Great moments in radio: Drew Brees on ESPN

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Drew+Brees&iid=7837401″ src=”c/d/a/5/Super_Bowl_XLIV_adb4.jpg?adImageId=10057853&imageId=7837401″ width=”500″ height=”333″ /] What a kick it was this morning to drive to work and hear Drew Brees on the ESPN Radio show The Herd with Colin Cowherd. This was not your ordinary morning-after interview with the winning Super Bowl quarterback. A few minutes into the interview, Cowherd asks Brees […]

The incomparable Jerry Rice nominated to the football Hall of Fame

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Jerry+Rice&iid=2932495″ src=”b/5/3/8/Super_Bowl_XXIV_afcd.jpg?adImageId=9973428&imageId=2932495″ width=”234″ height=”355″ /] Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith head the class of seven NFL players who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at Canton, and I write today to lavish praise on Rice. He was incomparable, the dominant receiver of his era. He played superbly in […]

Alabama defeats Texas to win the national championship

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=*&iid=7483370″ src=”9/9/5/f/BCS_National_Championship_d3f2.jpg?adImageId=8854749&imageId=7483370″ width=”500″ height=”333″ /] The final: ‘Bama 37, Texas 21. Did I watch? Not a play. But I listened to the last several minutes via ESPN’s streaming radio feed.

No, thanks. I’ll pass on the chips (Fiesta Bowl 2010)

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Boise+State&iid=7455313″ src=”6/1/2/4/Tostitos_Fiesta_Bowl_0155.jpg?adImageId=8797792&imageId=7455313″ width=”234″ height=”317″ /] On my television screen, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl tonight looked more like the Ugly Uniforms Bowl. As one of my Twitter buddies pointed out, TCU players looked like walking eggplants. And although the pants in this photo appear orange, on my screen the Boise State players looked […]

Farewell to Isaac Bruce, one of the great ones

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=Isaac+Bruce&iid=7452407″ src=”e/9/8/4/San_Francisco_49ers_b8d2.JPG?adImageId=8781688&imageId=7452407″ width=”234″ height=”324″ /] Isaac Bruce bid farewell to his outstanding NFL career today. He was on the field for one play for the 49ers, who went on to defeat the hapless St. Louis Rams. Bruce spent all but the last two years of his career with the Rams, dating back […]

The Rose Bowl – A Midwestern perspective

As a child of the Big Ten Conference, I believed the Rose Bowl was a place of magic, enchantment and, inevitably, frustration and resignation. With piles of snow outside our homes in suburban Cleveland, we’d tune in to the game as the sun was setting in Eastern time. We’d watch in fascination as 100,000 people […]

A tip of the cap to 49ers broadcast analyst Gary Plummer

Fans who spend their lives rooting for one team in one town and listening only to the hometown announcers don’t have much of a basis for comparison of the men and women behind the microphones. As a kid in Cleveland, after the Indians’ games I’d catch a few innings when atmospheric conditions were right from […]

Thanksgiving ritual: Lions and Cowboys games on TV

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=raiders&iid=7114234″ src=”d/3/e/7/Cincinnati_Bengals_v_ef43.jpg?adImageId=7847928&imageId=7114234″ width=”234″ height=”314″ /] Thanksgiving Day in America means turkey, cranberries and football, not necessarily in that order. The Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys have been featured on national TV for as long as I can remember, and both teams will be in action this year. I’ll be paying more attention […]

Football Night in America – sacrilege

[picapp src=”b/7/8/5/Super_Bowl_XLIII_4dad.jpg?adImageId=7075166&imageId=3807985″ width=”234″ height=”175″ /] The show has been around on NBC for a few seasons, but only today as I awoke from a snooze brought on by 49ers, Raiders and Packers losses did I discover Football Night in America. It’s the show that airs before the Sunday night NFL game of the week, and […]

A quarterback switch for the 49ers

Pro football is a fickle business. Shaun Hill won the San Francisco 49ers’ starting quarterback job with strong performances during the latter half of the 2008 season. He prevailed over Alex Smith in the exhibition season this summer and the team got off to a fast start. But they played terribly against the Atlanta […]