LESAProject

Sports are emotional, there is no doubting that.  With every game that takes place, college or professional, you are bound to come across more than a few angry fans cursing the very existence of a rival player. The sports may vary, but the animosity remains the same.  Ravens fans hate Ben Roethlisberger the same way Lakers fans hate Kevin Garnett, with all their heart and their soul. Whenever two rivals are playing, search the twitter feed and you'll find plenty of profanity-laced rants, silly generalizations and envious taunts. The need-to-hate, or "talk smack," has always been there. It is as much a ...

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond by Michael Oher with Don YaegerGotham Books 2011ISBN: 978-1-59240-612-8 Michael Oher has had so many other people tell his story that he must have felt he finally had to tell his own story in his own words. Michael Oher may be the most well-known offensive lineman in the history of the National Football League after the movie The Blind Side, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Michael Lewis, was a hit. The Blind Side tells of an inner city Memphis kid who grew up virtually ...

Craftsbury, Vermont, nestled in the forests of northern New England, is famous for two movies filmed on location: one film was made by Alfred Hitchcock, and the other stars Bill "Spaceman" Lee. Alfred Hitchcock, The Master of Suspense who brought us Psycho and The Birds, went to Craftsbury in 1954. He was attracted to the rural small-town setting where for a few weeks in the autumn, the foliage and splash of colors roll over the hills for miles in every direction. A self-styled eccentric and vagabond, Bill Lee came to Craftsbury after playing for the Montreal Expos. Still tiny, more of a ...

Any hardcore sports video gamer has had their share of loved ones attempting to limit the amount of playing time because they feel that it is a waste time. What gamer hasn’t heard their parents say “Those games are no good for you!” or your wife/significant other complain about the amount of time spent with your games rather than them. In fact, it’s one of the most common complaints from married couples. What many do not understand is that when we play a sports video game we are taken away, yes like Calgon. It allows us to enter a superficial world where ...

Recently, public employees nationwide have been feeling the sting of the torrent of rights losses trailing back to Wisconsin. Governor Scott Brown and his merry band of thieves AKA the state senate felt pretty grand after seizing the power to destroy unions.  Because, as we all know, teachers everywhere need the extra cash to pay for the insurances on their individual fleets of Rolls-Royces.Its an outbreak reaching across the nation. Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan all have union-stripping measures before them.Tennessee is not a ...

There are likely two loves in the professional life of new Boston Celtics point guard Carlos Arroyo: basketball and music. Carlos is known for his amazing quickness and his mental agility. In his first game, he called Celtics plays that they had not yet taught him. How? He observes. Like most point guards, Carlos has an uncanny peripheral vision, but that merely is a tool that fires up his intellect. If you want to know how sophisticated his basketball play is, you merely have to hear his music. He knows the flow and rhythm of a game. He has immediately ...

In recent comments, Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson claimed that the deal the NFL is trying to get its players to agree to in the ongoing collective bargaining saga is akin to “modern-day slavery.” This seeming slip of the tongue by Peterson is much more than that. It points to a much larger problem that society at large, not just Peterson and other pro athletes, needs to address.  Society as a whole is to blame for Peterson’s momentary lack of humility, perspective and reality.  Counter to what youth coaches would like to believe, great athletes are and will ...

I’ve heard enough about the NFL vs. the now defunct NFLPA. All the noise is making me hermatile. The owners want to take back the franchise from the players. On the other side, players are fighting for some more job security, safety concerns and maybe a little retirement nest-egg. The franchise owners claimed they were not getting enough return on investment in the old CBA agreement and abandoned it early. And no, they will not open their books to allow everyone to see how little income is made through their respective franchises. It is also said that the NFLPA has only been giving ...

On March 15, 2011, Indiana regulators fined the University of Notre Dame $77,500 for being at fault for the death of student Declan Sullivan, who perished in the fall of last year while he was filming football practice for his beloved Irish team. The actual figure that a place of employment can be fined is $70,000 - so yes, it hit the maximum. On a windy day, Declan Sullivan went up a tower to film the all-important practice in 50 MPH+ winds, and the tower toppled, killing the student. Sullivan himself knew it wasn't safe, telling his Twitter followers that he'd "guessed ...

Three auctions will be held online, starting at the end of April, to sell off the honors, prizes and collectibles of legendary Boston Celtics coach and brain-trust Red Auerbach. His championship rings, a satin warm-up jacket, various autographed items, a golf bag from an All-Star game and even his humidor for those cigars will be some of the items available for the well-heeled souvenir collector with a large debit card limit. The average fan will likely not be part of the bidding on the “Auerbach Collection,” memorabilia to be sold to the highest bidder. The price will not be right. For a few ...