“The 1973 Sugar Bowl, like this year’s Bowl Championship Series title game, featured Notre Dame playing Alabama for the national championship. Late in the game, [Howard] Cosell uttered some of the truest words ever to travel through a press box microphone: ‘At Notre Dame, football is a religion; at Alabama, it is a way of life’.” - To Love, or Hate, Notre Dame by Bill Morris
Pop-upView Separately

“The 1973 Sugar Bowl, like this year’s Bowl Championship Series title game, featured Notre Dame playing Alabama for the national championship. Late in the game, [Howard] Cosell uttered some of the truest words ever to travel through a press box microphone: ‘At Notre Dame, football is a religion; at Alabama, it is a way of life’.”

- To Love, or Hate, Notre Dame by Bill Morris

“Fifty years ago, a wide-eyed kid in Detroit had a religious experience. It was partly a baptism and partly an epiphany, but mostly it was an illusion. It was that rite of initiation that occurs in the life of every sports fan, that moment when he sees something so magical that he comes to believe that anything, absolutely anything is possible.” - Our own Bill Morris recalls The Thanksgiving Day Massacre
View Separately

“Fifty years ago, a wide-eyed kid in Detroit had a religious experience. It was partly a baptism and partly an epiphany, but mostly it was an illusion. It was that rite of initiation that occurs in the life of every sports fan, that moment when he sees something so magical that he comes to believe that anything, absolutely anything is possible.”

- Our own Bill Morris recalls The Thanksgiving Day Massacre

the “aw-shucks” Rodriguez blundered at his first press conference by answering “Gosh, I hope not!” to the question of whether he needed to be a “Michigan Man” in order to coach the Wolverines. In Ann Arbor, that’s tantamount to saying you’ve never heard of The Beatles. Months later, he would be reprimanded for using the word “ain’t” in an interview. —Nick Moran reviews John U. Bacon’s Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football
Pop-upView Separately
the “aw-shucks” Rodriguez blundered at his first press conference by answering “Gosh, I hope not!” to the question of whether he needed to be a “Michigan Man” in order to coach the Wolverines. In Ann Arbor, that’s tantamount to saying you’ve never heard of The Beatles. Months later, he would be reprimanded for using the word “ain’t” in an interview.

—Nick Moran reviews John U. Bacon’s Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football

“…Astute football fans will agree that the most distinct aspects of football and baseball, America’s two most popular sports, are the outsized roles played by narrative and tradition. You see, both games practically beg for commentators to ascribe storylines and context in order to fill the gaps between bursts of live action. (Try watching a muted baseball game if you don’t believe me.) The games depend on their stories. Unlike the continuous game play in soccer or basketball matches, which force announcers to call second-by-second run-downs of the ball’s movement, baseball and football plays are punctuated by long lulls. See the baseball player who halts his at-bat long enough to scratch his crotch and spit some seeds. See the average football game, which manages to stretch a lean 11 minutes of live game play out for a broadcast lasting 174 minutes.” - Burnin’ Down the (Big) House by Nick Moran
Pop-upView Separately

“…Astute football fans will agree that the most distinct aspects of football and baseball, America’s two most popular sports, are the outsized roles played by narrative and tradition. You see, both games practically beg for commentators to ascribe storylines and context in order to fill the gaps between bursts of live action. (Try watching a muted baseball game if you don’t believe me.) The games depend on their stories. Unlike the continuous game play in soccer or basketball matches, which force announcers to call second-by-second run-downs of the ball’s movement, baseball and football plays are punctuated by long lulls. See the baseball player who halts his at-bat long enough to scratch his crotch and spit some seeds. See the average football game, which manages to stretch a lean 11 minutes of live game play out for a broadcast lasting 174 minutes.”

- Burnin’ Down the (Big) House by Nick Moran

“Two losses are unforgivable; three are unthinkable. Call it optimism, call it hubris, but it gives them something in which they can believe. It also sets the stage for some Schadenfreude when an especially high profile, historically successful team falters. That’s precisely what occurred over the three years covered in John U. Bacon’s Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football (out in paperback this month), which endeavors to explain how the once-mighty program was reduced to a sputtering mess despite having one of the sport’s most talented coaches at its helm.” Nick Moran, “Burning Down the (Big) House.”
View Separately

“Two losses are unforgivable; three are unthinkable. Call it optimism, call it hubris, but it gives them something in which they can believe. It also sets the stage for some Schadenfreude when an especially high profile, historically successful team falters. That’s precisely what occurred over the three years covered in John U. Bacon’s Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football (out in paperback this month), which endeavors to explain how the once-mighty program was reduced to a sputtering mess despite having one of the sport’s most talented coaches at its helm.”

Nick Moran, “Burning Down the (Big) House.”

Source: themillions.com

Last night, Tim Tebow passed for 316 yards in his team’s home victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. If you’re curious, this is the text of Timothy 3:16 — Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:    He appeared in the flesh,    was vindicated by the Spirit,was seen by angels,    was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world,    was taken up in glory.
View Separately

Last night, Tim Tebow passed for 316 yards in his team’s home victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. If you’re curious, this is the text of Timothy 3:16 —

Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:

   He appeared in the flesh,
   was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
   was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
   was taken up in glory.