On Sunday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a startling concession to medical ethics, one resisted by all of his predecessors. Goodell said that when a player sustains a concussion, teams will now be required to seek advice from "independent" neurologists. As the commissioner said on NBC's Football Night in...

I have made the decision to help launch a new organization called the Sports Fans Coalition. And I was inspired to do it by none other than Mike Lupica.

With all due respect to Mr. Lupica, the New York Daily News sportswriter motivated me by writing the most wrongheaded statement...

One of the first photos I saw of Barack Obama was a picture of him at his desk with a poster of Muhammad Ali staring down upon him. That was cool to me. Here is a basketball-playing Chicago politician and he chooses Ali over that icon of apolitical apathy, Michael...

[Note: please post suggestions of who LeBron James of who he should dunk on next]

It's rare when athletes respond to a dreary, clichéd question with a stimulating answer. Thank you LeBron James. Maxim Magazine wanted to know who basketball's king would most like to dunk...

Over the last eight years, even though it often made me break out into hives, I've listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh. I've heard him express the full gamut of his emotional range: from hateful to very hateful. But over all this time, I've never known him to be...

Yesterday I was referred to on air as "scum" by Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh called me out by name on his radio show because, along with Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press, I challenged Limbaugh's efforts to own...

Scott Fujita is a star linebacker for the unbeaten New Orleans Saints. He is also a 2001 graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in political science. In addition to playing for the Saints, he is also is someone proudly raising his family in post-Katrina New...

I am absolutely reeling with shock that Chicago was knocked out in the first round and the 2016 Olympics are going to Rio de Janeiro. Some quick thoughts about Victoria Brasilia and the Chicago/Daley/Obama humiliation.

1 - This is a victory for the people of Chicago. Pushing back against immense...

President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago...

This week, the grand media theme from USA Today to ESPN has been that "we have lost a sense of civility in US society." The examples have ranged from Serena Williams' expletive-infused outburst at the US Open and Michael Jordan's brutal basketball Hall of Fame speech to Rep. Joe Wilson...

Beneath the veneer, college football is multi-billion dollar spectacle of unpaid labor and unhinged fandom. The 2009 season opened in Boise, Idaho and flashed it's underbelly to the world. The game started with a mandated sportsmanship initiative, as 14 players from the Boise St. Broncos and the Oregon Ducks shook...

Tuesday night at Howard University, RNC chair Michael Steele did an impression of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz: he was absolutely heartless. Not everyday do we see the head of a major political party insult a 23 year old whose mother just died of cancer.

But...

In a recent monologue, Bill Maher said that the United States has two main political parties: one party on the center-right: the Democrats, and one party in a mental institution: the Republicans. Frankly, his comment insults those who receive care at psychiatric facilities; at least they are looking...

[A version of this appears in the new issue of Slam Magazine]

It starts with the cornrows. When I think back on the 2008-2009 NBA season, I don't think my first thoughts will stray to Lebron James' ascension to the MVP throne, Dwyane Wade returning and surpassing his old form,...

On the East Coast, when you think of San Francisco, we often imagine a progressive oasis where ideals of peace and community take precedent over mindless jingoism and division. That's why I was deeply shocked to learn that the San Francisco School Board voted 4-3 to allow Junior ROTC --...

Thank you to Mark Buehrle. Thank you to DeWayne Wise. Thank you to the Chicago White Sox for rescuing all of us from the oozing swamp that dominates sports media coverage during the late summer. The months of July and August mark the season of scandal. It's the time when...

Competition becomes riveting when opponents complement each other's strengths and flaws. Two imperfect adversaries can match up and forge something memorable. Ali vs. Frazier. Magic vs. Bird. Navratilova vs. Evert. Tom vs. Jerry. This past week we witnessed a set of battles -- in politics and sports --...

If we've learned nothing else in the last six months, it is that there are some very powerful people who suffer from what is being called Baracknophobia. This is the irrational fear of right-wing Republicans who suffer from the delusion that Barack Obama is a dangerous radical aiming to overthrow...

There will be more than a few articles proclaiming 2008 the greatest "sports year" in decades, if not ever. If the definition of sports is confined to professional sports played by men, then this hyperbolic statement could have a ring of truth. Tiger Woods won the US Open with a...