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 →

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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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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Since the explosion of fantasy football into modern sports culture, it’s hard to imagine a time when Sundays during football season weren’t accompanied by millions of people constantly checking their lineups. Young or old, man or woman, it seems like almost every football fan is involved in a fantasy league come kickoff each NFL season. Since the very first fantasy football draft in downtown Oakland, fantasy football has grown far more than the game’s inventor could ever had imagined.

The Beginning

As a branch off from a fantasy golf system, fantasy football was the invented in a bar called the Lamppost by a limited owner of the Oakland Raiders and businessman Bill Winkenbach. In his home, Winkenbach and seven other men held the inaugural draft in 1963 for their league, the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League, or GOPPPL.

With the scoring based solely on touchdowns, the GOPPPL began with each roster consisting of two quarterbacks, four halfbacks, two fullbacks, four offensive ends, two returners, two kickers and four defenders. As the very first fantasy football selection, George Blanda was chosen by Andrew Mousalimas in the now 50-year-old league.

How The Game Has Changed

From players to league sizes to scoring and more, fantasy football has drastically changed over its lifespan. For starters, the number of participants has grown from the original eight to an estimated 24 million. The greatest change of all to the game—the internet–helped the game gain incredible popularity and encouraged a number of modifications. Instead of the one league in Oakland, there are now countless leagues on countless websites, including ESPN, Yahoo, NFL and CBS to name the most prominent.

Although the prize for the winner of any fantasy league—money–has remained roughly the same, the consequence for the loser has evolved from the original football with a dunce cap on it, called the Dunce Trophy, to anything from buying the winner dinner to carrying out embarrassing chores to even getting a tattoo of the winner’s choosing.

A far cry from the GOPPPL having to get statistics and research from one magazine, fantasy football owners can now rely on websites and programs, like Scout Pro Fantasy Football Software. Sites like Scout Pro provide readers with player analysis, rankings, fantasy tools and more. Software from Scout Pro can even take stats and expert analysis and create fantasy point predictions that can be customized to fit the website that you play on.

By The Numbers

As a whole, fantasy sports are estimated to now have an economic impact of more than $2 billion a year. Of the estimated 32 million fantasy sports players, over 75 percent are from fantasy football. Some fantasy football leagues have buy-ins of up to $10,000 while others are completely free.

For fantasy football, committed owners are estimated to spend an average of nine to 12 hours per week on their respective teams. Although men dominate the fantasy sports landscape, an estimated 20 percent of participants are women.

Thanks to a few men in an Oakland bar, watching football has been forever changed. The game of fantasy football continues to grow, and its 50-year history doesn’t appear to be coming to an end any time soon.

Many American sports fans are aware of the legend of George Gipp, as it has risen to almost mythological heights. Gipp was one of the best college football players of all time, but is best known because of the phrase “win one for the Gipper,” which was popularized in a film about Coach Knute Rockne’s life.

Gipp died shortly after playing his final football game, but Rockne used this death to motivate his team before a game seven years later. Because this speech became so famous, Gipp’s legacy has lived on. Today, Gipp is a legendary figure, although we might never know the exact truth behind his life since he died so long ago and lived a very secretive life.

About George Gipp

Although he originally attended Notre Dame to play baseball, legendary coach Rockne convinced George Gipp to join the school’s football team. Gipp went on to lead the Fighting Irish in rushing and passing in 1918, 1919 and 1920, earning All-American honors in the process. Gipp is recognized as one of the best athletes in the history of college football and still holds numerous school records.

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