The NCAA handed Penn State University an unprecedented punishment Monday morning due to the university’s failure to properly report sexual abuse allegations against one if its former assistant football coaches. The university must pay $60 million to organizations that focus on the detection, prevention and treatment of child sexual assault. The Nittany Lions are also [...] Read More

In the past couple of weeks, a few individuals and organizations have demonstrated how sports can serve as an emotionally uplifting tool. On Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offered Eric LeGrand an NFL contract. Greg Schiano, the new coach of the Bucs, was previously the coach at Rutgers University, where LeGrand was a standout linebacker [...] Read More

The magnitude of athletes obtaining serious sports injuries in the NFL has been a topic of discussion for some time. Concussions represent an unfortunate result of helmet-to-helmet hits that are all too common in professional football. In 2005, clinical and neuropathological studies performed by independent scientists found that NFL concussions cause cognitive problems such as [...] Read More

I was recently asked by former colleague Aaron Geiger, the publisher of the literary blog but.if.and.that, to offer my perspective on some of my favorite African-American sports literature that was to be included in a compilation of African-American literature reviews for Black History Month. While I could have written extensively on the many books I’ve [...] Read More

The city of Indianapolis recently hosted its first-ever Super Bowl. And while visitors and media heaped high praise on Indiana’s capital as the host, sport economics experts agree that the financial boost to the city will be anything but super. “The consensus opinion is that Super Bowls do not produce economic benefits and possibly produce [...] Read More

With less than a week until Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis, the New York Giants and New England Patriots have been preparing for a rematch, after the Super Bowl upset, which left the Patriots with one loss in the 2007 season. For the Patriots, losing to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, deemed one of [...] Read More

In light of the ongoing scandal surrounding former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, a recent article in ESPN The Magazine stresses the importance of a transparent, united approach to preventing sexual abuse of children who participate in sport. In the article, titled “Not my coach. Not my town.,” Emmy-winning author Wayne Drehs encourages parents [...] Read More

The winner of the 2011 Heisman Trophy will be presented Saturday evening to the top player in college football. The ceremony is held annually at the New York Downtown Athletic Club, which has been responsible for handing out the hardware since 1935. The magazine Mental_Floss has an interesting story on the history of the Heisman [...] Read More

I do not like the current Bowl Championship Series model. I never have. That’s why it pains me to defend this year’s BCS national championship game between #1 LSU and #2 Alabama. I want a plus-one. Or even better, taking the top eight in the BCS standings and having an elite eight bracket, which would [...] Read More

From a sport marketing viewpoint, it appears as though the scandal at Penn State has dramatically affected its merchandise sales. It wouldn’t be the first time a school has seen a dip in licensed merchandise sales as a result of unfavorable events, but the decrease was drastic, according to sources in an Associated Press story. [...] Read More