Sporting Madness

Today was Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the U.S.), so I've been doing a lot of reflecting on soldiers, wars and history. Ryan Gallivan has a good round-up of some excellent reading for the day, including this tremendous piece from Matt Ufford of Kissing Suzy Kolber fame on his experiences in Iraq, so I encourage you to check that out. However, there's one other story that always comes to my mind around now, and it's one that truly deserves to be remembered. If you haven't yet, I urge you to read Gary Smith 's excellent stories on former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman . If you have read them, go back and look at them again; they're well worth it. Tillman gave up a lucrative career in the NFL to go serve his country in the wake of the September 11 attacks and tragically lost his life doing so. What impressed me even more than his decision, though, was the outstanding person he was from all accounts. I love these pieces because Smith doesn...

Okay, an interesting thing here. The Province story on Dave Pratt's plagiarism mentioned only the one specific example, but said the piece "contained some clear similarities" to Reilly's article. I thought the other things would be pretty minor if they weren't mentioned, which is why I perhaps wasn't as severe on Pratt as I might have been in the first post. I also thought it might be difficult to round them up, given that the column got axed from the 'Net. Well, thanks to one Sportsnet.ca forum commenter, we can see the two pieces side by side (actually above and below), and there are many more issues. Here's the full pieces (potential plagiarism bolded by me). Bob Cole is one for the ages all right David Pratt, The Province Published: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 Sooner or later, it gets to be closing time. So pour it like you don't own it, bartender, and let's have one for the great Bob Cole. After four decades of doing play-by-play for the CBC...

Photo: Dave Pratt co-hosting his radio show (photo from the TEAM 1040 website ). This dropped in from out of the blue. The Vancouver Province has terminated its regular column from TEAM 1040 AM broadcaster Dave Pratt after he plagiarized a line from a 2000 Sports Illustrated piece by famed writer Rick Reilly ( now of ESPN ) on U.S. college basketball coach and broadcaster Al McGuire and used it to refer to Bob Cole in a piece published yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with Pratt, he's one of the most prominent Vancouver sports media personalities: he co-hosts the TEAM's afternoon drive show with Don Taylor of Sportsnet , and an hour of their show is usually televised on Sportsnet Pacific each day (sort of the West Coast version of Prime Time Sports , but without the business focus). Here's the original : "They say he was born 72 years ago last Thursday, but don't believe it. McGuire dropped straight out of Guys and Dolls with a martini in one hand and a b...

I was perusing the Sports Illustrated Vault (greatest way to kill time ever) and came across this great profile of David Stern , written in November 2006 by Jack McCallum. It features some great unintentional comedy, as many things written about Stern then seem hilarious in retrospect. Consider the following examples: "Over the past months the NBA drafted a mission statement of which Stern is exceedingly proud. It talks about values and social responsibility, and it pledges that NBA employees will "conduct ourselves in accordance with the highest standards of honesty, truthfulness, ethics and fair dealing." Commentary: Guess that was before Clay Bennett joined the club. "Now, there is plenty of room for cynicism when bottom-liners start talking altruism. And the many NBA haters in the U.S. would suggest that players such as Stephen Jackson are living repudiations of the league's mission statement. But Stern holds that the document has had a 'profound effec...