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By Dave Zirin

(Note to Reader: Over the last decade, Jason Whitlock has been one of the most prominent African American sports columnists in the United States. He writes for the Kansas City Star and AOL Sports. For reasons unclear, he often refers to himself as “Big Sexy”)

Dear Jason,

I start with long overdue thanks. Thanks for inspiring me to be a sportswriter. Thanks for showing all of us that the sports page could be more than blather and box scores. For that you have my sincere gratitude.

By Dave Zirin

JOHN AMAECHI, to much fanfare, has become the first retired player in the history of the National Basketball Assn. to announce that he’s gay. The news came with publication of his book “Man in the Middle,” in which Amaechi details his life in the NBA closet. The five-year veteran of three clubs used to be a basketball footnote, more known for his British upbringing and penchant for poetry than anything he did on the court as a center. Now he is part of history, giving human form and voice to the spectral boogeyman of the professional locker room – the gay athlete.

By Dave Zirin

There are those in the world of sports who view ESPN as some sort of diabolical genetic splicing of the Illuminati, George Bush and something scraped from Chris Berman’s loofah. (I personally believe that, not unlike the Bush family, ESPN’s power, while disturbing, is vastly overestimated.) This view is being reasserted with the news that former NBA player John Amaechi has loudly and proudly let the world know that he is gay.

(from the March 29 Domestic Policy Subcommittee, Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing: “Build It and They Will Come: Do Taxpayer-Financed Sports Stadiums … Deliver as Promised for America’s Cities?”)

Witness Testimony:

Mr. Neil deMause, author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit

Mr. Frank Rashid, waged an unsuccessful 10-year campaign to save Tigers’ Stadium in Detroit.

Allstate is the new title sponsor (for at least the next four years at an undisclosed “seven figure” cost) of the Sugar Bowl, played at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 3, 2007. But many are left wondering how Allstate can market themselves on everything involving the largest annual sporting event in New Orleans, yet deny liability and living expenses to so many customers who suffered losses in the region due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In his Edge of Sports column, Dave Zirin recognizes the significance of Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears “shattering one of sports’ most formidable glass ceilings.” For the first time, the head coaches of both teams in the Super Bowl are black.

As reported by Neil deMause of Field of schemes, “The British bank Barclays has tied the New York Mets’ record $20 million a year naming rights deal [with Citigroup] with a reported 20-year, $400 million contract to dub the new Brooklyn Nets arena the Barclays Center.”

Writing for The Brooklyn Paper, Gersh Kuntzman and Dana Rubinstein outline Barklays’ rap sheet, which includes being founded on the slave trade, collaborating with the Nazis, doing business with South Africa’s apartheid government, and fueling the civil war in the Congo.

Leading up to the Super Bowl, an Online Journal commentary by Jason Miller compares the NFL to U.S. domestic and foreign policy — and thereby football fans to the U.S. population — in a challenge to the masses. He writes: “Arising from the same fetid bogs of spiritual decay that spawned the American Way, the NFL reeks with the stench of corporate tyranny, patriarchy, racism, superficiality, greed, competitiveness, and materialism.”

In the Public Interest
by Ralph Nader

Anybody who played schoolboy sandlot baseball in Winsted, Connecticut with David Halberstam back in the nineteen forties would not have been very surprised to observe his spectacular journalistic career that took him to the civil rights struggles in the South, the war torn African and Asian continents, and the writing of some 20 books which required aggressive reporting.

In the Public Interest
by Ralph Nader

As we settle-in to cheer on our favorite college football teams this bowl season, it’s important to remember that an undisputed consolidation of power and money — the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) — controls which schools play in the major bowl games and National Championship game.