Breaking News

Voice of the Fan

Shiffrin’s treatment stirs lessons

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press BEIJING — When Mikaela Shiffrin careened off the course, another expected gold medal slipping away before she hardly got started, the announcers from NBC let her have it. “One of the bigger shockers in Olympic alpine skiing history,” play-by-play man Dan Hicks bellowed. “Almost a rookie mistake,” analyst Ted Ligety, a two-time gold medalist himself, chimed in harshly. The cameras homed in on Shiffrin, who clicked out of her skis and plopped down on the artificial snow — head bowed, arms resting on bent knees — as she tried to ...

Mailbag

Pheasant left mark on Altoona athletics Gary Wayne Pheasant (1954-2022) graduated from Altoona Area High School in 1972 one year after me. I knew him from playing football and baseball for the Mountain Lions. He was a superlative athlete with good size, great foot speed and excellent power. Our first encounter was on a baseball field, playing a practice Teener League game. He was on the mound throwing nothing but heat, clearly demonstrating he was no ordinary athlete. He was a wide receiver for the Purdue Boilermakers football team, but a subsequent, unfortunate turn of ...

Portal is game of musical chairs

By Bill Contz For the Mirror If recent local transfer portal activity is any indication, future scholarship offers to borderline Division I recruits (those rated three-star or lower) may go the way of the eight-track tape. Pitt lured receiver Konata Mumpfield away from Akron where he posted monster numbers during his freshman campaign, noteworthy since the Zips were the only FBS school to offer him a scholarship. Western Kentucky’s Mitchell Tinsley, along with his 85 catches and 1,402 yards, heads to Happy Valley to nab spirals from either Sean Clifford or highly-touted newcomer ...

Wealthy Mickelson calls PGA Tour greedy

By Jim Litke The Associated Press Phil Mickelson just ripped the PGA Tour for what he called “obnoxious greed.” Now that — pardon the expression — is rich. “I know I will be criticized,” Mickelson said earlier this week, soon after arriving in the golf-forsaken Saudi Arabian metropolis of King Abdullah Economic City — you cannot make this stuff up — to play in the Saudi International. “That’s not my concern,” Mickelson added in an interview with Golf Digest. “All that would do is dumb down one of the most intricate issues in sport.” Actually, it’s ...

Miller set a Guilfoyle standard

By John Frederick For the Mirror Being 10 years younger, I came to know of Eddie Miller in a rather unusual way. Hoping to compile a better historical record of the Bishop Guilfoyle Marauder boys basketball program, I began poring through the Altoona Mirror archives (on microfilm at the time) in 1974. Though familiar with the teams of the previous eight seasons, dating back to my sister’s senior year in 1967, much beyond that seemed like ancient history. The Mirror acted as a time machine of sorts, introducing me to the teams and stars of the fifties and sixties. It was ...

Baseball doing more damage than Bonds

By Jim Litke The Associated Press Whatever harm Barry Bonds did to baseball pales in comparison to the damage baseball inflicted on itself both at the time and since. So say what you will about the steroids era, at least the games were still worth watching. You can’t say that about baseball today, assuming it’s even available on a TV set where you live. The sport’s popularity is buckling faster than the knees of a hitter fooled by Clayton Kershaw’s curveball. The national audience for last season’s World Series — roughly 12 million viewers — was less than half what ...