If you don’t know, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest athletes ever to play professional sports. He won three national championships with the UCLA Bruins and then won 6 NBA championships. He is a six-time NBA MVP, two-time NBA Finals MVP, 19-time All-Star, two-time scoring champion, and a member of the NBA 35th and 50th Anniversary All-Time Teams. And …
Would You Decrease a Player to Make the Teams Even?
Cotton Center was playing Amherst High High School in a district game. About halfway through the third period, a player from Amherst fouled out of the game. And, since they only had 5 players to start the game, this meant Amherst could only field a 4-person team for the rest of the game. Obviously, this would give Cotton Center a …
Andrew Whitworth: The Importance of a Positive Role Model
Andrew Whitworth received the NFL’s most coveted award: The Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for 2021. This award honors a player’s commitment to philanthropy and community impact, as well as his excellence on the field. All 32 NFL teams nominate one player from their respective team and the NFL selects one winner each year. Last year, Whitworth …
The Importance of Acknowledging Mental Health
Patrick McCaffery is the starting forward for the Iowa Hawkeye Men’s Basketball Team. This season he is the 3rd leading scorer on the team, averaging 12.8 points per game. He also happens to be the son of Iowa’s head coach, Fran McCaffery. In the early part of January, Patrick held a press conference to talk about something that most athletes …
The Importance of the Handshake Line #Class #Respect
About a year ago, Michigan played Wisconsin in a men’s basketball game. In the handshake line after the game, the Michigan coach and the Wisconsin coach got into a heated standoff, complete with verbal jarring and physical altercations. It made big headlines. Later that week, Coach Tom Izzo, men’s head basketball coach was asked if we should discontinue the handshake …
A Little Boy and His Temper
There once was a young boy with a very bad temper. The boy’s father wanted to teach him a lesson, so he gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper he must hammer a nail into their wooden fence. On the first day of this lesson, the little boy had driven 37 …
Coach Calapari Shows Coal Miner Kindness
After finishing a shift for Excel Mining, Michael McGuire raced to the University of Kentucky to join his wife and son at a Kentucky basketball game. Michael did not have time to change out of his uniform and he did not have time to shower. His family didn’t care. They were just happy to see him when he arrived at …
Outstanding Sportsmanship or Overreaction?
On Monday Night Football, the Cincinnati Bengals hosted the Buffalo Bills. Early in the first quarter, Tee Higgins caught a pass over the middle and was tackled by Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin. It looked like a regular play, nothing dirty, nothing violent. Damar got up and then immediately fell back to the ground. Within minutes, an ambulance was driven onto …
“We Need One Miracle”
In 2019, Dametrius Walker was a sophomore student-athlete at Muskegon High School in Michigan. He had already received 10 scholarship offers to play college football. The future looked bright for the man nicknamed, “Meechie.” Then, a nagging knee injury brought him to the medical professionals who diagnosed him with Osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer. Meechie began his fight with …
Julianne Sitch Becomes 1st Female Coach to Lead Men’s Soccer Team to an NCAA Title
Julianne Sitch is in her rookie season as the head coach of the men’s soccer team at the University of Chicago. Today, she finished off the 22-0-1 season with a national championship, thus becoming the first female coach to win a national championship on a men’s college soccer team. When asked to describe the meaning of this, Coach Sitch said, …