| By Michael Sokolove, www.nytimes.com | A federal trial is telling an important story about the buying and selling of young basketball prospects. Mr. Sokolove is the author of “The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino: A Story of Corruption, Scandal and the Big Business of College Basketball.” When I was a young reporter in Philadelphia, I covered […]
Beer: Colleges’ New Way to Fill Seats, Not Couches
| By Marc Tracy, www.nytimes.com | BATON ROUGE, La. — When No. 5 Louisiana State (4-0) hosts Mississippi (3-1) on Saturday night, the Chute and the Skyline Club are bound to be crowded with fans who would like a beer or three. The Chute is on the ground floor of Tiger Stadium near the southern end zone. […]
Urban Meyer and the Missed Signs at Ohio State
| By Serge F. Kovaleski, Joe Drape, Marc Tracy, www.nytimes.com | COLUMBUS, Ohio — The warning signs flared: delinquent payments for university travel expenses, a $600 night at a Florida strip club with at least one high school coach, a rash of missed meetings on recruiting trips for football players and late arrivals at practices. But Zach Smith, the […]
How College Sports Killed Summer Vacation
| By Marc Tracy, www.nytimes.com | The day began for the Clemson men’s soccer team at 7 a.m., with workouts focused on improving agility, sprinting and technique. A weight room session followed. Next came classes. In the evening there was finally time to kick back with friends and video games, and to rest up for the next […]
These Athletes Were Told Not to Play Soccer. They Formed a Team.
| By Nichole Sobecki, Shannon Sims, www.nytimes.com | JUMBI, ZANZIBAR — “People have tried to stop me from playing,” said Riziki Abdallah, sitting in her mother’s humble home in the village of Dole in Zanzibar, a semiautonomous archipelago off the coast of Tanzania. “They say, ‘Don’t play soccer, soccer is only for men.’” In Zanzibar, you see children playing […]
The Left Side of Steve Kerr’s Brain
| By Marc Stein, www.nytimes.com | CLEVELAND — The Golden State Warriors are exploring potential pathways to improvement for next season, but they reject the notion this makes them greedy — even with a 3-0 series lead in the N.B.A. finals. The team’s resident shot doctor, Bruce Fraser, prefers to describe it as intellectual curiosity. Working daily […]
Investigation? N.C.A.A. Scrutiny? Business as Usual in Grassroots Hoops
| By Marc Tracy, www.nytimes.com | CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — Russell Westbrook sat at the end of Team WhyNot’s bench next to the final reserve, his legs extended courtward and his eyes tracking the ball. “Good D! Let’s go, let’s go!” the N.B.A. star shouted, fulfilling his role as patron saint of the youth basketball team named after […]
Doris Burke Has Game
| By Noam Scheiber, www.nytimes.com | PHILADELPHIA — In mid-April, on the last day of the N.B.A.’s regular season, a group of reporters gathered at the Wells Fargo Center here, buzzing with an urgent question: Would Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks’ impossibly elastic 6-foot-11 phenom, be in the lineup that night? The player had recently been sidelined with […]