All Entries in the "Sports" Category
College Football 2008: Stories, Non-Stories and Near-Stories
By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com In just a few days, the Beijing Summer Olympics will begin. Whether or not anyone actually sees who wins events in track and field because of the smog is anyone’s guess. In just a few weeks, the Democratic and Republican national conventions will commence. Whether or not anyone actually sees a candidate that can lead this nation is everyone’s hope. [...]
The Packers and Favre Defy Logic
By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com Let me see if I have this straight: Last season, Green Bay Packers quarterback – former quarterback – Brett Favre leads the Pack to within one game of the Super Bowl and has a terrific season along the way. Several months later, he retires. After he retires, the Packers ask him several times [...]
Valdosta (Ga.) Named TitleTown USA; Losing Cities Furious
By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com Rival cities believe ESPN.com rigged voting VALDOSTA, Ga. (Harbors) – This afternoon, ESPN.com named Valdosta (Ga.) as TitleTown USA. While residents of Valdosta were thrilled, the reaction in several other cities across the nation was swift and scathing. City leaders, local businessmen and even students in Los Angeles, Boston, Green Bay and Gainesville (Fla.) [...]
TitleTown USA: ESPN Serving Up Apples and Oranges
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com One of the great things about sports is that it creates more dialogue, debate and disagreement than a presidential campaign. Is Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium louder than the Swamp at Florida? Which is the best ballpark: Wrigley Field or Fenway Park? The best home court advantage in college basketball [...]
College Coaches: Are They Worth The Big Money?
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com Last week I was talking with a Tennessee Volunteers fan about, of all people, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma. The topic was Auriemma’s new contract that will pay him more than legendary Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt. To suggest he was irate over this new development would be an understatement. But [...]
College Football Recruiting: Adults Gone Mad
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com In the often complex world of working one’s way through the teenage years, one thing stands out as the great equalizer for those gifted on the gridiron: College Football Recruiting. Even more than college basketball recruiting, it is the one arena in life where teens are calling the [...]
Where Have You Gone, Boston Garden
Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com As the NBA Finals got underway with another historic chapter of the Boston Celtics versus the Los Angeles Lakers about to be written, I couldn’t help but notice one player that was missing. Born on November 17,1928, he lived an event-filled, historic life before his passing on September 25, 1995. The player I’m speaking of: [...]
Stanley Cup Follow-Up: 7 Minutes to Remember
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com When last we met, which would be yesterday, I was outlining my case for the NHL having no major buzz with fans and all levels of media across the nation in The Stanley Cup Final: Does Anyone Care? A few hours ago I turned on NBC and, along [...]
The Stanley Cup Final: Does Anyone Care?
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com In NHL terminology, I grew up in the days of the Original Six: Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and New York. Six teams playing 70 regular season games, 14 against each opponent which made for some very “interesting” evenings at Chicago Stadium, the Forum or any of those great old [...]
Celtics vs. Lakers: A Final Worth Watching…Finally
My love for the NBA began in 1966. That was the year my hometown finally got a team. That team: The Chicago Bulls. I remember the many nights in the late, great Chicago Stadium watching the likes of Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier, Chet Walker, Bob Love, Clifford Ray and Tom Boerwinkle play with such great passion [...]
They Said It, I Read It and a Car Horn
By Christopher Gabriel Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com The past few weeks have been loaded with what amounts to a verbal and prose buffet’s-worth of items screaming for attention in Blog Harbor. With that in mind, grab your coffee, get comfy and let’s chat. Hi Sweetie-Pie I grew up in a family that frequently used names [...]
How’s Your Bracket?
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor For as long as I can remember, when the month of March rolls around I like millions of other Americans go underground into a secluded bunker filled with videotapes, stats and team profiles to prepare for the benchmark moment of the entire sports calendar: Filling in my March Madness, NCAA [...]
Doing What’s Right: Too Hard for Too Many
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor When I was growing up, we had a neighbor named Mr. Detwiler. He was our neighborhood’s official Mean Guy. He didn’t speak to anyone; he didn’t acknowledge anyone. At least that’s how he treated all the kids. And because of it, he became The Guy No One Liked. It was [...]
Land of the Giants
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor Last night in the Arizona desert, Team History met Team Destiny. When all was said and done, and as it often turns out, Destiny was just a little bit better than History. In what was thought to be an unthinkable, improbable outcome, the New York Giants ended the New England Patriots’ dream [...]
’72 Dolphins Praying for a Giant Win
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor As we inch closer to kick-off for Super Bowl XLII, the game itself will be preceded on various networks by the annual ritual of Pregame Shows from Hell. These programs really make you consider running out to the nearest Interstate and playing kickball at rush hour. They’ll serve up stories and interviews ranging from [...]
Boston vs. New York: The Center of the Universe
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor 75. Does the number mean anything to you? Surely it does to some people. For example, it’s important to LEGO. This past August 10th, they celebrated their 75th anniversary. Esquire magazine will be celebrating their 75th anniversary this year. And the 2007-08 sports calendar has the Southeastern Conference celebrating, yep you guessed [...]
ESPN: They Hate Us!
In my freshmen year of college in Los Angeles, a sociology professor set up a little demonstration designed to illustrate perception versus reality. Requiring three volunteers, he asked the hundred or so in the class if anyone was from Seattle, Chicago and Boston. Sure enough, the three cities were represented so off to the blackboard they went. He then gave them [...]
BCS “Championship” Game Proves Little
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor If it’s the first week of January, it must be time for the Ohio State Buckeyes to get slapped, spanked and sent home by yet another SEC football team in the BCS championship game. Last year, it was Florida. You’ll recall Ohio State ran back the opening kick-off for a touchdown . . [...]
A Look Back, A Look Ahead . . . Some Things Don’t Change
By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor Every December when New Year’s Eve rolls around, it’s long since been the norm for newspapers, magazines, radio stations and cable news outlets to offer up a year-end recap of all that’s gone on in the world. More often than not you’ll read, watch or listen to a well-written or highly-produced piece that is [...]
Looking for Bobby (Petrino)
The Scene: Tuesday, December 4, 2007, The Bison Club of Spoon River Junction, Georgia. Tonight is the annual, much-heralded and highly anticipated, Gathering of the Bison Holiday Bash. One night a year, the proud lineage of Georgia Bison (the nation’s largest chapter), all 4500 of them, wearing their holiday “uniform” of black pants, black shirt and [...]
Memo to 1972 Miami Dolphins: Go Away
Let’s get one thing out in the open right off the bat: I have no bone to pick with the Miami Dolphins football organization. None whatsoever. Although I’ve never been a Dolphins fan, I most certainly am not a Dolphins hater. Although I’m a passionate pro and college football fan, I care no more or less [...]
BCS a Mess After Another Wild Saturday
It’s a mess. In a college football season that has made the improbable the only constant, Saturday’s championship and rivalry showdowns followed the 2007 script to perfection: What you were sure would happen . . . did not. The championship scenario was very simple: West Virginia, a huge favorite over Pittsburgh in Morgantown, merely had to [...]
