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

College Basketball

Dave Bliss: A Five-Year Reptrospective

Post author By bsd987
Post date July 10, 2008
No Comments on Dave Bliss: A Five-Year Reptrospective

There are numerous dates on which I could write this piece.

I could have written it on June 15th, the five year anniversary of Patrick Dennehy’s disappearance. Or on the 25th, when his Chevy Tahoe was found abandoned in Virginia Beach, Va, stripped of all its license plates. If I wanted to, and trust me when I say I never wanted to write this article, I could have waited until July 23 when Carlton Dotson was charged with murdering Dennehy, or July 25, when the mutilated and decomposed body of a young college student was discovered right outside of Waco, Texas, where both had gone to school. Finally, I could have waited until July 30, August 8, or August 16, all dates referring to Baylor men’s head basketball coach Dave Bliss.

All Other Sports

Unheeded Words: Washington’s Final Thunder

Post author By bsd987
Post date July 7, 2008
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Washington might not be a horse racing hotbed, but the small community in the Pacific Northwest has always loved its champions.

None, financially speaking, was as prolific as Saratoga Passage, who passed away unceremoniously Saturday of colic at the age of 23.

Tennis

Campe

Post author By bsd987
Post date July 6, 2008
1 Comment on Campe

There were some clichés I never thought I would say. Near the top of that list was “both men deserved to win.”

Maybe I didn’t fully understand the implications of such a statement; maybe I thought it couldn’t capture reality; maybe I avoided it because it was a cliché. None of that matters now. After watching the gentlemen’s singles finals at Wimbledon Sunday, there is no saying that has more truth that I have ever come across.

Tags rafael nadal, roger federer, Tennis

Tennis

Safin and Federer: A Three-and-a-Half Year letdown

Post author By bsd987
Post date July 4, 2008
2 Comments on Safin and Federer: A Three-and-a-Half Year letdown

Now I know what three and a half years feel like. Of course, I’d rather not have this feeling, not yet, but there’s no denying it.

In 2005 at the Australian Open, Roger Federer and Marat Safin played one of the greatest tennis matches of all time with Safin upsetting the world’s number one ranked player 9-7 in the fifth set. For four hours and 28 minutes, two of the best players in the world dueled, playing some remarkable tennis for a spot in the Australian Open final. Safin’s victory of Aussie Lleyton Hewitt in the finals was almost a letdown after the semifinal.

And so too was today’s semifinal.

Tennis

Glimpse of Greatness

Every now and then we are surprised by greatness. Usually it comes from redundant people and we expect it: from Tiger Woods and Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant and Albert Pujols.

Sure, these people don’t always succeed, but when we see their greatness, we can only admire it.

Golf

Tiger- and nothing else

Tiger. I have nothing else to say. Nothing.

Monday at Torrey Pines, going head-to-head with the world’s 158th ranked golfer, Tiger Woods officially earned the designation of the greatest golfer of all time.

All Other Sports

Hypocrisy in Bristol

Few things in sports go hand-in-hand as well as ESPN and hypocrisy.

Sure, there are the high-profiled bashings of spring college football two days before ESPN decides to send Gameday to the University of Florida’s spring game. And then there is ESPN’s talk of high journalistic standards, the same standards that lead one of its primary writers to announce that Les Miles had accepted the head coaching position at the University of Michigan just an hour before he publicly announced that he had not taken the job.

All Other Sports

The True Villain

Eight Belles wasn’t the only sign of death on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Horse racing will die too, at least in the United States. It must. I don’t want to say it and it hurts, but there seems to be no other alternative right now.

Sure, there are solutions, fixes if you will, but nobody is going to listen; nobody, that is, with the power to listen.

College Football

One Shining Moment (The Football Version)

Post author By bsd987
Post date December 22, 2007
2 Comments on One Shining Moment (The Football Version)

Rarely is there a moment that everyone watching hopes will never end.

Of course, there was Muhammad Ali lighting the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Games; there was Jack Nicklaus walking up 18 at Augusta in 2005 for the final time; there was the tiebreaker between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. Ali was moving, Nicklaus was cyclical, and Borg-McEnroe, well, you didn’t care who won, so long as the tiebreak went on forever.

College Football

The First Annual Burton DeWitt College Football Awards (with corporate sponsors!)

Post author By bsd987
Post date December 4, 2007
No Comments on The First Annual Burton DeWitt College Football Awards (with corporate sponsors!)

Instead of wasting print space writing a super introduction, I’m going to go straight into the first annual Geico Burton DeWitt College Football Awards presented by State Farm underwritten by Prudential. And trust me, these awards mean a lot.