Visits to two Holy Houses of college athletics

There’s no more storied venue in the history of college basketball than the Palestra in Philadelphia, and I was privileged to make my first visit there Saturday. My friend Jerry and I drove to the University of Pennsylvania campus to watch a men’s game in which the home Quakers dominated the Harvard Crimson for an […]

Opening day for old Guy Football

It’s opening Sunday for the National Football League, and even better, I survived the first game of the year in the long-running “old guy” touch football game that’s been playing in Princeton since the mid-1990s. In my mid-60s, I was a rookie last season. Now I’m hoping to avoid the sophomore jinx, although I’ll settle […]

Disaffected with the pros? Try college baseball

In the lead-up to the settlement of the Major League Baseball lockout, I saw a lot of grumbling in the Twittersphere about how fans were contemplating bailing on the big-league teams, their greedy owners and some pouty players. Minor-league and college baseball were offered as strong alternatives because, well, because they are. Anyone who lives […]

Keeping the Tiger team intact

When your season is unexpectedly cut short by a pandemic, what’s a college coach to do? At Princeton, Scott Bradley has turned to virtual tools to keep coaching. Through the university’s athletic fellows program, I’ve had a glimpse of how the head coach and his assistants have managed to keep the team together and inspire […]

Phillies fans are a passionate lot

As I put my purchase onto the checkout counter at the sporting goods store, the clerk looked me in the eye and said bluntly, “Why did you take Hunter Pence from us?” In a split second, I realized that this young man was a Phillies fan and had noticed my San Francisco Giants cap. “I […]