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By Ken Reed

Edith Houghton, Major League Baseball’s first woman hired as a baseball scout, recently died at the age of 100. Houghton worked as a scout for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1946 to 1951.

How she got the job remains a bit of a mystery, but as Paul Vitello wrote in Houghton’s New […]

By Ken Reed

You’ve probably seen it. A Canadian youth hockey coach going through the traditional post-game handshake line trips two opposing players, one 13-years old and one 10-years old. He then turns and points his finger at the kids while yelling at them. One of the kids that was tripped suffered a broken wrist […]

By Ken Reed

The NBA has a rule that prevents high school basketball players — no matter how talented — from jumping to the NBA after high school. So, most top players go to college for a year or two.

However, that can be a risky proposition for college basketball stars because of an NCAA […]

By Ken Reed

If you watch sports, or are involved in sports in anyway, you hear the term “sportsmanship” frequently.  Too often it’s a word that is simply given lip service.

I coach my daughter’s 7th grade basketball team and I regularly stress the importance of sportsmanship with our players.  I do this assuming that […]

By Ken Reed

ESPN has announced a new documentary series, Nine for IX, that focuses on women in sports through the eyes of female filmmakers. The nine films will air weekly and premier on July 2nd on ESPN. The series is modeled after ESPN’s successful 30 for 30 sports documentary series.

This is a terrific […]

By Ken Reed

Former Eastern Illinois safety Adrian Arrington, through attorney Joseph Siprut, is suing the NCAA, claiming “for over 30 years, the NCAA has failed its student-athletes — choosing instead to sacrifice them on the altar of money and profits ….”

Siprut says the NCAA has not actively protected, treated or advised its football […]

By Ken Reed

Athlete Ally is a non-profit founded to raise awareness and homophobia in sports. It’s an organization and cause that’s deeply needed in a sports culture that too often falls back on “macho man” ethics and mentalities.

Athlete Ally was founded by a wrestler named Hudson Taylor.  Taylor has been joined […]

By Ken Reed

Pro sports franchise owners and big-time college sports administrators have long been masters at getting taxpayers to pay for a big chunk of their expenses. The most obvious example is publicly-funded stadiums and arenas for wealthy NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL franchise owners. These owners have regularly teamed with local politicians to […]

By Ken Reed

After the Super Bowl, I wrote a short blog entry about the NFL’s “Forever Football” PR campaign. I opined that the Forever Football spots that ran during the Super Bowl game between the San Francisco 49’ers and Baltimore Ravens were nothing more than “a carefully crafted public relations campaign designed to […]

By Ken Reed

Perhaps you noticed the NFL’s “Forever Football” spots during the Super Bowl. They were short, mushy, feel-good odes to the game. They implied that the American culture would collapse without the great game of football.

In reality, they are part of a carefully crafted public relations campaign designed to provide a buffer […]