By Ken Reed
Two of the best sports reformers and activist journalists we have in this country are Dave Zirin and Patrick Hruby.
Recently, the two of them sat down together as part of an Edge of Sports podcast to talk about an important issue in this country: whether or not children and teenagers […]
By Ken Reed
The hope was that hosting the Summer Olympics would give Rio de Janeiro an economic and psychological boost. Instead, the city is in the midst of financial, political and crime-ridden chaos.
A recent Washington Post feature article by Dom Phillips reveals a mess of shocking proportions. The government is broke and […]
By Ken Reed
The coaches can leave whenever they want to. The players are stuck.
Football coach Tom Herman bolted the University of Houston for the University of Texas only 12 hours after reportedly telling his Houston players that he wasn’t going anywhere.
He’s not the first coach to lie to his players about […]
Continue Reading →: Herman Case Another Example of An Unjust System in College Sports
By Ken Reed
Two interesting articles about youth and high school football were published in the last week.
Each of them looked at the growing football cultural war from a variety of perspectives.
The first piece, Patrick Hruby’s well-researched treatise, “Friday Night Lights Out,” looks at the allure of the game for players, coaches […]
Continue Reading →: America’s Cultural Conflict Over Football
By Ken Reed
As a blanket of cold temperatures covers a big part of the country, it’s fun to read about our warm-weather sport, baseball. Moreover, it warms the heart to read about a baseball player who’s giving back and making a positive difference in the lives of children.
Michael Powell had an outstanding […]
By Ken Reed
According to an investigative report by NJ Advance Media, FieldTurf, the country’s leading manufacturer of artificial turf sports fields, sold more than 1,000 fields to schools and communities across the country after its executives knew the product was defective and failed to live up to the company’s lofty marketing claims.
[…]By Ken Reed
What Was Liberty Thinking?
I was surprised that Liberty University hired former Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw as the school’s new athletic director.
I was shocked they chose to not even mention or address the fact that McCaw was suspended by Baylor for his “failure to adequately respond to multiple reports of […]
By Ken Reed
A segment called “Cost of the Game,” in the latest Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO, is must-see viewing for parents and coaches of youth and high school football players. The episode talks about the fact that youth and high school football programs have more full-contact practices than teams at […]
Continue Reading →: Youth Football Players Hit More Than Their College and Pro Counterparts
By Ken Reed
Among the loud fallout from the election results earlier this month, a couple referendums for publicly-financed new pro sports stadiums received little notice.
In San Diego, voters told Dean Spanos, owner of the NFL’s Chargers franchise, they weren’t interested in giving the local NFL team hundreds of millions of dollars to build […]
By Ken Reed
Michael Phelps swears by it. So do many track and field athletes (including my daughter, who runs track at the college level), as well as several celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Chinese Cupping is an ancient practice in which cups are placed on the skin in a way that creates […]