Hall of Fame basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian passed away this week after several years of struggling with his health. Rest easy my friend. The media has been telling us all week about his prowess as a coach and how he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. Too bad they couldn’t do that years [...]
I had the opportunity to see the No. 1 high school basketball team in the country (Findlay Prep, Las Vegas, NV) play this weekend against their crosstown rival, Gorman Catholic High School. Gorman’s record doesn’t match Findlay Prep’s, but they battled wire-to-wire and Findlay Prep managed to eke out the victory. Most of the game [...]
Not that it will make any difference, but I have a quarrel with media commentators and sports writers that can’t get further back than 20-25 years when referring to the all-time best performers (individuals, teams, etc.). Comparison’s are basically wasted motion because of the distance between performances, but being the best there is, whenever it [...]
This past week’s Sports Illustrated featured tonight’s football game for the National Championship between the University of Oregon and Ohio State University. It is the culmination of the first real playoff in Division I college football. In this issue there was another article, one by Seth Davis about someone I have always loved spending time [...]
A couple of weeks ago the best basketball team I ever coached at the community college level had a reunion in Las Vegas. Even though we were a California team, we felt that Las Vegas would attract the largest number of team members. Also, we had athletes from both coasts on the team. Of course, [...]
We hear it all year long. It’s “playoff time.” Football, basketball, baseball, etc. My question is “what were we doing during the season?” I am no mathematician, but I thought 100% was 100%. Shouldn’t we be practicing at 100%, performing at 100%, playing as a team at 100%? It seems to me that if we [...]
In the sports world, spring/early summer there is a lot of hype around the pro sports drafts. Being a high draft choice is money in the pocket. College basketball is especially famous for its “one and done” athletes. The irony of this is that many of these young athletes ARE “done.” If they don’t make [...]
The Final Four is decided. The Univ. of Florida, Univ. of Conn, Univ. of Wisconsin and Univ. of Kentucky are in. With the exception of the Badgers, all the participants have won multiple NCAA titles. Bo Ryan might be the best coach in the country ergo Wisconsin reigns. The rich get richer and they like [...]
This past week, the basketballl world lost a great participant in the game he loved. His name is Bill Sharman and he was my idol and my friend. We both called Porteville, CA (I was born there) our home and we actually coached in the NBA (Los Angeles and Portland) at the same time. Not [...]
This week’s Sports Illustrated had a story on Kansas University men’s basketball and talked about three impact players from that university’s storied basketball program. Also mentioned was a fourth person, Phog Allen, whose influence allowed for that history. One thing that getting older provides is the experience of going through several decades of a school’s [...]