Sports Then and Now

LeBron James’ recent offensive performance scoring 61 points against the Charlotte Bobcats makes him the 64^th player to score at least 60 points in NBA history. It seems almost impossible to beat that record, or to top James’ sheer brilliance of mixing skill with durability and consistency throughout a single game. However, five players have surpassed that feat and propelled themselves into one of the most exclusive groups in sports: the 70-point club.

Wilt Chamberlain

Without a doubt, the king of single-game scoring is Chamberlain. The Lakers legend scored at least 70 points in a single game six times, which is easily the most ever. Chamberlain also holds the overall record for points in a game, with 100 for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks in a 169-147 victory in 1962. The 100-point performance shattered the previous record, which Chamberlain had set less than three months earlier, of 78 points. Perhaps the most impressive part of his 100-point record was the fact that Chamberlain made 28 of 32 free throws as a .511 free-throw percentage shooter. Chamberlain would also score 70, 72, and 73 points in NBA games.

Kobe Bryant

Another Lakers great scored the second most points in a single NBA game ever. Bryant was simply unstoppable in his 81-point performance that lifted the Lakers over the Toronto Raptors in 2006. On his own, Bryant outscored the entire Raptors team 55-41 in the second half. The Raptors would have needed a Columbia utility vehicle in order to stop Bryant in the final 24 minutes of that game. Bryant shot the ball relatively few times considering his 81 points. He made 28 of 46 from the floor and added 18 points via free throws. Read the rest of this entry →

In the home stretch of a Premier League title race, Jose Mourinho has Chelsea FC in the hunt for two prominent trophies, which is nothing new. Now in his second spell with the English soccer club, the self-proclaimed “Special One” is undoubtedly one of the most prominent names in coaching.

Never one to bite his tongue, Mourinho’s time as manager of some of the world’s best teams has been accompanied by a fair share of controversy and scuff ups, but success has rarely eluded the Portuguese man. And while we get ready to witness what ending this season has in store for Chelsea, let’s take a look at the managerial career of the loved and hated manager.

Making a Name in Portugal

For the Portuguese man, it was only natural to begin his managerial career in his home country. After assistant positions with Sporting CP, Porto and Barcelona, Mourinho landed his first job in charge of a club at Benfica in 2000. But after a very short time there and a disagreement with the new club president, Mourinho left to become manager of Uniao de Leira. While in charge of Uniao for over a year, Mourinho took the club to its best ever finishes in the first division of Portugal. Read the rest of this entry →

After colliding with Gilbert Arenas, Marquis Daniels was motionless on the court for several minutes.

People don’t often think of basketball when they think of gruesome injuries. The reality is that basketball is a dangerous sport, and the NBA has seen it’s share of blood and gore over the years. With huge men running at full speed and jumping to grab the ball, there is plenty that can go wrong. Take a look at five of the worst injuries the National Basketball Association (NBA) has ever seen.

Joel Pryzbilla‘s Knee
On December 22nd, 2009, Joel Pryzbilla of the Portland Trailblazers suffered one of the worst knee injuries in the history of the NBA. Pryzbilla was playing center against the Dallas Mavericks. Pryzbilla was attempting to jump up to grab an offensive rebound when he landed awkwardly on his right leg. The result was a ruptured and dislocated patella that caused Pryzbilla to miss substantial time away from the court. Pryzbilla missed the remainder of that season after surgery, and his career was never really the same after that.

Rudy Tomjanovich‘s Face
Rudy Tomjanovich suffered one of the most incredible and gruesome facial injuries in NBA history on December 9th, 1977. Tomjanovich was a forward, and he was playing against Kermit Washington’s Los Angeles Lakers. There was a scuffle on the court. Washington unloaded a vicious punch on Tomjanovich that broke his jaw and actually caused life-threatening head injuries. He was sidelined for five months, but he eventually did make a full recovery.
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Czechoslovakia was a hockey power during the 1940s and 1950s, winning gold medals in the World Championships in 1947 and 1949. The country’s national teams also won a silver medal in the 1948 Olympics, losing to Team Canada on goal differential. Unfortunately, two tragic events ended the careers of most of the players responsible for this success, launching Czechoslovakian hockey into a dark period where they did not win a major tournament for over 20 years.

The Plane Crash

In 1948, the Czechoslovakian team was on top of the world, having taken over as perhaps the most dominant hockey nation in the world. In preparation for the upcoming 1949 World Hockey Championships, the team scheduled a couple of exhibition games against Great Britain. The team would fly from Paris, where they had been staying, to London for these games.

Eight of the players flew out the day before the game and spent the night in a hotel. These players arrived without incident and made their way to Wembley Stadium the next day for the game. The remaining six players stayed in Paris for an extra night and left the morning of the game. These players, Miroslav Pokorny, Zdenek Svarc, Zdenek Jarkovsky, Karel Stibor, Vilibard Stovik and Ladislav Trojak, were never heard from again, as their plane vanished over the English Channel.

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Kevin Durant and LeBron James should be the leading stars in the 2014 NBA All-Star Game.

Since the first NBA All-Star Game in 1951, the annual gathering of the best players in professional basketball has provided an opportunity to revel in the amazing talents of these stars.

The 2014 game includes six first-time All-Stars, including two former number one overall picks (John Wall and Anthony Davis) that will be able to get off the dubious list of number one overall picks that didn’t make an All-Star Game.
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With the winter Olympics underway, there’s been a lot of talk about snowboarding. But let’s look back a little farther on what came BEFORE snowboarding: longboarding.   All you need is a long plank of wood, trucks and four wheels and you have the ability to coast along pavement like a surfer would on water. In fact, surfing is where longboarding and skateboarding got their start. Nowadays, the water version and land versions of boarding stand apart, but they still have histories that intertwine with each other. From the genesis of sidewalk surfing all the way to the modern day competitions, longboarding has come a long way.

Sidewalk Surfing

The lifespan of longboarding can be traced all the way back to approximately the 1950s. Longboarding and skateboarding came to be when surfers in Hawaii began taking their aquatic pastime on land. When the waves weren’t big enough for a satisfactory day of surfing, the surfers found that they could imitate those same actions by using a skateboard on the sidewalk. Thus, sidewalk surfing and skateboards were born. For surfers and teens, skateboarding then quickly caught on in California before skateboards themselves would begin to be modified.

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