LESAProject

Sports are ridiculous.Think about it.  We gather and watch grown men and women kick a ball into a massive net, tackle each other for 60 minutes, hit a speeding ball with a piece of wood, and try to chuck a big orange ball into a basket.A team's loss can ruin our week, or a dramatic win can bring a tear to our eye.  Really, it's just a game!  Doesn't that sound crazy? Neanderthal cavemen didn't have any of these things and they got by okay.  Sport is a man-made creation, after all. For some reason, we find ourselves enamored with this seemingly ...

I am a diehard, passionate sports fan, always have been and always will be.  And, as a diehard, passionate sports fan, there is one thing I hate more than anything else: front-runners.  It is unacceptable to root for a team simply because it is good.In my eyes, you can't be a sports fan unless you've suffered the pain of losing, because without that, you can't fully appreciate what it feels like to win.  You can't stop cheering for your team if it is losing, but I do understand people watching their team less frequently out of pure frustration.  This is ...

U.S. hurdler Lolo Jones dons a selection of what appear to be white ping pong balls as she sprints and leaps her way down the 100-meter track. By day's end, a computer will inform her what she is doing right and where she can improve.Welcome to Mathletics, the 21st century approach to running a faster race.With the help of Red Bull Project X, Jones is learning how to better her chances of winning a medal in London by taking performance science to an Olympic level it has never quite reached before.From Optojump LEDs to Phantom Flex Video, Jones is learning ...

I recently had the opportunity to view some excerpts from the documentary We Grew Wings, a project centered on the women's track program at the University of Oregon. The implementation of Title IX in 1972 is the matrix in which two successful eras in women's track at Oregon were joined together.Many younger track fans might take the recent success of the University of Oregon Women's track program for granted.After all, they are the three-time defending NCAA Indoor champions and runners-up in the last three NCAA Outdoor championships. They have gained a level of respect and honor throughout the collegiate sphere ...

Umpires, we have a dangerous concussion epidemic on our hands—heads.Earlier this week, MLB umpire Chad Fairchild took a 95-mile-per-hour sinker from Rockies pitcher Jeremy Guthrie to the center of his protective face mask, suffering a concussion that resulted in his withdrawal from the weekend's Rockies-Phillies series.Like most players and other officials, Fairchild toughed it out after his seventh-inning head-shot, sticking around for the remainder of Colorado's walk-off loss to Philly. After the game, manager Jim Tracy admitted that sophomore catcher Wilin Rosario had been crossed up: "He was looking for one pitch and another one showed up." The corresponding missed catch resulted in the direct ...

Despite the greatest efforts of Bud Selig, the MLBPA and Major League Baseball owners, the book on performance-enhancing drug (PED) use within the sport won’t quite close. This past offseason gave us the now infamous positive-but-not-technically drug test of 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun, who became the first player in the brief history of drug testing in MLB to successfully appeal a positive test. Baseball fans barely got a chance to put that fiasco behind them before the Roger Clemens perjury trial got under way, a two-year ordeal that finally resulted in the seven-time Cy Young Award winner being ...

Coming to a living room near you...It all started at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games at Seoul—by then, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) had persuaded the International Olympic Committee to include the commonplace game of ping pong as a bona fide Olympic sport.With table tennis as trailblazer No. 1, it is high time here in 2012 that the Olympic Games welcome in more living room events as full-fledged, medal-bearing athletic contests.Let the Games begin with the following 10 "Olympic" sports you can play in your living room.Begin Slideshow

This year, the Toronto Blue Jays had the honor of playing the Washington Nationals, Atlanta Braves and New York Mets in interleague play.As of June 19, these teams are a combined 19 games over .500.The Chicago White Sox, a team the Jays are battling against in the wild-card standings, get to play the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers. These teams are a combined 37 games below .500. Last year showed how important one game can be, when the St. Louis Cardinals qualified for the playoffs on the final day of the regular season and went on to win ...

Soccer refereeing has long relied on just three on-field officials—a referee and two assistants, one on each side line. For decades, this structure, though peppered with flaws, appeared to keep the peace.In 2010, and in response to technology confirming a slew of missed calls at or near the goal line, the UEFA Executive Committee approved a proposal to add two assistant referees to either goal line, effectively giving the sport two goal judges authorized to rule handballs, penalties and other issues of play involving the scoring of a goal (via Goal.com).Since the two-year trial was adopted following UEFA's proposal to FIFA, ...

The 2011 NFL season consisted of three quarterbacks passing for more than 5,000 yards, huge tight ends creating more match-up problems than ever, and too many roughing the passer penalties called.Rules changes have played a fairly significant part in changing the pro football landscape.However, don't expect those adjustments to be the reason for minimal change in the spirit of the league's game play in 2012.Defense winning championships seems to be a thing of the past. Having a solid running game will only get you so far in today's NFL, too.It seems the formula for success today is less physicality, ...