Sports Then and Now

This is the last year for the Big 12 Conference as we know it.

2010 will be a death knell for the current Big 12 Conference as the Nebraska Cornhuskers bolt from the dominance of the Texas-led South to head into new and decidedly different waters in the Big Ten Conference.

Colorado also makes a bow, heading meekly west into the Pac Ten conference.  That will leave the Big 12 with ten teams and the Big Ten with 12.  Anomalies anyway you look at it.

Nebraska looks to head out on a high note, leading the underdog Northern Division of the Big 12.  The Cornhuskers might exit, winning the Conference Championship outright for the first time since 1999 when Nebraska defeated Texas 11-6.  Last year Nebraska fell to Texas 13-12 on a controversial call.

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Could Justin Rose be left off the European Ryder Cup team?

Regardless of the fact that he is a two-time US Tour winner, Justin Rose is a serious doubt for the European Ryder Cup team having chosen to defy team captain Colin Montgomerie’s request that all players take part in the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles next month.

Having endured a highly disappointing Irish Open, where he finished 44th, Rose has left himself with a lot of ground to make up if he wants to be included in the team, something that has been questioned after a recent lack of enthusiasm when asked about his intentions.

These reports have intensified since Rose’s statement that “the Ryder Cup is important to me, but I’m third in the FedEx Cup standings and that’s where my focus is going to be.”

With competition for places in the European team intense, especially given Ross Fisher’s victory in the Irish Open, Monty will be looking to pick players truly dedicated to the cause as Europe look to regain the trophy lost back in 2008. Read the rest of this entry →

Chris Woodruff reached the semifinals of the 2000 Australian Open.

While playing for the tennis team of my high school in small town West Tennessee, I was occasionally asked about my chances of going pro one day.

I always found this amusing; sure I was usually winning my matches, and sure, I eventually became, in my senior year, the No. 1 seed on our team. And of course, I was a teenager wholly ignorant of the workings of the world outside of the space I’d known in agrarian West Tennessee.

But even I found the idea of my going pro ridiculous. I mean, I wasn’t even the best player in my own family. My brother-in-law Jay had played for a prep school in one of the bigger cities of our state, where tennis is actually regarded as more than an afterthought enjoyed by less popular students not big enough to play football or athletic enough to dunk a basketball.

I had never beaten Jay, and even he had never contemplated going pro. He had a better idea of what that level entailed, however, having run into Chris Woodruff when both were in their pre-teens.

“I couldn’t get back the balls he was hitting,” is how Jay has described their encounter.

Moving Up

Then again, the balls that Chris Woodruff hit weren’t easily retrieved by anyone. Less than a decade after their encounter he was enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and was an All-American in his freshman year of 1992. As a sophomore he leapt from one of the best collegiate players in the country to the best of all, taking the NCAA singles title in 1993, and subsequently taking his skills pro.

But by the middle of 1997, traveling the world as a tennis pro had brought precious little glamour to the life of this Tennessean. In his first three seasons he didn’t even win most of the matches he played at the tour level. In 1996 he had reached his first finals in Philadelphia and Coral Springs. Read the rest of this entry →

On April 22, 1990 – after the Dallas Cowboys selected him with their first-round pick in the National Football League Draft – Emmitt James Smith III arrived in Dallas for the first time ever as a Cowboy wearing a brown and yellow jump suit with polka dots. Smith, the 17^th pick overall, wore the same thing at his introductory press conference. Soon, the legendary running back will be wearing the famous gold jacket.

Can you say extreme makeover? Absolutely. Smith’s attire has not been to shabby since that polka-dotted jump suit. Outfits such as the uniform of America’s Team, striped suit coats at press conferences, and his silky smooth green sleeveless shirt he wore on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars have dotted his wardrobe over the last 20 years. However, the gold jacket is in a class by itself.

In coming full circle, Smith has earned much respect for his on and off-the-field achievements. The National Football League’s all-time leading rusher with 18,355 yards, Smith is on the doorstep of football immortality with only the formal and official festivities left to secure his place in history.

Smith displays his new jersey while decked out in his polka dotted jump suit at his first press conference in Dallas in 1990.

Smith is one of seven players, the maximum allowed in one year, that will be inducted into The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio on Saturday Aug. 7 in a ceremony starting at 7 pm EST. Smith joins Jerry Rice, John Randle, Rickey Jackson, Russ Grimm, Dick Lebeau, and Floyd Little in making up the Class of 2010. Smith and Rice are both first-ballot inductees while Lebeau and Little were elected as senior committee nominees.

Smith’s journey to football’s ultimate honor started with some bold aspirations. Heading into his rookie year in Dallas, Smith made a list of goals he wanted to achieve during his pro career. Among things like leading the team in rushing and being a pro-bowl player, Smith also stated that he desired to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.

Considering he stated this just two weeks after being drafted, before he had signed a contract, before he had ever been in an NFL training camp, and before he had ever touched the ball as a pro, he had his critics. Yet Smith had heard criticism before. NFL head coaches, scouts, personnel directors, and pro football media people did not have him rated as the best running back available heading into the draft. They claimed he lacked speed, was too short, too small, and not strong enough for the pro game. Read the rest of this entry →