At least we now know this much about Brian Kelly: He’s no Ara Parseghian. Not yet, anyhow. In 1964, his first season as the head coach at Notre Dame, Parseghian turned a team that had been 2-7 the previous year into one that lost only one game and almost won the national title. In that […]

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Most rivalries I can understand. Take Kentucky-Louisville, for example. It’s largely a rural vs. city thing, and each side has stereotypes of the other that they will trot out at the slightest provocation. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s ugly. But at least it’s fairly easy to comprehend.
But the St. Xavier-Trinity rivalry baffles me because so […]

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Since the line between pro basketball and big-time college basketball is virtually non-existent, I don’t see the big deal about whether University of Kentucky recruit Enes Kanter got paid to play in Turkey.
In fact, the way I see it, there’s a very simple solution: UK should agree to pay off the rest of Kanter’s contract […]

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Over the years I tried several times to tell S.T. Roach how much I admired him, how much I owed him, how much I cared about him. But I finally desisted because it embarrassed him. Oh, I think a part of him was flattered. But Mr. Roach – that’s what I always called him — […]

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CINCINNATI — The long-awaited major-league debut of Aroldis Chapman turned into a cosmic event Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park. The crowd of more than 19,000 began buzzing as soon as the scoreboard announced that the Cuban left-hander was warming up his 105 mph fastball in the bullpen. When the gate swung open and […]

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