Auburn University was in a double spotlight Sunday, only the NCAA hopes most of the public’s attention stays focused on the positive rather than the negative one. The Tigers completed a brilliant four-day run by blowing out the Tennessee Volunteers 84-64, winning their first SEC Tournament title since 1985. The win gave their current coach Bruce Pearl a victory over the team that previously hired him, then dumped him in 201, after it was proven he lied to NCAA investigators about a cookout he hosted for recruits. Pearl was very gracious in his post game comments, and thanked SEC Commissioner…
Author: Ron Wynn
Whenever highly touted teams have disappointing seasons in any sport, college or professional, there are calls for change. Usually that means firing a coach or manager, because it’s much easier to do that than turn over an entire roster. It’s also harder to can athletic directors, general managers, team presidents or player personnel directors, because those folks often claim the coaches and/or managers aren’t properly developing or getting maximum results out of premium talent. Athletic directors at Vanderbilt (Malcom Turner) and Tennessee (Phillip Fulmer) face tough decisions as the Commodores’ men’s team and Lady Vols recently completed historically bad seasons.…
For much of this season it’s been a dream year for the Tennessee men’s basketball team. In a period when football remains down and the usually championship level Lady Vols have had rough sailing, the men’s squad for much of the season has been ranked number one. They even accomplished something no previous UT men’s group had ever done, winning 19 straight games. The great teams featuring Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld never did that. Neither did last year’s team that tied for the SEC regular season title and won the SEC Tournament. Not even the 2009-10 team, the only…
Spring training games have begun, and Major League Baseball is heading into what looms as a pivotal year. There are numerous questions and issues facing the sport, and it will also have the earliest opening day in its history, with all 30 teams playing their first game on March 28, approximately one month from this week. But while the exhibition season is usually a lighthearted and fun time, this year it’s also a period when a lot of soul searching and introspection is occurring within the sport. The first problem remains the contentious situation between players and owners, one that…
Ever since arbitrator Stephen Burk rejected the NFL’s request to have the Colin Kaepernick/Eric Reid collusion case dismissed last August, most sage observers knew that at some point a settlement would happen. The league wasn’t going to duplicate the mistake made by MLB a few years ago, when they let their collusion case with the players go into court and lost, opening their processes for contract negotiations to public scrutiny. The NFL stretched things out for dramatic effect, and let Kaepernick dangle for months while Reid signed a one-year veteran’s minimum deal with the Carolina Panthers, but didn’t sever his…
There have been a handful of players in every team sport whose impact and influence extend beyond the athletic world and into society at large. Frank Robinson was one of those, someone much more than just a great baseball player. He was a fierce competitor and also someone who devoted his life to the sport and tried to help it eradicate some of its ills and correct past injustices. Robinson, who died last week at 83, enjoyed an exceptional 21 year career as a player. He remains the only player in the sport’s history who has won Most Valuable Player…
The word genius gets tossed around very loosely in both sports and arts circles. It’s also often used prematurely, as though any one who enjoys any immediate success is somehow a genius and so much smarter than all their peers. Sunday there actually was a genius on display from a football standpoint, only it wasn’t the one who had been previously crowned one by much of the nation’s sporting press. Instead, it was the one who has truly dominated his sport for the past 17 years, and the person most responsible for the New England Patriots having now tied the…
Throughout much of its history Tennessee was the rare school whose women’s basketball team was more the gold standard than its men’s squad. at UConn, where Geno Auriemma has won 11 titles, been national Coach of the Year eight times, and won 1,042 games beginning this season, the men have won four NCAA titles. But Tennessee’s men have never made an Elite Eight, let alone a Final Four. They didn’t achieve that even in the heyday of Ray Mears, despite the heroics of Bernard King and Ernie Grunfield. By contrast, under Pat Summit, the Lady Vols won eight titles and…
By Ron Wynn NASHVILLE, TN — Briana “Hoops” Green has loved basketball since childhood, and began playing the sport as a four-year-old growing up in Kentucky. But she acknowledges that never in her wildest dreams did she envision one day becoming part of a legendary team. Green is the 15th woman in history to be one of the Harlem Globetrotters, an organization whose history dates back 91 years. She’s on of their three units, and since 2017 has enjoyed traveling the world, entertaining fans, and performing some of their famous tricks and maneuvers. “No, I never ever even really thought…
Ordinarily when a heralded executive steps down following a great career, it’s a time to celebrate. But the end last week of Ozzie Newsome’s brilliant tenure as the first and only general manager of the Baltimore Ravens instead put the NFL back into a spotlight that is anything but positive: showcasing the lack of opportunity for Black players anywhere except on the playing field. Newsome has been the Raven’s general manager since 2002. He signed a five year extension in 2014, and Ravens’ owner Steve Bisciotti insists he’ll still have a role with the organization next year, even though he’s…