SCOTT JACOBS

Back in 2010, Grant Wahl published The Beckham Experiment, an in depth look at the bizzaro world of the world’s most polarizing soccer star. I had a chance to review the book and just a chapter or two in, I stopped reading.

It’s nothing against Wahl, or Beckham for that matter, it’s simply that like most Olympic sports, I don’t care a lick about soccer until the World Cup. It’s weird too: I grew up playing soccer, loved the game — wasn’t very good at it, but that’s another story — so you would think that I would have some kind of attachment to caring about the game on bigger stages.

For whatever reason, it just does not hold my attention.

And if anyone should hold the attention of a sports crazed country, it’s the tatted up Beckham, whose popularity transcends multiple countries. Sometimes it’s as if he had his finger all over the globe. Beginning with world’s most famous club, Manchester United, Beckham evolved from a futboler to a flat out superstar. Not to mention the fact that he won. Everywhere. That tends to get you a legacy.

When Beckham came to the states on the heels of a massive multi-year deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the idea was to change the (perception) game, that soccer had in America. And while the media buzz was palpable early on, especially before and during Beckham’s first game in 2007, the excitement on a national scale (under the label of big-time sports story), soon began to fade. (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

We live in a culture where playing through pain is not only the decent thing to do, but considered the honorable one. Maybe it’s the bloated contracts that our professional athletes in this country receive, which trigger this ‘you better run through a wall for our team and then some’ mentality in both franchise belief systems as well as fan psyches. (Maybe we also have the mindset that technology has become so amazingly precise, that we can prevent injuries from happening with impressive reduction rates; And if they do occur that we have the resources and equipment at our disposal, to fight off the physical traumas our athletes suffer to get them back out there as fast as possible).  Maybe, our athlete’s blood lust for competition is a drug within itself and drives our stars (and enforcers) and our role guys to put themselves in compromising circumstances.

Who’s to say what goes on between athlete, trainer, team, family, etc. But there is so much pressure, so much noise which surrounds their decision to play (or not play) that it’s fair to wonder who makes the decision when it comes to an athlete and his/her well being. (more…)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Popularity: 2% [?]

MITCH BLATT

ESPN basketball commentator Chris Broussard is a Christian. Like many Christians, he holds fundamental views on some areas. As he noted on ESPN recently, his religious views compel him to consider premarital sex, adultery, fornication, and gay sex sins.

That last one got him in trouble.

When discussing Jason Collins’ coming out, he was brought on to analyze how NBA players and teams might handle it. Among his comments, he said, “Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals, if you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin.”

Naturally that has prompted allegations of anti-gay bigotry. But wait. Homosexual sex is just one of many things that followers of some religions consider as sins. Every religion has a moral code–and members of a society have moral codes, too.
(more…)

Popularity: 2% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

Tim Grover is a world class sports trainer. But most people have probably never heard his name. Until now. Grover’s book RELENTLESS, recently hit bookshelves nationwide, and inside the super-star trainer spills what makes elite athletes psychological wonderlands. It’s a fascinating odyssey into the elite and few are prepared to be your guide quite like Tim. His first client was Michael Jordan. Today he’s the go to guy for stars like Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant. With the NBA Playoffs set to kickoff, it was the perfect time to chat with the man behind the stars.

Here it is, our entire interview with Tim Grover:

BY TOPIC:
Michael Jordan’s failures as an executive and owner 00:30
Kobe Bryant’s Rehabilitation 03:20
Derrick Rose’s Return 05:35
Dwyane Wade’s Injury Status and toning down his Physicality 08:20
LeBron James’ rise to Greatness 11:19
The impact of the 1 and Done rule 15:17
The No Star Nuggets 17:27
Why it hasn’t worked in Lakerland 19:18
How Tim got his start 21:48
His unique opinion on Tiger Woods 26:22

Popularity: 3% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

Sports is our escape.

This much I know. We seek sports to help bring back normalcy into our lives after traumatic life-altering events change our world forever. We seek out sports to begin the healing process, because let’s face it – the conveyor of hope and unity reigns at a big event like nothing else.

The singing of the national anthem, it tightens us and softens us at the same time. That feeling of community, something easily lost within the scope of our busy day to day existences, re-emerges. No where does that feeling of optimism and breaking through the sadness stand more powerful than at a sporting event following a tragedy.

So what happens when a sporting event, our piece of escape, becomes the very scene of the crime? What happens when everything that’s great about that moment, that event that experience is turned on its ear and turned into a horror show? (more…)

Popularity: 3% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

I write these words with a heavy heart. As someone who’s never been this close to a horrific attack of this magnitude – just 3.2 miles separated me from the Boston Marathon finish line – my mind is still racing with un-deciphered thoughts as I try to process everything that happened today.

There I was, with a few friends just a few feet from the sign that read ‘Boston Marathon Mile 23’ cheering on the colorful array of runners – people who hailed from all different walks of life and ranged from young to really old – and we looked at the names spelled out on their t-shirts and hollered them out innocently.

“Go Canada.

Go Chris.

Go Lisa.

Go Dave.

Go Big Blue.” (more…)

Popularity: 3% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

Back in the fall of 2009 I had the opportunity to do a feature story on then Seminoles star (and highly recruited McDonalds All-American) Chris Singleton. Sunshine State hoops was not what it is today, and the thought of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh on the same team wasn’t just a pipe dream, it wasn’t even conceivable. FSU was in the middle of another successful season (what would be the second in their 3 year tournament run — not bad for a football school with woefully outdated facilities) and a handful of players from that team would land on an NBA roster.

So what does this have to do with today’s Florida Gulf Coast Sweet Sweet game? Because amongst the number of players and coaches that I spoke to from that FSU team, a then, little known assistant coach named Andy Enfield was one of them. The 43 year-old Enfield: he being the leader of the pop-culture phenomenon known as ‘Dunk City,’ is kind of a big deal right now. In fact, I’d wager that more articles have been written about him and his team this week than any other sports team in the country (with the exception possibly being the Heat).

Little did I know that day, speaking to Enfield, that he would go on to become the Head coach of the first 15 seeded team to ever get past the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend. Little could any of us known — for FGCU wasn’t even a division 1 team then. (more…)

Popularity: 68% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

The streak is over. It died a strange and unexpected death last night at the United Center in Chicago, where a raucous Bulls crowd of 23,014 hooted and hollered the home town Los Bulls over the El Heat, in a 101-97 victory (history will surely frown on those jerseys).

There was no crack at a buzzer-beater. No last second shot that could’ve tied it. It didn’t even come down to one possession. Nope. Attempt at consecutive win #28 was ripped helplessly from Chris Bosh’s mitts by Kirk Hinrich and a Bulls team missing a host of important key regulars (including Richard Hamilton, Joakim Noah, and Derrick Rose). With a chance to clinch the East and take one step closer to history on the line, Miami never got close enough to threaten.

In 2 hours and 39 minutes, a Heat team that hadn’t tasted defeat in 54 days, finally fell. (more…)

Popularity: 4% [?]

BECKY WILCOX
Guest Contributor

The Los Angeles Clippers are more than just fun and games this season.

Sure, they’re a team made up of highlight reel players, but they are more than the sum of their awesome parts.

The Clippers have championship aspirations. And this year they might just have the veteran savvy to make a deep run in the postseason.

As long as the Clippers have shared the city of Los Angeles with the Lakers it has been Laker-nation. But this year, it’s the Clippers who run the town and it’s not just because the Lakers have had a historically disappointing season. It takes a pretty good team to pass 50 wins in a season and the Clippers have been successful on the road and at home. (more…)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Click graphic to enlarge

Popularity: 4% [?]

SCOTT JACOBS

Let ‘em dance. Let ‘em sing. To quote those Archer voiced Coke Zero commercials, let em ‘Enjoy Everything.‘

Because in a world where irrelevance is the norm, FGCU should treasure every moment they’re allotted center stage.

They’re the biggest story in the sport’s most explosive time of year; They’ve made fans of all of us: introducing us to their world of high flyers, chance takers, and hay makers. They’ve given Lob City a new neighbor and Dunk Tank a new creed.

They’re defying everything: The odds, the system, even the militaristic nature with which winning teams have been programmed to play. (more…)

Popularity: 4% [?]