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Rookie NFL coaches tasked with fixing Falcons, Eagles

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press ATLANTA — Call this the Rebuilding Bowl. When the Atlanta Falcons open the season Sunday hosting the Philadelphia Eagles, it will be a matchup of rookie coaches leading the two worst teams in the NFC from a year ago. Former Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith takes over the Falcons, who finished 4-12 under an interim coach after firing Dan Quinn (and long-time general manager Thomas Dimitroff) when the team lost its first five games of 2020. The Eagles took a similar path on the heels of a 4-11-1 debacle, dumping Super ...

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Williams was special talent at Saint Francis Reading the Mirror sports pages on Thursday, Aug. 26 brought back memories from years ago. I was saddened by the news of Sandy Williams’ death, but remembering how his basketball skills impressed me as a 19-20-year-old young man brought back many good memories of Saint Francis basketball in the early 1960s. I hadn’t really seen many basketball games above the high school level in the early ’60s. I had seen Cal Fowler play quite a few games, and I had never seen anyone that could handle the ball, pass or shoot like he ...

Sports spending is out of control

By Bill Contz For the Mirror Back in 1990, a recording artist known as Callaway scored a hit with a song titled “I Wanna Be Rich.” It’s likely this tune was playing nonstop in the front offices of several big market major league teams while being simultaneously hummed by key Southeastern Conference decision makers. The feeding frenzy witnessed as we neared the July 31 MLB trade deadline served to solidify the state of California as the new epicenter of the baseball universe with San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles all plucking elite talent from teams going nowhere, ...

Another year of Alabama simply re-loading

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press ATLANTA — In the circle of college football life, Alabama sends another hefty batch of future stars to the NFL and still begins a new season as the top-ranked team. The No. 1 Crimson Tide will get an early read on the latest group of five-star recruits Saturday against No. 14 Miami at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta. Alabama is coming off one of the greatest seasons in college football history: 10 straight wins against an SEC-only schedule, a shootout victory over Florida in the league championship game, and blowouts over Notre Dame ...

College football teetering after another earthquake

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press The Southeastern Conference is getting bigger and, somehow, even stronger. Three other major conferences have formed an alliance, whatever that means. And the Big 12 is dead man walking. After a period of relative stability, college football heads into a new season wobbling from the aftershocks of another major earthquake. Not even Nostradamus would be willing to venture a guess on how it’s all going to shake out. But this much is clear: the SEC will become a 16-team behemoth with the addition of Big 12 powerhouses Oklahoma and Texas, ...

A night to remember — and forget

By Greg Johnston The school year is once again upon us and, as with every other year, the staff reconvenes in the hallways, classrooms and offices. Reconnecting often leads to the proverbial “How was your summer?” Idle chit-chat becomes more in depth and before you know it, you are sharing things like, “Well, as a belated-birthday present my son and I went to a baseball game in D.C. to see his beloved Padres play the Nationals.” It was Saturday, July 17, and Dylan’s favorite player, Fernando Tatis Jr., was having a great night, going 3-for-3 and showcasing his ...