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Cheerleaders with Bible Verses Set Off a Debate
The hand-painted red banner created by high school cheerleaders here for Friday night’s football game against Woodville was finished days ago. It contains a passage from the Bible — Hebrews 12:1 — that reads: “And let us run with endurance…
Cheerleaders Gain Ally in Free Speech Fight
Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday lent his support to a group of East Texas cheerleaders who are fighting in court to keep using banners with Bible verses at public school football games.
CEO Pay in 2012 Was Extraordinarily High Relative to Typical Workers and Other High Earners
The 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were prosperous times for top U.S. executives, especially relative to other wage earners and even relative to other very high wage earners (those earning more than 99.9 percent of all wage earners). Executives constitute a…
Broken Promises
WHEN I retired in 2011 after serving 30 years in Congress, there was one set of issues I knew I could not leave behind. I donated $1 million of unused campaign funds to create the Center for Native American Youth…
Brazil Confident World Cup Will Leave a Lasting Legacy
Listen to any Brazilian official talking about their country hosting the 2014 World Cup, and the word they all use is “legacy”. And they say it all the time. Speaking at the Soccerex global business industry convention in Rio de…
Brain Injury Study: A Single Season of Hits May Harm College Athletes’ Ability to Learn
Just a single season of contact sports can take a toll on college athletes’ ability to learn, according to a new study. Overall, one season’s worth of repetitive hits did not seriously harm players’ thinking and memory skills, but when…
Blatter Bribes Warner With TV Bonanza
An explosive confidential letter written by FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke reveals that he and president Blatter secretly bypassed FIFA’s committees to give World Cup television rights to former vice-president Jack Warner, rather than sell them in the open market.
Black Men as College Athletes: The Real Win-loss Record
Frustrated by the endless grumbling about black men’s failures, I have spent much of my career examining how black men get to college and what helps them succeed. We now have hard data, and many of the most effective strategies…
Big Ten Guarantees Graduation Opportunity for its Athletes
All 14 of the Big Ten Conference’s schools have agreed to generally guarantee that any athlete who receives an athletic scholarship will be able to keep that award until they graduate, the conference announced Wednesday.
Beyond Larry Nassar: Hundreds of Athletes Are Fighting USA Gymnastics in Court Over Abuse
Athletes say Nassar was just one abuser of many. A bankruptcy case could be their chance at restitution.
Blatter Tries to Gag 2010 Reporters
As criticism of FIFA grows in South Africa over the huge prices being demanded for World Cup tickets, travel and hotel rooms, Sepp Blatter’s Thought Police are swinging into action, threatening to ban reporters who dare to write stories ‘bringing…
Benching the Title IX Changes
In April, the Obama administration gave itself a victory lap, thinking it had just scored the winning goal by rolling back a 2005 Bush administration Title IX policy clarification. In his announcement, Vice President Biden called the rollback a “no…
Behind Ugly Locker-room Talk Divisions of Class and Race
There’s a joke here about “the great Amherst chain of being.” The phrase evokes an invisible continuum, binding Amherst College students to their alma mater from graduation to grave. It is the strength of this chain that brings alumni back…
Battle of the Sexes Rages on at Olympics
Women boxers have claimed an early victory at the 2012 Olympics by knocking out the last all-male sport but the battle for sex equality at the Games rages on, and not just among women – male synchronized swimmers are also…
Barack Obama is Not Pleased: The President on His Enemies, The Media, and The Future of Football
Barack Obama’s pre-presidential manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, has only one extended riff on gun control—not a homily on behalf of the cause or even a meditation on the deep divisions opened by the debate, but a story of crummy…
At Meeting of Knight Commission, Old Ideas Are New Again
Amid growing scrutiny of college sports, leaders of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics gathered here on Monday to discuss what they called “new approaches for the next era.” The featured speaker was Brian Hainline, chief medical officer of the…
At Louisville, Athletic Boom is Rooted In ESPN Partnership
In February, the president of the University of Louisville, James R. Ramsey, traveled to Florida to meet with donors and alumni. Dr. Ramsey is an economist, and he led off on the dismal side of the ledger, from the challenges…
An Olympics Built For Records; Defying Expectations, The London Games Have Produced a Series of Top Performances, Thanks to Facilities That Were Deliberately Engineered to Give Athletes Every Possible Edge
Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director for the Olympic Games, said designing facilities that allow athletes to go faster is part of the DNA of international sports federations.
A U.S. Soccer Star’s Declaration of Independence
The latest attempt at a women’s professional soccer league in the United States begins this weekend, so the stars of the American team from the London Olympics have, for the most part, returned to preaching the gospel stateside. Abby Wambach,…
A Theology of Sports: On the Rebound
In his helpful review of my recent work, Peter J. Leithart raises two important questions about the constructive argument advanced in A Brief Theology of Sport. I am grateful to Leithart for engaging with my work, and value the insightful…
A Shocking Number of Youth Sports Coaches Are Unqualified for The Gig
A great youth sports experience starts with a great coach. The problem is, the number of great coaches in youth sports seems to be decreasing. Many good ones have simply hung up their clipboard after deciding increasingly overzealous parents weren’t…
A Rich Fantasy Life: Sports Fans Dream of Making a Living Off Games — Mr. Dinkmeyer Leaves Investing, Bets He Can Put Together Winners; Studying Stats
Daily-fantasy games, which condense full-length seasons into nightly competitions, were responsible for $492 million of the $1.7 billion spent on fantasy sports in 2012, according to a Fantasy Sports Trade Association study. Every night during baseball season, Mr. Keur studied…
A Quick Look at NWSL Salaries
On Thursday’s national conference call previewing the inaugural National Women’s Soccer League season, league executive director Cheryl Bailey said players’ salaries will range from $6,000-$30,000.
8 in 10 Parents Think Kids’ Extracurricular Activities May One Day Lead to Income
Eight in 10 parents with young children who participate in extracurricular activities think those pursuits could someday lead to income for their kid, according to a new report from LendingTree, and the more you spend on your kids’ activities, the…
2011: When Sports Met the World
Pro athletes are told from the moment they first put on sneakers to check their politics at the locker-room door. But 2011 wasn’t an ordinary year, on or off the playing field, from the Arab Spring to Occupy USA, to…
10 Charts That Show Progress Challenges to Fix Youth Sports
Flag football surpassed tackle as the most commonly played form of the game for kids ages 6 to 12 in 2017. Fewer kids are physically inactive. Sampling of most major team sports is up. Most coaches are still winging it.…
`The Government is Reining in Youth Sports. The Adults Are Worried’
Puerto Rico is introducing far-reaching regulations on organizers of youth sports in an attempt to protect children from excessive competition.
“It’s a New World”: The Super Bowl Becomes a Platform for LGBT Equality
A positive push for LGBT rights will, believe it or not, be part of Super Bowl week in New Orleans. Super Bowl XLVII is being billed as the Harbaugh Bowl: the battle between Jim and John Harbaugh, head coaches, respectively,…
“Hey, Data Data –Swing!” The Hidden Demographics of Youth Sports
Competitive Youth Sports may be as American as apple pie, but we know a lot less about youth sports than we do about apple pie. The problem is that while the FDA takes responsibility for knowing everything about our food…
“Dear Colleague” Letter
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the United States Department of Education (Department) is responsible for enforcing Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age by recipients of Federal financial…
‘Lest Ye Be Judged’
Every day is Judgment Day for an umpire. In the early days of organized baseball, team owners actually encouraged fans to harass umps who made questionable, or just unpopular, calls — throw beer bottles at them, or even the occasional…
Ultra Violence: How Egypt’s Soccer Mobs Are Threatening the Revolution
Wednesday’s lethal soccer riots in the Suez Canal town of Port Said, which left more than 73 spectators and security personnel dead, marks a watershed moment in Egypt after the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak. This tragedy is not…
Seeing Old Age as a Never-ending Adventure
Ilse Telesmanich, 90, sprained her ankle hiking in South Africa last August. She tried to keep going on the three-week trip, she said, hobbled as she was. “I got very good at hopping on one foot the last time I…
Rap Sheets, Recruits, and Repercussions
A six-month investigation by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and CBS News reveals that an alarming number of the players at top college football programs have criminal records. A comprehensive look at where the problem begins, how it has been ignored and what…
Putin’s Run for Gold
At $50 billion and counting, the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, will be the most expensive Olympic Games ever. Intended to showcase the power of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, they may instead highlight its problems: organized crime, state corruption, and the…
Looking Upstream in Doping Cases
The case against Lance Armstrong by antidoping officials detailed how Armstrong, as the leader of his professional cycling team, used performance-enhancing drugs over many years to fuel his run as a seven-time Tour de France champion. It detailed the lengths…
Is There Life After Football? Surviving the NFL
2016 Best Book Award, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport A human face on the realities of professional football, from the challenges players face after leaving the NFL to the factors that can enable them to continue to…
High School Powers That Offer Solutions to Public, Private Problem
In recent seasons, powerful private schools Valor Christian, Mullen and Regis Jesuit seem to be winning state football, state soccer, state everything.
For Bettors, Masters is A Major Event, Too
Golf and gambling have been linked forever. Countless weekend foursomes begin their rounds with the familiar first-tee question: “So, what are we playing for today?” Lee Trevino even said that “real pressure is playing for $10 a hole when you…
Book Review: Sport in Latin America: Policy, Organization, Management
Language barriers and limited formal connections between professional academic associations in Latin American and the rest of the world have hampered knowledge production and distribution on sports as social phenomena in Central and South America and the Caribbean. This fact…
‘My Under-10 Matches Are the Worst’: No End in Sight to Youth Referee Abuse
While many acknowledge that the abuse and assault of referees is endemic in American sports culture, few people seem willing to do anything about it.
What the NFL Won’t Show You
This NFL season a new controversy has emerged among pro football fans: a growing resentment over the content the NFL and the networks won’t share with the television audience. Call it the great All 22 Controversy of 2011. Media as…
The Youth Sports Megacomplex Comes to Town, Hoping Teams will Follow
Just past the Hampton Inn and the Chick-fil-A, beyond the climbing wall but not as far as the water park, is your field of dreams. Actually, there are eight of them: all major league-sized, synthetic-turfed and LED-lit, and wedged in…
The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sports
Since the mid-1950s, the NCAA has promoted a mythology that college athletes on “full” scholarship receive a “free ride” in terms of their college education. As has repeatedly come to light, athletes in the revenue-producing sports of football and men’s…
The Price of Football That Even Non-fans Pay
Fans of the New York Jets would have liked nothing better than to be spending money to cheer on their team at Sunday’s Super Bowl in Dallas. Unfortunately, their team was defeated by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship…
The Astronomical Cost of Kids’ Sports
In TIME’s cover story this week, senior writer Sean Gregory explores the growing business of kids’ sports — a $15.3 billion industry that has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Between league fees, camps, equipment, training and travel, families…