Originally published in the June 15, 2015 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Why Not Flag Football? It’s time for parents, school officials, the sports media, fans and anyone else who continues to resist the need to reconsider and re-imagine tackle football at the youth, junior high and high school levels to take a long, hard […]
I’ve participated in, worked in, studied, researched and written about college athletics for over 40 years. It’s not often that I see something that makes me sit up, take notice and say “Are you kidding me?” Last week I had such a moment when LSU announced that it signed its’ defensive coordinator, Dave Aranda, to
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When football legends Bo Jackson, Harry Carson and Mike Ditka say it, it’s a big deal. People pay attention to what athletes of their stature say. The “it” is that they would never let their sons play football. With increasing revelations regarding the link between tackle football and brain trauma, this should come as no
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By Laine Higgins Texas A&M University on Thursday will hold a lottery in which the winners walk away with an unusual—and very expensive—prize: The right to pay $100,000 for a hotel reservation. The six-figure price tag is largely based on a single amenity: The yet-to-be-built hotel will sit across the street—96 feet away, to be
WSJ – Coming Soon to Campus: The $100,000 Hotel Room Read More »
There were two recent items in the media regarding high school tackle football that, taken together, provide a strong hint of the future of the sport in our schools. The first was a report that a three-judge panel of Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court rejected an attempt by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) to have a
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Picture this. A magnified image of a cross section of the human brain. The image shows hundreds of tiny brownish bits. These bits are toxic proteins, called tau, that form after brain trauma. Tau can inhibit cellular functions in the brain, leading to depression, dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease)
In 1989, NIKE started an ad campaign for cross training footwear featuring Bo Jackson, a former Heisman Trophy winner and the only man to be an All-Star in baseball and All-Pro in football. The ad featured stars in various sports proclaiming that “Bo knows” whichever sport, whether baseball, football, hockey or golf, was featured in
Each year, the NFL goes about the business of drafting college players. Before draft day, players attend the NFL “combine” in Indianapolis where they are measured poked, interviewed and tested. This all leads to the draft itself when a large chunk of the sports world follows with intense interest, which teams select which players. Media
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“The athletic department of tomorrow could go through what Bristol is going through today,” writes Frank Hawkins, principal of Scalar Media Partners, a Manhattan sports and media consulting firm, in a May 9, 2017 article in SI.com. Hawkins was referring to the recent severe downsizing at the Bristol, CT based cable sports network ESPN. As
In 2002, I published a book titled “Sports: The All-American Addition”. The basic premise was that organized sport in America had evolved to a point where it’s overall impact on our schools, universities and society has become more negative than positive. My analysis focused on five areas: sports’ impact on the values at the center
