Write On Sports

When you speak or write about the great coaches in NFL history, you will always have to include the former coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Bill Walsh, who died today at the age of 75. Walsh guided the San Francisco 49ers to 3 Super Bowl championships while many coaches have never been lucky enough to have even made it to the Super Bowl. During his tenure with the 49ers, Walsh was considered by many as a ‘genius’ in football circles. His success with the likes of quarterback Joe Montana will be a long-standing legacy in football history.

We, at Write On Sports, are saddened by the loss of Bill Walsh, one of the great coaches in professional sports history.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

Author: M. Dean
Write On Sports

On Friday night in San Francisco, before a home crowd, Barry Bonds stepped up to bat in the first inning and, after a count of 2-1, sent the next pitch into the stadium crowd for homerun no. 754, leaving him just one homer short of the coveted 755, now belonging only to Hank Aaron.

The Giants were playing the Florida Marlins and they eventually won the game 12-10. Bonds, however, walked on each of his next four plate appearances, all of which are now historical at-bats. Each time Bonds comes to bat, there is the chance that he will join Aaron by hitting homerun no. 755. Once that is done, then each subsequent at-bat will be even more historical, with the chance to become baseball’s all-time leading homerun hitter with 756.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow…History is in the making.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

Author: M. Dean
Write On Sports

The time has come for me to jump on the Barry Bonds News bandwagon. As of this writing (July 27, 2007) Barry Bonds has 753 homeruns, just two shy of the all-time homerun record of 755 held by Hank Aaron. This is a great accomplishment for Barry Bonds, and a great accomplishment for any athlete to break the all-time record in a sport.

I like Barry Bonds. I really do. I think that what he has achieved and, even more, is about to achieve, is a mark of greatness. However, I just can’t bring myself to blow up any balloons. Even though I have such a tremendous regard for Hank Aaron, that’s not the reason why Bonds’ numbers bother me to some degree. It is simply the allegations of steroid use, which seem to be fairly accurate, that bothers me. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like a tall glass of castor oil. It might be good for you, but it still leaves a bad taste.

The breaking of Hank Aaron’s homerun record is good for baseball, with all the attention that Bonds and the Giants and the sport of baseball will get in the coming days of Barry Bonds watching. Every time Bonds comes to bat, a section of the sports world will focus in, and this is good for baseball. The celebrations and the accolades that will be showered on him when he ties and then breaks the record, with homerun number 756, will be seen over and over worldwide, and this is good for Bonds and baseball. But I feel it will also be tainted. And so, even though it is too late to change what was done, and whatever was used was used, it is not too late to at least learn from it.

I hope that all athletes will take a look at how this great accomplishment will have some tarnish on it, reducing its shine, and see that it is better to use your God-given talents to strive for greatness than to use steroid-given muscle to cheat yourself out of the real glory. Let us learn from this. Yes, Bonds probably used it and, maybe with its help, will break the homerun record of the great Hank Aaron. One can use it and end up like Bonds. But one can also use it and end up like Lyle Alzado, or even worse, Chris Benoit. Like I said, let us learn from all of this and let us wisen up.

Give us your comments on Barry Bonds. How do you feel about his breaking the homerun record?

What’s your opinion? We’d like to know.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

Author: Suzanne Lainson

Licensed content of JobsInSports.com

To map out an athletic career, you need to decide what you want to achieve and why.

Maybe you love sports so much that you’d be satisfied with just enough income to cover training expenses.

Maybe you want to become rich and famous and you think sports will get you there.

Maybe you’ve created a new sport and want to promote it.

Different athletes have different goals.

Some have very ambitious ones. They want to be the best in the world and set records.

Some have more modest goals. They aim for personal bests.

Others aren’t interested in measurable achievements at all. They just want to enjoy themselves.

Examples of athletes motivated by the desire to win:

* Jimmy Connors (the top men’s tennis player in the mid-1970s who was ranked number one for a record 159 consecutive weeks) said, “There was no money when I started so you went out to be the best player The winning was the only thing.” (1)

* Martina Navratilova (who holds the record for the most singles titles won by a professional tennis player) expressed similar sentiments when she was competing. ” the money is still an incentive, but I’m probably the last of the generation of just playing tennis for the purity of the game. Nothing else mattered; I just wanted to win on the tennis court.” (2)

Examples of athletes who see sports as a means to an end:

* Sprinter and former 100m world record holder Leroy Burrell, talking about himself and his Santa Monica Track Club teammates, said, “We’re not in this sport because we like it or we want to earn our way through school. We’re in it to make money.” (3)

* Dawn Staley (twice the NCAA Women’s basketball player of the year, and a member of the 1996 U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team) saw basketball as a way to get an education. “I played football, baseball, whatever the season called for. Then one day it clicked in my mind Basketball was the only thing that could give me a chance to go to college.” (4)

Examples of athletes who train and compete as way to define who they are:

* Skier Matt Grosjean, a member of the US Ski team, said, “To me, the whole thing about competing in a sport, whether it is ski racing or track and field, is the journey. My ski racing career is just one way to for me to figure out who Matt Grosjean is–what my weaknesses are, what my strengths are.” (5)

* Triathlete Mark Allen (who retired from the Hawaii Ironman in 1995 after winning it for the sixth time) said about the race: “For me, it’s a great expression of who I am and what I can do and it feels good to be able to do it. Each time I go over there, it shows me a little about myself. It shows you the difference between who you think you are and who you really are.

“When it finally comes together it’s like you step through a doorway into an unknown part of yourself that allows you to put it together on that day, and it’s an incredible feeling. I don’t go back just to create that feeling but more because I’ve realized there’s a little more inside of me that I want to pull out.” (6)

* Sandy Barwick, an ultramarathoner, explained why she ran a 1,300-mile race. “When I’m running, and when I hit the finish line, I’m fulfilled. I call this race my stairway to heaven: I’ll never do it again, but when it’s over, if I never do another thing in my life, this will be enough.” (7)

* Scott Weber, another endurance runner who completed the first triple crossing of Death Valley, gave this quote: “I was a very poor athlete when I was a kid. I was a guy who couldn’t make the Little League team or the junior high basketball team. I think my excursions into endurance sports at first were to prove to myself I could be an athlete, and since then it’s become a much more personal experience. You move from doing things to show other people you could, to where you do things to look into yourself, into your soul. What’s attractive about a run such as Death Valley is that really nobody cares. There are no fans, no people hopping up and down …” (8)

* John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania, competing in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, injured his knee in the marathon and finished last. Asked why he did not quit to spare himself further pain, he replied, “My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7000 miles to finish it.” (9)

1 Rocky Mountain News, March 28, 1992.
2 USA Today, February 17, 1992.
3 The Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1990.
4 San Diego Union-Tribune, July 22, 1996.
5 Rocky Mountain News, December 9, 1993.
6 Rolling Stone, Spring Style, 1994.
7 The New York Times, October 3, 1991.
8 Rocky Mountain News, September 15, 1994.
9 Parade Magazine, April 21, 1991.

Click here to see job opportunities in the sports industry at JobsInSports.com.

There has been so much back and forth talk about Michael Vick, QB of the Atlanta Falcons, and his indictment over allegations of running a dogfighting operation. Frankly, I am a little bit puzzled about the voting and the polls, about whether or not he should be banned, etc., etc.

Now, as far as I am concerned, the issue should be this: Was he involved in the dogfighting operation, or not? It seems that he was, and if that is the case, then we should take a quick look at what is involved here.

You are talking about taking animals and exploiting their natures to their disadvantage by having them tear and rip and bite at each other, usually until death from painful mutilation. Granted, they are not people, but they are living creatures who also have God-given rights, just as we have God-given rights. Is it fair for us to misuse them, and abuse them so that we can sit back and watch the blood and the gore and marvel at how viciously one dog bit out the other’s guts or eyes or chewed off his nose or ear and ripped the other dog open, while we bet money on it? One report said the following:

Fights would end when one dog died or with the surrender of the losing dog, which was sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method.

Then we, as so-called intelligent people, sit back and DEBATE about an athlete in a professional sport who is one of these animal abusers. Professional athletes are in the public eye as much as any other famous person, and are therefore looked up to by many of our youths and then emulated. That is what is behind the whole business of advertising endorsements. The thinking is: “If Michael Jordan wears XYZ hats, then I might, also”. “Even Tim Duncan wears EFG sneakers”. The athlete’s clothes or food choices or choice of car or HIS ACTIONS encourages others to do the same as him. Remember “I wanna be like Mike”?

Do we really want the young people of America to emulate dog savagery and animal cruelty and gambling on animal death? Are these the kinds of role models we want for our children. NO! Most certainly not!

Bottom line: If Michael Vick was involved in this heartless, sub-human behavior, he should not be allowed to be a role model for people to follow.

A professional athlete’s behavior has a strong impact on others, therefore, he has a responsibility to keep his hands clean. If he can’t do that, then he SHOULD NOT be in the public eye.

Feel free to comment.

What’s your opinion? We’d like to know.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

On Tuesday night we witnessed Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star Game, which the American League won for the 10th time in 11 years, by the score of 5-4. The year that the American League didn’t win out of the last 11 years was a 7-7 tie in the 2002 All- Star Classic. The last time that the National League won was a 6-0 victory way back in 1996.

The Most Valuable Player for this year’s All-Star Game, which was played in San Francisco, was Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners, who hit the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star history and also had two other hits in the game. But a good part of the evening also belonged to San Francisco’s most famous player, #24 - Willie Mays. Mays was honored before the game with a ceremony marking his greatness in baseball history. He rode atop a pink 1958 Cadillac and made a lap in it around the field, during which he threw baseballs into the stands for a number of very fortunate fans to keep as souvenirs.

Willie Mays is now 76 years old - - hard to believe, for it seemed like only yesterday that he was hitting homers night after night, and rounding bases at great speed and throwing out runners on the base path - - yet he is still loved and admired by players and fans alike.

Sometimes I still feel that Willie Mays is underestimated by many. I often hear people say that he was ONE of the greatest players in baseball. I sometimes hear people mention others, like Ted Williams or Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio or even Babe Ruth, and say that they were greater than Mays. Well, people are entitled to their opinions. But I challenge anyone to say that Williams or Mantle or DiMaggio or Ruth could HIT, HIT FOR POWER, RUN, FIELD and THROW better than Mays — for Mays did them all SUPERBLY. And unless any one player could do ALL of those better than Mays, while Mays could probably match, if not surpass, all of them in ANY of those categories, then it seems fitting that one should conclude - as I do - that Mays was the GREATEST PLAYER of them all. No one in the history of baseball could do all of those things with great proficiency as well as Willie Mays. He was, in my opinion, the best of them all. And in my book, he is still baseball’s premier ALL-STAR.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadar battled until the end in an historic Wimbledon title match, in which Federer outlasted Nadar to win his 5th consecutive Wimbledon championship and his 11th major overall.

By defeating Nadar in this intense war of tennis skills, Federer tied Bjorn Borg’s mark of 5 straight Wimbledon titles, became the first player since Borg to win titles at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year, and is now 3 titles shy of 14 career majors, which is the record held by Pete Sampras. He accomplished all of this by winning 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-2 and surviving some break points which may have finished him off had he lost them.

We at Write On Sports congratulate Roger Federer for his victory in a display of championship tennis nearly unparalleled in the history of the sport!

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

What a great victory for women’s tennis, Venus Williams and the entire Williams family.  Venus Williams, ranked #31, defeated Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-1 to win the Wimbledon title for the 4th time in her illustrious career. She is the fourth woman to win at least 4 Wimbledon titles.  Martina Navratilova won it 9 times, while Steffi Graf won 7 and Billie Jean King won 4 since the Open era, which began in 1968.

Overall, this was Venus Williams’ sixth Grand Slam title, as she won at the All England Club in 2000 and 2001. Venus Williams will receive $1.4 million for her victory and Marion Bartoli will receive $703,500 in defeat.  That’s a lot of dough for a loss.

When all is said and done, by the time of her retirement, I think that Venus just might be considered the best of all time, if her sister doesn’t oust her in that category.  I know that Martina and Steffi and others will make a good case for all time greatest, but I don’t think that Venus and Serena are nearly finished yet.  They are both young and very strong, and I think you’ll see them make more and more history as the next few years go by.

We at Write On Sports send our heartiest congratulations to Venus Williams for a job well done!

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life

Once again, Write On Sports has returned to give our take on some of the more important happenings in the world of sports. We encourage readers to look at our comments and to submit comments of their own, whether you agree with our point of view or disagree with it. Either way, we welcome your opinions and hope that you will be a continuous reader of our blogs.

Please check in every now and then for a quick read on the sports world’s events here at Write on Sports.

M. Dean
Muhammad Ali Life