Walk into any local saloon or opium den this week and you’re sure to run into the guy. The guy who’s been there from the beginning. The guy who’s been there from the beginning and never lost hope. The guy who never lost hope and always kept his season tickets…
America, some critics have noted recently, is falling behind its rivals in the developing world. Our dependence on technology and a decadent ease of living have dulled this country’s once-sharp competitive edge. They are speaking, of course, of the depressing plight of the American marathon runner. Once the swift pride…
Welcome to sweet April, when anything is possible. The Colorado Rockies can still win the National League pennant this year and beat the Yankees in five hard-fought games in the World Series. Donald Trump might propose to Omarosa. Topeka could get Italian food. And, if a thousand things go perfectly…
One of the great things about sports is that you never know where a story will take you. An account of a couple of professional football running backs, one supernaturally talented, the other a plugger, can morph into the life lessons offered in Brian’s Song. More often than you would…
Todd Bertuzzi runs for mayor of Denver. Haiti nukes Fort Lauderdale. John Ashcroft and Mel Gibson get married at Caesars Palace. The Air Force Academy basketball team kicks a ton of tall civilian butt, then flies smartly on into the NCAA Tournament. Which do you find most improbable? The last…
Like everyone else, I was impressed when the University of Colorado announced a series of football recruiting reforms last week. But I had no conception of how drastic those changes would be — until I received an unmarked envelope that contained the following draft memo. To: University of Colorado Buffaloes…
If the Yankees don’t win the World Series this year, millions of shocked New Yorkers will want to know why. If the Colorado Rockies don’t finish last, three Little Leaguers up in the Rockpile will want to know how. Seen in the cold light of day, the 2004 Rox are…
The ever-vigilant Colorado Senate recently passed a bill that would ban so-called Toughman contests — three-round pick-up boxing matches that pit untrained fighters against each other, generally in front of drunken fans. The proposal, which has since been PC-ishly amended to address “Toughperson” contests, now awaits a hearing in the…
There’s no radio. Mother Nature provides the air conditioning. If you’re 6′ 3″, forget it. Houdini would have trouble squirming in and out of the thing. Wind this tiny, bug-eyed British beast up to 105 miles per hour or so, and it starts ripping and crashing into the oncoming air…
Just minutes before the kickoff of Super Bowl XXXVIII, John decides to fill up his plate with Swedish meatballs and cold cuts at a game-day party in an Aurora home. “Sorry,” he murmurs as he cuts in front of the TV screen, intruding on everyone’s field of vision. John is…
For someone who has two Super Bowl rings and his own football team and who fronts seventeen car dealerships, John Elway is a pretty modest guy. All right, so maybe the activity the Colorado Crush labors at is not really football, but you get the idea. Elway is not the…
Creekside Sports has been in the horsehide-swatting business since Gerald Ford was president. Softball in Denver has been around in one form or another since bell-bottoms were hip — the first time. And Crestmoor Park Softball Association opened its doors when John Travolta was dancing in white leisure suits. Now…
In the beginning, Rashiem Jefferson couldn’t get any fights. There were no other seventy-pound fourteen-year-olds in North Philadelphia willing to put on boxing gloves and rumble, so Rashiem would fill his pocket with the fight-gym tokens they gave him at school and go down to Joe Frazier’s and hit the…
This holiday season, many of you no doubt basked in the shared warmth of the same comforting customs that people have enjoyed for centuries during this festive and peaceful time of year: Sipping a warm glass of port, wearing your fanciest clothes, spending quality time with your friends and favorite…
They aren’t hanging any championship banners over Chopper Circle just yet. But Denver Nuggets fans are taking the brown paper bags off their heads in record numbers, and their families have cut back on those worried phone calls to the shrink. Hope, hoops and hooplah have returned to lift high…
Most of us never come close to solving the great mysteries of life. You know: What’s a “Hoya”? Do Jesus and Mohammed get together for lunch? How does the washing machine know to take in four socks and give back only three? Where have the Bush twins gone? I mean…
A few years back, I was sitting with a friend in a duck blind. It was a slow day of hunting, and we were discussing the recently passed Colorado initiative outlawing the spring bear hunt. The new law also prohibited baiting while pursuing a bear — a good thing, I…
That ominous rumble gaining volume in the mean saloons and unhappy living rooms of Denver is the sound of a citizen army being mustered. Taking up their cudgels as they pull on their predominantly orange flak jackets, these aroused militia-folk are clearly plotting an advance on Dove Valley, there to…
If you want to see the difference between a boys’ and a girls’ ice hockey game, stop by the Edge Ice Arena early on a Sunday morning. The building, part of the Foothills Recreation Complex southwest of Denver, is one of several erected in the metro area in recent years…
Five or six years ago, the Montreal Canadiens got around to sending Ralph Backstrom a chunky, diamond-encrusted gold ring to commemorate the six Stanley Cup championships the Habs won when he was a quick-skating, high-scoring center on the team, from the late 1950s through the 1960s. Backstrom cherishes the memento,…
In 1995, Joe Arcese, an administrator for a large urban college, had an idea. Enrollment was flagging, and the school had such low visibility that many potential students never even applied, because they didn’t think it was a genuine academic institution. “Back in the mid-’90s, a lot of people thought…
Having seen the bright lights of Syracuse, New York, Carmelo Anthony thinks Denver is “a slow town.” But there’s nothing slow about the way long-suffering Nuggets fans are taking the smiling nineteen-year-old rookie into their hearts. “I don’t know about LeBron James,” season-ticket holder Vince Shaefer said after the Nugs’…
