Author: bsd987

I have written for SportsColumn.com since 2004 and was named a featured writer in 2006. I have been Co-Editor of the site since January 1, 2009. I also write for BleacherReport.com where I am a founding member of the Tennis Roundtable and one of the chief contributors to both the Tennis and Horse Racing sections.

I am "Stat Boy" for Sportscolumn.com's weekly podcast, Poor Man's PTI.

I am currently a Junior at Rice University majoring in History and Medieval Studies. My senior thesis will focus on the desegregation of football in Texas and its affect of racial relations.

Please direct all inquiries to [email protected].

Thanks,
Burton DeWitt
Co-Editor of Sportscolumn.com

Categories
NHL Philadelphia Flyers Pittsburgh Penguins

NHL Should Have Punished Penguins, FSN Pittsburgh

The National Hockey League messed up, and if vulgarity weren’t frowned upon in journalism, I would not have used the word “messed.”

If the NHL cared about its credibility, not to mention if it wanted to gain a little public exposure that it desperately needs, the league would have come out quickly and harshly against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

On Jan. 7, Simon Gagne of the Philadelphia Flyers should have been credited with a short-handed goal. But also on Jan. 7, Lowell MacDonald Jr., producer for FSN Pittsburgh’s Pittsburgh Penguins broadcasts, failed to send the league a video replay from an overhead camera that clearly showed that a goal was scored.

Based on lack of clarity in the other views, the referee declared no goal, only for FSN Pittsburgh to show the home viewers the overhead camera view right after play resumed.

Continue reading “NHL Should Have Punished Penguins, FSN Pittsburgh”
Categories
College Football

Florida State Fired Bobby Bowden: He Was Graceful Enough to Accept

Let’s cut out all the wish-wash and euphemisms and get straight to the point. Florida State fired Bobby Bowden Monday morning, sacked him, canned him, showed him the door. Pick your phrase. But please don’t say Bobby Bowden retired.

Continue reading “Florida State Fired Bobby Bowden: He Was Graceful Enough to Accept”
Categories
College Football

Price Mike Locksley Paid Too Small for His Crime

I would have written this a few weeks ago if I anticipated its outcome correctly. Obviously, I did not.

I thought the University of New Mexico was suspending head coach Mike Locksley as a pretense to fully relieving him of his duties, the standard “We’re suspending you without pay until our lawyers tell us how to fire you the cheapest.”

But, on Sunday, Locksley returned to his office in Albuquerque, N.M., resuming his duties as if nothing had ever happened.

What happened, of course, was that Locksley attacked receivers’ coach J.B. Gerald, leaving Gerald with a split lip and the accusation that Locksley punched him.

Continue reading “Price Mike Locksley Paid Too Small for His Crime”
Categories
NFL

The Lost Art of Competent Coaching

This article is not going to be like anything I’ve ever written before because, quite simply, I’m jealous. And it shows.

Because I’m smarter than almost every head football coach, at least in terms of something as simple as clock management. And while I’m watching people with bigger contracts than the economy of Tuvalu make juvenile errors without anyone pointing out their errors, it makes me sick.

If you’re going to make $2 million a year to stand on the sidelines, eat cheeseburgers, and invent facial expressions that would embarrass even Wade Phillips, then maybe, just maybe you should be able to control the clock.

With the only exclusions of Bill Belichick and, for some reason, Dave Wannstedt, coaches just can’t seem to get it right. Over my decade carefully studying late-game clock management, those two reign above everyone else, calling plays and doling timeouts that used the clock to their advantage, regardless of how good (or in Wannstedt’s case, bad), they were outside of the proverbial final two minutes.

So for the rest of this article, let’s exclude those two coaches from this discussion.

Continue reading “The Lost Art of Competent Coaching”
Categories
College Basketball

Memphis, not Calipari, will be villified longer

Nice try, Gary Parrish. Very nice try.

But if I were to say you were wrong, it would very well diminish the meaning of “wrong” for future generations, and I don’t feel comfortable doing that.

You are past wrong, beyond wrong if you will. You are located somewhere between fool and foolish, probably closer to the previous than the latter.

Continue reading “Memphis, not Calipari, will be villified longer”
Categories
Green Bay Packers Minnesota Vikings New York Jets NFL

I’m writing about Brett Favre because I want to?

I promised myself last summer that I was not going to write about Brett Favre. I did.

It’s not that I thought I’d want to write about Brett Favre. The only other time I even sort-of wrote about him wasn’t really about him; it was about ESPN’s media stalk-gala into his every inaction after he asked Roger Goodell for reinstatement papers but did not sign them last summer. And I was happy that I did not care.

But now? Now I care. Because now it’s personal.

Continue reading “I’m writing about Brett Favre because I want to?”
Categories
Golf

The World’s been robbed because of another archaic golfing rule

I understand the rules are there for a reason, but sometimes the rules should be broken.

Like, for instance, when breaking the rules gives us what everyone wants to see.

Alright, Y.E. Yang probably doesn’t want the rules changed, and nothing against him, but there’s probably only a few dozen people outside of South Korea who does not want to see Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington paired together Sunday. And I’d bet that most of those other people are fellow golfers who would rather Tiger was home so that they could possibly win this tournament.

Continue reading “The World’s been robbed because of another archaic golfing rule”
Categories
Kansas City Chiefs NFL

Derrick Thomas a Hall of Famer for his work off the field, too

Let me level with you: I don’t know how to start this article. I don’t. I’ve thought about it all week, and you know, I just could not figure it out. Maybe I’m just not good enough at what I do, or maybe I’m just not good enough yet, either way, I couldn’t figure it out.

How do you capsule in 1,000 words a life that has reached out beyond words and touched lives totaling 1,000 times that many words? How do you do that without risking understating his impact or, even worse, offending? It’s not something we as journalists want to do, but have to do. But enough about me. Onto you.

Continue reading “Derrick Thomas a Hall of Famer for his work off the field, too”
Categories
Cincinnati Reds MLB

No such thing as the “right time” to reinstate Pete Rose

It’s that time of year again. Boy, I say that a lot.

 

A couple of players get inducted into the Hall of Fame; Andre Dawson and Dale Murphy don’t because they played one era before their accomplished were rendered obsolete; ESPN speculates on who will get in next year; someone mentions that Pete Rose should be reinstated.

 

Reinstated? Really? For Rose? Pete Rose?

 

You must be higher than Ricky Williams in Amsterdam.

 

Continue reading “No such thing as the “right time” to reinstate Pete Rose”

Categories
Golf

Only One Person To Blame for Old Man Watson’s Defeat

I’m sorry, Tom. I truly am. You were all set to win your record-equalling sixth Open Championship, and I screwed it up.

I’m truly, truly sorry.

At the same time, I’m still waiting for my thanks from Stewart Cink

Had it not been for me; had I not abandoned my well-conceived final-round strategy of not looking at any Tom Watson putt of more than six feet, Watson would have easily sunk that par chance on the 72nd hole. Easily.

Continue reading “Only One Person To Blame for Old Man Watson’s Defeat”