Category Archives: Sports news

Sports news

Pac-12 goes out swinging

Let’s talk a little college football … shall we?

The Pac-12 in reality is now down to just the Pac-2: Oregon State and Washington State. All the other schools have bolted to other conferences and will play tackle ball with their new colleagues beginning this summer.

However, the Pac-12 is going out on a high note, with one of the former Pacific Coast teams, the Washington Huskies, preparing to play next week for the national collegiate championship against the Michigan Wolverines.

The rest of the teams that played in bowl games have done fairly well. The Pac-12 stands at 3-3. My Oregon Ducks took care of business 45-6 against Liberty University in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day. On the flip side, the Oregon State Beavers got walloped by Notre Dame in the Sun Bowl, 40-9, which is no disgrace given Notre Dame’s legendary football tradition.

Where do we stand? Oregon is joining the Big 10, along with Washington, USC and UCLA, next season. The Ducks and Beavers still will play their annual rivalry game. Other Pac-12 schools are joining the Big 12, but it’s not clear where OSU and WSU will end up.

For now, my Pacific Northwest loyalty compels me to root for the Huskies to defeat the Wolverines and bring home the national championship trophy to the NW.

Besides, Oregon’s two losses this year were to the Huskies, so if the Ducks are going to live with those losses, then they should take solace in knowing that they lost only — by a total of seven points in both games combined — to the national champs.

local news, Sports news

Going back to the beginning

Back in the olden days, I was a young whipper snapper looking to break into the newspaper industry as an up-and-coming reporter.

We had a weekly newspaper in my hometown of Portland, Ore., that decided to hire me as a part-time sportswriter. It was the Community Press. I worked for a guy who served as sports editor; he later went on to work as a reporter for the Oregonian. I went on to something else, too.

But now, nearly 50 years later, I am going back to the beginning in my freelance capacity while working for KETR-FM public radio. I am going to cover a college football bowl game. The Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl awaits next Tuesday.

I won’t cover the game, reporting on the snaps, touchdowns, turnovers, and the final score. Instead, I am going to focus on one team’s rather dramatic rise to bowl-quality football. University of Texas-San Antonio built a football program from scratch over the course of just 12 years. The Roadrunners are now going to face off against Marshall University in the Frisco Bowl.

This is quite a novel assignment. I write a feature each month for KETR.org; my boss at the Texas A&M-Commerce radio station publishes the feature on the station’s website. Honest to goodness, I am really looking forward to covering this game and reporting to our readers and listeners about how UTSA rose so quickly to a bowl-quality college football program.

I’ll have to dust off my knowledge of football lingo so that I can know what I’m writing. It’ll come back to me quickly.

Sports news, State news

What a way to go!

Someone has to explain this one to me, because my sometimes-pointy head can’t quite grasp certain realities.

OK, Texas A&M University fired head football coach Jimbo Fisher over the weekend after the Aggies blew out Mississippi State by 40 points or so. That means that Fisher — for whatever reason — wasn’t doing the job the Aggies expected of him.

So, does the coach clear out his office and skulk away into the night like a scorned hound dog? Oh, no.

Dude gets tens of millions of dollars! The university is going to pay Fisher $75 million over the course of several years. The money, according to the Texas Tribune, will come from “donor dollars from the school’s 12th Man Foundation and athletic department funds.”

“The decision to part ways with Coach Fisher is the result of a thorough evaluation of the football program’s performance, and what’s in the best interest of the overall program and Texas A&M University,” the school said in a statement.

“The best interest of the overall program” obviously didn’t include Coach Fisher. Which meant he wasn’t doing the job!

What in the world am I missing here?

local news, Sports news

How ’bout them ex-Soddies?

I just have to give a shout-out to my many friends in Amarillo and the surrounding area who have been spending many days and evenings at Hodgetown cheering for the minor league baseball team, the Sod Poodles.

You see, a lot of those former Soddies now are suiting up for the Arizona Diamondbacks of the National League; the Diamondbacks are the “parent” club of the Sod Poodles, so when a Soddie does well, he gets a chance to play in the Big Leagues. Thus, they have earned their way into the Bigs and starting Friday will be playing in the World Series … arguably the greatest sports event in the world.

I won’t join them in rooting for the D’Backs. My loyalty lies with the American League champion Texas Rangers, whose accomplishments have lit a fire under big-league baseball fans in the Metroplex, where I now reside.

I do think it’s cool, though, for Amarillo to lay claim as it will to one of the teams playing for the Commissioners Trophy. Therefore, I salute y’all and let’s hope for a World Series for the ages.

local news, Sports news

‘Home-field advantage’?

OK, kids, we now know the first two games of the 2023 Major League Baseball World Series will occur at Globe-Life Field in Arlington, giving the Texas Rangers “home-field advantage” in the best-of-seven series.

But … wait. Is that “advantage” worth having?

The Rangers and the Houston Astros played their guts out in the American League Championship Series. The “away” team won every game. The Rangers won their four games against the ‘Stros in Houston.

So, this year, allow me to declare that the “home-field advantage” that the Rangers have might not matter … unless of course they can peel away one win on their home field.

local news, Sports news, State news

From ‘zero’ to ‘hero’

Let’s see now. At the end of the 2022 Major League Baseball season, Dallas/Fort Worth baseball fans were wondering if the Texas Rangers had lost their ability to compete at the big-league level.

The Rangers stunk. The were a laughingstock. They reminded longtime fans of some of the worst teams in American League history. Then came the offseason. They hired a new manager, Bruce Bochy, who brought in some new coaches. They went to work to rebuild the team.

Have they succeeded? Yeah. They have.

The Rangers so far — if you’ll pardon the baseball pun — are pitching a shutout in the 2023 playoffs. They went to Tampa to sweep the Rays. Then they went to Baltimore and took the first two from the Orioles and sent the Birds packing with a third victory at home.

Now the Rangers are playing the Houston Astros in the American League Championship series and have defeated the ‘Stros in the first two games. They have to win two more to advance to the World Series. Let’s see … that’s 7-0 so far in this playoff extravaganza.

Not a bad turnaround.

Sports news

‘Transfers’ dominating college football

Well … I got through another college football Saturday with a smile on my mug as I got to watch my Oregon Ducks deliver a beat down to the Colorado Buffaloes on national TV.

But … I am troubled by the trend that has developed in college football. It’s the “transfer portal” that, to my mind, has resulted in a form of intercollegiate free agency among these student-athletes.

Football players frequently “transfer” their eligibility from one school to another. It allows them some additional college football playing time, which presumably could enhance their financial windfall come draft day in the National Football League.

The old-school fuddy duddy in me isn’t entirely sold on the transfer portal. Watching the Ducks-Buffs game Saturday filled my ears with lots of commentary on all the transfers playing for both Oregon and Colorado. Indeed, the Ducks’ quarterback, Bo Nix, is a kid who transferred from Auburn to play for Oregon. Head U of O coach Dan Lanning calls Nix ‘an elite quarterback” who, after the Saturday blowout of Colorado, has become a Heisman Trophy candidate.

But my point is that the transfer portal vehicle creates a sort of traveling road show quality to all these athletes moving from one university to another to burnish their marketability with the pro franchises. It’s not unlike what has happened over the course of 50 years to Major League Baseball, where athletes shop themselves around the league when their contract expires with the team for which they have played.

It’s difficult these days to attach any loyalty to players who come to a major league franchise, and then leave after three or four seasons. Which is why I always enjoy seeing players inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame who played their entire career with a single team.

Now it’s intercollegiate tackle football that’s been bitten by this transfer portal bug.

Finally, I will stipulate that my devotion to my home state Ducks won’t diminish over the transfer notion. I hope Bo Nix wins the Heisman … but I would enjoy it even more had he played the whole time for Oregon.

Sports news

Bye, bye … Pac 12

My old-fashioned sports sensibilities are being dealt a body blow by none other than the football conference I’ve been following since I was a kid growing up on the West Coast.

I heard last night that the universities of Oregon and Washington are jumping from the Pac 12 to — get ready for it — the Big fu**ing 10! They join USC and UCLA, which already have made the leap. Which schools stay in what’s left of the Pa 12? Oregon State, Washington State, Cal and Stanford. Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State all have leaped into the arms of other athletic conference suitors.

The conference that will welcome those two former Pac 12 football powers now will become the Big 18, or some such ungodly number.

I am a Ducks fan. I didn’t attend the school in Eugene, but I have followed the Oregon Ducks since I was a boy.

Now, why is this such a big deal to this traditionalist college football fan? Because the Rose Bowl — the so-called Granddaddy of Bowl Games — is played every New Year’s Day in Pasadena, Calif. And it used to feature the winner of the Pac 12 vs. the winner of the Big 10. Therefore, the Big 10 becomes the hated conference of the enemy.

The NCAA has managed to make a mess out of traditional football rivalries already. They allowed Texas A&M to join the SEC, removing the annual Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry game — played on Thanksgiving — from the schedule. That will change because Texas is now set to join the SEC, which will enable the Longhorns to hook up once again with the Aggies.

West Coast college football fans used to revel in the Rose Bowl game. In recent years, the Ducks have enjoyed modest success in the big game, beating Wisconsin twice, losing to Ohio State and Penn State once each. The NCAA has placed the Rose Bowl among the games to determine the college football championship and in 2015, the Ducks pummeled Florida State (from the ACC) en route to the NCAA championship game, which they lost to Ohio State.

The Pac 12 as we West Coast natives have known it soon will not exist. The four schools remaining will seek to join other athletic conferences.

It’s all about the money, man, and it is ruining what I formerly thought was a sport so steeped in tradition that it couldn’t be sullied by the great American dollar.

Silly me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

Up close with The Greatest

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Anyone who knows me well — family members and my closest friends — understands that Muhammad Ali is my all-time favorite professional athlete.

Well, gang, today I walked into the Muhammad Ali Museum and Center to pay my respects to The Greatest.

It is, to say the very least, a stunning display on Main Street in downtown Louisville that honors the three-time heavyweight boxing champion. Moreover, it speaks in great detail to the social consciousness he exhibited by refusing induction into the Army in 1967 and for the sacrifice he endured when the pro boxing authorities deprived him of his ability — at the peak of his physical prowess — to make a living by beating up other men.

The Champ was The Greatest. I need no convincing of that. The chatter we hear from time to time about whether Ali would defeat, say, Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis — two of The Champ’s boxing descendants — is just mindless chatter.

In my humble view, and I am no expert, a prime-time Muhammad Ali would make mincemeat of those two fine athletes. But that’s just me.

The exhibit does explain that Ali was a flawed man. He was a womanizer who treated his wives terribly. It speaks as well to the rhetoric he spouted by declaring that all white people were “devils.” I long have found that “devil” nonsense to be just that. The Champ’s boxing team comprised the likes of Angelo Dundee, Ferdie Pacheco and other white dudes who guided him to the pinnacle of his sport.

As for the Parkinson’s disease that turned this monumental chatter box into a silent statue of a man, one exhibit speaks to whether the brutal sport that Ali practiced contributed to his illness. It says “no!” A physician who examined Ali says the disease would have taken The Champ down without the punishment he endured while fighting. Yes, I know that’s a debatable point. I just won’t engage in that discussion.

The museum is a marvelous tribute to this city’s most notable son, a man who went on to become what many have argued “the most famous person on this Earth.” 

I am so glad I took time to visit this fantastic exhibit to The Greatest of All Time.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

‘No’ on review of calls

I will admit to being a professional sports fuddy-duddy, given all the technology being introduced to manage the conduct of various games.

Allow me this brief rejoinder to one of those elements: instant replay.

I attended a big-league baseball game Friday night in Arlington, Texas, where my friend and I watched the Texas Rangers blow out the Cleveland Guardians. What’s more, they did it without a lick of help from the umpires.

The Rangers filed one challenge to a play at the plate. A runner was called “out!” … and he was out, by a mile. The review of the video proved the call was the correct one.

Which brings me to my point. We should let the umpires do their job. They have to make decisions in a split second. You know what? They get it right about, oh, 99% of the time. It never ceases to amaze me how the momentum of games is disrupted by the challenges allotted to managers of both teams.

Well, the game we witnessed in Arlington was left to the athletes. It cheers me to no end to see the Grand Old Game played the way it’s intended.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com