(6 comments) SHARE        Monday, December 29, 2008
Latter Day Protest? Proposition 8 and Sports As supporters of Gay Marriage have discovered, it's never easy to be on the Mormon Church's enemies list. The Church of Latter Day Saints backed the anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 in California with out-of-state funds, and gave the right a heartbreaking victory this past election cycle. But the Mormon Church has been challenged in the past. Just ask Bob Beamon.

(27 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Reflections on 9-11 I do not think that anyone alive on that day will forget the shock that struck our nation when the symbols of US capitalism and militarism were struck out of the clear blue sky. I was in panic mode for a few days, because I did not hear from Casey who was stationed at Ft. Hood on that day and his base went into lock-down and he was too busy to call.

(6 comments) SHARE        Monday, November 14, 2011
Fan Culture, Rape Culture, and the World Joe Paterno Made I don't doubt the emotions in Happy Valley are genuine. I don't doubt the searing shock and pain that must be coursing through campus. But this is the pain of self-pity not reflection. It's the pain of the exposed not the penitent.

(14 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Pure Poison: The Weekend Shooting, Ray Rice and a Culture of Violence Against Women Misogyny becomes weaponized when a culture excuses it and looks the other way.

(4 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 13, 2015
The Debt Owed to Eduardo Galeano The passing of Eduardo Galeano should remind us that lyricical resistance history is in itself an act of resistance.

(4 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Why the NCAA Should Move the Final Four Out of Indiana Governor Mike Pence just signed a bill licensing discrimination against LGBT people.

(2 comments) SHARE        Friday, September 29, 2017
Oakland Catcher Bruce Maxwell Breaks Baseball's Politics Line There is a wall in baseball between sports and politics. One player just put a crack in it.

SHARE        Friday, November 4, 2005
Sheryl Swoopes: Out of the Closet--and Ignored The Houston Comet veteran just delivered what could be the most significant body blow to homophobia ever weathered by the athletic-industrial complex, coming out of the closet with pride, defiance and joy. But Swoopes's announcement has been met in the sports press with "a shrug of indifference."

SHARE        Friday, March 17, 2006
Big League Crisis at the World Baseball Classic The World Baseball Classic, an unprecedented international tournament involving teams from sixteen nations, is looking both like an autopsy of the current state of Major League Baseball and a glimpse into an alternative future for Major League Baseball.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, February 5, 2007
The Super Bowl: When Hawks Cry Last night's Super Bowl was a Roman Vomitorium of odious spew. This wasn't the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was the dreary, the vile, and the insipid...

SHARE        Wednesday, September 26, 2018
What the Worst of Sports Taught Brett Kavanaugh--and What It Still Teaches Today My experience around privileged high-school and college athletes leads me directly to the accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh.

(3 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, November 11, 2015
3 Lessons From University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe's Resignation In shocking news that comes in utter contradiction to a statement released just yesterday, University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe has announced his resignation.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Why Donald Trump Disinvited the Eagles From the White House Much of the Eagles team was going to skip the White House visit in protest, so our president-child threw a tantrum.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Condi Rice's Membership at Augusta National Is Nothing to Celebrate As good ole Hootie Johnson made crystal clear, Augusta National admits whomever they please when they're good & ready.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 24, 2014
On the Little League World Series, Jackie Robinson West, and Michael Brown the events of this summer show with bracing clarity that there are huge swaths of this country that love black culture and hate black people. It is difficult to not see this reality in the events of the last week: events that counterpose something as American as apple pie, the Little League World Series, and something else that is frankly also as American as apple pie: the killing of unarmed black men

(7 comments) SHARE        Monday, November 10, 2008
Did Tiger Woods pave Barack Obama's path? Are you joking? It's always dangerous, but never boring, when a newspaper sports columnist uncorks a political thesis. Enter Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel. Bianchi thinks that there are some unsung heroes who deserve credit for helping put a black man in the White House - and they are athletes.

SHARE        Monday, June 27, 2022
A Football Coach's Prayer Is Not About Freedom. It's About Coercion. In a decision riddled with lies, the Supreme Court rules that a football coach can, should they choose, become a dictator-priest.

SHARE        Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Tribute to August Wilson: Breaking Down Fences

SHARE        Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Occupy the Super Bowl: Now more than just a slogan. Republicans plan to pass a law making Indiana a "right to work" state. Like "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "Fair & Balanced," "Tort Reform" & the endless dreck we hear from Republicans it's more double-speak & really means they are attacking unions...again.

(3 comments) SHARE        Thursday, November 10, 2011
Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests Last night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence. On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment

SHARE        Saturday, November 19, 2011
NBA Players: Welcome to the 99 Percent Maybe it's because they overwhelmingly come from the ranks of the working poor, have career lengths of six years and have been facing off against the ranks of true generational, aristocratic wealth in all it's arrogance. Maybe they just hate to lose. NBA players: welcome to the 99 percent.

(4 comments) SHARE        Monday, May 2, 2011
Sports, bin Laden, and the New Normal Howard Cosell said that "rule number one of the sports jockocracy" was that sports and politics didn't mix. And yet last night, at the ballpark in Philadelphia, we received another reminder that some political expression is deemed not just acceptable but glorious.

(2 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 25, 2013
Seeing 'New Jim Crow' Placards Seized by Police & More From the March on Washington 'New Jim Crow' Placards Seized by Police & More From the March on Washington | Common Dreams

SHARE        Friday, January 27, 2012
The Final Insult: Nike CEO Phil Knight Eulogizes Joe Paterno The celebration of Knight's message by Jena MacGregor and the attendees is another example why so much of the country looks at Happy Valley, Pennsylvania like some kind of moral Bizarro World. It also drowns out the thousands of Penn State students who held vigils on campus against child abuse or the Penn State alums "sickened" by both the allegations against Sandusky as well as the response by those alumni and students...

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, September 9, 2014
The Revictimizing of Janay Rice The lack of concern for Janay Rice now that the video of Ray Rice knocking her unconscious has been released is truly troubling.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, May 12, 2011
Brick by BRIC: How Global Sport Has Declared War on Brazil's Poor In Chile, it was called the The Brick. It was the many-thousand page economic manifesto of Dictator Augusto Pinochet, written by "the Chicago Boys" - Chilean exchange students from the University of Chicago. Disciples of the university's conservative, neoliberal economics professor Milton Friedman, they printed The Brick on "the other 9/11" - September 11th, 1973.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, July 17, 2013
"America Justice System is a Joke": athletes respond to Trayvon Martin verdict In February 2012, the stalking and murder of Trayvon Martin affected pro athletes -- particularly African American athletes - in a way that perhaps can be best described as intimate.

SHARE        Friday, October 10, 2014
Former Chicago Bears GM: The League Has Ignored 'Hundreds and Hundreds' of Domestic Violence Cases If there is any justice, these revelations by longtime general manager Jerry Angelo will lead to an investigation and the firing of Roger Goodell.

SHARE        Monday, October 29, 2018
A Call for Solidarity in the Face of Hate When so many groups are under attack, a collective response is the only response. We need loud rallies against racism. We need speak-outs for immigrants. We need to say that trans rights are human rights. We need public meetings about what fascism is and how to fight it. We need to provide security and ensure safe spaces for groups that are attempting to come together.

(4 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 4, 2013
On Alex Rodriguez & "The Best Interests of the Game" Let's forget for a moment that A-Rod will potentially take a bigger hit for "cheating" than Goldman-Sachs, and focus on the baseball issues at play.

SHARE        Monday, November 11, 2013
Jay Glazer's Interview With Richie Incognito Was Sports Journalism at Its Worst what the hell is any journalist doing having "side jobs" with anyone they are supposed to be covering and why is this acceptable to Glazer's bosses?*

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 3, 2008
The Senator from Comcast?: Arlen Specter and SpyGate As Will Bunch wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News, "If you simply took Specter at face value, and assumed his passion for grilling the NFL in his official Senate capacity is the passion of a jilted fan, that alone would be an outrageous abuse of his authority. But the truth is much worse, because Specter's interest in this issue dovetails far too closely with those of his two largest contributors...

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, October 19, 2005
When Fists are Frozen: The Statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we need our anti-racist history and our anti-racist heroes now more than ever. We need more fists gumming up the works.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 7, 2008
Common Bond for Uncommon Men: Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King As we remember the 40th anniversary of that dark day of April 4th 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, it's worth recalling the reaction by Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star Roberto Clemente.

SHARE        Wednesday, September 21, 2011
TODAY, Georgia Murders Troy Davis It's with rage that I report that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. The 42-year-old Davis is now due to be executed TODAY, Wednesday September 21, at 7 pm . For those unfamiliar with the case, let's be clear: Davis's execution is little more than a legal lynching.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, January 23, 2012
Joe Paterno: The God Who Fell to Earth For Joe Paterno to say & actually expect us to accept that he "never heard of rape and a man" is ludicrous & offensive. It reveals how dangerous & misquided our obssession with celebrities can be.

SHARE        Friday, June 19, 2015
Charleston's 'Mother Emanuel Church' Has Stared Down Racist Violence for 200 Years The more you read about Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, otherwise known as "Mother Emanuel," the more awe you feel for its historic resilience amidst white-supremacist terror.

SHARE        Tuesday, May 26, 2009
New Orleans's Not-So-Super Bowl The Super Bowl decision perpetuates the status quo in New Orleans. The city will be forced to rise and fall on the basis of an external service economy. Jobs and wages will fluctuate rapidly based on whichever circus happens to be in town that week. Taxpayer dollars will pour into amenities for moneyed tourists and not into building the kind of stable industrial base that can stabilize the community.

SHARE        Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Talkin' Sports with Ralph Nader few people know that Nader is also an avid sports fan. He was responsible for the launching of the League of Fans, a sports reform project, and he has also passionately pushed for a "Bill of Rights" for the American sports fan. In addition, he has recently made the sports pages by raising serious criticisms of NBA referees--assertions he has made for years that are finally being taken seriously ...

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, September 30, 2013
Who Is the Walter White of the Sports World? The Answer Is Obvious I have spent the last several days in a Breaking Bad fever dream, asking myself, "Who is the Walter White/Heisenberg of the sports world?" I am very aware that I couldn't come up with a hackier First Take--style question unless I was asking what sports commissioner is most like Miley Cyrus.

(2 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 5, 2010
The Hate Crime: A Question Tiger Woods Must Answer Hate crimes, the special status of American celebrities & the possibilities of getting an historical record straight.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, October 16, 2009
Rush Limbaugh: Why the NFL Just Said No It boggles the mind. For someone who claims a belief in rugged individualism and rails against "victim politics" while preaches personal responsibility, it was almost jarring to hear Rush whine about "tyranny" on the left when it was his compadres on the right who just said no.

SHARE        Friday, September 2, 2005
The Superdome: Monument to a Rotten System

SHARE        Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Fade to Black- -the steep decline of the African-American in baseball African-American players indeed make up a mere 8.9% in the major leagues. In 1975 that number was 27%. Five teams -- have no African-Americans on their active rosters.

SHARE        Thursday, October 27, 2005
Dave Zirin's Sports For Progressives: How Baseball Strip-mines the Dominican Republic

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Sneering at Redemption: Why Arnold Killed Tookie

SHARE        Thursday, May 3, 2007
Talking Sports from Death Row with Kevin Cooper Kevin Cooper is a sports fan. Kevin Cooper loves the Steelers. Kevin Cooper makes his home on death row at the notorious San Quentin Penitentiary in California. Cooper awaits execution for a crime many observers are convinced he did not commit. He was to be injected with poison until his heart stopped on February 10th, 2004 but received a stay after massive public pressure was brought to bear.

SHARE        Tuesday, February 7, 2012
In Egypt: How a Tragic 'Soccer Riot' May Have Revived a Revolution There are no words for the horror that took place in Port Said, Egypt last week. A soccer match became a killing field, with at least seventy-four spectators dead, and as many as 1,000 injured. This carnage, however, has produced profoundly unexpected results.

SHARE        Monday, September 12, 2005
When George Galloway Channeled Rocky Marciano review of badass British anti-war MP George Galloway’s new book 'Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington.' Galloway is about to embark on a tour of the United States to build momentum for the Sept. 24th anti-war demos in Wash. DC and the Bay Area.

(3 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 24, 2008
The 2008 Olympics: Subterranean Rot the press made a choice the moment they stepped on China's soil. They chose not to seek out the near two million people evicted from their homes to make way for Olympic facilities. They chose not to report on the Chinese citizens who tried to register to enter the cordoned off "protest zones" only to find themselves in police custody. we should recall a mainstream press, derelict in its duty..

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, February 20, 2006
White Blindness: The Winter Olympics and Defending Bryant Gumbel The right-wing media hordes, in a mad dash to deflect attention from Dick Cheney’s shooting spree, may have found their target of mass distraction: Bryant Gumbel.

SHARE        Friday, June 9, 2006
The 2006 World Cup: Will Racism Come Home to Roost? The most watched tournament in the universe, the World Cup, opens today amid fears that an open and violent racism could upstage the games, humiliate its German hosts, and provide an international platform for Neo-Nazi swill.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, October 27, 2008
"No problems. No issues. No complaints," says CBS News CBS News has joined the chorus of denial, claiming blithely that there's been no "widespread voter fraud or suppression" in the race thus far. That equation--"fraud or suppression"-- is, to say the least, misleading. CBS's verdict: "No problems. No issues. No complaints." Either those reports are bogus, or CBS is simply out to lunch (or in the tank).

SHARE        Monday, December 9, 2013
Mandela's Uses of Sports: Resistance, Reconciliation, and Rebranding There has never been a political leader who understood the power of sports quite like Nelson Mandela. Mandela's relationship to the sports world defies easy characterizations, although the sports media has certainly tried their darndest.

SHARE        Thursday, April 5, 2007
Olympics Want Some Chicago Skin ANYBODY GOT $500 million collecting dust under the couch? If you live in Chicago, take a second look between those cushions. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has let it be known that the people of the Windy City could pay out as much as $500 million if they are awarded the 2016 Summer Games.

SHARE        Monday, August 28, 2006
The Fugitive Girl Act Why the Republican attack on the right of minors to get out-of-state abortions echoes the Fugitive Slave Act

SHARE        Friday, January 6, 2006
Crossroads: Race and Coaching in the NFL In the 16 years since Art Shell became the NFL’s first African-American head coach, progress has come at a glacial pace. The NFL coaching fraternity makes the US Senate look like Soul Train.

SHARE        Sunday, November 5, 2006
Political Players: Where Athletes Give Their Money This column is usually dedicated to those in the Sportsworld who believe in the power of protest ..." and back their words with deeds. But today, in recognition of this Tuesday's election-lunacy, we give space to those who back their political ideas with cold, hard, filthy, cash.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, October 15, 2007
What Did Pelosi Know About NSA, and When Did She Know It? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration's eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat the House Intelligence Committee when Bush and Cheney took office.

SHARE        Thursday, November 30, 2006
Organizing the Jocks for Justice Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman Adalius Thomas is only the latest in a stellar cast of pro players chafing against silence, and sounding off against the war and occupation of Iraq.

SHARE        Thursday, March 11, 2010
The South Africa World Cup: Invictus in Reverse There are the dispossessions as thousands have been forced from their homes into makeshift shantytowns, to both make way for stadiums and make sure that tourists don't have to see any depressing scenes of poverty.

(4 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 24, 2008
CRACKDOWN: China's Brutal Olympic Echo China's crackdown against Tibetan protesters ahead of the Summer Olympics in Beijing carries with it a brutal echo from the past. Scores of people, including school children are reported dead and more repression has been promised. Yet the concern expressed by world leaders has seemed less for the people of Tibet than the fate of the Summer Games, with Olympic cash deemed more precious than Tibetan blood.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, September 27, 2005
The Speech Everyone Is Talking About;: Etan Thomas Electrifies Anti-War Washington Every generation the wide world of corporate sports produces an athlete with the iron resolve and moral urgency to step off their pedestal and join the fight for social justice.

SHARE        Friday, March 24, 2006
"Death Row" Talks Back to Etan Thomas Regular readers of this column know that I’m not exactly shy about singing the praises of the Washington Wizards forward. Etan plays a gritty, elbows-up style of basketball, but on a microphone he is pure Jordan. In the tradition of Amiri Baraka, his poems are sharp enough to cut glass, and generous enough to leave seedlings that can sprout in the cracks.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, September 21, 2007
It Ain't Easy Being Green: Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports

SHARE        Sunday, April 1, 2007
Why I Wrote The Muhammad Ali Handbook

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, July 15, 2005
Storming the Castle: Why We Need To Know Our Radical Sports History You don't have to be a sports fan, to read this article

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Barry Bonds Laughs Last He possesses more than intergalactic talent. He is one of a select few modern athletes with a fearless comfort telling uncomfortable truths. He is the Sean Penn of Major League Baseball, a Sean Penn in a Tom Hanks world.

(2 comments) SHARE        Monday, December 18, 2006
Brawl in the Garden Young black men scuffling, even scuffling in a way that would make foxy boxing seem threatening, seem to be a catalyst for an astounding amount of public hand-wringing.

SHARE        Tuesday, November 15, 2005
P.O.'d about T.O. Terrell Owens wants his contract renegotiated. Many a sports radio gasbag has wheezed that T.O. was only done with the first season of a seven-year contract and is therefore "not honoring his deal." But T.O. and every NFL player know that NFL deals have the honor of a politician's promise.

SHARE        Thursday, June 29, 2006
The NBA Draft: Prom Night Gets Political last night's draft was more politically interesting than anything said in the last year by Tim Russert and his bloated cronies.

SHARE        Thursday, September 22, 2005
Redeeming the Olympic Martyrs of 1968

SHARE        Thursday, June 26, 2008
"Well, There You Go": Imus the Bigot Is Back Is Don Imus irredeemably stupid or just a run-of-the-mill racist? Perhaps the answer is both.