Football Games Have 11 Minutes of Action - WSJ.com

This is why I stopped watching football - and one of the reasons I enjoy soccer so much more. With soccer you get at least 45 minutes of non-stop action every half (plus any comp time). With football you get:

Here's an excerpt from the article:

According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps. In the four broadcasts The Journal studied, injured players got six more seconds of camera time than celebrating players. While the network announcers showed up on screen for just 30 seconds, shots of the head coaches and referees took up about 7% of the average show.

Football Games Have 11 Minutes of Action - WSJ.com

John Wooden, 99, Legendary U.C.L.A. Coach, Dies - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

"Failure to prepare is to prepare to fail."
-John Wooden

John Wooden died yesterday at 99 years old. Wooden was a basketball legend; he is still (I believe) the only man to be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

Wooden's UCLA teams in the 1960's and 1970's dominated college basketball as no other team before or since has done. Winning 10 national championships - the final one came in 1975 - was an amazing feat.

John Wooden was widely admired, not just for the championships but also the way that he conducted his life. I have read a few books by Wooden, and always learned something from them.

Wooden was a huge fan of the value of preparation. He often said that his most enjoyable times as a coach were not the games but the practices. He and his coaching staff would meticulously plan each two hour practice session - no minute was allowed to be wasted.

He was a strong believer in the value of physical fitness, gained through intense practices.

He emphasized fundamentals. For example, he hated behind-the-back passes, which he thought were needlessly risky. He also liked players to use the backboard for their shots, believing that a bank shot had a better chance of success.

Wooden rarely scouted the opposing teams. He would point out that it made little difference whether he knew the tendencies of a particular player. Instead, he felt that if his teams focused on the fundamentals, and played the type of aggressive zone defense for which UCLA was famous, they would win most games. And of course he was right.

John Wooden was intensely competitive, as this morning's New York Times obituary pointed out. He might have looked like this mild-mannered school teacher from Indiana, but once the game started he was as ferocious as any coach around.

Wooden was devoted to his wife Nell. They were married 53 years. Nell would sit behind the bench at nearly every game. Right before the opening tip-off, John would look up in the stands to Nell and give her an "OK" hand signal. When she died, he visited her grave site nearly every day. He also wrote notes to her telling her how much he loved her, and missed her company.

It is a testimony to his widespread influence that his death merited a front page story in the Times this morning, even though he had coached his last game almost 35 years ago.

If you have the chance, read "They Call Me Coach" this summer. Even though it was written a number of years ago, it's a fun read, perfect for the summer. You'll learn valuable lessons about both basketball and life from one of the best ever.


John Wooden, 99, Legendary U.C.L.A. Coach, Dies - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

More On The Mighty Fed (and Not the One in Washington)

Just saw this post come across Twitter via ESPN.com on Roger Federer aka "The Mighty Fed".

(I know, I know, I'm supposed to be at work...but it's late in the day, after all, and we finally had a good day in the market!)

McEnroe: Federer is best ever

ESPN.com news services

ZURICH -- John McEnroe thinks Roger Federer is the best men's tennis player of all-time.

We've had a little more than a week to digest and dissect Roger Federer's latest Grand Slam title. So what, if anything, did we learn from Slam No. 16? First and foremost, it's time to stop doubting the guy, writes Matt Wilansky.

McEnroe, also considered one of the game's greats, said Tuesday he ranks the Swiss star ahead of Rod Laver, the only man to win all four Grand Slam events in one year, and seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras.

Promoting an ATP Champions Tour event in Zurich, McEnroe said Laver was his idol and Sampras was the greatest grass-court player ever. But the American left-hander said Federer, who has won a record 16 Grand Slam titles, was the greatest of all.

"I think we can all appreciate how incredible he is even more lately, because he's shown a bit more emotion on court and he's become a father so he seems a bit more human, more relatable," McEnroe told World Tennis Magazine of Federer. "That makes what he's doing seem even more amazing."

McEnroe said Federer's ability to average two Grand Slam titles a year was "phenomenally consistent and amazing."

"It's difficult to pick out one of his achievements as the best because they're all so incredible," McEnroe told the magazine. "But I would probably say the 23 semis or better in a row is the best record of them all. There's probably not another player in the top 20 who's even played 23 straight majors in a row. Then throw in the fact that he got to 18 out of 19 finals and that he's averaging two Grand Slam titles a year, it's just phenomenally consistent. It's amazing."

McEnroe did acknowledge that no one stays on top forever, however.

"When you've won as much as he has you have to wonder how he will react when he starts losing regularly at major events -- not reaching finals or semis," McEnroe told the magazine. "That's not going to be easy for him. But, he seems to take great care of his body, the way he moves doesn't put a lot of strain on the body so you would think he would be able to play at this top level a few more years. I hope so, because we are lucky to have him."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Sweet Sixteen for The Mighty Fed

I have been a big fan of Roger Federer for years aka The Mighty Fed.

Congratulations, Rog, for winning the Australian Open - your 16th major title!

Free Tickets to the U.S. Open!

I came across this in the New York Magazine website. The way I see it, even if you can't win a single point against Federer or Nadal in the first round, you still get a chance to get into the grounds at Flushing Meadows and watch some great tennis!

Now all I have to do is become a better tennis player....

How You — Yes, You — Can Play in the U.S. Open

This could be you.

If you've ever thought to yourself, "Hey, that could be me out there getting smoked by Roger Federer or Serena Williams in the first round of the U.S. Open," this is your big chance. The USTA will introduce the U.S. Open National Playoffs this year, in which anyone 14 and over (well, anyone 14 and over who's an active member of the USTA and forks over a $125 entry fee) can play for a shot at a wild-card berth in the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, at which they can play for a spot in the main draw of the U.S. Open. See, easy.

The USTA will stage sixteen open-to-anyone sectional tournaments around the country this spring, with the winners of each advancing to a championship round. (The New York matches take place April 20 through April 26 at Flushing Meadows. Each tournament is limited to 256 players; registration for New York opens March 1.) Basically, it's like American Idol for tennis players, only instead of worldwide fame and a huge record contract, the winner gets an audition to maybe become one of Kelly Clarkson's backup singers.

And yes, this sucks for the man and woman who would have otherwise been the last person to qualify for their respective qualifying tournaments, but there's something undeniably cool about the idea that some random person could go on a hot streak and make it all the way to Flushing Meadows. (This, by the way, is the same concept that makes low-level NCAA conference basketball tournaments so much fun.) To hammer home the idea that literally anyone with a pulse can enter this tournament, the press release announcing the playoffs mentions that Bode Miller (the skier who, to be fair, has a tennis background) will be competing in one of the tournaments. So even if you don't go all the way, there's always the chance you'd get to beat Bode Miller at something, which is fun in its own right.

Read more: How You — Yes, You — Can Play in the U.S. Open -- The Sports Section http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2010/01/how_you_yes_you_can_play_in_th.html#ixzz0dvtb7rMR

The PGA Tour Without Tiger Woods

Interesting story in this morning's Wall Street Journal about what the absence of Tiger means to the Tour. What happens when he returns? - is it the economy, or is it Tiger?

I think that LPGA is in even more financial difficulties. It's tough to justify sponsoring a golf tournament when business continues to struggle.

Here's the link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575017550261245506.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESixthNews