Articles

12.17.15

University of Maryland Stadium Name Change Raises More Questions Than Answers

In the world outside of sports there has been controversy recently on how or even whether to honor historical figures who have been judged in retrospect to have acted in ways that are now considered to be unacceptable. It was inevitable that this controversy would also arise in the world of ...


12.15.15

Brady to Court: Accusations of Phone Destruction Are 'Irrelevant'

The brief filed by Tom Brady's lawyers last week in the Deflategate case acknowledges that the public was "inflamed" when it heard that Mr. Brady's cell phone had been destroyed on the very day that he was interviewed by the NFL investigator. But the brief argues that this blatant ...


12.14.15

New 'Waters of the U.S.' Rule on Hold: Enduring Debate Creates Uncertainty for Developers

In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the first of three key decisions interpreting the phrase "waters of the U.S." to define the scope of federal permitting jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. Thirty years, three Supreme Court decisions, and one million comments later, the U.S. Army Corps ...


12.08.15

NCAA Desperately Needs Help on Its Investigations

Yesterday a California appellate court ruled that disgraced former assistant USC football coach, Todd McNair, "made a sufficiently convincing showing that the NCAA recklessly disregarded the truth." This is not the first time that a court has ruled that the NCAA's investigations are flawed, but ...


12.03.15

FIFA Loses More Credibility, If It Has any Left

Sixteen more indictments were handed down today relating to FIFA, the very powerful, wealthy and allegedly corrupt body which controls international soccer. Separately-very separately-FIFA announced reforms to combat corruption, which raises the question whether FIFA is capable of reforming ...


11.28.15

Gross Gender Discrimination in Sportscasting

A google search for "female sportscaster" turns up as the first four entries: "10 of the Sexiest Female Sportscasters," "75 Hottest Female Sportscasters on TV-Busted Coverage," "The Top 50 Hottest Woman Sportscasters," and the "40 Hottest Female Sports Reporters." A search under "male ...


11.24.15

Real-Life Preview of Concussion Movie

On Christmas Day a much anticipated movie called Concussion will be opening around the country. It stars Will Smith as the Nigerian-born doctor, Bennet Omalu, who performed the autopsy on Hall-of-Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster and discovered the serious brain disease known as ...


11.21.15

Gamblers No Longer Need Eight Men Out

Perhaps the most infamous sports scandal in history is the Black Sox scandal about the fixing of the 1919 World Series. It has been immortalized in a book by Eliot Asinof and a movie by John Sayles, both entitled Eight Men Out.The significance of the title is that it took eight men to fix the ...


11.20.15

Major NFL Match-up: Disparaging Speech Versus the First Amendment

There is a joke circulating that the NFL team in the District of Columbia wants to change its name by eliminating "Washington" so as not to be associated with a poor role model for young fans of football. Humor notwithstanding, however, disparaging speech is no laughing matter. As an ...


11.19.15

Sea Change in Concussion Protocols for Youth Soccer

Concussions in boxing have been on the public's radar during most of the twentieth century; concussions in football and hockey joined boxing as major concerns early in the twenty-first century; but soccer has flown under the concussion radar until fairly recently. That lack of notice for soccer ...