LESAProject

The 2010 Laureus World Sports Awards are cashed, but there was far too much information consumed over the last few days to have gotten it all down before the climactic ceremonies. Consequently, there will be several more stories trickling out of my laptop regarding the subject. Since I've got 12 hours to kill in the Abu Dhabi International Airport before the one flight a day to Frankfurt departs (conveniently timed for 1:50 in the morning) and it's kind enough to offer free, lightning-quick Internet, I figured now's as good a time as any to relate one of the highlights of the trip. On ...

Another gridiron hero fallen from grace, plastered on evening "news" shows and fodder for prime time sports engines.  Is he really a hero?  Is he something that should garner national news attention? Why are people so interested in someone they most likely don't know or have the remote chance of meeting?  Why must our nightly sports talk shows and nightly highlight reel cinemas be invaded by news of some college town where some QB was accused of something?  In short, why do you care? Isn't this a personal matter for the people involved?  I know, naive of me to think that ...

The 2010 Laureus World Sports Awards are officially in the book. Host Kevin Spacey opened the evening’s festivities with a bit of a grind, but hinted the real talent of an exceptional performer is the ability to fight through the ho-hums and keep going until the crowd is yours. The two-time Oscar winner peppered impressions of famous characters throughout the evening and, by the end, had the audience in his hand. His Morgan Freeman was all right; he cranked it up with Johnny Carson; pulled everyone’s ace in Christopher Walken; tossed in a little William Shatner;  broke out Katherine Hepburn; wowed ‘em with ...

No, this article is not about any marathon race. But it is about the origins of the marathon itself, some 2,500 years ago, on March 10, 490 B.C. The locale was Athenian Greece, the home of a then-novel concept called "democracy." This was due as much as anything else to an accident of geography. Unlike most other lands to the north, east, and west, which are basically flat, Greece is hilly. That meant that the land leant itself well to small, family-owned farms, rather than large estates held by wealthy landowners. The climate and soil proved especially suited to growing wine grapes and ...

"Sport has the power to change the world...Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair."—Nelson Mandela As most nationals do, I love my native soil. I won't pretend the United States of America is the best country in the world just because I call it home, but it's gotta be up there. Whenever I travel internationally and no matter how incredible the trip has been, it's always a relief to get home and see the Stars and Bars. She is by no means perfect, but the ol' gal offers a quality of life unrivaled in many (most?) other countries. Likewise, as gory as our social progression has ...

“The theater department got cut at my school, but at least the roof on that new stadium slides open and closed” The backwards statement posted above might be a realistic thought in the coming years if you are a student at a college or universtiy run by the State University System of Georgia. This week, Georgia legislatures passed a Bill that has opened the gates for millions of dollars to flood towards funding for the Georgia Dome site in downtown Atlanta. This decision was made as students protesting budget cuts in the State University System were throwing ...

Not only is the boxing public not supporting Joshua Clottey in his quest to capture the WBO welterweight title from Manny Pacquiao, but his own government isn't lending him a hand either. In an odd turn of events, Clottey's trainer Godwin Dzanie Kotey and assistant trainer Daniel Clottey have been denied a visa to enter the United States by the Ghanaian government. “Tell Ghana that they've disappointed me,” said Clottey to Filipino reporters earlier in the week. For the earlier portion of his training camp, Clottey, who is nearly a 5-1 underdog on betting lines offered by ...

Whatever the sport, Kevin Laue’s competition—even his teammates—always enjoyed leverage over him.  Laue was born with only one arm. Laue grew up in Pleasanton, California and exhibited an interest in sports at an early age. His supportive parents encouraged his participation in multiple sports as a child.  He was naturally at a disadvantage without a left arm below the elbow.  However, he never allowed his so-called disability to extinguish his passion for the sport he loved nor distinguish him as an athlete.  It merely drove him to work that much harder to level the playing field against his physically whole opponents. Gradually, Laue showed ...

Allen Iverson is a broken man.   His four-year old daughter Messiah is suffering from an undisclosed, but believed to be serious, illness.   Tawanna Iverson, his wife of eight and a half years, recently filed for divorce and requested custody of their five children.   Tawanna is Allen’s childhood sweetheart, and the woman he spoke of when he told Stephen A. Smith, “I’d die for her, and die without her.”   Numerous NBA insiders, including Smith, are also claiming that Iverson is battling alcohol and gambling problems.   Smith recently wrote, “If numerous NBA sources are telling the truth—and there’s no reason to believe they’d do otherwise in a ...

A refrain you hear quite frequently in the United States of America is the old saying, "it's only a game." To some degree, the phrase rings true. Nobody should be jumping off a bridge or sinking into a dark pit of despair because his or her team didn't win the big game. Peyton Manning shouldn't be moping around like someone took the jelly out of his donut simply because he didn't perform well with the bright lights amped up in this year's Super Bowl. No, individual games and performances are not hills upon which to die. However, widen the lens beyond an isolated game. Allow the ...