There is no joy in Southern California baseball fandom -- the mighty local teams have struck out. The Los Angeles Dodgers had an opening day payroll of $216,597,577, second only to the Yankees. Their record through Friday was 13-20 which placed them fifth in the National League Western Division.

The...

Thursday night's NFL draft is over and fans are scratching their heads in befuddlement as their favorite team picked a player they have never heard of or who makes absolutely no sense. How do teams ever make these selections?

The NFL Draft, along with free agency, is the primary method...

The most anxiety-fueled, suspenseful, nerve-wracking, emotional and ultimately explosively joyful day of the year is coming this week for anyone who represents prospects in this year's National Football League Draft. The long "second season" of all-star games, the Scouting Combine, pro scouting days on campus, and individualized interactions which constitute...

I sat on the floor for Sunday's Clipper-Laker game at Staples Center in seats right next to the Lakers bench. What a revelation. The NBA we experience on television and in higher seats is perceived very differently than floorside. It highlighted how many varying ways there are to enjoy spectator...

The head coach and his assistants in collegiate sports may have the most powerful opportunity to shape the values and behavior of athletes at any level. Against the pressure of alumni and fan expectations, they recruit and coach young athletes who are still impressionable and maturing. The coaches have near...

Players now engage in elaborate training in the period between their last game and the scouting combine in February and the agent takes on the financial and advisory role during the process. As recently as 2005, I was asked by a father what my training program was. My response: "From...

From school yards to office buildings all across this country millions of people are involved in basketball predictions as the circus known as "March Madness" has come to town. Sixty eight college teams are competing for the right to be crowned champion of the U.S. in men's basketball.

The...

Traditional agentry has too often been lampoonish, cartoonish, greedy, and destructive to clients and sports itself. Some of the basic concepts which are slavishly adhered to are just wrong. The battle in sports ought not be labor versus management. The critical challenge for the NFL is Major League Baseball, the...

In part one of this series, I suggested that the increased size, speed and strength of today's NFL players are creating a dramatically more impactful and damaging set of collisions. We have known for years of the devastation these collisions wreck on every joint in the human body. It has...

The Super Bowl of NFL Draft Scouting-the NFL Draft Scouting Combine is about to convening this week (February 23-26) and it can dramatically alter the draft status of aspiring players. Several hundred college seniors and juniors who have declared for the draft are invited to Indianapolis for days of testing....

The Super Bowl, including the two weeks that precede it, is the most impactful marketing opportunity for individual players that exist in sports today. If a quarterback performs dramatically Sunday and is selected Most Valuable Player it sets the stage for untold millions in endorsements for years to come. Compelling...

It was an ugly week in the world of sports. Lance Armstrong, the all-American cancer survivor who set the record in cycling for most Tour De France championships admitted to Oprah that he achieved his victories by doping. Manti Te'o, a nationwide icon for the courage he displayed in playing...

It was a love story for the ages, and America was transfixed. Superstar Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o meets a beautiful Stanford co-ed after a game there and over the succeeding years they fall in love. There are reports of her visiting his family in Hawaii earlier this year and...

Junior Seau was the essence of life force itself. From his days growing up in Oceanside, California to his All-American status at USC and superstardom with the San Diego Chargers, he was a force of nature on and off the field. Vibrant, fiery, emotional, charismatic -- a whirling dervish of...

In the beginning, every college football team, its alums and its fans had no greater aspirations than to end their season in the glory of participating in and winning a legendary post-season bowl game. Pacific Coast and Midwest players and their fans grew up yearning for the ultimate ratification of...

The National Football League is America's passion. Dominating the top 10 of Nielsen television ratings, estimates are that 180 million people watched part of a game last week, packed stadia, fantasy fanatics, betters, our collective obsession. This was the marriage made in heaven for contemporary appetites for quick bursts of...

"How many deaths will it take til they know, that too many people have died?"
-Bob Dylan, "Blowing In The Wind."

Professional football was shocked by the news that Kansas City linebacker Javon Belcher had shot his fiancée nine times before driving to the Chiefs'...

The move by Wisconsin Head Football Coach, Bret Bielema, to accept a higher paying job for himself and his assistants at the University of Arkansas weeks before his old team is slated to play in the Rose Bowl raises the age-old question: Are massive football and basketball salaries for coaches...

The National Hockey League and their players have performed a magic trick that would leave David Copperfield speechless. They have taken a profitable and exciting 2011-2012 season that brought them increased attendance, television ratings and exposure, topped by a captivating battle between teams in the nation's two largest media markets...