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Ole Miss Changing, But Still Too Slowly

Terence Moore — 2009-11-26T10:00:00 00:00

Nearly a decade ago, I took my first and only trip to the center of the Ole Miss campus in Oxford, Miss., and I lived to tell about it.

It wasn't fun.

The place is called The Grove, where tailgaters join others before Mississippi football games to hear a concert from The Pride of the South Marching Band. With various versions of "Dixie " blaring, Confederate flags waving and "yahoos" echoing through the willow oaks, the whole thing ranks among the most appalling things I've seen as a sports journalist who happens to be darker than a KKK hood.

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Hawks Still Flying for That Magic Word

Terence Moore — 2009-11-23T23:29:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Hawks

ATLANTA -- Either Dr. Phil or Charles Barkley once said, if you wish to advance in life, you must start with the image in the mirror. So the Atlanta Hawks will continue to scare people the rest of this NBA season. That's because they know exactly what they are, and they know exactly what they are not.

Here's what the Hawks are: Pretty good.

Actually, the Hawks are better than that. I'll explain more in a moment, but let's start with what the Hawks aren't: Elite.

"We're in the conversation for sure, but we're not satisfied with what we've done so far, because we still have a ways to go," said Hawks guard Jamal Crawford, telling the truth about his suddenly potent team that has surged into a three-way tie with the Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns for the NBA's best record at 11-3.

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Storybook Season Unfolding in Cincinnati

Terence Moore — 2009-11-20T15:35:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Cincinnati

CINCINNATI -- Go ahead. Combine Florida, Alabama, Texas and TCU, the only four teams ahead of Cincinnati in the BCS standings. Now throw in the rest of the programs throughout college football, and it still won't matter.

You won't find a collection of teams -- let alone one individually -- with more riveting stories than those surrounding Cincinnati. Come to think of it, the 2009 Bearcats have the best set of storylines of all-time for a season. Despite a wretched existence during their 123 years of playing football at a place more noted for the guy who designed the Golden Gate Bridge and Oscar Robertson, the Bearcats are in the national championship discussion with a 10-0 record out of nowhere.

That's the best of those stories.

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LJ Pushes Bengals to Brink of Disaster

Terence Moore — 2009-11-18T19:30:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Bengals, AFC North

CINCINNATI -- Now you can add frequently bad actor Larry Johnson to a Cincinnati Bengals locker room already noted for drama.

Yeah, this makes sense.

It actually does, but only to a point.

Starting running back Cedric Benson has an aching hip flexor, and since nobody worth mentioning wanted to sign Johnson, he came this week as a cheap insurance policy for the Bengals. It's just that you have this little thing in sports called "chemistry," and Benson didn't exactly suggest after practice on Wednesday that he would celebrate Johnson's arrival by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

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Memo to BCS Bashers: Stop Whining

Terence Moore — 2009-11-16T16:00:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Alabama, Boise State, Cincinnati, Florida, TCU, Texas, BCS, Big 12, Mountain West, SEC, Bowl Games

It's that silly time of year again. There are so many significant teams among the big boys of college football, but there are just two slots on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif., for that title game of the Bowl Championship Series. So the voice of the older Jim Mora is screaming in my subconscious.

Playoffs, playoffs?

We don't need playoffs in this situation.

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Evander Holyfield Rightfully Swings to Mike Tyson's Defense

Terence Moore — 2009-11-13T15:49:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive

The toughest fight in Mike Tyson's life never involved the likes of Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis.

It involved Tyson versus Tyson.

As for Tyson's second toughest fight, it continues, and it will never end. It involves Tyson versus many in society who just won't leave the guy alone.

The gold diggers. The mindless instigators -- you know, those into poking grizzlies with sticks. Oh, and the paparazzi. In fact, one of its members was the primary cause of the latest Mike Tyson Thing this week at Los Angeles International Airport. Tyson exploded (surprise, surprise) after the photographer tried to snap pictures of this famously temperamental former heavyweight boxing champion with his wife and his 10-month-old daughter.

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Meyer Won't Be Able to Avoid Irish Itch

Terence Moore — 2009-11-11T20:28:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Notre Dame

The dog ate my homework.

The check is in the mail.

"I'm not going to Notre Dame. Ever."

Unless you believe something along the lines that the folks at Touchdown Jesus will spray paint the Golden Dome, Urban Meyer will become the next head football coach for the Fighting Irish. Sometime.

It's going to happen, all right. Meyer will end his brilliant stint with the Florida Gators for a return to South Bend, Ind., where he left his heart as a Notre Dame assistant coach from 1996 to 2000. It's going to happen, because unless you haven't been paying attention, Meyer keeps saying how much he covets the Notre Dame job. He said so emphatically during a radio show on a South Florida station in December 2008. He also wrote as much two summers ago in his authorized biography.

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Isiah Thomas' Shot at Redemption

Terence Moore — 2009-11-10T00:30:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Florida International

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The universally popular bashing of Isiah Thomas is justified, but only to a point. Whatever the case, it continued on Monday night at the Dean E. Smith Center, where it was mostly harmless and often humorous.

Ailing mothers have a tendency to soften hard souls.

So, for the first time since just shy of forever, Thomas walked into a basketball arena as somebody that many wished to hug instead of choke. That's because hours before he made his debut as a college basketball coach for Florida International University against North Carolina (yes, that North Carolina), Mary Thomas was in a Chicago hospital preparing to have her 86-year-old heart repaired.

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Bob Knight Wise to Blow Off Indiana

Terence Moore — 2009-11-07T17:09:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Indiana

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Even before the start of both events during the past two days to celebrate the seven inductees into this year's Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame, everybody hoped. Everybody prayed. In fact, everybody who bleeds Hoosier red meant no harm, but they wanted Bob Knight to do the wrong thing.

Instead, Knight did the right thing.

He stayed away. And, yes, I know these aren't the same folks who used that myth nine years ago to get rid of the greatest college basketball coach ever.

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Yankees Win the Best Thing for MLB

Terence Moore — 2009-11-06T00:40:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Yankees, World Series

NEW YORK -- Oh, it was a loaded question, all right. The guy that I expected to answer was Bud Selig, whose role as baseball commissioner expands beyond the new sacred walls in the Bronx that feature the plaques of Yankee greats.

I asked the question anyway.

Given the mystique of pinstripes, television ratings that soar toward the farthest black hole at the sight of the interlocking "NY" in white against blue caps, baseball rock stars Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Mariano Rivera and the rest -- I mean, doesn't it help the entire game whenever the Yankees win it all?

Well, it does. Nobody cares about the Tampa Bay Rays in October or November, for instance, except those with too much time on their hands around the Skyview Bridge over the Gulf of Mexico. The world is dominated by Yankee lovers, Yankee haters and few in-between, and everybody knows it.

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Yankees Quit Playing Games, Start Playing Championship Baseball

Terence Moore — 2009-11-05T02:45:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Phillies, Yankees, World Series

NEW YORK -- The biggest World Series choke involved the New York Yankees, but they won back then in 1996 over the gasping Atlanta Braves.

The Yankees won this time, too. It's just that they did so to avoid sliding toward the brutal end of the second-worst choke in World Series history.

On a clear Wednesday night in the Bronx, with Hideki Matsui's sizzling Mizuno bat and various pinstriped chants warming the November chill inside the newest version of Yankee Stadium, the home team got a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. It also got a 27th world championship for the franchise.

Plus, it got these current Yankees off the hook.

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America's Team? It's the Saints Now

Terence Moore — 2009-11-03T03:30:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Saints, NFC South

NEW ORLEANS -- Go ahead, because this is the right thing to do: You should spend the rest of the NFL season hugging whatever team you traditionally love, but you should kiss the New Orleans Saints in the shadows.

If you prefer to do so in the sunshine, that's fine, too.

The Saints have replaced the folks with stars on their helmets as America's Team. In case you weren't paying attention, Hurricane Katrina blew this franchise into the hearts of all those who had them. That unofficially happened on Sept. 25, 2006, the team's first home game back in New Orleans -- a Monday night when, just like this Monday night, the roof of the Superdome threatened to explode because of the noise generated by inside, as opposed to the wind outside it.

A game that was also against the Falcons. And that, too, was a victory for the Saints, along the way to their first and only NFC championship game.

Nancy Gay: Good News, Bad News for Falcons

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Phillies Won't Let Yankees Win Easily

Terence Moore — 2009-10-30T01:32:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Phillies, Yankees, MLB Playoffs, World Series

NEW YORK -- The slew of left-handed boppers. More speed than you think, along with slick gloves everywhere. Another dose or two of Cliff Lee.

From the start of Saturday night's Game 3 in Philadelphia until whenever the last pitch of the World Series takes place, the New York Yankees will have much to worry about regarding the Philadelphia Phillies.

Oh, the Yankees still will win it all. They have several boppers of their own -- well, if this A-Rod stops resembling that other A-Rod when it comes to vanishing or prospering in October. Plus, despite Lee's Sandy Koufax routine, the Yankees have better starting pitchers. They also have those pinstriped ghosts, their Gipper in George Steinbrenner and the incomparable Mariano Rivera.

That said, the Yankees must understand something more striking about the Phillies than what I just wrote: the Phillies aren't scared.

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Payton Was Supposed to Live Forever

Terence Moore — 2009-10-29T12:00:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Chicago Bears, FanHouse Exclusive

Some things make no sense.

Just take the way Walter Payton played, for instance. Season after season, game after game, down after down, he destroyed folks. He did so as a running back for the Chicago Bears, and he spent 13 years as one of the most explosive hitters ever at any position, despite wrapping just 200 pounds around his frame of 5-foot-10. After he would belt a heftier defender toward the parking lot with his famously potent stiff arm, he would return to his preferred status of mellow.

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What Are Yanks Doing to George?

Terence Moore — 2009-10-29T00:57:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Yankees, MLB Playoffs, World Series

NEW YORK -- This was a lousy way for the New York Yankees to hug somebody they supposedly love.

You had their listless ways at the plate. Then, if you combine that with a couple of mindless pitches by CC Sabathia and a shoddy bullpen, they spent Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium playing the opener of the World Series as if they wish to choke whatever life is left inside of the ailing George Steinbrenner.

OK, Cliff Lee is pretty good, but he isn't that good.

Is he?

FanHouse World Series Coverage: Mariotti | Fletcher | Price
Game 1: Phillies 6, Yankees 1 | Box Score | Series Home

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Give Me the Old (Old) Yankee Stadium

Terence Moore — 2009-10-28T18:50:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Yankees, MLB Fans, MLB Playoffs, World Series

NEW YORK -- While making one of those decades-old World Series trips on the subway from Manhattan to the Bronx, the New York Yankees' official theme song kept rattling my bones as much as the D-train.

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

Then, all of a sudden, when I arrived at the corner of East 161st Street and River Avenue, another Frank Sinatra song popped into my head. It got louder and louder, especially the closer I got to an 86-year-old structure whose distinctive roar during every summer and most Octobers was gone. So were its seats. So was nearly everything else in the place, including its pinstriped monuments.

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McGwire Hire Feels Like Bad Joke

Terence Moore — 2009-10-26T16:15:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Cardinals, MLB PEDs

This can't end well. In fact, unless the city of St. Louis is just into the bizarre -- you know, such as plans to replace that large arch downtown with a Starbucks or something, this will end sooner than later.

Mark McGwire as Cardinals hitting coach?

I'm still waiting for the punch line.

In order for this to work, McGwire has to discuss what he hasn't wanted to discuss forever, and you know what that is. Instead, he spit at a bunch of congressmen during a hearing on steroids during the spring of 2005 on Capitol Hill by telling them, "I'm not here to talk about the past."

Yeah, well. The guy has no choice now. He will be hounded by his "past" on every Cardinals road trip. I'm guessing that more than a few folks in St. Louis also will have questions about his "past."

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Yanks in No Danger With Jeter at Helm

Terence Moore — 2009-10-23T09:00:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Yankees, MLB Playoffs, American League Championship Series

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- You should forget the baseball fantasy that took place Thursday night next door to Disneyland, but only if you're among the wise who believe in pinstriped destiny this year. There is no Rally Monkey or Thunderstix at Yankee Stadium, where the American League Championship Series is headed after the fluke that was the Los Angeles Angels' 7-6 victory in Game 5.

The Yankees still will take it all -- the AL pennant, a world championship, maybe the Western Hemisphere -- because they have somebody who won't settle for less.

Derek Jeter.

Mariotti: Yanks Show Cracks | Fletcher: Angels Get Angry
Playoff Pulse: Storms Ahead for ALCS, Swisher

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Yankees Moment Has Two Challengers

Terence Moore — 2009-10-21T01:50:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Angels, Yankees, American League Championship Series

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- This A-Rod thing is getting scary.

The same goes for this umpiring thing.

In the end, when somebody on the New York Yankees squeezes the last out of the 2009 season, it only will be about this pinstripe thing, because the Yankees are destined to finish early November as bigger than anything in baseball.

I think. It's just that those two other things spent a gorgeous Tuesday night at Angel Stadium continuing their habit of overshadowing the Yankees' inevitable march to a 27th world championship.

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Time to Cut Weis Some Slack

Terence Moore — 2009-10-17T22:30:00 00:00

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Notre Dame, USC, Coaching

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- He isn't going anywhere, and he shouldn't. The relentless ways of his Fighting Irish players down the stretch Saturday night at Notre Dame Stadium against Southern Cal bought Charlie Weis more time.

So here's the deal: Weis will last the rest of this season as Notre Dame coach. He also will return next season, and who knows? He might stick around with the Fighting Irish to finish his 10-year contract that expires after the 2015 season.

Whatever the case, there should be a moratorium on Weis bashing despite Notre Dame's 34-27 loss to Southern Cal in another huge game. That's because his players keep demanding as much. They could have collapsed in the final seconds against Michigan State, but they didn't. The same goes for their squeakers over Purdue and Washington that involved an extra dose of passion from everybody on the field.

More FanHouse Coverage From South Bend
Jay Mariotti: No Moral Victories at Notre Dame, Charlie
John Walters: It's Deja Vu All Over Again for Irish | Game Blog

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