Posts by Michael Weinreb
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Ten Conversations About One Quarterback
Indianapolis and the meaning of Peyton Manning.
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Sports Book Hall of Fame: Searching for Bobby Fischer
In 1993, a screenwriter staked his burgeoning career on a movie about chess. His name was Steven Zaillian, and he might be the most important man in Hollywood you’ve never heard of: In the two decades since, he’s written (or cowritten) adapted screenplays for Schindler’s List and Clear and Present Danger and A Civil Action […]
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Wayne Morgan Puts on The Hat
We were waiting in the library for the press conference to begin. It was an unseasonably warm day in Brooklyn, and some of the windows were open and others had signs on them: DANGER! PLEASE DO NOT OPEN WINDOW! BROKEN! We were waiting in the library of a public high school on Flatbush Avenue, and […]
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A Visit With the Worst College Basketball Team in America
Tough times at Towson University.
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Schiano Recruits Himself Right Into the NFL
I have no idea if Greg Schiano will be a successful coach in Tampa Bay. The early consensus appears to be that he will fail. This is because Schiano doesn’t have the feel of a successful pro coach, which I guess is what happens when an NFL franchise goes after someone who is not comically […]
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Joe Paterno: 1926-2012
The hugely complicated problem of remembering a hugely complicated legend.
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The Ugliest Year in College Football History
Did you see that game last night?
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Can Bill O’Brien Succeed at Penn State?
Not long after Joe Paterno became the head coach at Penn State, he received a letter from an alumnus, a doctor in the small town of East Stroudsburg. The Nittany Lions had struggled to win their season opener over Maryland, and Paterno felt burdened by the legacy of his predecessor, Rip Engle, who guided Penn […]
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Sugar Bowl Revisited: Basking in the Big Ten’s Faux Success
At the end of the Best-Worst Sugar Bowl since Fordham’s 2-0 drubbing of Missouri in 1942, those of us who made it that far witnessed one last inexplicable act: Michigan trotted out a kicker who resembled Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty, and said kicker stutter-stepped like a bad dancer before the ball was snapped. […]
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R.I.P.: How to Make it in America
I humbly accept that How To Make It In America was not a particularly good television show, if we’re going by the standards of, say, good television shows. And yet I continued to watch it until the end. That’s not so strange, I guess; that happens all the time. I am one of those people […]