Sporting Madness

I was reading Gary Smith's fantastic, tear-jerking piece entitled "The Wheels of Life" in my most recent Sports Illustrated magazine today, and it got me thinking. The piece is a superb tale of Dick Hoyt and his paralyzed son, Rick, and how they've worked together to compete in everything from marathons to triathlons for over 30 years. On one level, it's a great story of two people who have overcome incredible adversity to do things that many able-bodied people never will be able to, but I think there's a broader point there as well, and one that applies to our current sports world. Read this paragraph and see if you can figure out where I'm going with this: Race day came a few days later. So closeted were the disabled in 1977 that many people, including Dick before the birth of his first son, had never laid eyes on a wheelchair or a quadriplegic, let alone one in a five-mile race. Dick's two other sons, Rob and Russ, wisecracked that the Hoyts'...

[Image: Prime Time Sports host Bob McCown] Dear Mr. McCown, I'm writing to inform you that your statements  (go to 1:37) on yesterday's nationally-syndicated Prime Time Sports radio/television show are not only offensive and inaccurate, but are also potentially defamatory and libelous.  For the record, you said, "The s ole motivation for a man to watch any woman's sport is are they half-naked? Are they good-looking?"   You then went on to say "Other than that, I don’t care if it’s a world championship or your next-door neighbour playing somebody. Guys are only interested in woman’s sport if it’s good-looking chicks." Of course, it's mind-bogglingly stupid for a nationally-broadcast radio host to make those kinds of remarks on International Women's Day , but that's your own affair. What I'm more concerned with is that you're making a " statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that m...