While last Friday evening, March 6, did not exactly feel like spring as I covered local high school soccer matches, my mind did think about just how many offerings our local schools have this time of year.
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.
A brief conversation from a favorite television series from years gone by went like this:
The 2020 college football season is still months away but this offseason will probably generate as much buzz as any in several years.
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For sports fans, especially followers of teams from years past, YouTube has been one of the greatest inventions of all time.
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.
The 2019 college football season officially ended Monday night, Jan. 13, and while we probably shouldn’t close the book on the latest campaign so fast, it’s difficult to not already be looking ahead to next season.
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.
As 2019 begins to fade one of the biggest oversights continues in professional football.
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.
Rivalries in any sport are always fun but that especially seems to be true when it comes to college football.
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.
In the sports world, the biggest (and often most-heated) discussions center around who should be No. 1.
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.
With another week of the college football season now behind us, there can be no denying LSU is for real.
Many moons ago when I was a high school student, there was one school we looked forward to competing against more than any other.
The successful 2019 softball season came to an end last week for the Apalachee High School Wildcats.
In his first season as Apalachee High School softball coach, Allan Bailey has done quite well.
If you happen not to like Tom Crean you have to applaud his boundless energy and over-the-top passion which borders on fanaticism.
The chances for the Atlanta Braves in game 5 of their playoff series with the St. Louis Cardinals went driving off a cliff toward rock-bottom quicker than weather in our state goes from one extreme to the next.
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.
One thing that will never grow old is playing your rival.
The Georgia-Notre Dame game is a reminder that the pre-game pontification and prognostication can make fools out of all would be soothsayers.
So often the highly-hyped college football games fall far short of the pre-season hoopla.
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 less than a month completed in the new college football campaign, it is already becoming evident that familiar names are the top contenders for the Football Bowl Subdivison playoffs.
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.
Now that college football has kicked off, it can step aside and let the big boys of the football world take center stage.
As the first full weekend of college football arrived, there was certainly the opportunity for an upset.
Cogent leadership in sports has no defined blueprint or template.
A new high school football season is here.
By the time you are reading this, we will be only three days from the start of the new college football season.
Fall is a favorite season for many.
A half century ago, plus a few years, Vince Dooley was 31 years old, there was not only was an absence of high expectations with his first team, there were, to be honest no expectations at all except for preachments of doom. Football at the nation’s oldest chartered state university was like…
When in the company of retired coaches these days, you often hear them remark how much they would enjoy unretiring and landing a five-year contract with today’s exorbitant salaries.
One of our country’s best traditions has returned for another year.
Part six of a six-part series, highlighting what the Georgia football team needs to win championships in 2019.
He sat on the back row at church, in the past, with all his children. I called him “ Possum” but his real name was Kevin Stratton. This story began one evening recently in Lula at Belton Bridge Park on the Chattahoochee River. He had his two boys Austin, 13, and Matt, 14, with him.
Part five of a six-part series, highlighting what the Georgia football team needs to win championships in 2019.
There are many indicators fans use to signal the start of a new football season.
A few weeks ago was when Ruff Smith's granddaughter Ella caught her big one. They had been camping at Watsadler Camp Ground at Lake Hartwell for four days.
Part four of a six-part series, highlighting what the Georgia football team needs to win championships in 2019.
There were few surprises coming out of the annual SEC Media Days this past week.
Rivalries in any sports are always fun, but that especially seems to be true for college football.
Later this month, the sports media will descend upon Hoover, Ala., for the 2019 edition of SEC media days.
It’s amazing how even today, in 2019, so many do not truly understand the role of a community newspaper.
It’s not easy being in charge. That goes for a job inside the sports world (such as a coach or athletic director) or someone who makes a living in the business world.
We will continue to have spring football in 2020 although it will be with one league rather than an expected two.
I drive by two local high school football stadiums on a regular basis and each time I do so it reminds me of how close we are to a new gridiron campaign.
We are now less than three months from the start of a new college football season.
A recent conversation with a fellow fan of the gridiron focused on the upcoming season and which teams both of us thought would excel in the college ranks as well as the pros.
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