Ask any golfer who’s ever played in the Ryder Cup, and they’ll tell you that the nerves they feel on the first tee Friday morning are as raw and suffocating as any they will ever feel in the game. No one could see this pressure cooker as a place of catharsis.
Unless you are Darren Clarke, that is.
You could argue, with some merit, that the competitive phase of these 36th Ryder Cup matches at Ireland’s K Club ended on that Friday morning, two long days before Europe polished off its second consecutive 18 ½-9 ½ rout of the United States with plenty of champagne and Guinness.
It started with a walk. Clarke’s trek from the practice green to the opening tee was met with roars rarely, if ever, heard in the game’s history...

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John Bradley had a good life. He grew up in Wisconsin, served a valiant tour in World War II, came back home to marry his childhood sweetheart, then spent the rest of his days as a community pillar, running the town’s successful funeral home and raising eight children. He died in 1994.
Bradley’s story sounds like just another tale of the “greatest generation”, a man sobered and tempered by depression and war, determined to make life better for his offspring without a need for glory or the spotlight.
But he could not avoid the spotlight, even if he wanted to. That’s because, at midday on Feb...

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So it was all set to go – a thoughtful, provocative essay from this desk about the New York Yankees’ addiction to money and power, and how it needed to be cured if it ever wanted to be a great franchise again.
Then came a gloomy Wednesday afternoon. Driving home, I hear of a plane crashing into an apartment building in Manhattan, near the East River.
Immediately, thoughts of 9/11 drift in, but when it became apparent that this was a small plane, a Cessna, then it just seemed nothing more than a weird, tragic story.
All that changed the second I heard that Cory Lidle was on the plane, and that he was dead.
Suddenly, my clever little essay was irrelevant...

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They won’t get together until late in the afternoon of Nov. 18. But even now, the wait for this event has to be excruciating.
I can just imagine that, right now, somewhere in a parking lot near the Horseshoe at THE Ohio State University (must add THE to please the alumni), some of the more faithful Buckeye followers are already beginning to tailgate. It’s never too early, right?
Up to the north, in Ann Arbor, a similar buzz is building. Followers of Michigan are putting their faith in Chad Henne and Mike Hart, and are ready to either praise Lloyd Carr to the heavens, or dump him in the trash heap. There is no in between.
They have played 102 times, these Buckeyes and Wolverines. The flood of football talent that has flowed through this rivalry tops just about any other...

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So a few of you might be grumbling about Greg Robinson. I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s our way in Syracuse – throw coaches under buses if they don’t go 12-0 every year.
Sorry, folks, I don’t subscribe to that theory, especially in a year where the much-maligned Big East got its groove back.
For most of this, you can give thanks to a bunch of marauding Mountaineers, a flock of tough Cardinals, and an army of red-clad men of Jersey authoring the best college football revival in recent memory.
The roots of this tale go back to the ACC’s supposed looting of the Big East...

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