Tag Archives: Maverick Rowan

Monday’s Sports Missive: Serena, Novak, Jordan, Roger & Wayne

sportsnewsNo Louisville Cardinal fan rooted harder for Wayne Blackshear to succeed, and become a major Double Arches AA-quality collegian, than I did.

Some have even used the word apologist.

Truth is he never met fans, coaches, or his expectations. It happens.

I happened upon a couple of his summer league games during the last week or so.

In the first, contested in Utah, he played about half the minutes, but contributed little. In the second, after the Spurs had moved on to the Vegas competition, it was all pine time. He never took off his warmup.

So, it is somewhat sad, how he’s expressed his views of his years on the Belknap Campus.

I agree with him. For most of his career, he did sublimate his game to the offensive sets run by The Rick. But . . . a lot of that had to do with the fact that he never displayed the eye of the tiger, the will to take charge, that it was believed he had in him. He never really showed he deserved to have sets run for him. Continue reading Monday’s Sports Missive: Serena, Novak, Jordan, Roger & Wayne

Hump Day Harangues: Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland, Sayonara Maverick, Luke’s Itinerary

carliThere is a brutal athletic competition that has been taking place in Florence, Italy since the 15th century. It is said to be the most barbaric extant, or, at least, in the Western World.

It’s called calcio storico, and you can read about it here.

Essentially teams of 27 mean motherfuckers from four quadrants of the city, compete for pride only — literally, no money or medals to the winners — in a sand pit, scoring goals by any means necessary. There are apparently no rules. Lots of medics present, performing lots of serious triage.

It is obviously a grizzly endeavor.

But, no more so than last evening’s roughly contested World Cup semi-final, in which the U.S. of A. upset Germany, 2 nil.

I’m not sure if I’ve seen a men’s soccer game with as much pushing and shoving and kicking and tripping, or as many elbows and forearms and knees not so delicately nudged into opponents body parts. The most noteworthy set-to was that first half noggin’ crash on a set piece, drawing blood from both American Morgan Brian and Germany’s Alexandra Popp, the latter of whom came out for the second half with her head bandaged, looking like an on-field advert for Johnson & Johnson.

It was the bloodiest conflict between these two adversaries since Allies vs. Axis in WWII. Continue reading Hump Day Harangues: Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland, Sayonara Maverick, Luke’s Itinerary