944

Yup, getting excited about the World Cup.


via www.highsnobiety.com Written by: D.B. Mitchell

So stupid, but so funny. Thanks to my buddy Austin for turning me onto this ...

Written by: D.B. Mitchell

Why? Because a lot of people can make you look terrible -- and then put you on YouTube some day.

Written by: D.B. Mitchell

The Washington Post's Tracee Hamilton has a piece up today about the joke that is ice dancing. The joke, in this case, is the Olympics' theme of "country/folk" dance. Hamilton's column hits on the controversies sparked by several, um, let's call them ignorant, costumes -- specifically those worn by Russian pair Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin (pictured above).


While the column is worth a slight scanning, the best thing to do is look at the picture gallery that accompanies the article. Pure comedy.


Read the column here, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022104563.html?hpid=artslot


See the gallery here, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/02/19/GA2010021904492.html?sid=ST2010022200139
Written by: D.B. Mitchell

as told to Justin Doom

What does the NFL hold for Tim Tebow? Depends whom you ask, and GAME asked Erin Andrews.

Tim Tebow loves a challenge. He told me that even in high school people doubted he could throw the ball or be a winner at Florida, and he said, “Well, it worked out pretty well there.” When I talk to the people who’ve actually played the game, actually coached in the game, and not listen to the talking heads, the guys who’ve never put on a uniform, it’s a pretty different opinion. Steve Young has said, “He’s a rare commodity. You see so many things in Tim that guys in the NFL don’t have.” That’s Steve Young! Are you kidding me? Troy Aikman said he can do it all. Jon Gruden said, “This guy’s totally different, he’s got the makeup of Drew Brees and Rich Gannon.” Tony Dungy said he’d draft Tebow in the top 10 of the first round. I believe those people know what they’re talking about. You’ll see the big draft boards and so forth, but have those guys actually put the pads on? Do they know what goes into winning a game or leading a team? Those guys will say, “Yeah, second or third round at best” or “He’ll never work out as an NFL quarterback,” but guys that have played in the NFL are like, “This guy has it. He’s going to have to work on some things, but he’s got it.”

I think it’s sad when you have a person who wears his emotions on his sleeve and is as good as it gets with faith and charitable work and giving back to a community and wanting to please everybody yet there are so many people who love to hate him and cheer against him. I guess it’s just part of sports, but we cheer for guys who have all of these problems in their personal life or bring things into locker rooms that they shouldn’t, so why would we cheer against somebody like this? It’s just so strange to me. He’s what’s good about sports. He’s what’s exciting about sports. There are always people who want the best to fall, they want the Lakers to lose, they want LeBron not to win a championship, they didn’t want Timmy to win a national championship, but it’s sad.

With me, and I’ll always be a sports fan, but it can be very difficult to be a sports fan when you cover sports, when you believe that certain guys are great guys and then you meet guys you’ve idolized and then they’re not what you thought, it’s such a bummer, such a heartbreaker. That’s what’s so refreshing about Tim, he’s everything that he portrays himself to be. I believe that’s why so many people cheer for him. That’s also why a lot of people don’t cheer for him, and why a lot of people, I think, sadly, hope he fails. They’re sick and tired of how great the kid is.

I’ve never seen anyone in college athletics who works this hard. His mentality is, he just does not want to let people down. That’s his No. 1 focus. Sure, he wants to go in and beat Alabama, and he wanted to go in and beat Oklahoma, but he doesn’t want to let the fanbase down. He doesn’t want to let his family down. It’s something that really, really drives him. When he talks about winning the national championship, he’ll be like, “Gosh, do you know how many people just had great weekends in Miami because we won that game?” That’s how he thinks! Who else thinks like that?

I know people who are really close to him, people who cover the team and they want the guy to do well because they know how much he cares. When he gets done with games he gets so physically ill because he just puts everything he can into it. People who’ve had the opportunity to cover him, to see what he does, to see how jacked up and competitive he is and how much it means to him just can’t help but want to cheer for somebody like that. And in looking at all the stats, and the two national championships, the Heisman, his speech on the plaque at the stadium, I don’t know if he’s the greatest college football player, but I would think that he’d have to go down as one of the greatest.

Maybe more than anything, I’m really excited for what Tim can do in the NFL in terms of community service. It’s so infectious. Being a friend of his, it makes me want to go out and do stuff all the time with his charities and so forth. Last April, he hosted an event where he raised money for the cancer unit in Gainesville and an orphanage in the Philippines. And, really, he doesn’t need me, any little thing I can do to help is great, but he’s got big-time friends everywhere. Being around him makes you reevaluate your life. You think, What else could I be doing? What’s that next challenge? Written by: As told to Justin Doom

by Kevin Whipps

If it weren’t for athletes pushing the boundaries of what their bodies can do, there would never be any advancement in sports. But eventually, luck runs out and a major injury happens which can sideline the pro for months or even years. The best way to hear these stories of pain, injury and suffering is straight from the mouths of the people who went through it all, so that’s exactly what we did. Just remember, don’t try this at home.

Mike Vallely
AKA: Mike V
PROFESSION: Skateboarder, Musician
INJURY: Broken ankle & torn ligament
“I was doing a demonstration at a skate park in Westchester, Penn., and about 10 minutes into the performance I fell awkwardly, and kind of did the splits but then fell back over one of my legs as I was doing the splits. It caused my ankle to fracture in a spiral way, and also causing the big ligament on the other side of the ankle to become detached, causing my ankle to kind of flop around like a dead fish. I heard it break, I felt it. I knew it was bad, but I was so in the zone at the time �” especially when I’m doing these demos, I’m in such an aggressive mindset �” that I really thought I could get up and keep skating for another five or 10 minutes before it swelled up so bad that it caused me to stop. I broke it, I tried to get up immediately and get on my board, and my foot was twisted around behind me. I dropped to the ground and waited for the paramedics. Staying true to my character, I was bummed, but shit happens �” you accept that as a skateboarder very early on. I knew I was hurt, but I’ve been hurt before. I felt worse about the kids who had come there, paid money to see me skate and went out being ripped off from the two hours I was supposed to skate, and only seeing 10 minutes. Before the paramedics got there, I started an autograph line, and people were bending over taking photos with me, while I’m on the ground.”

Damacio
AKA: The Angel of Death
PROFESSION: World Extreme Cagefighting Mixed Martial Artist
INJURY: Broken hand
“I hit the guy and I knocked him out. He was on the floor and I gave him a couple of extra punches. Right after I did it, they pulled me off and brought me to my corner where I felt the pressure in my hand. I thought, ‘Hey, I think I broke it.’ I say to [my manager] Greg, ‘Hey, I think I broke my hand,’ and he says, ‘I think you broke it, too.’

Tony Hawk
AKA: Birdman
PROFESSION: Skateboarder, Businessman, Video game icon in Tony Hawk’s RIDE
INJURY: Broken pelvis, fractured skull, concussion
“I was doing a full, complete loop ramp, and it just didn’t go well that day. I basically fell from the top onto my hip, and I also fractured my skull and got a concussion. When I woke up, they were putting me in the ambulance, and they were kind of shifting me from the stretcher, and I felt this shooting pain through my pelvis and my leg. I said, ‘Oh wow, my hip really hurts.’ It was one of the first things I remembered when I came to. They said, ‘Oh, we’ll x-ray that,’ and we get to the hospital and they x-ray it, and they say, ‘Oh yeah, you fractured [your pelvis] all the way through.’ I really couldn’t walk for about six to eight weeks.”

Rick Thorne
AKA: Biker in Black
PROFESSION: BMX rider, Sports commentator
INJURY: Broken palate, broken eye socket, deviated septum
“I hit a loading dock, the corner of a loading dock, on this gap that went short and I broke my palate. I hit the corner of the loading dock with my face and what happened was that I had a hairline crack below my eye socket, and I broke my eye socket on my left side, then it came down and broke my palate. I had already broken my jaw before that, had it wired shut, and I thought that was a nightmare, but this thing was intense. I deviated my septum and there was this fluid leaking from my brain down through my mouth, so I was spitting out all this fluid from my brain. I deviated my septum, broke my eye socket, broke my palate and you could put your finger in my mouth and move my whole mouth up and down �” it was crazy. They cut my head from ear to ear, pulled my skin down, took some fat from my stomach and clogged this leak up between my brain and my skull, which was the fluid leaking from my nasal. I lost all sense of taste and smell, I had a tracheotomy, and I had a full-on stitch across my head. “ Written by: Kevin Whipps

by David Breitman

It was either Vince Lombardi or a cast member of Jersey Shore who once said “following in the footsteps of a hero is the single most daunting task any young man can be asked to endure.” The unrealistic expectations, inevitable failure and lifelong self-doubt is something that very few athletes (and only a handful of Price is Right contestants) ever have to face. These four collegiate prospects may not be household names yet, but if they can successfully navigate through the difficult road ahead, they may end up becoming legends in their own time.

John Brantley
Florida Gators Quarterback
In the history of college football (and quite frankly, since the birth of Christ), no single human being has ever been deified in a greater light than departing Gators quarterback Tim Tebow. He ran with a vengeance, passed with precision and was even compared to Chuck Norris on several different e-mail chains throughout the GAME offices. Tebow broke nearly every single conference record over the course of his championship-filled career and wasn’t afraid to cry like a 7-year-old diabetic transgender she-male while doing it. Tough act to follow for John Brantley, a kid from Ocala, Fla., with less big-game experience than the third-grade class at the Maurice Clarrett School for Gifted Children — or to a lesser extent, the entire Cleveland Browns’ roster. Every single snap Brantley takes will be measured against the Tebow standard, which seems pretty fair, considering that his head coach just left to selfishly “avoid dying from a heart attack” and every major defensive player on the team just bolted to the NFL.

Garrett Gilbert
Texas Longhorns Quarterback
After what feels like a 27-year-long career as the Texas Longhorns starting quarterback, Colt McCoy is finally taking his game to the next level, where he will have the opportunity to show what mediocre arm strength and an uncanny resemblance to Kirk Herbstreit can do for a franchise that couldn’t find anyone better to pick at the end of the first round. For the Longhorns, replacing McCoy won’t be easy — even with a five-star recruit who possesses what Chad Ford would call “very limitless upside.” Garrett Gilbert may be one of the most highly regarded high school stars in Texas state history, but the first-year signal caller will need to win more games than any quarterback to ever play NCAA football if he hopes to surpass his predecessor. It’s sort of like being asked to sub in for Elizabeth Berkeley in the Showgirls sequel or sleeping with Vlade Divac’s ex-girlfriend. The bar is almost too high for anybody to succeed.

Ed Davis
North Carolina Tar Heels Power Forward
Long before Tyler Hansbrough started searching for lost dogs in AT&T commercials, the Missouri native was one of the best collegiate basketball players to ever dawn a baby blue uniform. In his senior season, Hansbrough became the leading scorer in school history en route to a national championship in which he helped shellac a Michigan State team that Craig Nance seemed to think was playing for the dignity of every laid-off autoworker in the greater Detroit area. Hansbrough was a national icon and V.I.P. Supercuts customer that rejuvenated the school’s winning tradition and gave hope to both white kids in next year’s NBA draft. If Ed Davis wants to follow in Hansbrough’s size 16 footsteps, the talented sophomore is going to need to put the Tar Heel nation on his back and drag them into the Final Four — a place where every one of their bandwagon fans seem to think the team belongs. No pressure, kid.

Jimbo Fisher
Head Coach Florida State Seminoles
If you ask the majority of people in Tallahassee to name two different Florida State head football coaches they would probably tell you “Bobby Bowden, and the guy who came before Bobby Bowden.” The recently released bench boss built the Seminoles program from scratch and turned it into a national powerhouse that outplayed Oklahoma, recruited better than Penn State and bribed players just as well as any team associated with Pete Carroll. Hell, he even did it with a sort of southern charm that gave him a Matlock-esque quality that drove the ladies wild! However, despite leading the Seminoles to a pair of national championships and a parade of dominance in the late 1990s that rivals the Undertaker’s Wrestlemania record, the folks at Florida State strong-armed the 80-year-old coach into “early” retirement at the end of 2009. Apparently, the school felt that an NCAA investigation which revealed numerous players reading below a third-grade level sullied their reputation as the Harvard of northern Florida. In his place will step Jimbo Fisher, a man who worked as the LSU quarterback’s coach during the JaMarcus Russell era (you’re welcome, Oakland) and has never technically served in any sort of head coaching role. It’s going to take a lot to make the Seminoles forget about their beloved Bowden, so Fisher may have his work cut out for him in 2010. Written by: David Breitman

compiled by Front Row Analytics

Title sponsorships, naming rights, endorsements, in the worlds of professional sports and high-level college athletics, these deals can mean the difference between profitability and finishing the year in the red. But what do these Fortune 500 companies get out of forking over thousands, millions, hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, the good folks at Front Row Analytics crunched the numbers on everything from brand integration to the value of on-field signage to evaluate the return on investment for companies that shell out the dollars to become a household name. Here, they let GAME readers see just which company reaped the rewards while making some of the biggest games of the year happen. [Note: The value of these deals depends greatly on which network broadcast the game, i.e., the MLB All-Star Game on Fox and the NHL All-Star Game on Versus.]

Event: 2009 MLS All-Star Game
AT&T received $489,667 worth of broadcast exposure during the 2009 MLS All-Star Game. The company received branding from on-field signage (virtual), LED signage, verbal mentions, commercial billboards and on-screen text.

Event: 2009 MLB All-Star Game
Busch received more than $4.4 million in broadcast exposure during Fox’s telecast of the 2009 MLB All-Star Game. They received on-screen text, verbal mentions and signage, including home-plate backstop signage, outfield wall signage dugout exposure and stadium façade.

Event: 2009 MLB All-Star Game
Taco Bell received the most exposure of all sponsors at the 2009 MLB ASG with $6.4 million in exposure. This included more than eight minutes of exposure on Fox, including rotational signage.

Event: 2009 MLB Home Run Derby
By being title sponsor of the State Farm Home Run Derby, State Farm received $22 million worth of exposure. They had more than an hour of total exposure, which included verbal mentions, stadium signage and on-screen graphics. In 2008, State Farm only received $12,252,083 in exposure, so whatever they did differently was incredibly successful.

Event: 2008 BCS Championship
As the title sponsor of college football’s national championship game, Allstate received $69 million worth of exposure through signage, commercials and on-air mentions.

Event: Super Bowl XLIII
Raymond James was the big winner of Super Bowl XLIII, with more than $37.6 million of broadcast exposure value, thanks to the game being held at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Fla. The company received seven verbal mentions and plenty of in-stadium signage exposure.

Event: 2009 NHL All-Star Game
The Japanese car manufacturer’s sponsorship of the NHL’s All-Star Game garnered the company $193,120 worth of broadcast exposure, thanks to in-ice and on-ice signage, on-screen text and verbal mentions.

Event: 2008 Under Armour Senior Bowl
In its second year of a two-year deal, the athletic apparel company received more than $150,000 worth of exposure, thanks to on-screen text and graphics, field logos and field-level signage.

Event: 2009 MLB All-Star Game
Pepsi also received a large amount of exposure, finishing second among sponsors with $5.7 million in media value.

For more information on Front Row Analytics and their parent company, Front Row Marketing Services, please visit frontrow-marketing.com. Written by: Compiled by Front Row Analytics

by Justin Doom

The National Football League may have supplanted Major League Baseball as the nation’s favorite sport, a fact reflected in the NFL’s naming its more recent documentary series on Super Bowl teams America’s Game, but baseball has one thing football still desperately wants: an antitrust exemption.

When the U.S. Supreme Court listened to arguments from NFL lawyers in January about how vital such an arrangement would be (because apparently generating $7.6 billion in 2008, the most recent year for which figures were available, isn’t enough) Justice Sonia Sotomayor didn’t sound convinced. She was quoted in The Washington Post telling Gregg Levy, an NFL lawyer: “You are seeking through this ruling what you haven’t gotten from Congress: an absolute bar to an antitrust claim.” MLB is the only league with such an exemption. Really, the issue comes down to whether the league should be viewed as one corporation with 32 branches, each team representing an arm of the tree, or 32 separate companies colluding together to shut out competitors and generate outrageous profits. Levy, in that same article, argued that teams “are not independent sources of economic power, because none of them can produce the product of the venture on their own.”

How the Supreme Court rules, or whether the case is returned to a lower court, could have lasting implications for the league, far beyond the current merchandise dispute with American Needle, the Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based clothing maker that challenged the NFL’s exclusive deal with Reebok signed in 2001. The league has argued that having a single apparel maker allows the league to better promote itself, but American Needle has alleged that such a deal really just allows the league to fix prices, citing, as an example, how similar fitted caps now cost $30 instead of $20. Both the NBA and NHL, unsurprisingly, are siding with the NFL, against which the NFL players’ union stands firm.

But should the league lose this case, or should it be relegated to another court, perhaps the biggest financial threat to could be if the NFL is forced to rework the four-year, $4 billion deal, which runs through 2014, it signed with DirecTV last March. Many fans, commentators and writers have long argued that such a deal is a monopoly and shouldn’t be allowed. Sunday Ticket, which steadily has increased in price since it was introduced in 1994, the same year DirecTV launched, now costs $299.95 for a residential annual subscription and at least $950 for sports bars, a figure that increases commensurate to a location’s fire-code occupancy. Chief among the critics of the NFL’s DirecTV deal is Gregg Easterbrook, a former Brookings Institution fellow and senior editor at The New Republic. During football season, he writes the “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column for ESPN.com. In a 2007 column, Easterbrook not only called out the league for hypocritically demanding other cable carriers that are barred from offering Sunday Ticket pick up the NFL Network (which many since have done), but argued that the league could make more money by offering Sunday Ticket to more fans on more platforms. A DirecTV representative, in a recent interview, refused to disclose how many Sunday Ticket subscribers the company served, but Easterbrook, in 2007, when the service cost $250, put the subscriber number at 1.6 million, meaning the league made approximately $400 million. Why not expand the service, Easterbrook wrote, to, say, 25 million fans at $50 a pop and rake in $1.3 billion?

“I can’t understand,” Easterbrook told GAME in a recent e-mail interview, “why Congress does not pick up the Sunday Ticket issue as a populist concern. Average people are taxed for the stadia that make NFL profits possible; the NFL markets tax-free bonds and itself operates as a nonprofit, dodging taxes; yet average people are often forbidden to watch telecasts of the games. Is Congress so utterly sold-out that all members consider their trips on NFL owners’ private planes more important than the populist issue here?” DirecTV, which recently introduced its RedZone Channel (allowing fans who subscribe to a variety of cable and satellite carriers to watch vital scoring plays from every game that Sunday), said through a representative that it fairly acquired Sunday Ticket through an open bidding process. They also point out that fans who for whatever reason, often geography, can’t subscribe to DirecTV soon could benefit from watching games over broadband. This new avenue was part of the league’s most recent deal, and the satellite TV coporation says it will begin no later than 2012. DirecTV Public Relations Director Robert Mercer said the broadband Sunday Ticket service was tested last season and hopefully will be rolled out in time for the 2010 season. Exactly how much the broadband out-of-market-games service would cost or what Internet providers could offer it, and whether such a service will avoid some of the proprietary battles that have prevented certain ISPs from allowing access to ESPN360, remain to be seen. “We are always looking at ways to enhance the NFL viewing experience,” Mercer added.

The league also is exploring additional ways fans can watch NFL games on mobile devices, said Dan Masonson of NFL corporate communications, who enthusiastically discussed how the 2009 season was the NFL’s most-watched since 1990. Nielsen figures for 2009 put an average game’s viewership at 16.6 million, approximately 2 million more per game than 2008. Mason was just as adamant that the league’s exclusive deal with DirecTV didn’t prevent further growth. “DirecTV is not limiting the amount of people who could get the games, it’s an added product,” Masonson said. “Prior to the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package, the same games were still on over-the-air TV. In fact, beginning in 2000, we’ve changed one of our broadcast rules: If there was a home team playing in a market, you would get two games. Now if there’s a home team playing in a market that sells out, you would get two games.” Masonson also said the league has no plans to revise its policy on blacking out local games that don’t sell out. “The blackout policy has served us well,” he said. “This year we had 22 blackouts of 256 games, meaning that 91 percent of the games were shown on free, over-the-air television in local markets. The policy has created capacity crowds, which makes games more attractive for the TV audience. As far as the economy, we are sensitive to what our fans and business partners are going through. In 2009, three-quarters of the NFL teams froze ticket prices.” Many teams, he added, also offered installment plans and other incentives for fans seeking season-ticket purchases.

But fans won’t be able to buy tickets to games or watch games in 2011 if, well, there aren’t any games. Peter King of Sports Illustrated wrote in January that he’d be surprised if the season isn’t delayed or cancelled because of player-owner compensation squabbles. Mercer, when asked what would happen to the DirecTV’s deal with the NFL in the case of a labor dispute, would it be extended another year automatically or would DirecTV be refunded at least part of the $4 billion?, said he couldn’t comment on the contract but, “nonetheless, we think the likelihood of a strike/lockout is low.” It would be the league’s first labor hiccup since 1987.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Easterbrook offered up his own opinion. “My feeling,” he said, “is that there is no ceiling to NFL arrogance. The owners and league management eventually will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. As I warn, there is no law of nature that says the NFL must remain so popular.” Easterbrook also said he’s strongly in favor of NFL games being offered online and that doing so also would drive down costs and thus the price to something reasonably affordable, say, $50. But for now, “I suppose,” he added, “most fans don’t know they are being shafted, or if they do, they think, ‘I wouldn’t pay $300 a year to watch NFL games anyway.’” Written by: Justin Doom

Upon a recent visit to my hometown of Vancouver, my mother met me at the airport. I asked if she was excited about the Olympics.“Excited? No I’m not excited! Your father and I are seriously thinking about taking advantage of one of those cheap ‘avoid the Olympics’ deals some of the airlines are advertising and illegally renting out the house to some starry-eyed tourists for some quick cash.” She went on to say that the Olympics have turned the city into a giant high school clique, and for those not part of the popular group led by Premier Gord Campbell and Mayor Gregor Robertson then the only part of the Olympics they’ll get to take part in is the traffic.

Since Vancouver won the Olympic bid in 2003, I’ve been back quite a few times, but this was the first time I immediately sensed a deeply polarized attitude towards the Games had developed. And it’s not just about the congestion and lack of available tickets. The issues I’m talking about are specific to the Native communities of British Columbia, many of whom are protesting the games. There is a surprising divide between how First Nations are represented in terms of the symbolism used in the Olympic logos and opening ceremonies, compared with how many First Nations individuals really feel about the Games. This divide can be seen greatly in strongly vocal anti-Games groups such as the Olympics Resistance Network and No2010.

Let’s start with Vancouver’s International Airport, which is filled with aboriginal art. I’ll vouch for Wikipedia on this one: the Native art is something to behold. The blues and greens reflect the colors of the land, sea and sky. Gazing into the big bronze eyes of the travelers on Bill Reid’s famous sculpture “The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, The Jade Canoe,” one almost forgets it’s an emblem of the nomadic life the First Nations were forced from when settlers took over their land and shipped them to barren reserves with terrible education and no voting rights. In many ways, Vancouver’s airport has become a symbol of our national shame rather than our national heritage. Ironically, it’ll be the very first thing Olympic athletes and tourists will be reminded of upon their arrival.

For those who grew up in B.C., like I did, the struggles of the First Nations were not a secret. These tribes have been documented as suffering from the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, suicide, violent death, and drug and alcohol addiction in Canada. [Statistics Canada; Health Canada, Healthy Canadians, A Federal Report on Comparable Health Indicators, 2002]

Gord Hill, a Native activist, tells me many of today’s problems can be traced to the Indian Act passed in 1876 which imposed government control over all indigenous people and land. “In this way, B.C. is unique to the rest of Canada in that most of the land remains ‘unceded’ and non-surrendered indigenous territory, over which neither the Canadian or B.C. governments have no legal or moral authority to govern.” According to the movement’s official No Olympics on Stolen Land Web site, the slogan No Olympics on Stolen Land “is a way to raise anti-colonial consciousness about the true history of B.C.”

This point has become especially significant for the St’at’imc & Squamish First Nations, whose traditional territories overlap the B.C. interior’s Callaghan Valley where the 2010 Olympic biathlon (cross-country and shooting), cross-country skiing, Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country), and ski jumping will take place.

In spring 2008, the St’at’imc Native Youth Movement released an international statement that argues Olympic tourists “do not depend on fish and deer for long, hard winters … and the more people who disrupt the delicate balance between the environment, animals and humans, the worse off surrounding tribes will be.”

In another circulated leaflet, titled Cancel the 2010 Olympics, The Native Youth Movement writes “although the 2010 Olympics are planned to take place in only St’at’imc & Squamish Territories the negative effects of these Games will carry out onto other Indigenous territories of the area and the aftermath of this will create an invasion not seen since the gold rush.” Gord Hill says in this case an “invasion” comes in the form of gas and oil mining, and ski resorts.

“Since 2000, the main Native struggles in the B.C. interior have been against the construction, or expansion, of mountain ski resorts,” Hill says. He goes on to add that there has been an increase in the number of these properties that have been approved, which will directly impact a number of First Nation communities. B.C.’s resort industry has been strongly promoted since 2004 when the government along with members of that business community established the Ski Resort Task Force, whose stated mission is to “grow tourism throughout the province, maximize opportunities created by hosting 2010 … and attract national and international investment.” For critics, that means ski resorts that require extensive logging as well as the creation of water, sewage and electrical systems along with fake snow that contaminates the land and nearby water.

In an ongoing effort to bring attention to their cause, these anti-Games groups have organized protests surrounding pre-event festivities. Such protests around the Olympic Torch Relay — which set off from Canada’s east coast October 30, 2009 — garnered mainstream media coverage which allowed the ORN and No2010 organizations to push their messages into the national consciousness. Typically, coverage precedes an incident such as an Olympic torch bearer being knocked to the ground and injured by a protester, like what happened in late December in Guelph, Ontario. Another story to hit the major media outlets was a Torch Relay disruption in Victoria, B.C., on October 30, when the Torch was forced to be extinguished and rerouted.

Looking to keep their efforts going, throughout November the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) held weekend workshops where activists learned how to stay on message when dealing with the media as well as picking up counter-insurgency and surveillance methods. They also learned about their citizen rights when interacting with police and street protest tactics. The workshops were held to train ORN and No2010 members and sympathizers, as those two groups have called for a convergence of anti-poverty, citizen rights and anti-capitalist forces in Vancouver, February 10-15, to confront and disrupt the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games. Whatever happens, though, it likely won’t be something BC’s $900 million-plus security budget can’t handle.

To their credit, the B.C. government and The Vancouver Olympic Committee have made great efforts to include First Nation participation in the Games, including sponsorships of many Native events and seminars. On the official Vancouver 2010 Web site there’s also an entire section dedicated to “Aboriginal participation.” This states, “We’re working closely with our partners, including the Four Host First Nations, to encourage Aboriginal people across Canada to participate in as many areas of the 2010 Winter Games as possible, be it as athletes, volunteers, employees, entrepreneurs, artists and performers, spectators or cultural ambassadors.”

The Four Hosts Nations the IOC refers to is a group established in 2004 by Native leaders along with the B.C. government and the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC). Its purpose, according to a press release, is to “take advantage of all opportunities, including economic, and establish a clear First Nations presence in the Games while protecting aboriginal rights and title.”

However, as far as the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) and No2010 are concerned, the idea that the FHFN is protecting aboriginal interests couldn’t be further from the truth. They feel these Native leaders have sold out and are in fact contributing to the erosion and eventual extinguishment of Aboriginal rights and title. In fact, many ORN and No2010 members interviewed during the course of this story feel that the Native cultural performance groups who have been hired by VANOC to perform during the opening and closing ceremonies are taking part in a shameful exploitation.

Dr. Christine O’Bonsawin, a teacher of Indigenous policy at the University of Victoria argues that the inclusion of Indigenous symbolism with the Canadian Olympics is emblematic of the ongoing disrespect and mistreatment for First Nations peoples. In a recent article published in The Dominion, an independent Canadian newspaper, she writes, “What they need is honorable treaties, not Olympic circuses that continue to trivialize the political, social, and economic injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada.”

But those same Olympic cynics would be hard-pressed to blame these First Nations leaders from trying to do what everyone in B.C. is trying to do right now — cash in on the tens of thousands of tourists drunk off Olympic fever, willing to pay more than $2,000 a night to rent out a Vancouver apartment as well as shell out a pretty penny for a handmade Inukshuk (a traditional Native landmark and also the official symbol of the 2010 Olympics). It would be difficult to imagine any similar economic opportunities arising in the foreseeable future.

There’s no doubt the FHFN is taking advantage of economic opportunities . In addition to using Native territory for Olympic venues, more than 100 aboriginal businesses received $54 million (Canadian) worth of contracts from Olympic organizers — roughly 10 percent of the $580 million total construction contracts awarded. It’s estimated these businesses will earn more than $57 million (Canadian) in games-related activities. Additionally, about 1,000 jobs for Aboriginal youth have been created so far with more hiring expected by opening day. In central Vancouver, visitors will be able to experience the new C$3.5 million 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion featuring different (and marketable) aspects of authentic aboriginal culture, including art, sculpture and general merchandise.

Given this financials, the question then becomes: what’s the long term cost? And would that $54 million given to Aboriginal businesses be better spent on affordable housing and addiction programs? Some would argue that social programs don’t generate the same amount of revenue as commercial endeavors, which could give a tangible boost to struggling Aboriginal entrepreneurs. After all, a boost in socio-economic conditions, such as higher employment and income levels, for these communities is the reason why Native leaders have decided to enter into treaty negotiations with the BC government in the first place. It’s doubtful they do so because they want to liquidate their resources of rich, beautiful land and be seen as sell-outs in their communities. But what are their choices? And is the fight worth it in the end?

For those in the Olympic Resistance Network and No2010, the fight is worth it. They say the prototypes of the treaty process are deeply flawed and unless revisions are made, communities will not support any attempts by their leaders to agree to any land settlement. So in the absence of land settlements, the land remains unceded and non-surrendered and they will keep resisting — no matter how many dream catchers and Inukshuks are sold during the Games.

In the end, my mother made the executive decision to stick around during the Olympics (this after e-mails with a few potential shady renters). I think it was a good choice. Just because you don’t run with the popular crowd (or in this case city officials and business elites) doesn’t mean you can’t crash their parties. And judging by what the city’s anti-Olympic organizations have planned, there’s definitely going to be a party crashing- worthy event. And why not? If the Olympics are about human achievement, then pushing and striving to get a voice heard despite all odds should be included. It might not be as popular as say curling, however the games themselves would be much more interesting to watch.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: A Background On The Land Disputes That Spawned An Anti-Olympic Movement

The root of this fight and the birth of the No Olympics On Stolen Land movement can be traced back to the difficult history of First Nations in Canada stemming from their struggle to maintain a nomatic existence after European settlers arrived in the late 1800s.

Today in British Columbia, Canada, where the 2010 Olympics are set to take place in February, the struggle is about fighting for fair land treaties.

To put it simply, there’s big money to be made in the mining and ski resort industry. That’s why opposition groups say the B.C. government is pushing for Treaty Land Settlements, because turning reservation land into government land means it can be bought and sold freely — and because a settlement could mean preventing another Melvin Creek. Melvin Creek refers to when protesters from the B.C. St’at’imc First Nation set up camp in May of 2000 to stop a planned $530-million ski resort in the area. Ten years later, the camp still exists, while the ski resort that could have meant millions of dollars for B.C. does not.

It’s these small First Nation actions that the B.C. government would like bring to a halt. First Nation communities would benefit from settlements financially, too, at least in the short term, depending on how much land they hand over. “It’s all part of the B.C. government’s legal and economic and assimilation plan,” activist Gord Hill says. He also states that signing land treaties means removing the special status for First Nations.

According to the latest B.C. Treaty Commission report, the tribes’ current tax exemptions would stay in place for another 10 years and then they’d be subject to the same federal and provincial taxes as other Canadian residents. As far as getting a piece of the pie from the resources extracted from the land and surrounding waters, First Nations would receive a certain amount for 25 years. Interest-free loans would also continue for 10 years, while government funding for First Nations self-government and social programs would continue for 12 years. After that, communities would be considered no different than other B.C. residents in terms of their claim to the land.

Jerry Lampert, a commissioner with the B.C. Treaty Commission and past president and CEO of the Business Council of B.C. writes in a recent BCBusiness magazine article, “These treaties, if done, will pump billions of dollars into the B.C. economy. There’s an estimate that up to $7 billion will be turned over to First Nations once we get all of these done. That money will be used in communities to raise the socio-economic standard.”

However, Lampert fails to take into consideration that land settlement treaties are also incredibly expensive for the First Nations groups participating, according to the protest groups. Zoe Blunt, No 2010 Victoria activist and spokesperson, says, “If First Nation leaders walk away because they’re dissatisfied with the proposed treaty deal, it means they have to pay millions of dollars in legal fees. It’s like getting people to pay for the ropes they hang them with.”

It’s a difficult situation. First Nation communities lay claim to land they’ve been living on since what’s called time immemorial (because we don’t even know how long it has actually been). To support this point, the British Columbia Archives says there’s archaeological evidence that indicates the ancestors of today’s First Nations people occupied British Columbia at least as early as the end of the last ice age, 10,000 to 12,000 years ago — long before the idea of ski resorts.

As the activist Hill explains, resisting and defending First Nations’ rightful territories is the only way to stop, say, a mining company from coming in and turning their home into a toxic waste site which can make hunting and fishing impossible, as well as endangers the water supply. In these situations, he tells me, cancer rates skyrocket — especially among First Nations peoples. Additionally, the land becomes uninhabitable as hunting and fishing becomes scarce, making these communities’ current ways of existence impossible. “Companies and government know the negative effects of these projects.” Hill says. “But it doesn’t stop them. That’s why we have to keep resisting and keep building on victories like what happened in Melvin Creek.” Written by: Amelia Wasserman

There are those who play baseball, and then there are those who play baseball.

There are Yankees, and then there is Derek Jeter.

And that’s why he’s baseball’s last great hope.

In the modern world of professional sports, one would be hard pressed to find another athlete whose public persona and clubhouse demeanor so perfectly suits him. He steps up in big moments, never says anything derogatory or inflammatory, always looks well prepared and has achieved both personal and team success from the early days of his career. Basically, Derek Jeter is devoid of every aspect that feeds the massive (and ever-growing) sports media unlike other infamous pros. He’s not Gilbert Arenas. He’s not Terrell Owens. He stands as one of the few athletes who forces reporters and talking heads to focus on the merits of his game. His statistics and career achievements drive the discussions, rather than how he carries himself in the locker room or any off-the-field aspects of his life.

With these attributes and accomplishments firmly in place — his legacy secure in both the game of baseball and one of the most important cities in the world — Derek Jeter just might save baseball.

It’s an intriguing argument. Every year, America’s pastime seems to lose more and more respect among the general public, thanks to a laundry list of legendary players who have either admitted or been implicated with performance-enhancing drugs. The recent admission by Mark McGwire drew spirited reactions across all sections of society (see Williams, Brian), but also apathy. It seems that the majority of fans believe almost all baseball players were on some kind of P.E.D. during the last two decades. Jeter, though, has never been questioned. Nothing about him draws the whispers that hound Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro.

People still believe in Derek Jeter.

Athletes run faster, jumper higher and throw a ball farther and harder than normal human beings. Professional athletes do all this and deal with the media, hangers-on, dangerous temptations, vanity and a host of other things that can derail a career. Watch the evening broadcast any day of the week and see that Jeter has few peers when it comes to handling these pitfalls.

Not only has Jeter handled these negative outside factors with seemingly relative ease, but he has also excelled on the field in ways never before seen. The statistics are astounding. Five world championships in 14 seasons; 10-time All-Star; four AL Silver Slugger awards; four Gold Glove awards; Yankees’ all-time leader in base hits (he passed Lou Gehrig last season; MLB’s all-time leader in base hits for a shortstop; at this rate he’ll join the 3,000-hit club in 2011; and if he stays healthy, some expect him to eventually join the 4,000-hit club.

Meanwhile, the only real “scandal” he’s had to deal with is the one year (one year!) the Yankees failed to reach the postseason in his career. Off the field, several reported romantic relationships have drawn the lenses and ink of tabloids, particularly those involving Mariah Carey, Jessica Biel and most recently actress Minka Kelly, but hardly anything that made bored housewives across America take more than a passing interest in him. Through it all, though, Jeter has maintained a cool head and a perfect image. No mistresses running to the press, no disgruntled teammates, no questionable moves in the public eye.

Jeter has been everything that society says it wants in a professional athlete, and everything the corporate world looks for in a spokesman. Long-standing relationships with Nike’s Jordan brand, Gatorade and Gillette represent the triumvirate of sports marketing. These are companies that only seek out elite athletes, and they make these selected few household names across the globe.

But, in an odd way, none of that matters. Jeter has handled every step, every accomplishment, with grace and humility. No, Jeter’s not a great athlete (many statisticians have argued he has actually been one of the worst defensive shortstops in baseball at points in his career, in spite of his aforementioned Gold Glove awards), but he makes people still care about baseball. He’s Ray Kinsella, Roy Hobbs, Benny Rodriguez and Crash Davis in the flesh. Everyone — even those who pride themselves as Yankee haters — know, feel, that when it counts, he’ll come through for his team.

When that happens, when he’s gotten that clutch hit or turned the double play at the perfect time, everyone can take joy in the way it he makes it all look so mundane. See, Jeter’s story was never about all the things that changed the game. Not the home runs, not the flashiness, not the highlight culture. His story was, is and will be for the foreseeable future, about baseball and nothing more. He’s a professional. And the game’s last great hope.

DEREK JETER'S WORDS

In a recent e-mail interview with the Yankees’ star while he was in the Bahamas for Michael Jordan’s celebrity golf tournament, GAME found out about Jeter’s love for sports, what it’s like being the “face of baseball,” and his other favorite stadium.

GAME: Another world championship, another gold glove, becoming the Yankees’ all-time hits leader, “SI Sportsman of the Year” — is there anything you didn’t accomplish this past season?
DEREK JETER: Great question, I think Team first, but all of the accolades are great when you put your life into being the best you can be in everything you do, and when things work out it’s an incredible feeling.

GAME: Bud Selig has called you the “face of baseball.” Do you agree with that? What kind of weight does that carry?
DJ: First of all, it’s an incredible honor, and I have been very blessed to have played the game of baseball as long as I have. Wow…”face of baseball” ... I think every era has players you can look to and say they are the face of baseball, the weight is on every player that dons a major league baseball uniform to be great for the game. It’s full of tradition and historical. Hey, it’s America’s pastime.

GAME: How do you compare yourself to other Yankee greats? Are you in the same conversation with Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, etc.?
DJ: I can never compare to them; they are what the Yankees were built on.

GAME: Do you miss the historic feel of the old Yankee Stadium?
DJ: Of course, but the new stadium is incredible.

GAME: Do you honestly believe it’s easier to hit home runs in the new Yankee Stadium?
DJ: That’s what they say.

GAME: While your love for baseball is well documented, you’re also a huge fan of other sports. What else do you play?
DJ: I love basketball and football; Competition on any level is great.

GAME: Are there any sports that you’re terrible at? (That you’ll admit to, anyway.)
DJ: Nope!

GAME: What athletes would you pay to watch? Why?
DJ: Michael Jordan. He is the best!

GAME: Tell us about the Jordan Jeter Throwback.
DJ: This is my ninth shoe and each shoe has evolved into my personality, my story, and expresses the history of me working with the Jordan brand and reflecting back on my career. This shoe is special because of the number nine (ninth shoe, nine innings, 90 feet between bases). Nine is an important number in baseball.

GAME: What was it like trying to identify the defining moments of
your career?
DJ: It was a challenge. When the concept was put before me, I really had to think back to moments that were special to me and defined my career. To be honest, I had never really thought about any moments. I am always training and looking forward.

GAME: Does the idea of having your own shoe ever get old? Why or why not?
DJ: Of course not. Being the first athlete selected by the Jordan brand ... when you grow up, as a kid, it’s a dream.

GAME: How does the process work, and specifically, what’s your role, in designing your Jordan shoes?
DJ: It’s a collaborative effort. The first meeting is set by the footwear team and they collect information about the previous season on what worked and what did not. The designer initiates the concept and then we meet again. It’s like three or four times a year. I approved each phrase of the design. It’s really cool.

GAME: What’s your favorite ballpark to play in besides Yankee stadium?
DJ: Anaheim.

GAME: What’s the best insult you’ve heard from an opposing team’s fans?
DJ: I don’t know. There are always so many when you are a Yankee!

GAME: You’ve always been considered one of the most dignified professional athletes playing today. How do you maintain that image?
DJ: I am just me … Derek. My parents have always been my guiding light.

GAME: Given the proliferation of sports media, and specifically, gossip sports media such as Deadspin and TMZ Sports, what can athletes do to avoid becoming tabloid fodder?
DJ: Athletes — and people in general — have to be aware they are always on. Point blank.

GAME: Is it harder to be a professional athlete today? Why or why not?
DJ: Any job is hard, but if you are professional at any craft, the best rises to the top.

GAME: Given how long you’ve been playing baseball, does anything still surprise you?
DJ: All the time. Written by: D.B. Mitchell

by Mark Heller

Twenty minutes into another blind date that won’t otherwise be revisited in any memoirs, the attractive brunette who showed zero interest in asking questions finally broke free from her own babbling and asked one.

Probably just to catch her breath. “So, what do you?” she asked across the Ann Arbor, Mich., restaurant booth.

“I’m a sports writer for the newspaper,” I replied with a twinge of satisfaction.

She made no attempt to conceal her subsequent snicker. Didn’t even try to cover her mouth.

“You’re kidding, right?”

I was considerably less amused.

Six years later, the joke is on me, not to mention The Ann Arbor News — which closed for good in July after 174 years — The Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Tucson Citizen, all of which shut down during the past year.

An estimated 32,000 journalists have either been laid off or bought out since 2008, according to Paper Cuts, a blog dedicated to tracking the industry’s upheaval. More than 200 media outlets have shut down since 2008, and 25-30 percent of all newsroom jobs that existed in 2001 are extinct.

Earl Warren, the 14th U.S. Supreme Court Justice, said he would “always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.”

Warren’s point is an oversimplification and too often the sports pages are falsely convicted of being the “toy department” by the rest of the newsroom. But these days, every department has been toyed with, chewed and spit out. So not only have thousands of journalists’ careers and lives suffered, but more than 48 percent of “regular” newspaper readers surveyed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press are paying more and getting less each year.

“I really believe in newspapers,” says Bill Plaschke, the award-winning sports columnist at the Los Angeles Times. “I believe people care about who we are and (the paper) is something symbolic of the community.”

His voice grows louder and more impassioned with each passing minute of our half-hour conversation.

“People still want to read about who they are, where they live, what their community is about,” he continues. “You can’t get that kind of information and credibility on most Web sites, and that lends itself to a paper product.”

The problem is, slashed staffs and travel budgets and wages have savaged even America’s “Big Three” print products. One New York Times editor recently created a stir when he suggested eliminating the sports section altogether in an effort to save money.

Content — game stories, human-interest, columns, investigative stories — are either considered old news or no longer part of the pages. Space, staff and resources have shriveled, practically eliminating the very things newspapers can offer better than all other mediums (in-depth features, trend stories or enterprise reporting) at all but the most exclusive outlets, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.

New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger quickly shot down the idea of killing the sports section, but not down the coastline. Though lesser known outside The Beltway, the esteemed Washington Times eliminated the sports department and slashed 40 percent of its staff on December 30. Happy new year.

“In a sense, we’re trapped in a vicious cycle,” Emilio Ruiz wrote in an e-mail before the Times announced their cuts. Ruiz has been a newspaper sports editor at various places for nearly 20 years, currently at the Washington Post. “We’re stuck until the economy begins to rebound,” he says. “And I think it will, but newspaper advertising has fallen dramatically the past few years, and until we can figure out how online (advertising) can bring in more revenue, it’s difficult to project what the future will look like.”

Ruiz touched on the question for which no one has an answer: Where is the printed word’s place in our exponentially evolving Facebook/BlackBerry/Twitter times?

Invading on territories previously monopolized during newspaper’s glory days, ESPN (which employs Plaschke as a TV panelist on Around the Horn) has done a complete 180 to the printed presses, using its vast monopoly of television sports viewing and nationally syndicated radio to pour money into its Web site.

In the process, ESPN and its competitors have offered better money and job stability to lure away some of the newspapers’ (formerly) best reporters and columnists: Mark Schlabach (from Atlanta Journal-Constitution to ESPN.com), Joe Posnanski (from Kansas City Star to Sports Illustrated) and Adrian Wojnarowski (from Bergen Record in New Jersey to Yahoo!).

The self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader not only expanded its NFL staff and hired newspaper reporters to blog about each NFC and AFC conference, but it also has jumped into expanded local coverage because two-thirds of American households now have high-speed Internet connections. So far, ESPN Boston, ESPN Chicago, ESPN Dallas and ESPN Los Angeles have been launched, and a company spokesperson says further expansion to, say, New York, Miami or Phoenix, “is certainly a possibility if the audience and advertising interests remain significant.”

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Plaschke says. Then he notes it’s up to newspapers to make it worthwhile for their better writers and reporters to ride out this tidal wave of terror and fear about whether they’ll have a place at “(insert financially wheezing newspaper here) in two months, six months or two years.” That now includes yours truly.

In spring 2006, I moved from the Ann Arbor News to the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix. I covered high school football, Arizona State and Pac-10 basketball, the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. I wrote 750 words in 15 minutes trying to capture the greatest college football game I’d ever seen (Oklahoma vs. Boise State in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl). I sat next to Andy Rooney at Super Bowl XLII and celebrated a fifth anniversary removed from covering both the World Horseshoe Championships and a rodeo as an intern in Duluth, Minnesota.

There was room for advancement and inching toward checking one off the bucket list: Newspaper sports columnist.

Sadly (and hopefully not coincidentally), the downward flush began shortly after my arrival as budgets shrunk and staff writers who left for other pursuits left behind unfilled vacancies.

The first unexpected bombshell dropped in October 2008 when the Tribune announced the 100,000-circulation paper would become a free paper to certain neighborhoods and print three times per week instead of daily, beginning in January 2009. More than 140 jobs (45 percent of employees) were eliminated. No more staff or resources would be allocated to cover pro sports or college basketball (even though the main ASU campus is eight miles from the Tribune office). Pay cuts and furloughs followed in 2009 as more people, including two reporters who’d just won a Pulitzer Prize, trickled out of the building. Some tilted toward a career other than journalism, a concept few of us had ever considered.

The second bombshell came one year later — October 2009 — when our parent company, Freedom Communications, declared bankruptcy. A few weeks later, the Tribune was put up for sale.

Three strikes and we were out. A few weeks after filing for bankruptcy, Freedom corporate wonks decided no offers were good enough, and announced the Tribune’s 120-year run would end on New Year’s Eve.

A buyer has since come forth, and if so, perhaps the Tribune will hold on through this economy and when better time come ’round again, revive itself in some radical format TBD. The sale process dragged on through December and into 2010.

Someday — hopefully soon — we’ll learn our fate one way or another. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. And nobody knows when.

I truly hope grizzled veterans such as Plaschke, Michael Wilbon and Mike Wise (both of the Washington Post), Patrick Reusse (Minneapolis Star Tribune) and Scott Ostler (San Francisco Chronicle) keep cranking out commentary, cynicism and cackles for the morning editions. They were idols for a high school and college kid who lapped up newspaper prose every morning and dreamed of producing the same. But the lucky few who have been wooed by Web sites (and for good reasons), or thousands of others who’ve left the business altogether: They saw the writing on the wall (not the Facebook version).

“There’s still a place for the printed word,” Plaschke says. “Books didn’t go out of style because of movies. Once the economy comes back we’ll see where we stand, but we’re stuck watching and living out sad scenes of corporate greed, depression and a tremendous loss of exchanged ideas, dialogue, knowledge and accountability in our communities, and the ‘repeat’ button has been stuck for years.”

Perhaps it’s time to explore a life apart from a printing press, if for no other reason than there’s a realistic chance I’ll soon be 2-for-2 in working for once-proud publications gone defunct.

That would be batting 1.000, a kind of sinister stat that would make one woman I used to know snicker. Written by: Mark Heller

by David Breitman

Throughout history, America has been somewhat of a social pioneer in the global community, a trailblazing force that routinely references “liberty,” “justice” and other inspiring verbiage thrown out by politicians around election time. The land of the free and the home of the brave offers opportunity without judgment and a chance for the best and brightest to be themselves while pursuing their passion. That is of course, unless they’re gay and their passion, in any way, involves sports.

It’s not exactly “Jon Daly back in rehab” levels of shocking to hear sports is not the mecca of acquiescence that various ESPN “Make a Wish” montages would have us believe, but it’s poignant to note that the historical path of the athletic world has occasionally been paved with benchmark moments of acceptance and instances of social progress. Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier (following a delightful era of segregated “Negro Leagues” and rampant racism), as well as Danica Patrick, Michele Wie and alleged goaltender Manon Rheaume breaking a glass ceiling by competing with their male counterparts. Hell, there’s a guy who plays for the Los Angeles Kings from a possibly fictional country called Slovenia. Progress is progress, right?

However, despite the hundreds (well, dozens, anyway) of shining examples of delayed breakthrough, there is still one daunting question plaguing the sporting world: When will it be acceptable for gay people to thrive in sports?

IS GAY REALLY A FOUR-LETTER WORD?

“There’s definitely this weird form of irony in what you’re taught sports are supposed to be, and what they actually are,” says a high-ranking gay man who works for a popular NBA franchise. He prefers to remain anonymous, so let’s call him Mr. Smith. “I played basketball my entire life and was taught that sports are kind of a great equalizer. It didn’t matter who the rich kids, poor kids, black kids, white kids were. Everybody was just a player on the court. But after working in this business for a while, you start to learn that the purity I used to love isn’t really there.”

Smith, who came out of the closet just after his 16th birthday, explains that the complete lack of openly gay professional athletes in the four major sports (no, NASCAR isn’t one of them) has made it difficult for he and his brethren to hold front office or operational jobs.

“Gay athletes are afraid to come out of the closet because they’re terrified about getting ostracized or even traded because star players may have a problem with it,” says Smith. “So think about what it’s like to be a reporter or PR director for the team. I can tell you right now, not many players would want an openly gay reporter in their locker room after the game when they’re getting changed. And what do you think happens if the head coach tells the front office they want a certain person fired because the franchise player doesn’t want him around?”

But what would happen if the first active professional athlete in the NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL came out of the closet? Would that help pave the way?

“Sort of,” says Smith. “Jackie Robinson was persecuted in awful ways when he started out. When he came into the league there were no black managers or higher-ups with any team or anything. So I guess the thinking right now is that in order for it to be OK, someone is going to have to go through hell, then spend the next 30 years making it sort of acceptable for the rest of us to follow.”

Sounds both simple and horrible enough.

“Even if that happens, you’re still going to have this homophobic attitude,” he says. “Every athlete, at pretty much every level, has called someone a ‘fag’ or made fun of a teammate by calling him gay. There’s always going to be a homophobic undertone in sports, and that’s something that’s never going to change. It starts out with young kids and never goes away.”

HOMOPHOBIA, DISCRIMINATION AND ORANGE SLICES AT HALFTIME

Right next to a strip mall in an area of Downtown Los Angeles that city officials promise is trying really hard to reduce the number of random immigrant stabbings and meth-related suicides, there’s a billboard that says “Gay is Not an Insult.”

It’s part of a national campaign to make people aware that telling a 6-year-old child he’s “being a homo” because he refuses to come back into a soccer game after breaking his collarbone is wrong and offensive to the gay community. (Apparently we need a billboard to tell us this.)

“I remember being young and having a coach tell me to not ‘fag out’ on a play,” says Kevin Davis, a former junior hockey player. “You learn expressions like ‘don’t be so gay’ from the older kids you look up to before you even know what they mean. By the time you’re in high school, you find yourself throwing out terms like ‘fag’ and ‘homo’ without really thinking about it, because that’s just what you’ve heard since you were a kid.”

Davis claims that he’s a product of a country and a generation that has marginalized the meaning of homophobic slurs, creating a forum of passive discrimination that escalates in the world of sports. “I don’t think there are many guys in the locker room who actually hate homosexuals or have anything against them and that lifestyle,” he says. “But if there’s a guy in the room who’s secretly gay, he’s probably not going to want to come out, because he hears everyone throw around the word ‘fag’ all the time.”

Despite some obvious liberties with homophobia, Davis does make an interesting point. There’s nothing inherently discriminatory about sports. They aren’t designed to keep gay athletes from participating any more than they were to force African-American players into segregated leagues. It’s simply the societal structure surrounding the games that makes it virtually impossible for gay individuals to succeed. The problem isn’t in the game, but in the people involved with it.

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEONE KILLS THEMSELVES OVER RAMPANT HOMOPHOBIA

Justin Fashanu is perhaps the greatest trailblazer the sporting world has ever known. He may not receive the posthumous acclaim of Arthur Ashe or Jack Johnson, but he had a far more impactful life than most people realize.

As the first black soccer player to receive a £1 million contract, Fashanu was somewhat of a pioneer for minority athletes as he became a European sports star. He broke a barrier, albeit paving the way for LeBron James to make $300 million doesn’t really tug at the heartstrings like a Gilbert Arenas unregistered weapons apology, but he was a hero within his community, nonetheless.

Fashanu enjoyed the spoils of professional success: cars, houses and a sense of superiority that go along with being able to kick a soccer ball really hard. He was on top of the world! That is, of course, until rumors began swirling that he wasn’t demeaning women and sleeping with aspiring actresses looking to blow their way to the head of a high-profile paternity suit like he was supposed to.

In his self-titled autobiography (Clough: The Autobiography), Fashanu’s team manager Brian Clough recalls a conversation he had with his star player about rumors surrounding his alleged trips to popular gay bars.

“Where do you go if you want a loaf of bread?” Clough asked him. “A baker’s, I suppose,” replied Fashanu. “Where do you go if you want a leg of lamb?” “A butcher’s.” “So why do you keep going to that bloody poofs’ club?” (For those who don’t own a Webster’s English-to-British homophobic slur dictionary, a “poof” is a derogatory term used to describe a gay man in jolly ol’ England.)

Just months after the conversation, Clough barred Fashanu from practicing with the squad and outlawed him from all team functions. Apparently, he was “unable to meet the demands and lifestyle” of playing Premiership soccer. Essentially, Clough had hung a big, bold “No gays allowed!” sign on the clubhouse door.

Fashanu was subsequently traded to another team, a trend that would occur nearly every season over the next eight years of his professional life. The talented forward, however, endured the criticism and swirling rumors in order to live out his dream as a professional athlete.

Then, in 1990, Fashanu found the courage to drop his public heterosexual charade and break the homosexuality barrier (yes, that’s a real thing …) by officially coming out of the closet to an English tabloid.

It probably could have gone a little better.

Upon his admission, dozens of players, coaches and media members criticized Fashanu, claiming that homosexually had no place in the game and that the once-celebrated star had betrayed everyone who had ever believed in him. His own brother even publicly disowned him during a national media tour in which he told every everyone who would listen what a degenerate embarrassment his big brother was.

Over the next decade, Fashanu was one of the top scorers in several different professional leagues, but failed to find a place in the locker room. He was shunned by teams in Scotland, England, Canada and eventually, even the United States, where he ended his battle for acceptance.

In 1998, while living in Ellicott , Md., a 17-year-old boy accused Fashanu of sexually assaulting him. Police investigated the claim, but never arrested the retired footballer, claiming that there was virtually no evidence to support the allegation.

The damage, however, had been done. Once news of the boy’s claims broke, Fashanu was forced to flee back to a small English town in order to avoid further embarrassment by the international media and its “profit first, verify later” strategy which both the Duke lacrosse team and Kobe Bryant give two ink-covered thumbs up to.

With the mounting pressure of public scrutiny and complete abandonment by his loved ones, Fashanu committed suicide shortly thereafter. The 37-year-old wrote a simple note, which he left next to his body, that said, “I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family.”

Fashanu’s death served as both a tragedy and a warning. He had become a reluctant martyr in the gay rights movement, thanks to the polarizing implications of his death. Rather than inspiring people to have the courage to be openly gay, he reminded them why doing so could cost more than they ever imagined. He had been the unwilling personification of everything that is wrong with the world of sports.

IS THERE ANY HOPE ... LIKE, AT ALL?

While the decidedly conservative crowds frequenting America’s stadiums don’t quite seem ready to embrace change, there are small signs of hope in the sporting community. Earlier this year, Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas shocked the world when he told a popular British newspaper that he had been living a lie, and was, in fact, gay.

“It was who I was, and I just couldn’t ignore it any more,” the hulking Lions’ captain told his fans via The Daily Mail. “I’d been through every emotion under the sun trying to deal with this. You wake up one morning thinking, ‘I can handle it. Everything is fine,’ and the next morning you don’t want anyone to see your face, because you think that if people look at you, they will know.”

Thomas explained that he lived in fear for years, wondering if his wife, teammates, friends and fans would ever find out. “I was like a ticking bomb. I thought I could suppress it, keep it locked away in some dark corner of myself, but I couldn’t,” he says.

One day it reached a breaking point and Thomas cracked. He confessed his homosexuality to his coach, Scott Johnson. [The following quotes were originally reported by the English paper, The Observer.] “He took me out of the team room to the medical room, locked the door and I told him everything. After keeping it secret for so long, I felt a huge rush of relief,” says Thomas. “Scott said, ‘Right, I’ve got to speak now to three or four players in the Welsh team, because you need the boys to surround you and support you. You can’t cope with this on your own,’ and he was right.”

Thomas says, “[Scott] told two of my teammates, Stephen Jones and Martyn Williams, and as I sat in the bar waiting for them, I was absolutely terrified, wondering what they were going to say. But they came in, patted me on the back and said, ‘We don’t care. Why didn’t you tell us before?’ I felt everyone was protecting me and closing in tight around me. No one distanced themselves from me, not one single person.”

Thomas says that he feels attitudes have changed over the years and wants other closeted athletes to understand that sexual preference is not a disqualification for athletics. “I’m not going on a crusade, but I’m proud of who I am. I feel I have achieved everything I could ever possibly have hoped to achieve out of rugby, and I did it [as a] gay. I want to send a positive message to other gay people that they can do it, too.”

In the hockey world, Brendan Burke (son of Canadian hockey overlord and highly respected general manager Brian Burke) had a similar story. As an assistant NCAA hockey coach and bearer of a deified hockey name, Burke was terrified to tell both his father and players that he was gay.

He wrestled with the decision for years, until eventually breaking down and confessing his orientation to a shockingly supportive father. “We still love you. This won’t change a thing,” the elder Burke told his son.

The self-described old Irish hockey dad claimed that nothing would ever alter the way he feels about his son. Brian Burke did, however, explain that his son’s deision to make the information public was a risky and potentially detrimental move, both on a professional and a personal level. “I would prefer Brendan hadn’t decided to discuss this issue in this very public manner,” he said in an ESPN interview. “There will be a great deal of reaction, and I fear a large portion will be negative. I wish this burden would fall on someone else’s shoulders, not Brendan’s. Pioneers are often misunderstood and mistrusted. But since he wishes to blaze this trail, I stand beside him with an axe.”

WILL THERE BE LESS SOUL-CRUSHING BIGOTRY IN THE FUTURE?

Though the road to acceptance certainly isn’t the path of least resistance, there have been some significant steps in recent years. Stories like those of Burke and Thomas create a sense of hope for the closeted athletes around the world. The question is, will there ever be enough headway made in order to give gay athletes the same professional respect and opportunities that their community enjoys in a variety of other vocations?

With the demonization of trailblazers like Fashanu, fear, hatred and unintentional homophobia indoctrinating youth sports, the fight to eradicate the anti-gay paradigm isn’t going to be easy. There are enough small minds and large obstacles that may keep the world of sports in the dark ages of discrimination. It seems like no matter how many minor battles the gay community collects, the war on intolerance is a daunting battle with no end in sight. It’s going to take a lot more courageous souls to come forward to fight for equality and the right to be themselves. After all, “to speak the truth is a painful thing, but to be forced to live a lie is much worse.” (That quote is from legendary playwright Oscar Wilde, who came out of the closet in an era when homosexuality was illegal.) Written by: David Breitman

Cbssports.com football writer Gregg Doyel put up a pretty interesting article today about New Orleans Saints fullback Kyle Eckel, who played college ball at the U.S. Naval Academy.

You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's great. A proud veteran makes it to the big game in the NFL. Dreams do come true." Well, not exactly. The problem is that Eckel graduated in 2005. Since the academy requires all graduates to serve on active duty for at least 5 years, what's he doing playing professional football this season?

Some pretty interesting tidbits here, most notably the fact that no one involved (neither Eckel nor the Naval Academy) would go on record for the piece.

Take a read, and be ready for what will surely be much more coverage down the line.

www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/12874836 Written by: D.B. Mitchell

Suns guard and All-Star starter Steve Nash graces the cover of business magazine Fast Company this month. The feature story provides an in-depth look at the basketball star's off-the-court business interests, including a film production company, endorsements and various non-profits.

Here's a link to a slideshow with the highlights:
http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/steve-nash-nbas-top-entrepreneur

We here at GAME are a fan of Nash's social media videos, including the classic video featuring the Suns on their bus singing "All Night Long."

http://www.944.com/blog/game/the-phoenix-suns-do-it-all-night-long/

Written by: D.B. Mitchell