For those who have been distracted by the often-depressing news at the very top of the American sports pyramid, stories such as the New Orleans Saints bounty program, the vicious hits in the NHL and NBA and the Roger Clemens trial, I'd like to remind you of what youth sports have to offer:A mother in New York has received a 60-day sentence for threatening a Little League official after her son failed to make a summer travel team. A grandfather in Alabama is facing felony charges after punching a 20-year-old umpire in the nose at his granddaughter's softball game. A Babe Ruth League coach in Pennsylvania was charged with reckless endangerment and harassment after allegedly trying to run someone over with his pickup truck. A ... Continue reading →

Worried about his future health and not wanting to become another tragic NFL statistic, Jacob Bell, 31, who started 100 games with Tennessee and St. Louis before signing with Cincinnati last month, has abruptly retired from the game."It's just crazy to see how someone like Junior Seau took his own life over — God knows what he was really struggling and dealing with," Bell, an eight-year veteran, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "But you have to believe it came from the game of football. I want to get out before the game makes me get out, where I can get out on my own terms, and I can limit the amount of stress and negative impact that the game would leave on me."It will take ... Continue reading →

Six weeks ago, it was the coaches and general manager. Today, it's four players who, "of their own accord pledged significant amounts of their own money toward bounties," according to the NFL.Leading the Saints' charge to knock opponents out of games was middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma, who offered a $10,000 bounty on the head of Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner in the 2009 divisional playoffs, then another $10,000 on the head of Vikings quarterback Brett Favre in the NFC Championship Game. Who said the days of the Wild West were over?Since this story broke two months ago, Vilma has exhibited precious little remorse over his actions. The picture that accompanies his Twitter feed shows him on a recent Sports Illustrated cover with the headline "Bounty Culture." ... Continue reading →

As part of ESPN’s companywide initiative The Power of IX – recognizing the 40th anniversary of Title IX – SportsCenter, in conjunction with espnW, will count down the Top 40 Female Athletes of Past 40 Years beginning Monday, April 30. Every weekday an athlete will be revealed, culminating with the No. 1 female athlete of the past 40 years announced Friday, June 22 – one day prior to the 40th anniversary of Title IX (June 23). SportsCenter will unveil each female athlete during the 10 a.m. weekday edition for the first six weeks (April 30-June 8), and the top 10 female athletes will be revealed during the 11 p.m. weeknight SportsCenter (June 11-22). The vignettes will be introduced by ESPN’s Hannah Storm. They will include ... Continue reading →

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"The concussion suffered by James Harden demonstrates the danger posed by violent acts of this kind, particularly when they are directed at the head area," Stern said in a statement. "We remain committed to taking necessary measures to protect the safety of NBA players, including the imposition of appropriate penalties for players with a history of on-court altercations."No one has lived the history of on-court altercations as memorably as World Peace has. (And off-court, meet-you-at-your-seat altercations as well.) This is the 13th time he has been suspended in a 13-year career. That one-suspension-per-year pace he is maintaining has to be a record that will never be broken.Perhaps he can change his name with every suspension. If he's looking for suggestions, I'm thinking "It's Not Me" ... Continue reading →

Hockey agent Allan Walsh was watching the Chicago-Phoenix playoff game on television at the Northern California home of one of his clients Tuesday night when a whistle stopped play and he saw the Blackhawks' Marian Hossa lying on the ice."It wasn't until the replay that you really saw what happened," Walsh said in a telephone interview Wednesday.From four or five angles, he watched Coyotes enforcer Raffi Torres leave his feet and throw his left shoulder with all his might under the chin of Hossa, knocking him flat on his back."I knew right then and there it was as dirty a hit as you can get," Walsh said.Stunningly, Torres did not receive a penalty as Hossa was strapped to a stretcher and taken to the hospital. ... Continue reading →

Something was wrong along the Tennessee bench. You could tell the moment you tuned in to last month's NCAA women's basketball tournament. A coach was screaming at her players, shouting instructions and pleading with the officials, but it wasn't Pat Summitt. The legendary head coach was there, sitting with her team, quietly watching, occasionally passing along advice to a player during a timeout. But someone else now was playing her lead role. Someone else was directing her team.For one basketball season, she tried. Summitt tried to be what she once was, but she couldn't do it. The early onset dementia that she so bravely announced to the sports world just last August had already robbed her of so many of the brilliant and fiery qualities ... Continue reading →

MONTROSE, N.Y. – A thin wall separated victim from survivor when Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic Village in Munich on Sept. 5, 1972. The terrorists took their first hostages — a group of Israeli coaches and officials in Apartment 1 — then moved on to Apartment 3, which housed Israeli weightlifters and wrestlers. Those in Apartment 2 were spared.Forty years after 11 Israeli Olympians were killed in Munich, a thin wall still separates the beauty of the Games from the horror of that day, especially for Avraham Melamed, who was sleeping that night in Apartment 2."The Olympics were a virgin phenomenon," says Melamed, a two-time Olympic swimmer for Israel. "It's not a virgin anymore. Now you have to think about security. Now you have to ... Continue reading →

Other than being larger-than-life, self-absorbed characters in charge of high-profile sports teams, Bobby Petrino and Ozzie Guillen had almost nothing in common before March turned into April and their foolishness, poor judgment and arrogance became the common denominator of their downfalls.Petrino, thankfully, is gone, and Guillen should be, if only because it's almost impossible to imagine him and his infamous "I love Fidel Castro" quote ever being able to co-exist with the vitally important and completely energized Cuban-American community in Miami that rightfully despises Castro.It's also almost impossible to imagine Guillen, the Miami Marlins manager, not saying something else that will get him in trouble in the next few months, if not the next few minutes.During his emotional news conference Tuesday at the new Marlins ... Continue reading →