by gordie | Dec 1, 2024 | College Football
The question I keep asking myself in the wake of the Penn State-Maryland game is this: How much is enough? How many points are enough to satisfy the College Football Playoff committee? How many reps do backups need? And how much revenge is necessary (if in fact that...
by gordie | Oct 29, 2024 | College Football
James Franklin is in his 11th season as Penn State’s head football coach, and every one of them seems to unfold in similar fashion. Early on the Lions play The Teams They Will Beat – Bowling Green and Kent State this season, Delaware, Massachusetts, Ball State, Idaho...
by gordie | Oct 25, 2024 | MLB
Not to get all gooey on you, but for some reason I was thinking the other day about my first time in a major league baseball ballpark. Yankees-Angels, Aug. 26, 1968, in the old Yankee Stadium. Second game of a double-header. Future Phillies manager Jim Fregosi at...
by gordie | Oct 16, 2024 | Journalism, Writing
In the spirit of Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time,” here are some new rules that need to be enacted within the sports media world: New Rule No. 1: If coaches and players use their children as human shields, they should be required to always do so, no matter the kids’...
by gordie | Aug 13, 2024 | NBA
The public face of most NBA players (non-Tyrese Maxey Division) is one of studied nonchalance. Nothing can surprise them, concern them, bring them true joy. Theirs is an impenetrable facade, or so they would have you believe. Then Steph Curry explodes, and all bets...
by gordie | Aug 9, 2024 | Journalism, NBA
Some 450 people jammed into Congregation Ohev Shalom in Wallingford for Andy Jasner’s memorial service on Monday. Of course it was unspeakably sad, because Andy – son of Phil, the late, legendary Sixers beat writer and an accomplished sports journalist himself – died...
by gordie | Aug 2, 2024 | NBA, Philadelphia 76ers
There’s a photo I adore that dates back to at least the 1980s. It shows the late Phil Jasner, then the Sixers’ beat writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, seated on a folding chair in the locker room at St. Joe’s, where the team practiced at the time. Phil, cradling...
by gordie | Jun 26, 2024 | NBA
Chris Finch is where he always seemed destined to be, coaching an NBA team. And if his route was somewhat circuitous – he went from Division III player to European player to European coach to G-League coach to NBA assistant before becoming a head man – consider how...
by gordie | Jun 5, 2024 | NBA
Luka Doncic, a one-of-a-kind player, can be found in every gym in America. If you have ever played pickup ball, you know Luka, or at least his ilk. He’s the guy who’s a little out of shape, a little plodding, a little sloppy … but gets where he needs to go and does...
by gordie | Apr 29, 2024 | NBA
Having laid waste to the Sixers Sunday afternoon, New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson exited the Wells Fargo Center wearing a black sweatsuit (accessorized by black low-top Chucks). Emblazoned on the back of his jacket was this: “It Will Always Be New York or...
