When I decided to go to the University of Oregon for graduate school in 2005 I was like, “Those hippies are going to be bummed when I remind them of the UC basketball team beating down the No. 5 Ducks in 2002.” (There were also feelings of, “Goddang UC givin’ me an English degree that ain’t worth nuthin’…”)

But before I could even get out there and wear my Jason Maxiell jersey on Oregon’s lovely campus (those dudes have about 1,284 bike racks, for reals), Bob Huggins had been let go and my confidence in UC’s 2007 National Championship plans (the pending recruiting class was going to be ridiculous) were shattered. Even worse, this scary guy named Ivan Johnson backed out of his commitment to UC, and guess what school he went to? Freakin Oregon.

Read More

I'm short on time and ideas. Prevailing circumstances have kept me and my homey from finishing Week 3 of the Greatest Season Ever before due time came. Merrill Hoge busted off 179 rushing yards in a game, Vinny T and the Bucs got loose. My homey's Chiefs lost to the Oilers. Both our teams are 2-1. There's a lot of football left to be played.

Now I will channel the ALF of sports analysts, Peter King. From time to time I read his column on SI.com, and that guy has got it made. What an incredibly easy thing to do. I love talking about snackin' and travel and such.

Read More

Well, this is it. The aspiring Air Hockey World Champion's blog. Seriously. Air hockey.

Why air hockey? As Jason points out in the Air Hockey Blog intro, he kicked my ass at Pop-A-Shot on a regular basis and I got tired of it. I challenged him to a game of air hockey ... and let me tell you, our lives changed. Air Hockey is an incredible game of strategy, skill, power and geometry? Yes ... geometry. Knowing the angles helps win games. Hitting your angles ... that's a little harder.

Read More

Seven long months ago, I was what many in the office would consider an urban legend. I was the self-proclaimed Dave and Busters “Pop-A-Shot” king. Unbeaten in more than 20 straight head-to-head matches, I managed to frustrate my fellow co-workers with my Larry Bird-like skills. This, of course, led to a lot of bragging and maybe just a little inflation of my head. Ultimately, this discomfort in defeat had my fellow cohorts in a scramble to find something they could beat me at. And they finally found one — a sport in which quick reflexes, precision angle shots and diligent goal defense are the trademarks of a weathered veteran. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Air Hockey.

Read More

The greatest idea of my awesome life was to find a friend who lives less than a quarter-mile from my place who has Tecmo Super Bowl and likes to play it. We recently began a new experiment — starting a season and putting every single team on “MAN” control.

Read More

St. John's needs to get some new uniforms. Nobody's trying to act like UC's tri-colored Adidas triangle theme is super cool, but the Red Storm dudes look like they’re wearing the high school JV jerseys handed down by the 1988 state championship team.

The Johnnies got handled like a JV team for most of Wednesday night’s game, a 71-61 UC win that wasn’t as close as a 10-point difference would suggest.

Read More

Another week of sports stories has washed ashore with some (like something or other about Alex Rodriguez but not the Kabbalah) sure to ring through our ears and eyes, ad nauseum like the Brett Favre Retirement Spectacle of last year.

Read More

Do you like watching the home team win? Have the Bengals driven you to drink? Are the Reds making you fill your Prozac prescription early?

Get to a Cincinnati Rollergirls match, one of the only winning sports teams in the 'Nati. In fact, I heard that the Bearcats were given an inspirational speech by the Rollergirls before their season started this year.

Read More

Larry Davis was just trying to act right during his first-ever postgame interview session after UC’s 93-83 win over Notre Dame Wednesday night at US Bank Arena. But Deonta Vaughn and Yancy Gates noticed Davis’ increased perspiration as he leaned across the podium to speak into the microphone, and they couldn’t help but relentlessly laugh at their teammate.

Read More

Sunday's Super Bowl commercials were like Ruby Tuesday's in that they were not cheap but terribly bad.

But fear not loyal readers A and B! I'm not going to dull the blade by penning some lame blog about advertising disguised as a sports piece … like the people who get paid a lot of money by Yahoo! to do sports blogs that are terrible and seldom informative. Instead, I will offer you another seemingly incongruent chain of ideas, thoughts and feelings.

Read More