Sports Then and Now

The NFL is giving Latino and Hispanic fans a chance to illustrate their passion for the game with the winner receiving a trip to the 2010 Pro Bowl.

We all know many passionate football fans and the NFL is looking to specifically recognize some fans for their special passion and interest in the game.

Hispanic and Latino fans of the NFL have a chance to show their team spirit and win prizes during the NFL’s new promotion called Tu Pasion.

Between now and November 22nd, Hispanic and Latino fans can upload pictures and videos showing how they support their favorite team and illustrating their passion for football.

Then, on December 2nd the top 25 passionate fans will be announced and everyone will then have a chance to vote for the top 5.

The Grand Prize is a trip to the 2010 Pro Bowl in Miami. The other finalists will each receive a $500 gift certificate from the NFL Shop.

Click here for the contest rules and to upload your video. You can also check out the pictures and videos that have already been submitted.

I wonder why there is so much fuss about a team that has reached the halfway point in

Rex Ryan and the Jets have their work cut out for them.

the season and has gone four and four. It must be a New York state of mind. Perhaps I’ve been away from the Big Apple too long to remember that all New York sports fans want to and expect their team to win every game no matter what. That’s what makes them New Yorkers.

There are many fans out there before the beginning of the season who would have been very satisfied with a .500 record before the bye week. The fact that the team started 3-0 including a huge win against the New England Patriots raised their expectations through the roof.

Well the Jets have backed down to earth despite the fact that they totally out played the Dolphins on both sides of the ball in their 30-25 defeat. Somebody, however must have forgot to tell them that Special Teams also need to be on the same page.

This is what Special Teams Coordinator Mike Westhoff said, ”This was the absolute worst performance by any of his units in his 27 NFL seasons.” Ouch!

When a return artist like Ted Ginn Jr returns one for 100 yards and a score that’s a pretty good deal. When he does a second one for 101 yards in the same quarter that’s certainly great for him and the Dolphins, but an unimaginable for Jets Special Teams Unit.

This was the first time in my memory that this achievement has been accomplished during my football watching days.

Now Head Coach Rex Ryan has beaten himself up and down and behind the barn, he has given his team the next 6 days to get away from football. He expects that the rest is a good thing and his team will come back invigorated and ready to make a run at the playoffs in the second half of the season.

The Jets have Jacksonville, Carolina, Atlanta and Cincinnati at home and New England, Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Indianapolis on the road.

A 4-4 record seems to be achievable but Ryan and his Jets expect more. They will need to go at least 6-2 and possibly even 7-1 to get tho this years dance. Based on the first eight games, the odds of the Jets getting to the playoffs this year are slim to none.

Jet’s fans will have to demonstrate a little more patience with their patient. He is right now in stable condition with a pretty good chance for a full recovery. How long until fully recovered remains to be seen. Consider this however, they are not on life support and in many areas showing marked improvement every week.

That’s okay by me.

The Bills dramatic victoy over the Jets is the lone highlight of their young season.

So far, at least, it’s been a very strange season in the NFL. Some have called it bizarre.  I think that adjective applies.

The one thing that distinguishes the NFL from other major professional sports is its parity. That is no accident. The league has gone to great lengths from its straight bottom up draft (compare to the NBA’s lottery draft) to revenue sharing to salary caps, the league has done everything other than working a handicap into game scores to establish and maintain relative balance. The result is that the NFL is the most watched professional sport in the United States, and pro football has supplanted baseball as America’s pastime.

That being said, what’s going on this year? We’ve had a string of lopsided victories, including a 59-0 routing of the Tennessee Titans by the less than peak-performing Patriots. And what’s more, how have the Titans gone from winning 13 games last year to being unable to score 13 points this year? In addition, we have as many as five other teams that threaten the maxim that on any given day any given team can beat any other. More than once, sportscasters have said of the game they were reporting, “this doesn’t even resemble the NFL.”

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It was snowing in Foxboro in October. How will the weather be for baseball in November?

Let It Snow!!!

For the first time, the World Series is actually scheduled to finish up in November. The Series did go into November in 2001, but that was because of 9/11, but this year for some reason the baseball powers think November baseball is a good thing.

Now I love baseball and will miss it when the season is over, but that doesn’t mean I think they need to be playing past Halloween.

Sports seasons used to be pretty clean. Baseball started in early April and ended in mid-October. Football started in early-September and ended in mid-January. Basketball started in early November and ended in mid-June. Hockey started in early October and ended in mid-May.

For some reason, in recent years each of the seasons seems to be gradually getting bigger, much like my waistline. They just keep extending further out little by little until eventually you don’t even remember when it wasn’t at its current (enlarged) size.

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Lauren Gardner in her cheering days with the Denver Broncos

I confess. Despite being the most happily married man this side of the Rockies, I’m still a sucker for a pretty face. My wife Kate, allows me to look at the menu as long as I promise not to eat from the buffet. And I promise faithfully. Not so much as even a light snack.

So, when I saw that Lauren Gardner had joined the Linked-in group, A Glove of Their Own, I approached her to do a story before the ink even cooled. I was familiar with Lauren after seeing her cheer for the Denver Broncos in 2007 and remember her as a woman amongst girls.

No offense to the other members of the squad, but Lauren’s flaming red hair, flying crazy against the sea of orange and blue was a sight that few of the 70,000 plus football-hungry males at Invesco Field could ever forget.

Blessed with flowing red locks, a gorgeous white toothie smile, and abs that a forty something like me would die for, Lauren registers on the smoking scale somewhere slightly north of “mucho caliente.” Read the rest of this entry →

Karl Mecklenburg at induction ceremony for Colorado Hall of Fame

The following is part of a weekly series called “Through the Eyes Of…” In each segment, I share interviews with or stories about those that I view to be the “good guys.” “Through the Eyes of…” is a part of my personal crusade to present sports in all its beauty, splendor, and goodness, instead of through hashing and rehashing all that is broken with our national treasures.

I recently became acquainted with Karl Mecklenburg after being asked by his publicist, Julie Schoerke, to do a book review on Mecklenburg’s new book, “Heart of a Student Athlete: All Pro Advice for Competitors and Their Families”.

I hesitated at first for a number of reasons. Aside from the book having the longest name to ever appear in the Dewey Decimal System, Mecklenburg gave my New England Patriots fits every time they ventured into Mile High. Why would I want to help the enemy promote his book?

Also, I confess that I’m not much of a reader and have truly struggled through my previous attempts to become sports literature’s version of Siskel and Roeper. Amazing that someone can pretend to be so learned and have hardly cracked a book since college at Syracuse circa 1983. If a book doesn’t grab my interest in about the first five pages it becomes a door stop. Read the rest of this entry →