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By Ken Reed

The American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI) has called the rise in the number of professional pitchers requiring ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (“Tommy John surgery”) an epidemic.

Of the greatest concern is the ASMI’s conclusion that pitchers’ elbows are tied to overuse and fatigue in youth and high school baseball.

“Observations by orthopaedic […]

By Ken Reed

Happy 4th of July to League of Fans’ loyal readers, supporters and sports reformers! Keep fighting the good fight!
In honor of Lou Gehrig’s great career, impeccable sportsmanship, and high-character life off the field, we’re re-running this piece on Gehrig and his famous 4th of July speech at Yankee Stadium — […]

By Ken Reed

Sandy Barbour was recently pushed out as athletic director at the University of California, Berkeley. Her nearly decade-long tenure as AD will be remembered primarily for the timeframe when a great academic school lost its way in an effort to become a big-time athletic factory.

On her watch, the football team […]

By Ken Reed

The 2014 World Cup has been filled with excitement and drama.

Unfortunately, as with American football — albeit not to the same degree — a pall hangs over the games due to what we’ve learned in recent years about brain trauma and concussions in contact sports.

Concussions are fairly common in soccer […]

By Ken Reed

USC athletic director Pat Haden is boasting about how progressive his school is by offering four-year scholarships to football and men’s and women’s basketball players.

In a statement yesterday, Haden said, “In taking this action, USC hopes to help lead the effort to refocus on student-athlete welfare on and off the […]

By Ken Reed

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder took another big hit Wednesday when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Redskins’ trademark registration.

According to Theresa Vargas of the Washington Post, the ruling won’t prohibit Snyder from using the offensive Redskins nickname but it will make it harder for him to conduct […]

By Ken Reed

On the eve of the 2014 World Cup, Pope Francis recorded a video message that was broadcast on television across Brazil.

It should also be broadcast on television in every country across the globe.

Francis focused on sport as a tool to promote peace and solidarity around the world. In particular, he […]

By Ken Reed

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) created a powerful anti-Redskins commercial that ran during the NBA finals. I’ve written about it before but it deserves to be revisited due to its extended reach during the NBA Finals.

The video is intended to get people thinking, make them uncomfortable, and […]

By Ken Reed

Proponents of early specialization for young athletes are finding it harder and harder to support their case.

In a three-year longitudinal study at Loyola University in Chicago, highly specialized young athletes (focused on one sport for more than 8 months a year) had a 36 percent increased risk of suffering a serious […]

By Ken Reed

The long-awaited Ed O’Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA finally got underway this week. O’Bannon and his fellow plaintiffs are after an injunction that would prohibit the NCAA from limiting the compensation Division I football (bowl subdivision) and men’s basketball players can receive in exchange for their college sports participation.

This […]