Story in Photos: Tar Heels lose another to rival Wolfpack
Here’s a link to Joe Schwartz’s half-time report and post game article.
Showing posts in the “Spectacle” category
Olympics fever: Catch it … or don’t
UPDATE 11:44 am: Chicago was “stunningly eliminated” in the first round of voting, as was Tokyo.
UPDATE 2 1:08 pm: It’s Rio.
This morning we step away from the hurly-burly of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary sports to consider the big question of the day: Which overreaching metropolis will earn the right to build billions of dollars of new infrastructure, displace neighborhoods, clean up its slums and become a two-week platform for the Olympic spirit and a future superhuman like Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt?
Yes, the 2016 Summer Olympics are up for grabs.
In the running are four cities: Madrid, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Chicago. Today the heads of four states and cities are pleading their cases in Copenhagen. The announcement will occur today at about 12:30 p.m., Eastern time.
Here’s The New York Times’ review of the contenders.
Maybe it’s just us, but we’re drawn to the arguments that the Olympics are a collossal waste of resources that could be deployed more productively. Yes, the Beijing Olympics were fun, as were the 1992 Barcelona Games. On the other hand, you’ve got some notable failures, too: Berlin in 1936, Munich in 1972, Moscow in 1980, Atlanta in 1996. The 1976 Games in Montreal, chiefly remembered for Nadia Comaneci, was a financial disaster that took that city decades to recover from. (Olympic Stadium, fondly known as the Big Owe, was only paid off in 2006.)
Anyway, here’s Dave Zirin’s discussion in The Nation of the considerable opposition in Chicago to that city’s bid—a bid that has powerful supporters in President Obama and Oprah (who has more pull?). The video embedded above was produced by No Games Chicago, a grass-roots, community-organized group of Windy City opponents. As Zirin writes, a “staggering 84 percent of Chicagoans are opposed to spending any public money on the Olympics.”
Chris Gaffney, a Triangle Offense contributor, is living and teaching in Rio de Janeiro. Here’s his take on Rio’s bid, posted on his blog. He writes: “Rio’s primary arguments for hosting the games are emotional (see video below), based in a woefully idealized vision of a very small segment of the city.”
Just a thought…
Noted without comment …
UPDATE: Here’s someone else’s commentary, published on Huffington Post. Turns out that TARP money is being showered widely over the sports biz. Some think it’s not such a bad thing. And, I didn’t know Bank of America sponsored Liverpool (but not on the jersey). That gives last weekend’s game, a 4:1 thrashing of the Mancunians by the Merseysiders, a whole new dimension: Bank of America>AIG.
ACC Tourney, Friday open thread
Well, as correspondent Adam Sobsey just emailed me, this second Friday of March should be a state-wide holiday.
There was some basketball yesterday: NC State is done for the season, while Clemson’s NCAA seeding probably took a big hit with that loss to Georgia Tech, while Virginia Tech polished off Miami’s NCAA hopes before scaring the bejesus out of UNC earlier this afternoon.
Ex-Indyite Besha Rodell is at courtside for Creative Loafing Atlanta—we hope to have new posts from her today. Besha? Let us know in the comments.
What’s your take on the empty seats at the Georgia Dome? The future of N.C. State? Will Ty Lawson play tomorrow? Should he play tomorrow?
And finally, one of our readers Twittered (Tweeted?) the following:
RT @mtdotnet wonders when the ACC champions stopped being decided by winning the ACC championship (I’m looking at you, @indyweek).
Fines for broadcasting Williams’ f-word? WTF?
WRAL explains why broadcasters likely won’t face punitive action for transmitting UNC coach Roy Williams’ indiscreet use of a word that has been part of the English lexicon for several centuries.
But then, ours is a culture in which CBS was assessed a $550,000 fine by the Federal Communications Commission for unwittingly broadcasting an image of Janet Jackson’s nipple. (The fine was tossed out by a federal court last year.)
Mayors of Durham, Chapel Hill to gamble on sports outcome
A high-profile game sure brings out the politicians. Super Bowl winners often get face time with presidents (or voice time with them), for example. Sometimes politicians even want to be seen with athletes who’ve just disgraced themselves in front of the entire planet: In 2006, after Zinedine Zidane notoriously headbutted Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final, French politicians eager to be seen with a French Arab hero rushed to Zidane’s side.
Still, it doesn’t always benefit the politician to be at the ballgame, of course. Especially when the team is the Philadelphia Flyers. Just ask Sarah Palin.
The stakes are a little lower down here on Tobacco Road, to put it very mildly: According to a press release issued today from the Chapel Hill mayor’s office, Kevin Foy and his counterpart in Durham, Mayor Bill Bell, will stimulate one or the other’s municipal economy after the outcome of Wednesday night’s battle royale in Cameron Indoor Stadium between the sixth-ranked Blue Devils of Duke and the third-ranked Tar Heels of UNC.
If Duke loses, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy will receive tickets to a show at the Durham Performing Arts Center, the newly opened largest performing arts theater in the Carolinas. If UNC loses, Durham Mayor Bill Bell is invited to a night on Franklin Street and Asian cuisine at the Lantern Restaurant, which the News and Observer ranked as the 2008 #1 restaurant in the Triangle.
If every loser won such sweet deals, we should all be losers, right? Ahh, not really. Far more difficult than accepting defeat is the second part of the wager - if UNC wins, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy will supply Durham Mayor Bill Bell with a Carolina blue sweatshirt which he will wear at the next Durham City Council meeting. If Duke wins, Durham Mayor Bill Bell will supply Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy with a Duke blue sweatshirt which he will wear at the next Chapel Hill Town Council Meeting.
Mayor Bell wasn’t reached for comment.
Perhaps Mayors Bell and Foy, and you, dear reader, will consider join our crack Triangle Offense contributors Wednesday night as they live-blog the game, which starts at 9 p.m.
Big week in soccer opens …
RailHawks coach Martin Rennie, seen at the December tryouts
… and we’re not even talking about the USA-Mexico friendly qualifier set for Wed. Feb. 11 (which conveniently starts and finishes before the Other Big Game that night).
Nope, today is opening day for the Carolina RailHawks preseason training camp. As I type, the team has been going at it on a gorgeous, precociously verdant morning at the WakeMed soccer complex.
We’re told that in addition to the players that have popped up on this blog in recent weeks, such “recent college graduates like UNC’s Michael Callahan, Garry Lewis and Brian Shriver, and NC State’s El Hadj Cisse’” will also be evaluated.
Check back in this space later in the week for a report. Correspondent Chris Gaffney and I hope to get over to Cary to watch a session.
Hoop Dreams director to curate sports films at Full Frame
Arthur Agee in Hoop Dreams
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival announced today that Steve James, director of one of the most successful documentaries ever, the 1994 epic Hoop Dreams, will curate a sports-themed program at this year’s festival, which runs April 2-5.
James’ sidebar will be called This Sporting Life, and will not be limited to documentaries. Instead, the series “will include some of the lesser-seen dramatic films that take place in the world of sports. Selections will include those that specifically anticipated the emergence of the sports genre in documentary filmmaking, which continues to be honest, vibrant, and original.”
Any suggestions for Mr. James? We’ve got a couple: The Harder They Fall, a boxing muckraker with Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger and real-life boxers Max Baer and Jersey Joe Walcott; and The History of Soccer: The Beautiful Game, the 11-hour, Terence Stamp-narrated British television documentary from 2001.
Leave your suggestions for Steve James here.
UNC defeats N.C. State 38-17! (So says NCAA 2009 video game)
Ed. note: N.C. State travels to Chapel Hill tomorrow for a noon showdown against the Tar Heels, which will be broadcast on regional televlsion. Jake Swiger, a UNC student who runs his own blog, www.tarheelbuckeye.blogspot.com, kindly sent us the results of tomorrow’s clash, as played on NCAA 2009, a video game from GamePlay Video. Thanks, Jake!
UNC vs. NC State NCAA 2009 Simulation
In a battle between one of the nation’s best secondaries and most efficient quarterbacks, the Carolina defense prevailed, picking off Russell Wilson four times and returning two for touchdowns as the Heels stormed through the Wolfpack 38-17.
Wilson entered the game with only one pick, but pressure from UNC’s front four forced several uncharacteristic throws from the freshman.
On the other side of the field, TJ Yates started after missing most of the season. Yates finished 18-19 for 185 yards and a touchdown.
Despite the margin of victory, NC State moved the ball at will and out gained the Heels, marking the eighth time the Heel have been out gained offensively and still won this season. Continue reading »
Palin makes her NHL debut
Elsewhere in the NHL tonight, Sarah Palin dropped the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers’ home opener against the New York Rangers. One wonders who thought the notorious Flyers crowd would cotton to the world’s most famous hockey mom, even with Piper and Willow in tow. (Note the Obama signs in the background, by the way.)
According to New York Times’ Lynn Zinser on her Slapshot blog, the booing was much louder than is apparent in this video. She wrote:
[W]hen Palin came out onto the Wachovia Center ice Saturday night - greeted by resounding (almost deafening) boos from the Flyers crowd - the two hockey players who had no choice but to appear with her in that photo op were turned into props in a political campaign. If Rangers center Scott Gomez or Flyers center Mike Richards wanted to make some sort of political statement, that would be fine, but in this case, they were thrust into a situation not of their choosing.
The Rangers happen to have two native Alaskans: Gomez, seen in the video, and Brandon Dubinsky. Neither has shown any inclination to comment publicly on the Alaska governor.
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