Chris Korman

The Banner • 20th July 2026

A trans ban came to rugby. Baltimore’s Ferals played on.

It was midmorning, and the March winds lashed against the faces of the players on the Ferals rugby team as they suited up at a park in Frederick. The turf was frozen. Harper Ockert, 24, wrapped her left knee with tape, stabilizing her joint for the jarring hits to come. She had struggled to sleep the night before, but her anxiety was not strictly about the game.She and her teammates were preparing to defy newly enacted rules set by the sport’s governing body. A nervous energy thrummed in her ch...

The Banner • 24th July 2025

Kyle Goon: John Harbaugh should have thought twice before visiting Trump White House

If John Harbaugh wants to shake hands with a real leader, I have a suggestion.Spend a few minutes with Youman Wilder, the Harlem youth baseball coach who recently stood between his teenage players and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who started asking questions about where they were from. In America these days, even children are not immune from being spirited off the street by masked forces to unknown detention facilities.In a CNN interview, Wilder said he told his kids to get into...

The Banner • 12th June 2025

The unraveling of a former Orioles pitcher

Brian Matusz appeared to have it all. The Orioles went into the 2014 All Star break with the division lead, their best start in 17 years. Even the most pessimistic Baltimoreans were having World Series dreams. Brian had pitched in 40 games and had made a name for himself as rival Red Sox slugger David Ortiz’s Kryptonite.He was young, handsome and very wealthy. With a few days off, he could’ve jetted anywhere for his midseason break. Instead, Brian went home to the beige and terra-cotta sprawl of...

The Banner • 31st March 2025

No one has ever achieved this Camden Yards feat during a game. What will it take?

Alan Nathan is stumped.A retired professor emeritus of experimental nuclear physics at the University of Illinois, Nathan no longer studies collisions between subatomic particles. These days he spends his time examining collisions between a ball and a bat, establishing himself as one of the foremost experts in baseball physics.“From a physics point of view, it’s sort of all the same thing,” he said.But even Nathan, who has a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University, is curious as to why a home...

The Banner • 30th January 2025

Ravens' Justin Tucker accused of inappropriate behavior by six massage therapists

Ravens kicker Justin Tucker engaged in inappropriate behavior at four high-end spas and wellness centers in the Baltimore region, according to six massage therapists, including exposing his genitals, brushing two of them with his exposed penis, and leaving what they believed to be ejaculate on the massage table after three of his treatments.Several therapists said Tucker’s behavior was so egregious that they ended his sessions early or refused to work on him again. And, at two spas, management s...

The Banner • 11th August 2023

Kyle Goon: Orioles fans keep giving. John Angelos keeps taking.

We just sang for our supper. But John Angelos wants us to clear our throats for an encore.The mystery that has hung over Baltimore like a dark cloud for most of this year is coming into sharper focus. The reason the Orioles have not signed a long-term lease at Camden Yards is that Angelos, the managing partner and CEO of the team, wants a bigger bag.Apparently the $600 million in public bonds the franchise would get once it signs a new lease is not enough. Angelos wants to expand his empire be...

For The Win • 5th November 2020

How a terrifying crash and impromptu celebration helped shape Jimmie Johnson's legendary NASCAR career

Jimmie Johnson pulled his legs away from the pedals. He curled up in his seat, but also tried to stay loose. There was nothing he could do to stop the car as it headed straight at a concrete wall.

He was 24-years-old, running in his first full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series season (then known as the Busch Series) and he’d had that car in the top-10 at Watkins Glen International. He’d just pitted; his crew was abuzz about the chance to have a strong finish — maybe even a win.

Then he pushed his foo

For The Win • 17th September 2020

You should know Brennan Marion and his unique GoGo offense. The smartest coaches in football already do.

Weeks out from the start of the 2017 college football season, UNLV coach Tony Sanchez had a problem. His team’s Week 1 opponent, the Howard Bison out of the MEAC conference, had a brand new coaching staff, which always makes preparation for a season opener tricky.

Complicating matters further, Howard’s new staff, led by former Virginia coach Mike London, included a 30-year-old offensive coordinator who had never called plays at the college level. In fact, it had been three years since Brennan M

For The Win • 24th June 2020

Patriots' Jeff Thomas is already a success — and more complex than 'talented but troubled' label

Head hanging low, Jeff Thomas sat silently on the sideline. His teammates and coaches took turns slapping him on the head and cheering in his ear. It was the 2016 Illinois high school playoffs, and the scoreboard showed only a few seconds left. Thomas’ East St. Louis team had just scored the go-ahead points in its 34-28 win over Glenbard North. Thomas had caught the touchdown, a 20-yard jump ball in a crowd of two defenders and a teammate.

Thomas had always been a quiet kid, but even by his sta

For The Win • 17th July 2019

Meet the 47-year-old who is inspiring others to chase their dunking dreams

HIGHLAND, Utah — Andy Nicholson is looking straight into a Fox 13 TV camera with dozens of men in basketball shorts standing behind him. He’s doing a live interview to promote a dunk show scheduled for later that week at American Fork High School (Utah) when he mentions there’s a surprise.

The far door swings open, and Jordan Kilganon — widely considered in the dunk community to be the world’s best dunker — enters the gym. He is immediately swarmed by Chris “C.J.” John and Steven Celi, two of t

For The Win • 6th March 2019

MLB teams need catchers at spring training. They just don't want to pay them.

TAMPA — Pitch after pitch sizzled in, popping like gunfire as they blasted into catcher Jorge Saez’s glove.

On a muggy Sunday last month, the day before position players were due to report to the Yankees’ spring-training facility, veteran left-hander Rex Brothers worked from one of six mounds under a corrugated steel roof adjacent to the right-field bullpen at Steinbrenner Field. Like many professional pitchers these days, Brothers can hurl baseballs at speeds rare in the game as recently as a

For The Win • 3rd October 2018

The science of NFL play-calling: How offensive geniuses out-smart opponents

Who are the best play-callers in the NFL? It’s not a hard question to answer. Everyone pretty much agrees that Sean McVay, Josh McDaniels, Kyle Shanahan, Andy Reid and Sean Payton make up the top-five in some order.

Here’s a question that is far more difficult to answer: What makes those guys so good? Sure, their teams score a lot of points, but how do they do it?

Every coach in the NFL is pretty much running the same plays, so what separates the geniuses from the rest?

USA TODAY • 20th July 2018

How the Special Olympics changed everything

Mary Farrelly can't take her eyes off her 8-year-old son, Owen. He is waiting in line to hit a volleyball. She's never signed him up for an event like this. Does he know he's supposed to go sit on the bench? Will he sit on the bench after he's done?

It's Owen's turn. He's never shown much interest in catching a ball or riding a bike at home, but Mary thought, just maybe, he'd like this. The coach hits the ball to Owen, and he hits it back. He hits it

For The Win • 3rd July 2018

How Kelly Slater took surfing out of the ocean and onto dry land

LEMOORE, California– It’s late in the day on a Friday in early May and Kelly Slater is holding court near the hot tub. After a long day of surfing practice, Slater, barefoot and in board shorts, is taking it easy as family and friends mingle around. His partner, Kalani Miller, is nearby with their dog, while his agent coordinates one last interview. As people wander over, Slater doles out wet, one-armed hugs.

From his hot tub perch, Slater is looking out at the large body of water in front of h

For The Win • 27th June 2018

At the 2Hype house, YouTubing is a lucrative full-time job

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Eight young men sit on and around a large brown sofa inside a $2.8 million house in a quiet gated community, taking turns playing Fortnite. They’ve been at it for at least a of couple hours now. They’re dressed casually: slides, sweatpants and T-shirts. They all play Fortnite regularly, especially because it’s so popular with their fans.

This afternoon session, as per usual, includes lots of enthusiastic shouting. At one point an Xbox controller is angrily thrown across th

For The Win • 30th March 2017

These Chicago students stay off the street by whistling fouls

The Greater Grand Crossing gymnasium is filled with the familiar sounds of a basketball game: shoes squeaking, a ball bouncing, even a touch of light trash talk. A friendly but competitive game has broken out among a group of Chicago teenagers. One player towers over the others, but his opponents — and friends — relish double-teaming him near the free throw line. Finally, they go too far, and his lanky 6-foot-6 frame tumbles to the ground. He lands a foot short of the Chicago Bulls logo at mid-c

For The Win • 17th February 2017

ALS is slowly robbing ex-linebacker Tim Shaw of his muscles. But he won't let that stop him from living.

NASHVILLE — The message on the whiteboard in the bathroom is simple.

Tim Shaw, 32, has been writing his goals down for as long as he can remember. He revealed in Blitz Your Life, his new book, that after he was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in 2007 his goals were to seek God, make the team, lead the special teams unit in tackles and make the All-Rookie team. He made the team and went onto a 7-year career in the NFL before being cut in 2013 when his body suddenly wouldn’t allow him to run wit

For The Win • 14th February 2017

Film review: The Falcons didn’t blow the Super Bowl. Bill Belichick took it from them.

How did it happen? That’s the question every Falcons fan must ask when they are reminded of their team’s historic collapse in Super Bowl LI. Well, For the Win took a look at the coaches film of the Patriots’ 34-28 win in order to answer that very question. Simply put, Bill Belichick and his staff took the game back in the second half. But to understand how — and why it was so brilliant — you have to start from the beginning …

The Patriots offensive game plan did not differ much from the one the

For The Win • 31st January 2017

$12,000 a year: A minor leaguer takes his fight for fair pay public

At the end of February, Kyle Johnson will pack some bags, say goodbye to his wife and his two young daughters, and make the 2,800-mile journey from his home in Post Falls, Idaho, to Port St. Lucie, Fla., to spend a strenuous month of volunteer work in the service of an industry that grossed nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2016. Johnson, a 27-year-old college graduate with a degree in economics, exists in the top 0.001 percentile of talent in his field, but like all players in affiliated minor l

For The Win • 31st October 2016

League of Legends: How one video game is on its way to becoming the next major worldwide sport

NEW YORK CITY — They showed up hours early, the young people did, dressed in the uniforms of their favorite athletes. (They called them athletes, too, and one day so will you.) The names on the back of the uniforms were unfamiliar and strange, words plucked from the ether – Faker, Wolf, Smeb, GorillA, Cry. Some of the f

For The Win • 6th October 2016

'One of the best nights of my life:' The evening 355 die-hard female Pats fans met Julian Edelman

FOXBORO, MASS. —- In a suite overlooking the field at Gillette Stadium, Julian Edelman stood before a granite countertop piled high with brand new footballs, No. 11 jerseys, and mini replicas of Patriots helmets. He’d finished signing all of the items and was working his way through a stack of shirtless pictures of himself. An assistant pulled each glossy image off the top as soon he lifted his black Sharpie so that when he put it back down a millisecond later his next looping J would begin on a

For The Win • 9th September 2016

Three years ago he was a junkie. Now he's Antonio Brown's chef.

When Nicholas Hasapoglou looks at his life now he can’t believe it is real. He has basically been welcomed into the family of a star NFL wide receiver. But it doesn’t take Chef Niko — as they call him now — much to remember life as a hopeless drug addict sticking needles in his arms in dirty bathrooms. Or days when he was cold and homeless out in Venice Beach. It doesn’t take him much to look at his old life and know the truth: He should be dead.

He hopes that sharing his story — riddled with a

For The Win • 16th May 2016

Tim Gunn rekindled his love for teaching by becoming the oldest student at the fencing school

NEW YORK — Tim Gunn sits on a bench in a long room that was once the cafeteria of a Manhattan school. Pairs of high-school-aged fencers face off on narrow strips, lunging at each other with sabers.

“See? Look at how well she parries!” Gunn says. Known for his wise, teacherly ways on Project Runway, the reality television series that pits aspiring fashion designers in competition, Gunn sounds no different here. He’s praising, cajoling, questioning, encouraging.

Tim Morehouse, a three-time Olymp

For The Win • 24th August 2015

Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina

It has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the city of New Orleans. The massive hurricane exposed major issues with the city’s infrastructure, left thousands upon thousands of people without any place to stay, destroying their homes and leaving their neighborhoods in ruins. In all, 1,833 people would lose their lives.

In the hours before the storm hit and then after it left — when the levees failed and everything changed — the people who remained in New Orleans streamed towar

For The Win • 1st January 2022

Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard uttered complete nonsense on TV to open 2022

It’s been a strained college football bowl season, as Covid-19 issues caused games to be canceled or adjusted at the last-minute. Meanwhile, players hoping to get a jump start on preparing for the NFL continue to opt out. And the semifinal games of the College Football Playoff were once again a dud.

So what we really absolutely did not need, at all, was a couple of former players given air time to spout ridiculous takes about the current generation of football players.

Alas, that’s what too of

For The Win • 30th November 2021

Brian Kelly being rewarded again is another reminder of what really matters in college football

College football is broken — always has been — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new lows.

Brian Kelly slithering away from Notre Dame in the middle of chasing a national title to accept a contract reportedly worth more than $100 million to coach LSU is most certainly a new low.

Kelly should not even be coaching college football. Or high school football. Or Pop Warner.

Kelly oversaw a program that sent a 20-year-old student, Declan Sullivan, up 39 feet in a scissor lift with winds gusting at

For The Win • 4th April 2021

Opinion: Charles Barkley's empty platitudes about race and politics came at an awful time

Charles Barkley found occasion to talk about the world at large during CBS’ coverage of college basketball, and we’re worse off for it.

Barkley has long been a charismatic figure in the sports world, and one that is hard to read. Decades ago he infamously declared, “I am not a role model,” and yet here he is, continuing to share his thoughts on broad topics while showing that he’s also not anything nearing an expert — or even a person who has given any of this deep thought.

I’m going to share

For The Win • 11th February 2021

Urban Meyer shows how toothless NFL's anti-racism campaign is by hiring disgraced strength coach

It was easy to poke fun at the NFL’s initiative this year that allowed for the words “End Racism” to appear near the end zone, or on the back of a players’ helmet. Slogans tend to have little impact on deeply engrained systemic inequality that is both overtly and subtly upheld by those it benefits.

Now it’s clear that those were just words, as much meant to deflect the conversation as they were to change any minds.

With one hire by a coach who is new to the league, any goodwill those symbolic

For The Win • 27th August 2020

When you talk about sports you are talking about race

Now that Black athletes have brought multiple sports and leagues to a sudden halt — with unprecedented support from white teammates — in the wake of the horrific police shooting of Jacob Blake, it is time for white fans to acknowledge what has always been plain: There is no way to be a sports fan without having an ardent belief about race in this country.

To be a sports fan in 2020 either means working to understand the grief and rage of Black athletes, athletes who have decided not to play the

For The Win • 9th February 2018

What it means to be an Eagles fan

PHILADELPHIA — On the night of Dec. 19, 2016 there were four men sitting in a row on the far right side of the bar at the Cherry Street Tavern, a wood-paneled corner dive that hasn’t changed much in 100 years — and shouldn’t. I sat alone at the other end and called home to see how bedtime for my two kids had gone. My brother and I were at the Flyers game earlier in the night, a 2-1 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators. I dropped him off at the Ronald McDonald House just across the Schuylkill

For The Win • 26th September 2017

In the end, Alejandro Villanueva's beliefs were more complicated than many wanted to hear

The explanation for how Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva came to stand by himself for the national anthem — a move he says he now regrets because it put his teammates in an uncomfortable position– is, like most things in this surreal week of sports, more complicated than the headlines it created.

The former Army Ranger, who earned a bronze star in Afghanistan, apparently had planned to stand near the front of his teammates as they waited in the tunnel. The team had dec

For The Win • 15th September 2017

The troubled star of 'Last Chance U' never found what he needed

There was one player over the two season of Last Chance U that we really got to know.

Ronald Ollie was charming and lovable in Season 1. Dakota Allen brought an admirable and hardened wisdom to Season 2. The quarterbacks — John Franklin III and De’Andre Johnson — were charismatic. The show works because the producers help you make easy connections to the players involved.

Only one relationship between viewer and East Mississippi Community College athlete went deeper. Running back Isaiah Wright

For The Win • 9th June 2017

Sports was supposed to save James Hardy III. His death reminds us that it takes more.

James Hardy III, one of the best football players in Indiana University history whose NFL career was cut short by the sort of routine injury that cuts hundreds of NFL careers short each year, was found dead in a river near his Fort Wayne, Ind., home on Wednesday.

The cause and manner of death are still under investigation.

Hardy lived a haunted life, but also one that is far from unusual — in the United States, or the highest level of sports. His father spent most of Hardy’s formative years in

For The Win • 16th March 2017

Tom Crean is done at Indiana, and the ghost of Bob Knight is partly to blame

Indiana, once ranked No. 3 in the country this season, lost in the first round of the NIT on Tuesday night. The game was in Atlanta, against Georgia Tech and first-year coach Josh Pastner, and the Hoosiers were listless. That’s the thing about the NIT: team

For The Win • 9th February 2017

How much damage will the Under Armour CEO's Trump comments cause his company?

Under Armour and its founder, Kevin Plank, are having a difficult time.

The company’s stock has plummeted (as of this writing it’s hovering around $21 a share, and it hasn’t been that low since 2009) after it announced to investors that it failed to reach sales and revenue projections.

In Baltimore, where Plank has proposed building

For The Win • 12th December 2016

Rashaan Salaam's death reminds us, again, of how devastating football can be

You could have missed this news — those leaks about DEFLATEGATE 2.0 may have grabbed your attention — but Rashaan Salaam’s brother told USA TODAY Sports that the former college and NFL running back committed suicide after experiencing memory loss and depression.

These are tell-tale signs of CTE, the degenerative brain disease linked to concussions and the sort of repetitive blows to the head that football players take.

There is no plan to study Salaam’s brain — his Muslim faith prevents “desec

For The Win • 28th November 2016

Liberty's statement after hiring ex-Baylor AD tainted by scandal is unfathomably tone-deaf

Liberty University has hired Ian McCaw as its athletic director.

McCaw, of course, resigned from the same job earlier this year at Baylor after the school placed him on probation for his part in the athletic department’s failure to adequately respond to multiple reports of sexual assault by football players.

More recently — as in about two weeks ago — he was in the news because Baylor revealed that he and former football coach Art Briles had been informed about an allegation from a student-ath

For The Win • 16th September 2016

Josh Rosen is bold, insightful and right. But will anyone listen to him?

So this is what happens when an athlete tries to enact change by sharing a clear, thoughtful message rather than through symbolic protest: it gets mostly ignored.

UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen eviscerated our system of collegiate athletics in a way few active athletes — let alone stars at historic programs — have ever done in a CBS story.

And hardly anyone seems to be noticing.

In case you’re in the group, here’s a sampling of what Rosen told Dennis Dodd:

“I have connections that will do me we

For The Win • 13th September 2016

You may not agree with his method, but Colin Kaepernick's protest is what we needed

There were so many other storylines to focus on: An NFL team representing Los Angeles stepping onto the field for the first time in more than two decades. The opening game of Chip Kelly’s second act. A culmination to Week 1 of the NFL’s return.

And yet Colin Kaepernick cut through, flipping our entertainment — if even for only a few moments — into a discussion of something real. Simply by kneeling. As he has done for almost a month now.

We can say this, finally: Kaepernick has succeeded. Wheth

For The Win • 9th May 2016

Penn State still hasn't learned anything from the Sandusky scandal

For Penn State, the latest allegations about Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing boys in the 1970s — and Joe Paterno hearing about it — represent the worst-case scenario.

These reports also should not — cannot — come as a surprise. Sandusky returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach in 1969. He started the Second Mile, the foundation he used to target and then groom disadvantaged young boys, in 1977. It would have been naive for anyone to believe Sandusky’s predatory ways did not start until

For The Win • 8th February 2016

Cam Newton was nothing but himself after his worst loss and nobody should be mad at him

Before Super Bowl 50 even ended Cam Newton was taking criticism he didn’t deserve. On the CBS broadcast, play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, a former quarterback who left the pocket hesitantly if ever, questioned whether Newton showed enough effort diving for a fumble late in Carolina’s 24-10 loss to the Denver Broncos.

Putting too much credence in what Simms said might go too far. But: this was the national broadcast, reaching hundreds of millions and here was Cam Newton, the most

For The Win • 1st May 2021

2021 NFL Draft Day 1 Reactions | The Counter Live

The Counter Podcast crew, Steven Ruiz, Charles McDonald and Chris Korman, are going live to react to the first-round of the 2021 NFL Draft. Join us Friday, April 30 at noon ET and send questions on Twitter (@ForTheWin) to discuss on the show.

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For The Win • 7th January 2021

The Counter: Wild Card weekend preview, featuring Mina Kimes from ESPN

The Counter: An NFL Podcast by For The Win - Wild Card weekend preview, featuring Mina Kimes from ESPN

For The Win • 1st June 2020

The Counter: All the things we could have learned from Colin Kaepernick

This is not to say that if Colin Kaepernick had been allowed to keep playing in the NFL — and kneeling during the national anthem — that George Floyd would have lived. Or that streets across America would have avoided the flood of sorrow and righteous rage that we have seen the last several nights.

It is only to say that if you did not listen then you must now try to understand why suffocating those sparks in 2016 and 2017 helped lead us here, to America on fire.

In the 12th episode of The Cou

For The Win • 23rd December 2021

Casey FitzSimmons injured his brain but found a way back. Now, he has a message from other ex-players for the NFL: Help us.

Alison FitzSimmons carefully filled the cramped basement in Detroit with gifts from her baby shower, displaying them so she could show her husband when he returned from his road game.

Wives of other Lions players had gathered at the home of Jeff and Regan Backus for the early-December shower that would prepare Alison and her husband, Casey, a tight end on the team, for the arrival of their first child, due in February 2010.

For The Win • 20th October 2017

Why one Division III football player gave up the game to take a knee

READING, Pa. — On Monday, the first day of Albright College’s fall break, Gyree Durante sleeps in.

He walks into Mama’s Pizza and Grill — a homely spot in a mostly-empty shopping plaza just off campus — well past 1 p.m., the athlete’s grace still in his stride. It has been 14 years, he says, since his life didn’t move to the rhythm of a football season in mid-October. He takes off his sunglasses, rubs his eyes briefly.

Durante, 19, is the Division III player who was kicked off his team for kne

For The Win • 18th May 2016

The inspiring story behind an unprecedented beer movement

Paul Ogg was painting the interior of the new house he’d helped build, out near Golden, Colorado, where he and his family planned to grow most of their own food, when he collapsed and began shivering.

The flu, he was sure. Between building the house, working in local government, an hour-each-way commute to his teaching job at the Colorado School of Mines and the near imminent opening of Declaration Brewing, a new project with two friends, he had worn himself thin. Of course. All of this work wa

For The Win • 8th February 2016

After 17 years, 'Mike & Mike' is changing it up

SAN FRANCISCO — A few staffers working on the Mike & Mike show arrive before midnight, when the last of the late diners are still straggling through San Francisco’s streets on the Wednesday before the Super Bowl.

By the time the hosts arrive, shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday, the streets are empty but for a few taxis. Security guards usher them past a production truck to the General’s House at Fort Mason and they make their way to the temporary set where they will broadcast four hours of radio and

For The Win • 23rd December 2015

Can this simple orange patch actually stop gun violence?

Raheem Solomon tilts his head to the left, lets his shoulders slump.

“You can get them right up there, in one of these houses,” he says. “They’re everywhere, and everybody knows how to get one, and too many people want one.”

Solomon, a high school sophomore, is talking about guns, which have been a constant presence for him and most everyone he knows for as long as he can remember. He’s gesturing toward a street that, on a warm mid-December night, is quiet. It runs uphill from the square in th

For The Win • 9th October 2015

Why America's biggest gun enthusiasts are fighting against the war on guns

GLENGARY W.Va. – Tommy Thacker is getting the job done, finding a way, succeeding, being Tommy Thacker.

He runs through the first few targets of Stage 5 at the 3-Gun Nation Eastern Regional without much problem, his Armalite M-15 firing true.

He picks up his shotgun and has trouble finding a rhythm, missing on three fairly routine shots at steel plates to his left. He’s used too many shells at this point and didn’t bring enough with him to reload.

Thacker, who has the face and exuberance of a

For The Win • 18th June 2015

Meet the world's best lumberjack and the son he almost lost forever

DIANA, W.Va. – Mel Lentz, the King of the Lumberjacks, sat atop the cab of a logging truck, deftly working the controls to a self-loader that plucked logs off the ground and stacked them in rows to be lugged off toward their future.

It was early May in 1997 and the hills of West Virginia were already deep green. He’d just eaten lunch and was now alone with only the work to keep him company, which is how he often likes it, anyway.

Then the weight of a log pulled too hard, and the bolts on the t

For The Win • 3rd June 2015

The assassination of Steve Kerr's father and the unlikely story of a champion

Hours after finding out his father had been shot twice in the head and killed on the other side of the world, Steve Kerr sat on the bed in his dorm room at the University of Arizona and received teammates who came to offer condolences.

Lute Olson, the first-year coach who’d been desperate enough to give Kerr a spot on his team, sat there with him.

What most of Kerr’s old teammates remember is that he did not have much to say.

He had, upon hearing the news via phone from a family friend, gone

For The Win • 8th May 2015

Loneliness, video games, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s quest for normalcy

Dale Earnhardt Jr., net worth pushing toward half a billion dollars, can see himself there, at one of the car dealerships he owns in Tallahassee, hurrying from the garage to the sales floor, talking to the mechanics about their kids and the salesmen about which Chevy has sold the most that week.

That’s the happy future, the one beyond a present that finds him as contented as he’s ever been.

Right now he’s a driver in the midst of a resurgence at age 40, fresh off a victory at Talladega that gi

Village Voice • 19th September 2006

Field of Queens

Eric Merfalen walks into the Gym Bar in Chelsea looking straight ahead, not meeting the eyes of any of the men who turn to watch him. He carries a leather suitcase and wears a blue shirt with light-pink stripes and pink tie with blue stripes under a navy Polo blazer. Eric is handsome and he knows it. Everyone calls him Enrique, as in Enrique Iglesias, the Latino musician and teen-magazine cover boy. Although he’s not tall at 5-9, Eric has smooth skin the color of coffee with two creamers and bla

USA TODAY • 5th April 2016

North Carolina's Marcus Paige fought to the end, 'this close to that dream'

North Carolina's Marcus Paige fought to the end, 'this close to that dream'

HOUSTON — Marcus Paige heard someone talking, someone saying how proud he was of what the North Carolina Tar Heels had just done. Telling them, in the wake of losing the most exciting national championship game in history on a last-second shot, that it was going to be OK.

It took him 30 seconds to figure out who was speaking. His head was blurred by the memories: of Villanova’s Kris Jenkins popping out, impossibly open

For The Win • 29th April 2015

A boxing school in Baltimore is fighting for the city's soul

BALTIMORE – Word finally came around 6:30 that they were gathering. All day the spotters had been looking out onto Pennsylvania Ave. — a few blocks from where a CVS was emptied by looters then burned on national television Monday — to see if the neighborhood would erupt again.

Gervonta “Tank” Davis was in the middle of having his hands taped to prepare for a workout, but he sprinted out of the Upton Boxing Center to see what was happening. His trainer, Calvin Ford, followed closely behind.

Lea

Baltimore Sun • 24th August 2013

Grand Prix of Baltimore's future in doubt over scheduling conflicts

Gathering speed for its third year, the Grand Prix of Baltimore looks to be on track, but behind the scenes a host of challenges make it increasingly possible this may be open-wheel racing's last year in the Inner Harbor.

Schedule conflicts for the next two years, questions about local and state support, and the sport's flagging popularity threaten the Grand Prix's future.

Chicago Tribune • 19th May 2013

Oxbow takes the Preakness, dashing hopes of a Triple Crown

Gary Stevens caught the water bottle tossed his way, took one swig and threw it back.

“He don't want any?” a man asked, considering jockeys usually shower their horses, too.

Stevens shook his head from his perch atop Oxbow, the wire-to-wire winner of the 138th Preakness.

“Ain't even tired,” he said.

Stevens, a 50-year-old grandfather who came out of a seven-year retirement at the beginning of the year, used a daring ride to clinch an anti-climatic second leg of the Triple Crown at Pimlico Ra

Baltimore Sun • 8th March 2013

Towson president decides to cut baseball, men's soccer

Towson University president Maravene Loeschke was escorted by several police officers into a meeting with the school’s baseball and men’s soccer teams Friday morning to tell players she had decided to cut their sports.

Los Angeles Times • 8th June 2012

I'll Have Another scratched from 2012 Belmont Stakes, trainer Doug O'Neill says

As I’ll Have Another ducked from his barn for an early 5:30 workout Friday, his connections could only hope what they’d seen the day before was an aberration.

They’d buried their deepest fear, only admitting hours later that, as owner J. Paul Reddam would say, "… History is going to have to wait for another day.”

I’ll Have Another scratched from Saturday’s 144th Belmont, becoming the first horse since Bold Venture in 1936 not to go to post with a chance to win the Triple Crown.

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