College football, in search of itself
Wisconsin’s dumbfounding firing of Paul Chryst the other day took me back to a day in Madison 44 years ago. I stood on the sideline at Camp Randall Stadium and in the last five minutes, watched an Oregon team in the second season of Rich Brooks’ stewardship burp...
Track, beguiling and still behind the times
Oh, track and field. It flits in and out of our consciousness every so often, teasing with performances not to be forgotten, giving us the best the human body can possibly generate – and then recedes to the shadows, so Steven A can unleash one more point about...
For some colleges, more cash (and they’ll need it)
Sorting through the modest array of Pac-12 options following the UCLA/USC hejira to the Big Ten – expansion? contraction? extinction? – I’ve been thinking again about the ways money has driven college sports to a state of utter chaos. A couple of old quotes are especially striking,...
Day-after notions: Flight on, Trojans
Thursday was the most head-banging, jaw-dropping sports day I can remember. Even if we’re lumping in administrative moves – as opposed to a competition like the 1980 U.S. hockey win over Russia, or Buster Douglas’ 42-to-1 conquest of Mike Tyson in 1990 – it figuratively shook the earth. ...
A little belatedly, LA schools will get their cash
If you’re trying to lasso some perspective on Thursday’s cataclysmic news of USC and UCLA bolting for the Big Ten Conference, you need go no further than the Pac-12’s own football media guide, where it lists annual standings. There, you’ll find that in 1922, USC was first part of...
The forgotten force in the NIL boom
Over coffee recently, a friend who has University of Washington interests stopped me. We were discussing the roiling waters of college sports’ name-image-and-likeness tsunami, and he said something that never occurred to me, something that seems buried in the news of deals, cars and cash. He said he...
A bracketing idea whose time has come (and which has absolutely no shot)
For many of us, it’s ultimately about the bracket – our bracket. To get to that creature of sweet possibilities, the NCAA tournament has known a long evolution: The incremental growth from eight teams to 68; seeding of teams, starting in 1979; the 2001 implementation of the geographically...
The hire that wasn’t alters the Pac-12 landscape
Five words. Five innocent, but chilling words that frame the future of two Pac-12 basketball programs, and indeed, the entire conference. “I never got a call.” As the college hoops season winds down, one of its surprises is the University of Arizona, which, following the skidding,...
College football coaches are dropping like flies (well, rich flies)
In January of 1999, Rick Neuheisel was introduced as the new University of Washington football coach, at an eye-opening salary of $997,000 annually. Rounding up a few shoe-shines, Neuheisel was the fifth college-football coach making a mil a year. A decade later, in 2009, I can recall...
Jimmy Lake did a lot of stupid things last week, but that final punt wasn’t one
You could say the last week hasn’t been the best for Jimmy Lake. Seemingly, only Aaron Rodgers absorbed more derision. Wayward comments about academics at Oregon, striking/pushing one of his University of Washington football players on the sidelines, claiming he didn’t hit him, losing a game to...