MMQB preamble, Homage to the Opening of High School Football Season:
The Michigan High School Athletic Association approved a provision that gives a student a chance to play sports.
The 19-year-old Michigan student with Down syndrome who drew national attention for his fight to play football at his high school will be allowed to suit up his senior year, his father said Thursday.
Watch as NFL great Brett Favre takes the field - as a high school football coach in Mississippi.
NFL player O.J. Murdock apparently focused during his last hours on his glory days as a track and football star at the Tampa, Florida, high school where police say he killed himself.
There's a story about Byron Buxton --- you can call him Buck --- that has nothing to do with baseball. It has nothing to do with how fast he runs (he might be the fastest prospect since Bo Jackson). It has nothing to do with how hard he can throw a baseball (his fastball has been clocked at 99 miles per hour). It has nothing to do with how far he hits a baseball (he once hit a ball, in an exhibition, that landed on the top row of the leftfield bleachers at Wrigley Field).
I'm sorry. I must have missed the NFL reversing field about player safety.
Former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino tried to sidestep University of Arkansas guidelines to quickly hire his mistress, Jessica Dorrell, as the team's player development coordinator, according to documents obtained by SI.com. The documents show that Petrino sought a waiver to circumvent a university affirmative action policy requiring that the job be posted for at least 30 days before interviews could commence. Dorrell's first interview was scheduled even before the waiver was granted by the university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance.
News broke yesterday that 17 TCU students, including four football players, were arrested in a drug bust spearheaded by the university and Fort Worth police forces. The allegations tarnished the Horned Frogs' previously spotless reputation and could have serious implications on next year's season: Linebacker Tanner Brock, defensive lineman T.J. Yendry, offensive tackle Ty Horn and defensive back Devin Johnson were all named in a Star-Telegram report.
The first day of NFL free agency -- March 13 -- can't come soon enough for Matt Flynn. The soon-to-be ex-Green Bay Packer backup is expected to be the league's most in-demand free-agent quarterback --once Drew Brees is signed or franchised by the Saints and outside of Peyton Manning being healthy and released by the Colts.
The emerging portrait of 16-year-old Corey Robinson -- athlete, musician, scholar -- combines the light and shadow of two eras. He is a mass of Renaissance brush strokes on a canvas of 21st Century color.
A year ago this time, with the SEC coming off its fifth straight national championship, my colleague Andy Staples compiled some interesting data that confirmed one of the primary reasons behind the league's recent dominance: The wealth of elite defensive prospects in its backyard. Andy noted that a staggering 43 percent of NFL defensive linemen hailed from a cluster of 10 Southeastern states representing just 22 percent of the general population.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 5. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer.
Week 7 stories I love: Plaxico Burress, Matt Ryan, Tim Tebow and DeMarco Murray.
Eddie Canales' nonprofit, Gridiron Heroes, provides emotional and financial support to high school football players who've sustained life-changing spinal cord injuries.
Country music singer Wynonna Judd introduces Top 10 CNN Hero Eddie Canales, who helps teens with spinal cord injuries.
Two moments have changed Eddie Canales' life. Both occurred on the football field.
Coaches cancel midday football practices to prevent heat-related injuries to players.
While Big 12 athletic directors met Monday to squash yet another crisis sure to expedite that league's imminent demise (a non-story, yet again), the Big Ten announced that all public tickets to its first-ever league championship game sold out in two hours last weekend. That's par for the course in the SEC but was not always the case for the Big 12's now-defunct title game and pretty much unfathomable for the ACC's six-year-old event.
It's been an odd week. I've been bronchially ill for much of it, napping and coughing and going to bed at 8. I planned to have this week's column be a year-in-review job, what with management and players in silent mode before the federal mediator in Washington over the weekend.
With the notable exception of No. 1 overall recruit Jadeveon Clowney, the 2011 recruiting class is finally in the books. Some prospects are already enrolled in college classes, while others are still planning for prom. But almost all of them will be on a college campus in the fall.
As we approached Cowboys Stadium on the outskirts of Dallas in December, I knew we were in for quite an experience.
CNN follows Eddie Canales on a recent trip to Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.
"Sometimes I'll drive by the old stadium," Lisa Carver said, "and it kind of feels like a dream. You can almost hear the cheers from the crowds, even though the place is empty."
I love what's going on in Missouri. The Chiefs, with 10 wins the past three years, at 10-5, winning the AFC West. The Rams, 6-42 the last three years, one win from the NFC West title.
Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner talks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the league and players' attitudes on concussions.
After a high school football player suffered multiple concussions on the field, his injuries affected the rest of his life.
After growing up in a Salvation Army rescue shelter, Jameel McClain didn't view going undrafted by the NFL as a major hurdle.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Nov. 29. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer.
Reprinted from Scoreboard, Baby by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. © 2010 by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry. Available wherever books are sold or from the University of Nebraska Press 800.848.6224 and on the web at nebraskapress.unl.edu.
The spectacle of big bodies crashing with brutal force has helped make American Football a billion-dollar industry and the country's favorite sport. But the game is changing because its players are being crippled with the whole country watching.
Somewhere in Kuwait in late 2007, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chris Croft handed a package to a convoy commander bound for Baghdad. Croft told the commander to deliver the package to Lt. Col. Fred Wintrich.
In the past three weeks, I have done dozens of interviews with radio stations, websites, blogs and print media as part of the publicity for my book, Blood, Sweat and Chalk. The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game. It's a fascinating process and I'm thankful that almost every interviewer has been prepared and enthusiastic. I wish W.C. Heinz had been given a similar opportunity to talk about writing Run to Daylight with Vince Lombardi, because he would have killed, for sure and I'd pay to see the transcripts.
Question: What do Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and nearly two dozen football players from McMinnville High School in McMinnville, Ore., have in common?
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we prepare to hit the road next week for some NFL training camps and the stickiest, sweatiest portion of every football season...
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we creep within two months of the Bengals and Cowboys kicking off the NFL's 2010 preseason in the Aug. 8 Hall of Fame Game in Canton...
CNN's Campbell Brown speaks with Natalie Randolph, named football coach at Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington.
A high school in Washington, D.C., on Friday named a former women's professional football player as its head varsity football coach, a move that a national women's sports advocacy group calls historic.
Once again, the top talent in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic converged in central New Jersey for the Premier Showcase, an invite-only event for top juniors and selected underclassmen.
Dominic Randolph's college career is over. The Holy Cross quarterback threw his final pass in a 38-28 Division first-round Football Championship Subdivision loss to Villanova on Saturday.
The marriage between Ohio State and Terrelle Pryor began with such promise. The nation's most gifted high school quarterback joining forces with the reigning powerhouse of the Big Ten? What could possibly go wrong?
Deep in preparation for a Big East mega-game Thursday at No. 21 South Florida, Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly took a day off to visit ESPN's corporate monolith last Friday. It was a match made in media heaven, Kelly being a Worldwide Co-Leader in the ways of corporate and self-promotion.
From his home in Austin, Texas, Chad Morris watches every Auburn game, just as he did for Tulsa the past two seasons and Arkansas the year before that.
That first Friday at Grove City High was so quiet. Any other school year, the school's nationally acclaimed band would have ended the day by marching through the halls blasting the fight song. Any other school year, more than 11,000 would have gathered later that evening at the stadium behind the school to watch the Greyhounds -- better known as the Dawgs -- open their season. Any other school year, Friday would have meant something.
It's happening to Derrick Brooks. After 11 Pro Bowls, six first-team all-pro nods, one Super Bowl victory and one Defensive Player of the Year award, football is saying to him, "We don't need you anymore.''
On draft day, every pick can change the world. That's the nature of hope and sports. Every recruit is a future star. Every draft pick might go to the Hall of Fame. In the NFL draft -- the biggest talent-grab of them all -- you have these fun interviews with general managers and coaches after every pick. Every one sounds the same:
My, a lot of folks are hot under the horse collar about the NFL's new Brady Rule, which continues the trend of making it costly to take the shortest or even longest route to the quarterback and arrive in ill humor. One site claims the league will require signal-callers to wear dresses, and ESPN's Mike Golic has suggested that players will get flagged for merely looking at a QB.
After a while, as a sportswriter, you get used to coaches calling. A coach in the mountains of North Carolina called the newspaper again and again to come do a story on his punter, who was averaging something like 55 yards a kick. When a reporter finally gave in and weaved along the icy two-lane roads, he found the town and he found the punter. The problem was: The guys keeping the box score were measuring the kid's punts from where he kicked the ball -- some 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Florida won't take the field to play for the national title until Thursday, but the Gators scored a victory for their future Sunday when Sanford (Fla.) Seminole receiver Andre Debose committed during the Under Armour All-America Game, choosing Florida from a group that also included Georgia, LSU and Miami.
All college coaches still searching for an athletic tight end should watch this video. You may not have missed your chance to land the guy who made the play of the year in high school football.
The bus was on I-35 just north of Laredo, Texas, with about 450 miles still to go and plenty of gas in the tank, when the driver suddenly pulled over to the side of the road. Assistant coach Gustavo Adame immediately knew why. Before the bus came to a halt, he sprang from his seat in the front and shouted in Spanish, "Paperwork, out! Passports, out! Visas, out! Rápido!"
The moment Mark Sanchez cemented himself as USC's starting quarterback this season didn't come when he led the team to a fourth-quarter comeback win over Arizona last season in his first career start. It didn't come when he threw four touchdowns passes and no interceptions in a 38-0 rout of Notre Dame in South Bend. It didn't even come this spring when coach Pete Carroll named him the starter in April, leading to No. 6 jerseys being printed and sold in the campus bookstore.
SI.com has dispatched 10 writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country. For the complete schedule of postcards, click here.
The summer before his red-shirt freshman season at Texas Tech in 2004, prized quarterback recruit Graham Harrell took a week-long working vacation. Already ensconced in workouts on the Tech campus, Harrell left to prepare for and play in the Oil Bowl -- the annual all-star football grudge match between Oklahoma and Texas high school seniors. "When Texas plays Oklahoma in college, half the Sooners roster is from Texas and vice versa," says Harrell. "With the summer all-star games, it's purely a state rivalry."
Saints coach Sean Payton knows how to take advantage of the moment and is not afraid to take on new challenges.
Pillar by pillar, Chris Olsen's world was crashing down.
A tornado struck northeast Iowa a week ago, and seven people were killed. About 220 homes were destroyed, and much of the downtown of Parkersburg, Iowa, (pop.: 1,800) was leveled.
If this is going to work, if Tom Osborne and Bo Pelini are going to turn the new Nebraska back into the old Nebraska, the process had to start in a place like this, in the rural town of West Point (pop. 3,472). It had to begin with a Nebraska kid, a tough, hardworking high school player who has always been a Husker in his heart, a kid like linebacker Micah Kreikemeier. Now, Micah Kreikemeier might one day join the long line of legendary Nebraska stars, or he might be one of those Cornhuskers who never has a bigger college football highlight than the day the most famous man in the state called to offer him a scholarship. But one thing that Micah Kreikemeier almost surely will do is work his tail off the way Nebraska boys are expected to do, treasure the block N on the side of his helmet as if it were a big red ruby and make everyone in the state proud that he's one of their own. If you don't know how important all of that is, well, then you don't know Nebraska.
The message boards buzzed when Kalispell, Mont., forward Brock Osweiler committed to Gonzaga two years ago. Would Osweiler, then a high school freshman, make it to Spokane, Wash., before changing his mind or doing something to make Gonzaga coaches change their minds? Now, as Osweiler nears the end of his junior year, he may indeed choose a school other than Gonzaga.
Scott Porter remembered the game. Asked Wednesday if he could recall the most heartbreaking loss of his junior season at Lake Howell High in Winter Park, Fla., the man who plays paralyzed former Dillon Panthers quarterback Jason Street on NBC's Friday Night Lights flicked on his mental highlight reel.
What do you suppose it was like to be inside the tiny gymnasium at Jeannette (Pa.) High last Saturday night?
If you've checked out the SI/TAKKLE.com list of the nation's top 100 high school football players recently, you probably pelted your computer screen in strawberry-banana smoothie when you noticed one particular ranking.
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