AUGUSTA – It was a gorgeous day, the final round of the Masters just concluded, but not a gorgeous week when it came to the weather. But for it to end on a sunny and blissful high made it another memorable championship.

Some would equate this week to holy week since it is the week of the Masters.

The Atlanta Braves are in warm, sunny Florida for spring training, which makes me envious for a variety of reasons.

Here we sit in the final days of February, but for many of us the 2020 gridiron season is already spinning in our minds.

Baseball has always been a favorite sport for me to watch. I have been fortunate in my sports journalism career to follow several quality programs and individual teams which have made strong postseason runs.

With every football collegian eligible for play-for-pay status in the National Football League, I reflected on the past when things were decidedly different and, in the process, learned something new about Bulldog history.

Ten years ago, I had tickets to see the Atlanta Hawks play the Los Angeles Lakers. I told myself that Kobe Bryant being my favorite athlete in the league — and possibly in pro sports — would in no way dissuade me from cheering on the hometown Hawks.

For the 19th straight year, the University of Georgia will have a former player participating in the Super Bowl. Mecole Hardman will have an opportunity to win a ring when the Kansas City Chiefs line up against the San Francisco 49ers for the upcoming championship game in Miami.

As soon as the news broke last week, the reaction was swift and at times vicious.

Now that the collegiate championship has been settled, not even LSU and Clemson coaches (and players) will get any time off.

Sports dynasties are always fascinating to watch, even if you are not necessarily a die-hard fan of the team.

Then there were two.

Sports Illustrated is going to be different under new ownership, and while I suppose that is to be expected, I am not excited about what the magazine is likely to become.

The news that CBS will not renew its contract with the Southeastern Conference didn’t make anybody’s day in the SEC family.

About 30 years ago, the spectacle of college football recruiting did not have the massive national fan base it does in 2019.

NEW YORK — The National Football Foundation had its beginnings three-quarters of a century in the past when a football coach, a sportswriter and a five-star general, founded the organization which has always put on a showcase banquet in Manhattan.

If nothing else, they got it right this time.

More than likely, like the rest of the provincial world, you have not paid attention to track at the University of Georgia, where the sport’s signature highlight came and went in a flash more than three-quarters of a century ago.

When it comes to sports, there is one thing that's always common denominator: numbers. 

In the spring of 1964, the new regime at Georgia was busy preparing for its first football season.

Many of us will gather this week with family and take a break from our often-hectic lives to observe another Thanksgiving.

SANTA ROSA BEACH, Fla. — Zeke Bratkowski spent more than four decades of his life on the biggest stages of the National Football League, as a player and coach, and then settled down in this laid-back, seaside community in the Florida panhandle to live out his life in gratifying serenity.

If you happen not to like Tom Crean you have to applaud his boundless energy and over-the-top passion which borders on fanaticism.

Champ Bailey played 15 years in the National Football League, earning respect from all peers and seasoned observers, regarding his cornerback play which was so proficient that he was elected to the NFL Hall of Fame as soon as he was eligible. Some, who would know, say he was the best ever at…

It was another week and another slate of games on the college gridiron.

The Georgia-Notre Dame game is a reminder that the pre-game pontification and prognostication can make fools out of all would be soothsayers.

NEW YORK — Recently, there were heavy downpours at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows where the United States Tennis Open Championship was played, with Rafael Nadal taking first place in the men’s final.

With another anniversary of 9/11 this week (still seems hard to believe it has been almost two decades ago now since that event), I thought back to how that tragic event trickled down to all areas of our lives even the sports world.

Vincent Joseph Dooley, the Depression-born kid of Irish and Italian descent, is much different in the winter of his life than he was in its spring. That makes him as human as the rest of us.