Now that we’ve officially landed feet-first into chilly November, the Bowl Championship Series debate, the same tired conversational retread that forces college football fans to shake their heads and others their fists, soon will rage.
One sure sign you may be getting old is that you begin boring your children with the notion that life was so much better when you were a kid.
Every year there are certain races that I consider must-sees.
Penn State hosts Minnesota in college football on Saturday, a matchup in which the winner earns no less than an additional seven-day stay near the top of the Big Ten standings with the likes of league unbeatens Ohio State and Iowa.
And no one will care. Why? Because Joe Paterno is old.
Shortly after the Baltimore Colts packed the Mayflowers and tippy-toed across not one, but three state lines in the middle of the night, I remember thinking how cool it would be if the team altered the uniforms and helmets. Nothing overwhelmingly drastic. A black horseshoe on the helmet instead of blue; black home jerseys with the same striping and numbers.
For children with physical or emotional challenges the great outdoors might be nothing more than a patch of asphalt or slab of concrete.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going — that seems to describe Jimmie Johnson’s Sprint Cup team.
Since NASCAR changed the method by which a champion is crowned, the California-born driver and the Lowe’s Chevrolet racing team out of the Hendrick Motorsports stable has excelled in the 10-race Chase.
Lincoln’s Dave Darland turned in a huge weekend at the Eldora Speedway, which possibly could parlay into his second USAC National Sprint Car Series title and sixth overall national title.
Some men are born to be college football coaches. Head college football coaches. Others because of their personality and/or coaching strengths and weaknesses are better suited to remain the outstanding assistant they were prior to getting an opportunity to sit in the big office.
America’s Team backed the shiny new Rolls-Royce out of its seven-car garage the other night so that a football-watching universe could squeeze in one collective ooh when it wasn’t busy aah-ing.
While the 2009 season is slowly winding down across the Midwest, Kokomo’s Jimmy Nutter seems to be hitting his stride.
Friday night at the Gas City I-69 Speedway, the popular driver piloted his No. 1N Street Stock to the feature win over the always-tough Brandon Roundtree.
Australian driver Ryan Briscoe is not out of the running for the IndyCar Series championship, but if he loses the title to either Scott Dixon or Dario Franchitti, he will look back at the race in Japan.
After eight months of preliminary racing, the field for the Chase to the Sprint Cup title has been set and as in past years the team to watch is Hendrick Motorsports.
The idea first came to Jim Schumacher 20 years ago while fishing with his kids.
“The bobbers I bought weren’t worth a darn for casting in the wind and they broke when the kids banged them off seawalls and rocks,” he recalled.
Many of the hunters and anglers I know do an admirable job of passing on their outdoor knowledge to their own kids and friends. But in our increasingly urbanized society we cannot do enough to generate new stewards of our great outdoors to keep up.
So appreciated a spectacle is college football that we boisterously applaud its arrival regardless of how the first wave of games plays out. Great matchups, mediocre matchups, doesn’t matter. What does is that there is tackling, tailgating and a halftime tuba section, and not necessarily in that order.
Eastern High School all-state football player Rob Patchett had lofty aspirations when he left Greentown in the summer of 1985. The plan included living in New York City and being a somebody wearing expensive suits — living the high life.
Is he or isn’t he? Will he or won’t he? And if he does, will his acceptance speech qualify as mean-spirited or be so ridiculously sweet that it has those in attendance dabbing their eyes?
For the second consecutive year, there will be different sights and sounds at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the Red Bull Indianapolis GP will attract the best motorcycle riders in the world.
Here in America, professional football is the biggest, baddest dude on the sports block. The one so incredibly muscular and annoyingly Teflon that negativity, adamant in its refusal to stick, simply slides away.
What affect does Tiger Woods have on golf? Besides winning, which seems to happen in most of the tournaments he enters, he is actually good for the other players also. Television viewers like to see Tiger compete and win.
Known more for his coaching prowess, Rick Pitino also writes books. Lots and lots of books. Motivational, get-you-to-run-through-a-brick-wall books.
Beads of sweat formed on my forehead during the short walk down the small hill to the gravel strewn bank. Last weekend’s high heat and humidity made the timing perfect.
Quietly, without a lot of media fanfare, the championship points race for the IndyCar Series is loaded with drama with four races remaining.
A trio of award-winning coaches, an outstanding two-sport athlete, one of the state’s premier golfers and Kokomo High School’s very first IHSAA state champion compose the seventh class of the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame.
During the upcoming off-season, I will look back at the 2009 season at the Kokomo Speedway with a myriad of emotions.
Someone asked me the other day when I last tested the turnstiles at a Major League Baseball game. Couldn’t pinpoint a specific year, but could produce a venue (Wrigley Field) and the Cubs’ opponent that sun-drenched afternoon (St. Louis).
I received a bit of a surprise just the other day.
What a difference a year makes.
This time last year, Goodyear was in damage-control mode, trying to explain why its tires made the 2008 Brickyard 400 resemble a series of 10-lap heat races. On Sunday, Goodyear earned positive reviews for its new product.
Oh to be a kid again — no cares, hobbles, horrors or whistles, just a rod, reel and a waterway of fish. Innocence should be so free and simple.
With just seven races before the Chase for the NASCAR championship begins, the spotlight is squarely shining on the Hendricks Motorsports team.
Heading into the arduous seven races in eight days event commonly known is Indiana Sprint Week for the USAC National Sprint Car Series, Lincoln’s Dave Darland needed a single win to tie Cory Kruseman for the most ISW wins in the 22-year history of the event.
Ahh, it’s summertime in the park. Fresh air, kids playing, families picnicking and Canada geese, eating, loafing and leaving droppings.
Whether he is guilty of using methamphe-tamines or not, the NASCAR career of Jeremy Mayfield is at an end.
A couple weeks back I noted that the excitement that goes hand in hand with a United States Auto Club (USAC) event is almost second to none.
At some point late in the college basketball season, I was editing a story about Tyler Hansbrough and read some annoyed comments from him about the nay-sayers who dog him.
It was quite the scene, 65 proud, plucky veterans who’ve stared life in the eye through thick, thin or thistle enjoying their moment in the spotlight — the annual Haynes-Apperson Festival Horseshoe Tournament at Highland Park.
Things I’ve tossed around while wondering when the last time was that three entertainment icons passed away in a 60-hour window of time the way Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson just did.
To hear the so-called experts talk, 2009 is going to be the year of the Indianapolis Colts. The year the franchise begins its descent back toward mediocrity, that is.
The United States Auto Club National Sprint Car Series wrapped up its journey to the East Coast with Kokomo Speedway standout Cole Whitt bagging a pair of feature wins.
One turns 31 in August and is a soon-to-be four-time world champion. The other is 24 and doing everything in his power to emulate one Michael Jordan short of marrying the same woman.
Forget June 21. Summer officially begins when the kids have exhausted their final day of school. Now all we can do is hope the NBA playoffs have concluded by the time they go back.
Which sounds better, the Seattle Pacers or the Vancouver Pacers? Widening our playing field a bit, there’s always the Las Vegas Pacers, San Diego Pacers and St. Louis Pacers. Don’t forget Brooklyn. And there’s always the Louisville Pacers.
It was the same game with the same special allure and fanfare but one reserved for unique people — a perfect introduction for the 2009 Kokomo City of Firsts United States Bowling Congress Association Hall of Fame Induction ceremony held at Main Occasions Ballroom Saturday night.
“Isn’t this something,” I thought to myself last week as I cleared small branches and forest duff from the base of a large ash tree while preparing for an evening wild turkey hunt. It was an auspicious moment, something I’d only hoped to see in my lifetime.
The man most qualified to sprinkle dashes of human element into the Tiger-ized and, thus, incredibly droll PGA Tour is 43. We know that’s John Daly’s age. It might also qualify as his waistline, how many cigarettes he smokes a day or his average putt count per 18 holes.
Attempts to keep a secure lid on your excitement will be difficult when reminded, as I was recently, that the 2009 NBA Draft is less than two months away.
Although rain has dogged most outdoor activities this week, the extended forecast is calling for a break over the weekend which will allow the Kokomo Speedway to kick off its 62nd season-opener.
Good fortune was shining on NASCAR this weekend.
It’s common knowledge Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis is carrying around enough cobwebs in the old attic to make a sweater. Make that a bedspread based on the questionable selections made by senility’s poster boy during the recent NFL Draft.
Happens every year around this time. The roster for the Indiana boys All-Star Basketball Team is made public and all you-know what breaks loose.
As is the case every Sunday night when the Kokomo Speedway sits idle, I find myself perched in my comfortable La-Z-Boy chair in my “man cave” as they are called now, watching Wind Tunnel with Dave DeSpain.
It’s been a long haul, but my medical advisers at the animal shelter have confirmed — my bark is cheery as ever.
If Mother Nature gives up a reprieve this weekend will begin the 2009 dirt track season at both the Gas City I-69 Speedway as well as Tony Stewart’s new and improved Eldora Speedway.
Purdue’s men’s basketball team cut down the nets at Conseco Fieldhouse as champions of the Big Ten tournament. It was the only net the Boilers cut this season.
I’ve been kicking this one around for a few months:
Is it better for the Big East to be so large?
A wise person once told me that one could lose out on tomorrow if they keep thinking back to days gone by.
Bearing that in mind, I may have missed out on a couple of days over the weekend as I spent most of my spare time recollecting over sprint car photos I’ve accumulated over the years.
The Indy Racing League kicks off its season this coming weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla., with one of its biggest stars sitting on the sidelines.
Now that the Final Four is set — and lacking an Indiana program for the 20th time in 22 seasons — looking ahead to the 2010 version of March Madness isn’t all that uncommon.
“What, me go bass fishing?” a guy said while visiting with his friend at a Mississinewa boat ramp last weekend. “There is no way I could afford it,” he said gesturing toward the glistening metal-flake bass boat loaded with rods, boxes of lures and mysterious electronic gadgets. “It’s way too complicated and way too expensive.”
Call me the eternal optimist but I honestly have high hopes for local race tracks as the 2009 season approaches.
Turn on the television and hit any of the round-the-clock news channels and it would be all too easy to simply give up hope. All you see and hear is doom and gloom.
When I spoke to Audrey McDonald a week ago as she and the Ball State Cardinals prepared for their NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament game against two-time defending national champion Tennessee, she joked about being recruited by the top program in the country.
Anyone who watched Audrey McDonald during her four seasons in the Kokomo Lady Kats basketball program knows that even beyond her shooting touch, she’s known for her competitiveness.
Your place of employment is having an NCAA Tournament pool.
Everyone who utilizes our states natural resources, and even those who don’t, should be happy with recent news.
It snows something like 304 days a year in Buffalo, doesn’t it? We’re talking some up-to-your-doorknob days when just peering out the window at the powdery enemy covering your driveway is enough to pour the ground floor of a monster back ache.
A year ago Helio Castroneves was sitting on top of the world, a two-time Indianapolis 500 and the winner of the made for television “Dancing with the Stars”.
We are constantly reminded that professional sports — that is the games that grown up kids play — is a lot more about money than sport.
This country must shoulder the blame for some of the worst inventions in history. Fraternity members include pop-up ads, three-ply toilet paper and Falstaff. Another is the concept of movie sequels. Porky’s II should have taught us that.
The coach never considered any other option.
For NASCAR, the start of the 2009 season was like déja vu of what took place in 2008.
How great would it be if sports really did have a Hall of Shame?
Some basketball coaches simply look better in retirement. The iconic John Wooden, who with 20 more months of living will be 100, hung up his whistle at age 64 and never looked back. Dean Smith and Denny Crum were 66 and 64, respectively, when they put down their clipboards and called it a career.
Shortly after last week’s snowfall, Don Carter and I decided to try our luck ice fishing an area pond.
Recognized as one of the top stock car drivers in the country, Kyle Busch will make his first ever appearance at Anderson Speedway in June.
Sports topics I’ve kicked around wondering if the Indiana Pacers, on course to win 32 games and again miss the postseason, will keep coach Jim O’Brien or trade him to the New York Knicks for Stephon Marbury and a seat cushion autographed by Spike Lee to be named later:
The finish of the Rolex 24 hour race last Sunday will be one remembered for many years to come.
Dear President Obama:
Congrats on winning the big one. The Super Bowl of American politics. Your popularity level in this country sprinted off the charts weeks ago, a fact likely traced to your unparalleled charisma and two other rather important factors:
We’re not even to the weekend preceding the weekend of Super Bowl XLIII and already the storylines, intriguing and the mundane retread, are inescapable. It’s safe to assume that by the morning of Feb. 1 we’ll have been fed life-altering morsels of information such as:
When the Speed Channel was unveiled in 1996 it brought the promise that televised stock car racing would be raced to a new level. It has failed to deliver.
Love him or loathe him, which is typically the case, Sammy Swindell showed over the weekend why he will go down as one of the best open wheel racers of all time.
LOGANSPORT — Lewis Cass and Logansport were locked in a defensive squabble in the first half of Saturday night’s boys basketball game at the Berry Bowl that would have made former Kings coach Basil Mawbey proud.
Advanced technologies and refinements impact everything with outdoor equipment not being immune.
I’ll admit I was totally surprised Monday when I heard that Colts coach Tony Dungy was going to retire.
We all can benefit from a quality cheat sheet now and again, so, shhhhhh!, here are the answers: Bloomington South (4A), Evansville Memorial (3A), Tipton (2A) and Triton (1A).
After a disappointing 2008 season, Sarah Fisher has secured sponsorship to compete in four oval events for the Indy Racing League.
Hearing the news Monday that Tony Dungy was no longer the face of the Indianapolis Colts, I didn’t know who I felt worse for.
I mean where do you begin?
With the release of the 2009 schedules, the new race season is coming upon us pretty quickly.
With all due respect to the banking and auto industry, the St. Joseph River walleye fishery in northern Indiana got its own “bailout” program of sorts this fall.
Sports tidbits I’ve mentally thrown around while wondering if this latest offseason Colts housecleaning will require the services of, well, a Mayflower moving truck:
Sooner or later, everyone does it. Every January, a book of resolutions is offered up by people of all ages. Unfortunately the binding is not strong enough to hold the book together and after a few short weeks the only thing left are a few ripped pages. Yes, these annual promises make a liar out of most of us.
Years from now, when we look back on 2008, it will be with mixed emotions.
Grand as it would be to see the Indianapolis Colts place hoofprints on three straight opponents en route to a second Super Bowl berth in three years, these NFL playoffs already are special, and we’re not even to our first pregame coinflip.
Racing fan names his top ten races of year
It’s interesting how even some of the best laid plans don’t turn out as expected. But I’m not complaining. This was the case with our two dogs Jesse and Liza-Jane.
while the Pacers are young and lacks big-game seasoning at so many positions, there is no denying forward Danny Granger, now among the gray-beards at age 25, is Indiana’s next invitee to the annual NBA All-Star Game.
Question is, will it be Feb. 15 in Phoenix or at the 2010 event in Dallas?
Anytime a sports fan begins hauling the word “ever” into discussion, he’s either supremely confident or eye-to-eye with a box of saltines — IQ-wise.
It’s never easy to take over a new job.
Following an up-and-down season, it looks like Shane Cottle will no longer be chasing the USAC National Sprint Car Series championship in seasons to come.
A prominent sports website collects millions of mouse-clicks every football season with its weekly college bowl predictions. As victories are gathered and losses mount, the list is the ultimate reminder of our what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world.
Get Email Updates
