Sports

Gamecocks. Cubs. F1. WNBA. NFL.

As a McLaren fan, it was a fun F1 Sprint Race this morning. I imagine it was boring for everyone else though.

Just saw a headline that SMU is going be in the ACC Championship. I’ll be honest. I completely forgot SMU was in the ACC.

South Carolina’s offense isn’t always pretty, but they’ve got heart. Go Gamecocks! 🏈

SEC football this season is incredible.

The NY Times on the White Sox’ historically bad season:

Baseball is a cruel game. Other sports cap your suffering at a reasonable number. In the N.F.L., the most games you could ever lose in a season is 17. In the N.B.A., you could theoretically lose 82. (The record is 73.) But baseball’s season is relentless: 162 games long… If you lose your grip, as the White Sox did immediately… you can fall through an eternal void of losing. And every day, in the middle of that falling, reporters will stick microphones in your face to ask you how it feels to be plunging through the eternal void.

Today was my 10th race watching F1. I started with the Canadian Grand Prix. Since then, we’ve had 7 winners from 4 different teams. I think I picked the right time to start watching. What a fun sport. I’m hooked.

ESPN is bringing Gameday to Columbia next weekend for South Carolina and LSU. Campus is going to be busy this week.

Great win for my Gamecocks today against Kentucky. The defense looks stout, even if the offense is a work in progress.

Papaya ≠ Orange?

My daughter has gotten us all into F1. Jill’s become a hard core McLaren fan. My wife seems to have settled into cheering for George Russell and Mercedes. Ryan is a Max Verstappen fan.

As for me, I tend to be pulling for McLaren. Which causes a problem. Their color is papaya… which is orange.

I don’t do orange. As a South Carolina Gamecocks fan, orange is the color of all of our rivals… from in-state Clemson to SEC foes Florida and Tennessee. (And I’m not just a SC fan, I’m also manage the schools visual branding.)

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Yesterday, Liverpool and Manchester United played in Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia. It was fun to see a football stadium packed for soccer. We didn’t go — tickets were more than I paid to see Taylor Swift and sold out in minutes — but I met people from all over who came to SC to see the match.

I’m really enjoying watching the Olympics this year, and I think part of the reason is how good the streaming experience is on Peacock.

Peacock promoting Paris-themed Hallmark movies alongside the Paris Olympics is an inspired bit of marketing. (And my wife is very happy…)

Dawn Staley is having the time of her life at the Olympics, going from event to event and meeting athletes. Her Instagram feed right now is a blast.

Watching the women’s Olympic cycling time trial this morning and the competitors all have aerodynamic handlebars, helmets and wheel covers. It reminded me of Greg LeMond’s time trial in Paris to win the 1989 Tour de France.

Just noticed that the Mercedes F1 team is sponsored by Crowdstrike. Funny that a racing team is sponsored by a company that’s now known for the biggest crash of all time.

The ACC and Florida State/Clemson are going to settle, right? These cases will be in the courts for years, probably heading all the way to the Supreme Court. The uncertainty will hurt the ACC and Florida State and Clemson will end up in the Big 12, where neither of them want to be.

The South Carolina Women’s Basketball team deserved the ESPY for Best Team. Undefeated national champs. Glad they won. 🏀

What an exciting British Grand Prix. As a new F1 fan, I never got to see Hamilton when he was dominant. So cool to see him win this one at Silverstone.

Watched the Austrian Grand Prix. Quite a race. Feel bad for Norris.

Watching F1 with my daughter, who keeps surprising me with her race knowledge.

Today, I was surprised to learn that my 16-year-old daughter is a secret F1 fan.

So even though I don’t work on the athletics side of things at the University of South Carolina, it’s going to be a fun couple of weeks celebrating Dawn Staley and these amazing Gamecocks.

National champs! Great game, Gamecocks!

New women’s basketball fans who’ve been following Caitlin Clark are about to discover that undefeated, #1 South Carolina has flown under the radar this season because they don’t have one star player, they have nine. Will be a great game on Sunday. Looking forward to it. 🏀

Our local minor league team, the Columbia Fireflies announced an alternate identity… the Carolina Grits. This is in addition to their La Copa de la Diversión look, the Chicharrones de Columbia. One alternate is fun… two might be overkill. Minor league teams will do anything to sell merch, though.

Paths to Success

This post was originally posted on June 13, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.


I’m more of a college basketball fan, but lately, I’ve been watching some NBA playoff games. And now that the finals are upon us, we get to see the world’s best basketball player in LeBron James against the world’s best shooter in Steph Curry.

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