Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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UCLA’s loss to Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 last week was the final game for Chris Roberts, who has broadcast Bruin football and basketball for the last 23 years. Roberts recently announced he would retire after the Bruins conclude play in the NCAA Tournament....
So many times during the Lakers’ feat of winning 16 NBA championships I’ve been in the building, feeling the excitement, eager to do my work and being thankful I’m in the sportswriting profession. On Tuesday night those years came back to me as I watched the Golden State Warriors, who have the best record in this NBA season, outlast the Clippers, 110-106 before a raucous sellout crowd in Staples Center. The playoffs haven’t started yet but you wouldn’t know it judging b...
How important are the results in spring training? The popular belief is the results aren't very important since minor leaguers often replace major leaguers in the latter innings of most spring training games. But there's an important test case coming up. You see, the World Series champion San Francisco Giants have been awful this spring in Arizona. They've lost constantly and their championship roster has changed a lot, first with the departure of third baseman Pablo Sandoval...
The National Basketball Association announces that NBA Global Games China 2015 will feature two preseason games between the Charlotte Hornets and the Los Angeles Clippers in October. The Clippers and Hornets will play the NBA’s first game ever in Shenzhen when they meet on Oct. 11 at the Shenzhen Universiade Center, followed by a rematch in Shanghai on Oct. 14 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. The NBA in 2004 became the first American professional sports league to compete in China, with two exhibition games between the Houston R...
Back in 1994, CBS Sports bought the rights to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament with an eight-year contract averaging $215 million annually. This month, a single, 30-second TV ad airing during the men’s Final Four will cost the advertiser around $1.5 million. The prospect of selling future advertising during the College Football Playoffs is seen as being so lucrative that ESPN bid more than $5.5 billion over the next 12 years for the rights. As the NCAA coffers continue to balloon, lawsuits are piling up calling for it...
For many years the Pac-10 champion and Big Ten champion capped a football season by playing in the Rose Bowl game. This time the conference's best teams, Oregon and Ohio State, will also cap a season. But it won't be in merely one of many bowl games, it will be in the first college football national championship game. Oregon has already conquered its Rose Bowl opponent, Florida State, 59-20 in the playoff semi-final. It now moves on to the Dallas Cowboys' stadium in...
Just like USC, UCLA concluded its 2014 football season with a bowl victory. Oh, it wasn't on a par with Oregon's season, and there's no arguing that the Ducks were the Pac-12's best team. But it sure beats losing. UCLA defeated Kansas State, 41-35 in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on January 2. The Bruins recorded seven sacks and held their opponent to 31 rushing yards. But now let's evaluate where the Bruins are going into the 2015 season. The highlight of a 10-3 year in Jim...
Gia Kokotakis, a resident of Santa Monica since birth, will compete in the 2015 United States Figure Skating Championships in the Intermediate Ladies Event in Greensboro, North Carolina, January 17-22, at the Greensboro Coliseum. Gia is 12 years old and is a 7th grade student at Windward School in Mar Vista. She has skated for 8 years. She trains approximately 23 hours per week at Paramount Iceland and Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo. Her coaches are Alex Chang, Jere...
The Dodgers have finalized the deal that brings shortstop Jimmy Rollins to the team from Philadelphia. The Dodgers gave up lefthanded pitcher Tom Windle and right-handed pitcher Zach Eflin, who was acquired earlier in the week from San Diego. The 2007 National League Most Valuable Player and three-time All-Star (2001-02, 2005) has a .267 career batting average with 216 home runs and 887 RBI in 15 big league seasons, all with the Phillies, from 2000-14. Rollins ranks third amon...
As I look at the Lakers' dreadful record I wonder how much better they'd be this season if Pau Gasol remained on the team. Gasol, a far better big man than anyone on the Lakers this season, was driven away (let's be frank about this) by his dispute with Coach Mike D'Antoni. As I've written before, D'Antoni's offense featured three-point shooting rather than plays revolving around a center. Dwight Howard didn't like that and departed after one Laker season when he became a...
UCLA scored only seven points in the first half of its 83-44 loss to top-ranked Kentucky last Saturday. It was the lowest scoring half in the Bruins’ history. The previous low was 15. The two teams have won the most NCAA men’s basketball championships in history. But this season Kentucky is expected to go through the regular season with few losses, perhaps none. The Wildcats have a 12-0 record with nine McDonalds All-Americans on the roster, most of them expecting to play in the NBA. By contrast, UCLA was the only school in...
On Christmas day folks annually gather for a festive occasion. But the National Basketball Association has another idea for this holiday. Marketing. The league puts on an extravaganza, Five nationally televised games on several networks, attractive matchups of the most popular teams, and a gimmick to sell merchsndise. The players always have their last name on their jerseys. But on this day the first names were on it. And starting the next day replicas of those jerseys could...
Imagine we could travel back and forth in time and zoom in on the last three years for the Clippers: To refresh your memory, up until the 2011-12 season the Clippers were a team that for years struggled at the margins/bottom of the league, and didn't pose a real threat on other teams Then there was a turning point – under the maestro's wand of their coach, Vinny del Negro, the team made it to the playoffs and it seemed like the Clippers has broken the cycle of defeat. P...
USC, which lost its annual football game to UCLA for a third straight time this season, ended 2014 with a harrowing 45-42 victory over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego Dec. 27. The Trojans, who had won four of five games after losing to the Bruins, outlasted the Cornhuskers despite being outscored 8-0 in the fourth quarter of a game which was played before 57,000 and a national television audience. Several underclassmen made strong contributions, which left...
Armed with one of the top pitching staffs in the nation and five returning position player starters, Vanderbilt is ranked No. 1 in Collegiate Baseball’s Fabulous 40 NCAA Division I pre-season poll. UCLA is ranked 10th. Defending national champion Vanderbilt features four Louisville Slugger pre-season All-Americans including RHP Carson Fulmer (7-1, 10 SV, 1.98 ERA, 98 K). The pre-season poll factors in voting by NCAA Division I coaches across the nation, how a team finished last season, returning position player starters a...
The Chicago Bulls’ Jimmy Butler and the Houston Rockets’ James Harden were named NBA Eastern and Western Conference Players of the Week, respectively, for games played Monday, Dec. 22, through Sunday, Dec. 28. Butler led the Bulls to a 4-0 week behind averages of 23.0 points (seventh in the conference), 7.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.0 blocks. His 40.2 minutes per contest led the league. On Dec. 22, Butler went 11-for-11 at the foul line en route to 27 points, and added 11 rebounds, five blocks and four assists during a 129...
When the National Basketball Association revealed its list of the 50 greatest players of all time I was on the selection committee. When the list was made public, unfortunately so was the balloting of every committee member. For years afterward several players who weren't chosen confronted me to ask me why I didn't vote for them. Really, it was an impossible task. There were 70 or 80 deserving players. No amount of research allowed me to feel comfortable about my choices,...
In 1998 the Dodgers traded away Mike Piazza in what immediately became the most unpopular move in their Los Angeles history. Last week the Dodgers traded away Matt Kemp, and judging by initial reactions this is going to rival Piazza's departure as the worst decision the club has made. Conditions are different. In 1998 new Dodger owners were trying to make a point that they were not going to cave in to players' salary demands. Piazza's contract had expired and negotiations were...
Giancarlo Stanton recently signed a 13-year, $325 million contract with the Miami Marlins. Although the right fielder hit 37 home runs last season and came close to outpolling Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw for the National League MVP award critics have wondered about the wisdom of the Marlins' decision. You see, the contract will be the largest for any player in the history of North American sports. I wondered too until I heard what Stanton had to say about the negotiations....
The committee that settled on the four teams who’ll play in the first College Football Playoff got it right at the finish. But this distinguished group created needless controversy in the manner it operated, first advancing TCU to No. 3, then five days later after the team had crushed its final regular season opponent, 51-3, dropped TCU to No. 6. The committee on Sunday ultimately set up the two semi-finals properly. Oregon (No. 2) will play Florida State (No. 3) on New Year’s...
The joke in the Staples Center press room a few weeks ago was that new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had called a meeting of the players. And he told them "if you don't start playing better I'm going to sell the team back to Donald Sterling." Well, no need for that anymore. The Clippers, who got off to a slow start this season, went on the road in the last week of November and did better than any Clippers team in history had ever done – six wins in seven games, After routing O...
Reserve guard Xavier Henry is the latest in a long line of Laker players who have been injured in the last two seasons. Henry suffered a ruptured left Achilles tendon in practice last week. The Lakers announced he will be out for the rest of the season. Henry was far more successful last season than this one. Coach Byron Scott gave Henry limited playing time and said he was trying to see if Henry could regain his form of last season. The Lakers didn’t immediately announce w...
I'm old enough to remember Red Sanders' impact when he coached football at UCLA. And the dynasties of John McKay and Pete Carroll at USC, among others. In this city with a remarkable cross-town rivalry the school with the more prominent coach often prevails. That coach currently is Jim Mora at UCLA. Mora has coached UCLA for three years and the Bruins, who couldn't beat the Trojans for a decade, have won the last three meetings. The latest was the Bruins' convincing 38-20...
UCLA has begun its 2014-15 basketball season by winning its first three games. The first two are officially exhibition games. The Bruins defeated Montana State, 113-78 and Coastal Carolina, 84-71. They began the regular season by defeating Nicholls State, 107-74. Point guard Bryce Alford, son of Coach Steve Alford, scored 28 points and had 13 assists. Freshman Kevin Looney has had double figure scoring and rebounding in two of the games. Coach Alford, in his second season at UCLA, has asked his team to play at a fast pace....
Out of all the major league baseball players on teams throughout the land the MVPs have been chosen and they both play in Southern California. If you're a baseball fan here you can join me in congratulating Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers and Mike Trout of the Angels. Neither one was able to lead their team to much playoff success in the 2014 season, but their individual accomplishments could not be questioned in the regular season, and these awards are based on regular season...
