.

IOC higher-ups, while generally praising Beijing's efforts, are still positive about the chances for London to pull off a successful festival in four years, despite any and all financial problems that will surely come the organizers' way. In a key psychological boost, London's first venue specifically constructed for the Olympics has been completed -- a US$10m marina on the south coast of England has been completed to accomodate the sailing competition.

When London 2012 does arrive, it will be short a few sports. Most know about the banishment of baseball and softball from the Olympic menu, but one of the classic yet underloved events will be missing a discipline. Modern pentathlon, the only sport on the program invented by the modern Games' founder, will be cut to four in the name of streamlining and lowered attention spans. Shooting and running will be combined into a single event.

And it won't get much attention or press until the event actually occurs, but the inaugural Youth Olympic Games are less just nine months away, to be held in Singapore. The bidding is now open for the second edition, to be held in the interim year between London and the as-yet-determined 2016 host. Next week, the IOC will announce the first Youth Winter Olympics host, either Kuopio, Finland or two-time Winter Olympic host Innsbruck, Austria.

Innsbruck hosted in 1976, stepping in when Denver voters rejected a bond measure that would fund the event, won in a 29-20 decision over Sion, Switzerland. Now, more than three decades later, the rapidly-growing Colorado city has begun the process to bid for the 2018 Winter Games. At this point, Denver's bid looks like a 50-50 proposition. If Chicago wins the 2016 Summer Games (a proposition buoyed by local Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidency, then lobbying actively for the bid), Denver's chances are likely dashed. If 2016 goes to Madrid, Tokyo or Rio, Denver 2018 would be a virtual certainty.

Finally, a mascot controversy. Vancouver 2010 originally designated Mukmuk the marmot as a "sidekick" instead of a fully accredited furry ambassador to the upcoming Winter Olympics, relegated passing out literature and cheering in the organizing committee's official videos. Many Canadians complained that Mukmuk is the only real, actual animal (a trio of sasquatch, “sea-bear” and spirit were selected), and for a long time, there was no way for fans and Facebook friends to take a little Mukmuk home. But now, finally, there is merchandise available.

The Olympics This Week - November 3, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:44:56 -0800

We're three months beyond the highly successful Beijing Games, but there's still plenty of developments in the Olympic world -- there's a Winter Games coming soon, after all. Here's some sports-related news as we approach Vancouver 2010.

ICE HOCKEY: Few historically successful teams are as tied to their national icon as the Canadian men's hockey team. Displaying the maple leaf, Canada built the first dynasty in the sport, winning six of the first seven gold medals awarded. After the era of Soviet dominance and the rise of European hockey powers like Sweden and the Czech Republic, the country stormed to the 2002 Olympic championship, with the leaf proudly emblazoned on their chests.

When the team, masterminded by Detroit Red Wings hero Steve Yzerman, takes the ice in their home country 15 months from now, it's unlikely that they'll be wearing the leaf. The IOC has long had a rule the forbids federations displaying their logos, but Beijing 2008 was the first crackdown. The Brazilian football team, representing a country trying to sway votes for the 2016 games, wore plain shirts instead of their national uniforms. Needless to say, Canadians aren't happy.

"I can't believe that they're taking a chunk of history, especially when we're hosting it in our country," said Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson. "They're putting Team Canada at a disadvantage in its own country.

FIGURE SKATING: The most marquee of marquee events at the Winter Games lately has been figure skating, most specifically the women's singles. A possible leading indicator of the results occurred at the recently-completed Skate America competition, held in a country that has appeared on the medal stand every cycle since 1948 and has claimed three of the past five gold medals thanks to Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes. But in Everett, Washington, the United States was blown out, with South Korea's Kim Yu-Na dominating the competition and Japan claimed the other two podium positions. Kim, the 2006 world junior champion looks like the early favorite for 2010, and would be the first medalist for her country in the sport. Here's her short program from the 2007 world championships.

SPEED SKATING: Two weekends ago, a World Cup short-track event that helped break in the venue that will host that competition in 2010 -- the first test event of the Vancouver runup. Canadians used the home-ice advantage to win eight medals -- since the sport debuted in 1994, Canada has claimed 20 Olympic medals, tied with China behind powerful South Korea (29, 17 gold). American five-time medalist Apolo Anton Ohno, perhaps the world's most popular short-tracker, was bumped around and edged out in the 1000m final by Canadian Charles Hamelin.

SOFTBALL: Two stick-and-ball sports that are popular in the United States but few other areas, baseball and softball, were eliminated from the Games' program and won't appear in 2012. But with two open spots that will be filled when the IOC meets in Copenhagen next summer, softball is lobbying for re-entry against golf, karate, sevens rugby, squash and roller sports. Its strategy, slowly being rolled out with its members, is to completely break its ties with baseball.

“This move will prevent some of the confusion that exists surrounding softball’s links with other sports,” ISF president Don Porter said in a statement Thursday, adding that all members should be independent within two years. “We’re confident that all our national federations are strong enough to stand on their own.”

In Lausanne, the capital of the Olympic Movement, IOC president Jacques Rogge is going about his campaign for a second term (an uncontested one), and in a press conference last week announced that the continued pursuit of doping cheats will be his top priority when re-elected next summer in Copenhagen to serve through the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. He also claimed that the governing body's finances are solid, despite a worldwide credit crunch that has affected plans for both Sochi and London 2012. But he was cautious to claim smooth sailing for the IOC. “It would be naive and shortsighted to say that nothing will happen. Yes, the situation is so volatile that it is too soon to draw conclusions,” he said.

Rogge noted that the Vancouver 2010 financial situation looked sound, helped in large part by strong early ticket sales. Expensive VIP packages being sold in the campaign's first phase are sold out,

In the city where the following Winter Games will be held, Sochi, Russia, mayor Vladimir Afanasenkov has resigned. The reason has nothing to do with the preparations or the associated financial trouble, he is leaving office due to health problems. Dzhambulat Khatuov, formerly mayor of the neighboring town of Armavir, will take over -- he may be the one who accepts the Olympic flag in 2010 at the Closing Ceremony.

No weekly update would be complete with some drug news, but this is a more positive development. As a followup from an earlier story, the 300 tests from Beijing 2008 that had been reported missing by the World Anti-Doping Agency were located, and all were negative. The lab temporarily lost them.

The Olympics This Week - October 28, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:17:47 -0700

As has been the case over the past month, the biggest news about the Olympics has had less to do with sports and is primarily concerned primarily with financial matters, in the midst of a global economic downturn. Falling oil prices have hurt the Russian economy, which could end up impacting plans for the Sochi 2104 Winter Games. The organizers of London 2012 are scrambling to change venues for certain sports and having difficulty finding available funds as the credit markets remain tight.

The Olympic Delivery Authority and developer Lend Lease Corp. haven't secured bank financing for the 1 billion-pound Olympic Village, a 3,000-apartment complex where athletes will stay during the games, and a 400 million-pound broadcast center to be built by a group led by Carillion Plc.

2012: But it's not all gloom and doom in England as the countdown to the next Summer Games goes on. Tessa Jowell, the minister in charge of Games preparation, maintains London 2012 will be "economic gold in a time of economic need." And one of the country's greatest exports, rock music, will play as key a role in the Opening Ceremony that it did in the preview in Beijing two months ago. Reportedly, the Rolling Stones will play the open, along with David Bowie, Elton John, Phil Collins, Sting and others -- creating the largest rock supergroup in history. Mick Jagger will be 69 years old when the Games begin.

And one of the most important part of a modern Olympics is in the incubation phase. Organizers have put out the call to Great Britain's creative community to begin submitting their interest as design consultants for the yet-to-be-determined London 2012 mascots. Parties are welcome to contact LOCOG through the organizers' Business Network.

2016: The race to host the Games of the XXXI Olympiad may be defined by the initial negatives of its participants. Consider all of this: the Asian bid from Tokyo is hurt somewhat by the time proximity to this year's Games -- there were five festivals between Tokyo 1964 and Seoul 1988, and another six between that and Beijing 2008, testament to the IOC's desire to spread the Games around the globe. Madrid, a well-regarded close call for 2012 and boasting nearly a full set of venues already, could suffer from the same dynamic, as it would be the third European Games in a row after London and Sochi.

Rio's chances might be dampened by Brazil's hosting of the World Cup in 2014, and hosting both in the space of two years would be an immense burden on the country's economy. Then there's Chicago -- perhaps the frontrunner by proxy, and a city that would receive a major boost if hometown boy Barack Obama wins the United States presidency next week. Active support from heads of state have been key to Olympic bids (Vladimir Putin of Russia's political help to the Sochi 2014 bid the most recent example), which could counteract the chilly relations between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee over money issues.

Chicago will also be the first stop on the IOC's group tour of the four 2016 finalists next spring.

The IOC evaluation commission will visit Chicago from April 4-7, followed by trips to Tokyo from April 16-19, Rio de Janeiro from April 29-May 2 and Madrid from May 5-8. The dates were announced Wednesday by the IOC. The 13-person panel, headed by Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco, will meet with bid leaders and city officials and tour the venue sites during the visits.

Also, there were some controversial comments by Canadian IOC member and Vancouver 2010 board member Dick Pound in a French-language interview during the Beijing Games. Roughly translated:

"We must not forget that 400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages, with scarcely 10,000 inhabitants of European descent, while in China, we're talking about a 5,000-year-old civilization," he said.

Native advocacy groups, a bloc that organizers have taken pains to include in the Winter Games' runup, derided the comments as racist, and Pound, a former IOC vice president, issued an apology, claiming that his use of the multi-definition word sauvages was lost in translation. Some did not accept the apology, and pushed their case to the IOC. Last week, the Olympic governing body ruled out an inquiry.

In Lausanne, Switzerland, the Olympic Movement's capital city, IOC president Jacques Rogge made it official last week and sent a letter seeking a second term. It's not expected that anyone will oppose him, and with the organization flush with cash and coming off a strong Olympic cycle, he's assured of a walkover election next year to add a four-year term to his current eight-year stint.

The Olympics This Week - October 20, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:29:20 -0700

Another week goes by, technically the eleventh of the 29th Olympiad if you prefer that type of calendar. Vancouver 2010 is just over 15 months away, and in less than a year (October 2, 2009, to be exact) the IOC will name a 2016 host at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen. Word comes that Mexico will stage its own mini-Olympics (presumably with the blessing of the International Olympic Committee) to coincide with its bicentennial. And don't forget about the inaugural Summer Youth Olympic Games over 12 days in August 2010, one of IOC president Jacques Rogge's favorite pet projects. Those will be held in Singapore.

2016: Those four finalists -- Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo -- are ramping up their bids for the long home stretch. Due to IOC anti-corruption measures put in place after the Salt Lake 2002 bid scandal, IOC members cannot make official visits to any of the aspirant cities. So the organizing committees have to pack up and proclaim their cases around the world, at places like the upcoming Africa National Olympic Committee secretary generals' conference in Kampala, Uganda.

And they're using the media in whatever ways they can: with a press release last week, the Madrid 2016 group proclaimed itself a "safe choice" in the midst of a global economic downturn -- they're also trying to downplay the city's growing reputation as a racist sports town. Atletico Madrid was forced to play its next two home Champions League football matches at neutral venues.

Atletico has denied all claims of racism, insisting that UEFA officials confused chants of ``Kun, Kun, Kun'' - in support of the club's striker Sergio Aguero, whose nickname is ``Kun'' - with monkey cries.

Tokyo, which scored highest of the four in the IOC's evaluation process earlier this year, received the backing of former French president Jacques Chirac last week. Chirac was in charge when Paris was narrowly defeated by London for the 2012 Games three years ago. And Chicago, in its first formal presentation as an 2016 Olympic finalist on Oct. 12, stressed the city's large Latino population in a regional meeting with IOC leaders in Acapulco. And Rio is working on a new high-capacity transit system it hopes will help land the coveted honor of hosting the Olympics after three missed attempts (1936, 2004, 2012).

2014: With the Sochi Winter Games just six and a half short years away (the happy winners are shown above at last year's Guatemala IOC session), Russia named Dmitry Kozak preparations manager for those Games. Russia Today visits the resort area and files an extended video report on local enthusiasm and venue construction.

2012: With bank failures and government bailouts occurring around the world, the London 2012 organizing committee (LOCOG) is trying to find ways to hold a sensibly-budgeted event in four years' time. It's true, as posited by U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Jim Scherr, that gigantic television deals make the Olympics fundamentally recession-proof, but host cities don't have the luxury of living fully inside that insulated bubble -- local morale was shaken by the news of a secret bailout of 95 million pounds for Olympic Village construction, and Wembley Arena may be taking on a larger role as a multi-sport venue. Another recent development is Sport England's plan to sell venues after the Games are over. Included in the sale will be temporary training pools for swimmers, and the entire water polo venue.

A source said: "Everything that is not screwed to the floor will form part of what can be sold off. The venues will be marketed as having had one careful owner."

Not all of London's financial news is of the down variety, however -- Cadbury has signed on to be a tier-two sponsor of the 2012 Games.

2010: The next major Olympic event will be held in Vancouver in February 2010, and the organizers announced that they ran a $40.5 million deficit in fiscal year 2008, after a $51.3 million surplus in the previous annum. The total budget for the Winter Games is $1.3 billion.

And in sports news...

While most of the statistics out of the Olympics have to do with medals, records, times and (in recent years) doping cases, here's another angle. The IOC released a report last week that stated 1,055 athletes were injured in Beijing two months ago -- that's one in every 10 participants. Most were leg and foot issues, and the details of the report showed which were the most likely sports to result in injury.

The sports most dangerous to Olympians' health were boxing, soccer, handball, field hockey, taekwondo and weightlifting. Each reported injuries to around one in seven athletes. Four sports reported that none of its athletes lost training or competition time: flatwater canoeing, diving, sailing and synchronized swimming.

Obviously, this doesn't takie into account the wounded pride of this blog's watchlisted Egyptian synchronized swimmers, who finished dead-last in every discipline.

And, of course, there's doping news too. In a story that looks small and innocuous now but may blow up into something bigger later, 300 drug tests from Beijing 2008 are missing, according to independent observers who filed a report to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

They also uncovered some surprising deviations from normal drug testing procedures, including the fact that the Beijing laboratory couldn't test for one banned substances - insulin. The observers noted that the samples would be stored for eight years and could be retested if the IOC deemed it necessary. Another concern was that the laboratory had failed to detect one of the quality control samples that had contained a prohibited substance.

But by far, the most sensational Olympic story of the past week, the one that made its way into mainstream news reporting, is that of Liu Zhihua. As vice-mayor of Beijing and head of coordinating Olympic venue construction, he was charged with accepting US $1.45 million in bribes -- and passing a portion of that to several mistresses -- before being fired in June of 2006. Over the weekend, his sentence was handed down: death.

Photo: Icon SMI

The Olympics This Week - October 13, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:25:52 -0700

The countdown to Vancouver 2010 is now just over 480 days, but there are always developments in the Olympic world. Here's the latest.

Nearly two months after China's Olympics, one of the host city's successful environmental experiments will be duplicated going forward. The smog that has covered Beijing since its rapid industry boom disappeared during the second week of the Games, thanks in large part to efforts to curb pollution by keeping half of the city's 3.3 million cars off the road. The city will fine drivers 100 yuan (US $14.70) if they break new rules that aim to keep one-fifth of automobiles off the road each weekday. For instance, cars with license plates ending in 1 or 6 must stay off the local highways.

Meanwhile, American network NBC-TV has posted an unspecified loss for its involvement in this year's Olympics. NBC paid $894 million to beam the images of Beijing 2008 back to the United States, and had earlier claimed $1 billion in advertising revenues from Beijing. With operating expenses decreased thanks to remote hosting and BOB's excellent coverage, this is likely a strategic loss.

The massive television rights fees that American networks pay are, undoubtedly, what has helped the Olympic Movement escape its low-budget ebb in the 1960's and 1970's and ushered in an age of Gigantic Games that began with Los Angeles 1984. The chief of that organizing committee, Peter Ueberroth, went on to become the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, a position he recently relinquished. In his final speech as president, he made prominent mention of the United States' contributions to the cause.

"Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement?" Ueberroth said Saturday in his final speech as USOC chairman. "Make no mistake about it. Starting in 1988, U.S. corporations have paid 60 percent of all the money, period. Be sure you all understand that. The rest of the world pays 40 percent. It’s pretty simple math."

Ueberroth's comments were in response to June statements by IOC officials that the USOC receives an "immoral amount of [Olympic revenues] compared to what other people get." "Who do they think they are?" asked Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands. Either way, any IOC-USOC rift could damage the chances of Chicago's candidacy for hosting duties in 2016.

In competition news, more specifically doping developments, the IOC announced last week that it will keep all drug testing samples from 2008 until those 2016 Games are held. The IOC will also retest every sample it collected during the Beijing Olympics to check for a recently discovered blood-boosting drug named CERA, or Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator. It's believed that the drug is gaining favor with endurance athletes who are ditching the now-easily detectable EPO.

The governing body took 4,770 samples (3,801 urine and 969 blood) during the three weeks it superceded all sporting organizations. Six humans failed those tests.

"Our message is very clear. The IOC will not miss any opportunity to further analyse samples retroactively. We hope that this will work as a strong deterrent and make athletes think twice before cheating," said IOC President Jacques Rogge.

The vice president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, also has threatened to remove men's road cycling from the Olympic menu due to its long and growing history of EPO and CERA abuse.

It was definitely a busy week for the Olympic gatekeepers, as the IOC officially approved the venues for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. But the remainder of the world of the Games has been dealing with the rapidly-increasing global financial crisis. The London 2012 organizers have been forced to mull over the idea of cutting back on venue construction, as the credit crunch is "hitting the Olympics hard," according to John Armitt, the chairman of the London Delivery Authority. Temporary venues for basketball and shooting may be scrapped.

Despite current money problems, London mayor Boris Johnson is promising free hand-held television sets to visitors to the 2012 Games. Johnson hopes for an open and fun event, instead of what he refers to as "great soulless piazzas" of Beijing.

Finally, economic problems have sunk the bid of Tromsoe, Norway to host the 2018 Winter Games. It could be argued, successfully so, that the Lillehammer 1994 event marked a turnaround in the fortunes in the Olympic snow and ice festival, proof positive that a winter host city could balance a big budget and small-town warmth.

The Olympics This Week - October 6, 2008

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:13:32 -0700

With under 500 days until Vancouver 2010 and the London 2012 countdown moving past the 1400-day point, here's what's going on in the world of the Games this week.

LONDON 2012: Since the Closing Ceremony in Beijing, there have been major seismic shifts in the world financial markets, with credit dissolving and fortunes lost around the globe. These dynamics also affect the world of the Olympics, and the staging of future Games. The organizers of the next summer event four years from now are considering scaling back a bit, and with banking collapses as background, London's Olympic Board will meet this Thursday to discuss matters including privatization of some construction projects. The BBC's Mihir Bose explains:

Back in July, just before the Beijing Olympics and despite the gathering economic clouds, I was confidently told that the funding for the Village would be in place by August. Now it is clear that such plans are not ready and the developers will only be granted bank loans if they are underwritten by the government, making it the lender of last resort. It is worth knowing that the government has already pledged extra funding of its own, committing an additional £250m for the building of the Village.

For his part, IOC president Jacques Rogge doesn't believe that the current financial crisis will have a devastating effect on future Olympic planning. "No one has certainties today, but I am not pessimistic for the Olympic Games," he said last week.

We're one year away from London's first large-scale Olympic test event, the Gymnastics World Championships at the 02 Arena (formerly known as "The Dome") on the east side of the city.

VANCOUVER 2010: The next Olympic winter event are a mere 16 months away, so best to make plans now if you're attending. Last Friday, the ticket application system for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games opened, which will accept requests until Nov. 7. Here's the link.

The Vancouver festival will be the first for a new regime at the United States Olympic Committee, which elected a new chairman this past week. Larry Probst was one of the executives from the early days of video game company Electronic Arts, and helped grow the company into a $3 billion empire. Probst replaces former Coca-Cola executive Peter Ueberroth, best known for his successful organization of the Los Angeles 1984 Games which ushered in the age of Gigantic Olympics. The USOC brought him on in 2004 to help reorganize and streamline the national Olympic governing body.

And in sport-related news...

GYMNASTICS: One of the ongoing Beijing sagas in August was speculation that the Chinese women's gymnastic team, winners of the overall gold medal, was not made up of women at all. A decade-old rule prohibits gymnasts under 16 (achieved at any point during an Olympic year) to compete, and accusations flew about forged documents for several members, including He Kexin, who won the uneven bars in a tiebreaker decision over American all-around champion Nastia Liukin. Documents found on the internet suggested she was 14, but the Federation of International Gymnastics concluded that the documents presented by China were accurate after a six-week investigation.

"The FIG has shared its conclusions with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which originally requested the inquiry. It is considered that the case is now concluded," FIG said in the statement. "Originals of official documents received from the Chinese Gymnastics Association, specifically passports, identity cards and family booklets or 'Household Registers', confirm the ages of the athletes."

But the story's not over. After a check of the 2008 accreditation list, the focus switches to the 2000 Chinese team, which finished with bronze in Sydney behind Romania and Russia. Two of the gymnasts from that team, Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun, may not have been old enough to compete at the Olympics, according to the FIG.

Dong's official birthdate is listed as Jan. 20, 1983. But her accreditation information for the Beijing Olympics, where she worked as a national technical official, lists her birthdate as Jan. 23, 1986, said Andre Gueisbuhler, the FIG's secretary general. "If that document is the correct one, that would suggest she was 14 years old at the Sydney Olympic Games," Gueisbuhler said.

ATHLETICS: Over the weekend in Monte Carlo, the IAAF officially ratified the three sprint world records of Jamaica's Usain Bolt set in Beijing's Bird's Nest: 9.69 in the 100m, 19.30 in the 200m, and the 37.10 4x100m relay in which Bolt handed off to countryman and former World's Fastest Man Asafa Powell.

EQUESTRIAN: The fallout from the second consecutive Olympics with horse-doping scandals continues. Late last week, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) stripped Brazilian Rodrigo Pessoa of the fifth-place finish of he and his horse Rufus from the 2008 jumping competition. The sad irony is that Pessoa finished in silver position in 2004, but was elevated to gold when Ireland's Cian O'Connor was found to have applied drugs to his mount. There were six drug cases after this year's Olympics, up from two four years ago.

Photo © Icon SMI

Paralympics Closing Ceremony: A Letter to the Future

Kyle Whelliston — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:50:44 -0700

As he had with the two Olympic ceremonies and the Paralympic opening, film director Zhang Yimou crafted a fourth distinctive and powerful show on the final night of these games. He had spoken of his desire to build "four ceremonies out of an organic whole," and this ceremony's theme touched on the paper and document themes touched on in the Opening Ceremony on 8/8/08, which now seems a lifetime ago.

The Paralympics' closing, like their opening 11 days ago, was preceded by the athletes' parade, a rare gesture that allowed them to watch the artistic portion, titled "A Letter to the Future." Millions of petals floated down from the Bird's Nest. And, as should have been expected, there were miles and miles of beautiful fireworks. The ceremony can be viewed in its entirety at this link, and many great wire service pictures can be seen at the New York Times website.

IOC president Jacques Rogge, in his address at the Olympic Closing Ceremony over three weeks ago, stopped short of calling Beijing 2008 the Greatest Games Ever. He chose instead to deliver nearly the same "truly exceptional Games" line that his predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch had used at the end of the troubled, over-commercialized Atlanta 1996 event. International Paralympic Committee leader Philip Craven was far less reserved. "These are the greatest Paralympic Games ever," he said in his speech.

London will be the next host of this gigantic two-stage festival in four years' time when Beijing 2008's letter to the future finally arrives by post. While the city's Closing Ceremony presentation -- Leona Lewis, David Beckham and a bus full of grass -- met with decidedly mixed reviews in the next host country, a guitar player dressed up as a glam-rock version of the one-armed 1st Viscount Nelson (picture here) undoubtedly sent British cynics into paroxysms.

London mayor Boris Johnson, who was besieged by Chinese media for his hands-in-pocket, one-handed-flagbearing, open-jacket slouching at the Olympic closing, was on better behavior.

Yang Wei, a 10-year-old deaf Chinese child, signed the words "Sacred flame, you are burning in my heart; are you hearing me? I'm singing for you." And then the torch was extinguished, this time for good.

The final medal count for the 2008 Paralympics, ruled in every possible way by the host Chinese, follows. With the final fencing (dominated by China and Hong Kong), athletics and 5-a-side football events accounted for, 473 podium ceremonies were held over 11 days. A total of 1,431 medals were awarded, far more than the 958 given out at the Olympics last month for 302 events. The difference was due to many different events held for various disability classes -- for instance, there were five separate marathons held on the games' final day.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	89	70	52	211
2	Great Britain	42	29	31	102
3	United States	36	35	28	99
4	Ukraine	24	18	32	74
5	Australia	23	29	27	79
6	South Africa	21	3	6	30
7	Canada	19	10	21	50
8	Russia	18	23	22	63
9	Brazil	16	14	17	47
10	Spain	15	21	22	58
11	Germany	14	25	20	59
12	France	12	21	19	52
13	South Korea	10	8	13	31
14	Mexico	10	3	7	20
15	Tunisia	9	9	3	21
16	Czech Republic	6	3	18	27
17	Japan	5	14	8	27
18	Poland	5	12	13	30
19	Netherlands	5	10	7	22
20	Greece	5	9	10	24
21	Belarus	5	7	1	13
22	Iran	5	6	3	14
23	Cuba	5	3	6	14
24	New Zealand	5	3	4	12
24	Sweden	5	3	4	12
26	Hong Kong	5	3	3	11
27	Kenya	5	3	1	9
28	Italy	4	7	7	18
29	Egypt	4	4	4	12
30	Nigeria	4	4	1	9
31	Algeria	4	3	8	15
32	Morocco	4	1	2	7
33	Austria	4	1	1	6
34	Switzerland	3	2	6	11
35	Denmark	3	2	4	9
36	Ireland	3	1	1	5
37	Croatia	3	1	0	4
38	Azerbaijan	2	3	5	10
39	Slovakia	2	3	1	6
40	Finland	2	2	2	6
41	Thailand	1	5	7	13
42	Portugal	1	4	2	7
43	Norway	1	3	3	7
44	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
45	Latvia	1	2	0	3
46	Singapore	1	1	2	4
46	Venezuela	1	1	2	4
48	Saudi Arabia	1	1	0	2
49	Hungary	1	0	5	6
50	Chinese Taipei	1	0	1	2
50	Turkey	1	0	1	2
52	Mongolia	1	0	0	1
53	Israel	0	5	1	6
54	Angola	0	3	0	3
55	Jordan	0	2	2	4
56	Lithuania	0	2	0	2
56	Serbia	0	2	0	2
58	Argentina	0	1	5	6
59	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
60	Bulgaria	0	1	1	2
60	Iraq	0	1	1	2
60	Colombia	0	1	1	2
63	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1	0	1
63	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
63	Papua New Guinea	0	1	0	1
63	Romania	0	1	0	1
63	United Arab Emirates	0	1	0	1
68	Lebanon	0	0	2	2
69	Belgium	0	0	1	1
69	Estonia	0	0	1	1
69	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
69	Laos	0	0	1	1
69	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
69	Namibia	0	0	1	1
69	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
69	Syria	0	0	1	1

(Photo credit: Reuters)

Paralympics Update, Day 10

Kyle Whelliston — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:26:03 -0700

Even if you didn't follow a second of the wheelchair basketball tournament, there's no misunderstanding the power of this storyline. Canada came in as the world's best team, winning gold medals in 2000 and 2004 and crushing all opposition. But plucky Australia, which had a rough start to the tournament in beating Brazil 73-72, ended up winning the opposite Group B, and methodically did away with Japan and Great Britain on its way to the gold medal game. Once there, they shocked the Canadians with a 72-60 win, their first title since 1996. Because every Australian national team is required (by law?) to have a nickname, these guys go by the name "the Rollers."

Today is the final day of the 2008 Paralympic Games. With 465 medal events complete, all that's left to do is wrap up the five-a-side football tourney (in which China and Brazil will square off) and fencing, and end the track meet at the Bird's Nest. As in the Olympics, the marathon closes the show, but here there are four separate marathons -- for blind and wheelchair athletes.

And then, the closing ceremony, which will take place tonight.

RUGBY: Australia only had one upset in them on Day 10. The United States, dominant in this sport but still stinging from an upset in the 2004 semis, rolled over the Aussies by a 53-44 score in the wheelchair rugby final. The other "redeem team" clung to a three-goal lead in the third quarter, but put the hammer down in the final eight-minute period.

After the game, co-captain Brian Kirkland (who had trouble containing his excitement in the final moments) talked about the accomplishment and the sport's growing profile.

"I've been playing this sport for 17 years, and it used to be that people had no idea what I did," he said. "But most definitely more and more people have become aware of it in the last few years. And these Paralympics in Beijing have done a lot for disabled sports in general, no question."

FOOTBALL: The seven-a-side football tournament (primarily for those with cerebral palsy) ended yesterday, and the Ukraine defeated Russia by a 2-1 count at one of the Olympic Green stadiums used for field hockey last month. The two teams dominated the rest of the field, outscoring their opposition by a combined 40-2 in pool play and neither yielded a goal in their respective semifinal. Ukraine successfully defended its 2004 championship, but needed a silver-goal overtime to win after a scoreless tie in regulation. Volodymyr Antonyuk, Ukraine's team captain, scored twice in the extra period.

China won the gold column at the Olympics last month, but its dominance was still open to interpretation due to the United States' lead in podium finishes. During the Paralympics, however, the host nation has left no doubt in any respect. With 20 overall medals won on Day 10 (seven gold), the Chinese team has more than doubled second-place Great Britain in golds, silvers and overall medals. China won 141 medals in Athens four years ago (63 gold), so this will be the second consecutive Paralympics at which they've won the medal race.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	87	68	52	207
2	Great Britain	42	29	31	102
3	United States	36	34	28	98
4	Ukraine	24	18	31	73
5	Australia	22	29	27	78
6	South Africa	21	3	5	29
7	Canada	19	10	21	50
8	Russia	18	23	21	62
9	Spain	15	21	22	58
10	Brazil	15	13	17	45
11	Germany	14	25	20	59
12	France	11	21	19	51
13	South Korea	10	8	13	31
14	Tunisia	9	9	3	21
15	Mexico	9	3	7	19
16	Czech Republic	6	3	18	27
17	Poland	5	12	13	30
18	Japan	5	12	7	24
19	Netherlands	5	10	7	22
20	Greece	5	9	10	24
21	Belarus	5	7	1	13
22	Iran	5	6	3	14
23	Cuba	5	3	6	14
24	New Zealand	5	3	4	12
24	Sweden	5	3	4	12
26	Kenya	5	3	1	9
27	Hong Kong	5	2	3	12
28	Italy	4	7	5	16
29	Egypt	4	4	4	12
30	Nigeria	4	4	1	9
31	Algeria	4	3	8	15
32	Morocco	4	1	2	7
33	Denmark	3	2	4	9
34	Austria	3	1	1	5
34	Ireland	3	1	1	5
36	Croatia	3	1	0	4
37	Azerbaijan	2	3	5	10
38	Slovakia	2	3	1	6
39	Switzerland	2	2	5	9
40	Finland	2	2	2	6
41	Thailand	1	4	7	12
42	Portugal	1	4	2	7
43	Norway	1	3	3	7
44	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
45	Latvia	1	2	0	3
46	Singapore	1	1	2	4
46	Venezuela	1	1	2	4
48	Saudi Arabia	1	1	0	2
49	Hungary	1	0	5	6
50	Chinese Taipei	1	0	1	2
50	Turkey	1	0	1	2
52	Mongolia	1	0	0	1
53	Israel	0	5	1	6
54	Angola	0	3	0	3
55	Jordan	0	2	2	4
56	Lithuania	0	2	0	2
56	Serbia	0	2	0	2
58	Argentina	0	1	4	5
59	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
60	Bulgaria	0	1	1	2
60	Iraq	0	1	1	2
62	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1	0	1
62	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
62	Papua New Guinea	0	1	0	1
62	Romania	0	1	0	1
62	United Arab Emirates	0	1	0	1
67	Lebanon	0	0	2	2
68	Belgium	0	0	1	1
68	Colombia	0	0	1	1
68	Estonia	0	0	1	1
68	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
68	Laos	0	0	1	1
68	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
68	Namibia	0	0	1	1
68	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
68	Syria	0	0	1	1

(Photo credit: Xinhua)

Paralympics Update, Day 9

Kyle Whelliston — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:03:26 -0700

Wheelchair rugby is a four-on-four sport designed for quadriplegics. It's a wince-inducing, teeth-grinding sport to watch -- all the repeated metal-on-metal scrapes and collisions with the specially-designed wheelchairs that look like they have Roman shields attached to the wheels.

The United States team, profiled in the aptly-titled documentary Murderball, escaped the same fate that gave that movie an unhappy ending. In Athens 2004, a semifinal loss sent them to bronze. On Monday, the U.S. murderballers edged Great Britain in the 2008 semis with a 35-32 win (above). They'll face Australia in the final.

A total of 428 of the 472 medal events have been completed. On the penultimate day of the Paralympics, finals will be held in athletics (including Oscar Pistorius' run at a 100/200/400 treble), seven-a-side football, powerlifting, table tennis, fencing, and wheelchair team sports basketball (featuring the juggernaut Canadians) and the aforementioned rugby tournament.

VOLLEYBALL: Iran had a difficult sporting weekend -- between the basketball team's sudden and controversial withdrawal from the tourney to the country's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordering a full investigation into the "miserable" performance of Iranian athletes at last month's Olympics (two medals, one gold in taekwondo), there hasn't been much good news. On Monday, there was nothing miserable about the Islamic republic's gold medal victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the men's sitting volleyball tournament in a 25-22, 18-25, 17-16 three-setter. It was Iran's fifth Paralympic gold medal in its history.

BASKETBALL: The United States women's team, showing the same level of dominance as has their able-bodied compatriots, won its second consecutive Paralympic gold medal with a 50-38 win over Germany. No German player scored more than six points in the Americans' defensive lockdown.

TENNIS: The wheelchair version of this sport is played on a regulation court, and allows two bounces instead of one. The Beijing games were another triumph for Esther Vergeer, a Dutch player who had full use of her body until age six, but lost control of her legs when surgery for a brain hemorrhage went wrong. As she grew older, Vergeer became a powerful wheelchair tennis player. Vergeer and partner Jiske Griffioen lost in the gold medal doubles match on Day 9. But after winning the women's singles, she has a match streak of 349, making her one of the most dominant athletes in the world.

With two days remaining in the 2008 Paralympics, China has built an unassailable lead over the rest of the field. Second-place Great Britain did not hear its anthem played once on Day 9, but the host nation collected 17 gold medals to nearly double the Brits' total. China collected 28 total medals yesterday.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	80	60	47	187
2	Great Britain	41	27	28	96
3	United States	33	33	26	92
4	Ukraine	23	17	29	69
5	Australia	20	26	25	71
6	Canada	18	9	20	47
7	Russia	17	20	20	57
8	South Africa	17	2	5	24
9	Spain	14	20	21	55
10	Germany	13	23	20	56
11	Brazil	13	12	16	41
12	France	10	21	15	46
13	Tunisia	9	9	2	20
14	South Korea	9	8	13	30
15	Mexico	8	3	7	18
16	Czech Republic	6	3	17	26
17	Poland	5	12	13	30
18	Netherlands	5	10	7	22
19	Greece	5	9	8	22
20	Cuba	5	3	6	14
21	New Zealand	5	3	4	12
21	Sweden	5	3	4	12
23	Kenya	5	3	1	9
24	Japan	4	10	7	21
25	Italy	4	7	5	16
26	Belarus	4	7	1	12
27	Egypt	4	3	4	11
28	Algeria	4	2	7	13
29	Iran	3	5	1	9
30	Nigeria	3	3	1	7
31	Denmark	3	2	4	9
32	Hong Kong	3	2	2	7
33	Morocco	3	1	2	6
34	Austria	3	1	0	4
34	Croatia	3	1	0	4
36	Azerbaijan	2	3	4	9
37	Switzerland	2	2	4	8
38	Slovakia	2	2	1	5
39	Ireland	2	1	1	4
40	Portugal	1	4	2	7
41	Thailand	1	3	5	9
42	Norway	1	3	3	7
43	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
44	Latvia	1	2	0	3
45	Finland	1	1	2	4
45	Singapore	1	1	2	4
47	Saudi Arabia	1	1	0	2
48	Hungary	1	0	5	6
49	Venezuela	1	0	2	3
50	Chinese Taipei	1	0	1	2
50	Turkey	1	0	1	2
52	Mongolia	1	0	0	1
53	Israel	0	5	1	6
54	Jordan	0	2	1	3
55	Angola	0	2	0	2
55	Lithuania	0	2	0	2
55	Serbia	0	2	0	2
58	Argentina	0	1	3	4
59	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
60	Iraq	0	1	1	2
61	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1	0	1
61	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
61	Papua New Guinea	0	1	0	1
61	Romania	0	1	0	1
61	United Arab Emirates	0	1	0	1
66	Lebanon	0	0	2	2
67	Belgium	0	0	1	1
67	Bulgaria	0	0	1	1
67	Colombia	0	0	1	1
67	Estonia	0	0	1	1
67	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
67	Laos	0	0	1	1
67	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
67	Namibia	0	0	1	1
67	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
67	Syria	0	0	1	1

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Paralympics Update, Day 8

Kyle Whelliston — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:49:43 -0700

Goalball is a three-a-side version of handball for blind athletes, and makes use of a ball with bells inside so that competitors can judge its position. Much like five-a-side football, players with partial sight are outfitted with blindfolds to ensure an even match.

Yesterday, the United States claimed the title in the women's tournament, overcoming hosts China (including Chen Fengqing and Wang Ruixue, above) by a 6-5 count in sudden death. The final was surprising for the lack of Canada's presence, a team which had won the previous two Paralympic championships but lost in the semis 1-0 to China. On the men's side, the home team was far more fortunate, beating favored Lithuania in a come-from-behind 9-8 win.

After eight days of Paralympic competition, 377 events have been completed with 1,146 total medals awarded. Monday will see finals in athletics, powerlifting, table tennis, basketball and fencing. It's also the final day for tennis, archery, shooting and the swim meet. There are three days left until the Closing Ceremony.

BASKETBALL: It's the final stage of the wheelchair hoops tournament, one that's been overshadowed by Iran's decision to forfeit its final games instead of playing enemy Israel. Powerful and undefeated Canada, seeking its third consecutive Paralympic gold medal, has moved to the final after a 69-62 victory over the United States in double overtime. The champs were down 25-12 after one quarter, but used the last three to cut into the U.S. lead. Australia, which beat Great Britain 67-54 in the other semi, will attempt to end the Canadian gold streak.

VOLLEYBALL: The United States-China women's goalball final was close, but the gold medal match between those two countries in women's sitting volleyball certainly wasn't. The Chinese team successfully defended its Athens 2004 title with a convincing straight-set win over the Americans, 25-14, 25-19 and 25-15. The match was played in front of a boisterous crowd of 5,000, which saw the homestanding red-clads take full advantage of a series of U.S. errors.

These games will be remembered (among those who will remember them) for all the right reasons -- inspiring athletes, incredible organization, and the kind of standout stars that any event of this type needs. Natalie du Toit of South Africa won her fifth swimming gold on Sunday with a close victory in the 50m freestyle, and graced the Watercube with three world-record performances this week. Double-leg amputee Oscar Pistorius has lit up the track at the Bird's Nest with an electrifying sprint double.

But these high points should not obscure the need for reform in the Paralympics system. The athletes are tested and classified as per their disabilities, primarily on official diagnosis from physicians. But they are subject to reclassification or disqualification at any time at the discretion of observers representing the sporting federations. On several occasions, this divide between doctors and experts has resulted in chaos.

Irish seven-a-side football player Derek Malone, after a particularly productive game last week, was removed from the team by the classification cops, who deemed his cerebral palsy as not impactful enough on his playing ability. Australian track and field athlete Jess Gallagher was then judged not blind enough to compete in her class, and was asked to leave the games.

But the saddest episode was that of British discus thrower Rebecca Chin. The 16-year-old won a silver medal in the F37/38 event, after being reclassified to the cerebral palsy division after a rediagnosis of a balance problem before leaving for Beijing. She had originally been scheduled to compete in a division for lower limb impediments. But after her medal ceremony, the International Paralympic Committee declassified Chin altogether and took away her medal. An IPC spokesperson said that she "showed significantly different skill sets and subsequently the chief classifier lodged a protest under exceptional circumstances."

Tim Jones, manager of the Great Britain delegation, commented to the Daily Mail yesterday.

"Top line is that she is a 16-year-old and I don't want her hung out to dry by the process. She has been an absolute failure of the system. She is taking it as well as you could hope."

The bottom line is that the Paralympic Games want to be taken seriously, and is trying to keep its sports purely for those who are disenfranchised by the Olympics due to physical ailments. But reclassifications, snap judgements and medal snatchings are hopelessly farcical. Perhaps the Paralympics will learn the lessons the Olympics took years to understand in regards to amateurism -- set simple rules, forget the minutiae that detracts from the competitions, and never change your policies between ceremonies.

On the eighth day, China strengthened its grip on the medal count by winning 14 golds and 29 overall. But the biggest move in the standings was made by Canada, which jumped from 10th to sixth with nine medals in one day, five of them gold. Two of those were claimed by wheelchair racer Chantal Petitcler, who won the 200m and the 800m races in the T54 division, upping her personal haul to four championships.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	63	54	42	159
2	Great Britain	41	23	26	90
3	United States	30	26	24	80
4	Ukraine	20	15	24	59
5	Australia	18	26	24	68
6	Canada	17	8	18	43
7	South Africa	17	2	5	24
8	Russia	16	20	18	54
9	Germany	13	20	20	53
10	Spain	13	19	17	49
11	Brazil	12	9	14	35
12	South Korea	8	6	11	25
13	France	7	20	12	39
14	Mexico	7	2	7	16
15	Tunisia	6	8	2	16
16	Czech Republic	6	2	13	21
17	Cuba	5	3	6	14
18	New Zealand	5	3	4	12
19	Sweden	5	2	3	10
20	Kenya	5	2	1	8
21	Italy	4	6	4	14
22	Belarus	4	6	1	11
23	Egypt	4	3	4	11
24	Algeria	4	1	5	10
25	Poland	3	10	11	24
26	Japan	3	9	6	18
27	Netherlands	3	8	7	18
28	Greece	3	6	5	14
29	Nigeria	3	3	1	7
30	Denmark	3	1	4	8
31	Austria	3	1	0	4
32	Iran	2	5	1	8
33	Switzerland	2	2	4	8
34	Hong Kong	2	1	1	4
34	Ireland	2	1	1	4
34	Morocco	2	1	1	4
37	Croatia	2	1	0	3
38	Portugal	1	4	1	6
39	Thailand	1	3	5	9
40	Azerbaijan	1	3	4	8
41	Norway	1	3	3	7
42	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
42	Slovakia	1	2	1	4
44	Latvia	1	2	0	3
45	Finland	1	1	2	4
46	Saudi Arabia	1	1	0	2
47	Hungary	1	0	5	6
48	Venezuela	1	0	2	3
49	Chinese Taipei	1	0	1	2
49	Turkey	1	0	1	2
51	Mongolia	1	0	0	1
52	Israel	0	5	1	6
53	Jordan	0	2	1	3
54	Angola	0	2	0	2
54	Lithuania	0	2	0	2
54	Serbia	0	2	0	2
57	Argentina	0	1	3	4
58	Singapore	0	1	2	3
58	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
60	Iraq	0	1	0	1
60	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
60	Romania	0	1	0	1
63	Lebanon	0	0	2	2
64	Belgium	0	0	1	1
64	Bulgaria	0	0	1	1
64	Colombia	0	0	1	1
64	Estonia	0	0	1	1
64	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
64	Laos	0	0	1	1
64	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
64	Namibia	0	0	1	1
64	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
64	Syria	0	0	1	1

(Photo credit: Xinhua)

Paralympics Update, Day 7

Kyle Whelliston — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:18:31 -0700

With seven days in the books, 322 events have been completed -- that's already more than the 2008 Olympics registered, and there are four days left in the Paralympics. The 1000th medal from this event will be awarded sometime today. Sunday will be the busiest day of the games, with medal events in archery, athletics, cycling, powerlifting, swimming, volleyball, fencing and tennis. It's also the gold medal game in men's goalball, which will put the underdog United States, which came out of a No. 8 seed to reach the final, against hosts China.

ATHLETICS: A little under a month since Jamaican Usain Bolt streaked to a sprint double at the Olympics, Oscar Pistorius of South Africa (above) performed the same feat at the Paralympics. The "Blade Runner" took the T44 200m race in 21.67 seconds, and will compete in the 400m, which is his strongest event. He missed the Olympic A standard by .7 seconds in July. Here's a video of Pistorius in action against able-bodied runners at a Golden League event last summer.

BASKETBALL: Iran has a troubling record of withdrawing from events whenever Israel is competing. Last month, Iranian swimmer Mohammad Alirezaei withdrew from a 100m breaststroke heat when Tom Be'eri (ISR) was scheduled to swim against him. The country's Olympic committee stated that Alirezaei withdrew because of illness, and the IOC bought it. Perhaps the IOC had forgotten that Iranian football player for German club team Bayern Munich pulled out of an international match with Maccabi Tel Aviv several years ago, and Arash Miresmaeili refused to go up against an Israeli in the Athens 2004 judo tournament -- which earned him no medal but a hero's bonus of US $125,000 from his country's government.

This unspoken policy seems to extend to the Paralympics as well. Before its basketball quarterfinal against the United States, the Iranian team pulled out of the games altogether. It was originally thought that this was over simmering tensions with the U.S., but the bracket indicated a virtually assured possible matchup with Israel if they both had won (semifinals) or both lost (classification round). Israel played defending Olympic champions Canada in the opposing bracket, losing 55-47. Indeed, the classification game between Iran and Israel, scheduled for Monday, has already been registered as a 20-0 walkover for the Israeli team. Iran will automatically finish eighth in the tournament.

As has been the pattern, Iran denied the pullout was for political reasons. Their officials announced that the team had forfeited because the U.S.-Iran and Canada-Israel games, originally scheduled for 9:15 and 11:15, had been switched without notice. The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation stated that the quarterfinal A and B game switch was made on Sept. 5.

Perhaps it's due to London 2012 fever, but the most thoughtful and thorough English-language coverage of the 2008 Paralympics is coming from Great Britain (or perhaps it's the nation's second-place showing in the medal table). As Guardian/Observer scribe Eddie Butler puts it, sometimes it feels like he's the only one there.

Of course there is a difference between the Olympics and the Paralympics. Perhaps it is at its most stark in the International Broadcast Centre, a vast convention centre next to the national stadium, converted for the duration of the two games into a giant television production house. In August, NBC, the American rights' holder, had 2,700 employees on site. For September's Paralympics there are just five NBC staff here. The IBC is a mausoleum.

If you're not plugged in to the British media and you want to get a good grasp of what's going on in Beijing, make sure you watch this excellent recap of events on YouTube (which is called Sixty Seconds but is actually six minutes long). The complete medal table after seven full days follows. China has stretched its overall medal lead by nine to 49, and picked up 12 gold medals to extend its dominance in the gold column over second-place Great Britain. Germany picked up seven medals to move from 10th to eighth on the Paralympic charts.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	49	48	33	130
2	Great Britain	37	21	23	81
3	United States	26	19	21	66
4	Ukraine	18	12	21	51
5	Australia	15	21	21	57
6	Russia	15	17	14	46
7	South Africa	15	2	5	22
8	Germany	12	18	17	47
9	Spain	12	18	16	46
10	Canada	12	7	15	34
11	Brazil	11	8	12	31
12	South Korea	8	6	11	25
13	France	7	16	9	32
14	Mexico	7	2	5	14
15	Tunisia	5	6	2	13
16	Cuba	5	3	6	14
17	Czech Republic	5	2	13	20
18	New Zealand	4	3	4	11
19	Kenya	4	2	1	7
20	Algeria	4	1	5	10
21	Sweden	4	1	2	7
22	Japan	3	8	3	14
23	Italy	3	4	4	11
24	Belarus	3	4	1	8
25	Egypt	3	2	3	8
26	Nigeria	3	2	1	6
27	Austria	3	1	0	4
28	Poland	2	9	9	20
29	Greece	2	6	5	13
29	Netherlands	2	6	5	13
31	Denmark	2	1	3	6
32	Morocco	2	1	1	4
33	Croatia	2	1	0	3
34	Ireland	2	0	1	3
35	Iran	1	4	1	6
35	Portugal	1	4	1	6
37	Azerbaijan	1	3	4	8
38	Switzerland	1	2	3	6
39	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
39	Slovakia	1	2	1	4
41	Thailand	1	1	4	6
42	Hong Kong	1	1	1	3
43	Latvia	1	1	0	2
43	Saudi Arabia	1	1	0	2
45	Hungary	1	0	4	5
46	Venezuela	1	0	2	3
47	Finland	1	0	1	2
47	Turkey	1	0	1	2
49	Israel	0	5	1	6
50	Norway	0	3	3	6
51	Angola	0	2	0	2
51	Jordan	0	2	0	2
53	Argentina	0	1	3	4
54	Singapore	0	1	2	3
54	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
56	Iraq	0	1	0	1
56	Lithuania	0	1	0	1
56	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
56	Romania	0	1	0	1
56	Serbia	0	1	0	1
61	Belgium	0	0	1	1
61	Colombia	0	0	1	1
61	Estonia	0	0	1	1
61	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
61	Laos	0	0	1	1
61	Lebanon	0	0	1	1
61	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
61	Namibia	0	0	1	1
61	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
61	Syria	0	0	1	1

(Photo credit: Xinhua)

Paralympics Update, Day 6

Kyle Whelliston — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:35:59 -0700

Paralympic sitting volleyball, a game which dates back to the Netherlands in the 1950's, is a fast-paced game designed for amputee and polio-stricken athletes. It's played with a meter-high net, and quick hands are an absolute necessity. Above, a moment from a classification match between Latvia and Ukraine in the women's tournament, in the first round of the fifth through eighth place pool. The Ukranian side won in straight sets.

A total of 272 events have been completed, with 831 medals awarded. On Day 6, podiums will be set out for athletics, cycling, shooting and swimming. It's also the last day of the boccia tournament, a gentle game of balls and jacks that may seem out of place with all the physicality going on in Beijing.

Especially when compared to a sport making its 2008 start on Day 6: wheelchair rugby. Open to quadriplegics, it's colloquially called "murderball" and inspired a documentary of that same name three years ago after Athens. The United States team featured in the film is expected to reclaim its Paralympic title after finishing third in 2004, and opened the eight-team, five-day tournament with a 65-30 rout of host nation China.

"There's a lot of shock and awe because people aren't used to seeing athletes in wheelchairs running into one another," U.S. coach James Gumbert said. "It goes against everything we are taught — we're frail, we can break easily."

BASKETBALL: Wheelchair basketball, like murderball, not only challenges common preconceptions about what's possible in a chair -- it redefines the hoops map of developed nations. While the able-bodied Great Britain side is just getting over its struggles with getting out of European qualifications, the wheelchair team won bronze in Athens and ended the round-robin in Beijing at 4-1, including a four-point win over the United States. Canada, whose national team fell apart in qualifying earlier this summer, has a Paralympic team to be proud of. Defending gold medalists, the Canadians roared into the medal round with a perfect 5-0 record and the tournament's hottest offense. They'll play Israel in the quarterfinals today.

SWIMMING: One of the more recognizable names of the Paralympics, South African swimmer Natalie du Toit (right), won her fourth gold medal of the 2008 Beijing games on Day 6, a 4:43.81 world record in the 400m freestyle. She has one more race to go on Sunday, the 50m free.

ATHLETICS: In the do-over race after a spectacular crash wiped out half the field in the women's T54 5000m event, more excitement. A photo finish put American Amanda McGrory in first this time, as two athletes injured in the wipeout did not take part and crash-causer Edith Hunkeler of Switzerland was not allowed to take part. McGrory won by one-hundredth of a second, or in her words, an inch. "I didn’t even see the finish line," she told reporters afterwards "I was going to just push as long and hard as I could."

Here's the complete medal table after six full days of competition. China has maintained its overall 40-medal lead, and is staving off a strong challenge from Great Britain in the gold column. While Ukraine won't medal in women's volleyball, the nation has leapfrogged over Australia for fourth in championships.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	37	42	30	109
2	Great Britain	33	20	16	69
3	United States	23	16	17	56
4	Ukraine	15	10	17	42
5	Australia	14	18	17	49
6	Russia	13	14	14	41
7	Spain	12	17	14	43
8	South Africa	12	1	4	17
9	Brazil	10	8	10	28
10	Germany	9	17	14	40
11	Canada	9	7	13	29
12	South Korea	7	6	9	22
13	France	6	12	8	26
14	Tunisia	5	4	2	11
15	Czech Republic	5	2	11	18
16	Cuba	5	2	4	11
16	Mexico	5	2	4	11
18	Sweden	4	1	2	7
19	Algeria	4	0	5	9
20	Japan	3	6	3	12
21	Belarus	3	4	0	7
22	New Zealand	3	2	4	9
23	Austria	3	1	0	4
23	Nigeria	3	1	0	4
25	Poland	2	7	9	18
26	Netherlands	2	4	5	11
27	Italy	2	3	3	8
28	Kenya	2	2	1	5
29	Denmark	2	1	3	6
29	Egypt	2	1	3	6
31	Greece	1	6	4	11
32	Azerbaijan	1	3	2	6
33	Iran	1	3	1	5
33	Portugal	1	3	1	5
35	Cyprus	1	2	1	4
35	Slovakia	1	2	1	4
37	Thailand	1	1	4	6
38	Switzerland	1	1	2	4
39	Hong Kong	1	1	1	3
40	Croatia	1	1	0	2
40	Latvia	1	1	0	2
40	Morocco	1	1	0	2
43	Hungary	1	0	4	3
44	Venezuela	1	0	2	3
45	Finland	1	0	1	2
45	Ireland	1	0	1	2
47	Saudi Arabia	1	0	0	1
48	Israel	0	4	1	5
49	Norway	0	3	3	6
50	Jordan	0	2	0	2
51	Slovenia	0	1	2	3
52	Angola	0	1	0	1
52	Iraq	0	1	0	1
52	Lithuania	0	1	0	1
52	Pakistan	0	1	0	1
52	Romania	0	1	0	1
52	Serbia	0	1	0	1
58	Argentina	0	0	3	3
59	Singapore	0	0	2	2
60	Belgium	0	0	1	1
60	Colombia	0	0	1	1
60	Jamaica	0	0	1	1
60	Laos	0	0	1	1
60	Lebanon	0	0	1	1
60	Malaysia	0	0	1	1
60	Namibia	0	0	1	1
60	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
60	Turkey	0	0	1	1

Photo credits: Reuters, AP