The Score

They're touted as a dynasty. One of the greatest teams of any sport, any era. That's women's basketball out of the University of Connecticut, currently on a tear of 72 consecutive unbeaten games. The Lady Huskies won their 16th Big East title last week, whooping West Virginia in a lop-sided score of 60-32. Also last week, #8 in the country Notre Dame went down to UConn by an embarrassing 25. On Sunday the Huskies crushed Syracuse 77-41. The best anybody's done against UConn this season has been the supposedly supreme squad out of Stanford, but the Cardinal's best only brought them to within 12 points of the dominant Huskies...

When we talk sports, it's assumed we're talking the crème de la crème, such as the Olympians in Vancouver. There are maybe a dozen figure skaters of each gender, maybe a dozen who can perform those outrageously difficult jumps and spins and execute them artfully. And so it goes with all the sports we watch and cover on a daily basis...

I don't get it. Speed skaters, as is true with Olympic swimming and Track & Field, compete for medals at a wide range of distances, from the 500-meter sprint all the way up to the 10,000-meter endurance grind. Perhaps to the lay observer, it looks like they're doing the exact same thing at all these distances....

The skating and skiing of the Vancouver Winter Olympics begin this weekend. The two marquee names among the U.S. athletes in Canada are snowboarder Shaun “the flying tomato” White and downhill/slalom champion Lindsey Vonn. This is Vonn’s third Olympics but this time she’s at the top of her game and the pressure is great for her to achieve her potential of medals in all five of her events. Unfortunately, she sustained a deep shin bone contusion during a training run last week and is not 100% sure she’ll be able to go full throttle, especially in the slalom events where sharp curves around the markers require the boot to press heavily on the shin area....

Tim Tebow, University of Florida Heisman-winning quarterback, known as much if not more for his strong Christian faith as his world-class athletic status, will appear in a Superbowl ad that is stirring fervent debate. During her pregnancy with son Tim, in 1987, Pam Tebow was advised by doctors to consider aborting because of complications. She continued to full term and her fifth child, Tim, came into this world as a result of her decision...

This weekend, the drama of the last four NFL teams standing unfolds. By Sunday night, February 7's Superbowl will be set and there is no shortage of fans' hopeful predictions....

So now Mark McGwire has confessed. On one hand, his opening up seemed inevitable, hardly shocking news. We already knew he had used androstenedione, a steroid precursor with a molecular structure nearly identical to testosterone. We had already observed his bulky, typically steroidal physique. We had clearly read his body language when pleading the 5th Amendment during the 2005 Congressional Hearings. We the public had already felt duped by being swept up in McGwire's then-thrilling home run derby of 1998. And baseball insiders had already expressed their judgment in turning McGwire away from the Hall of Fame each year he has been eligible...

During tonight's National Championship college football game, Alabama versus Texas, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, you will notice as the cameras pan the sidelines two key players from these very same opponents way back 45 years ago. One is more famous, more recognizable, than the other. That's Joe Namath. He quarterbacked the Crimson Tide of Alabama that night in the Orange Bowl, nearly half a century ago. Going up against him was a tight end and linebacker for the University of Texas, Pete Lammons. Tonight Lammons will prowl behind the Longhorns bench while Namath will stick close to the boys of his alma mater, Bama...

It's that time of year when we kick around the biggest sports accomplishments of the year. And given that we're closing out 2009, this year the discussion broadens out to the top athlete of the decade. To my mind, there have been four athletes this first decade of the 21st century to have achieved such superlative careers that we could rightly describe each as one of those truly rare specimens who come along only once in a lifetime...

Truth be told, I didn't want to talk about Tiger today. As usual, there is a meaty array of sports subjects that would make fine fodder for commentary this week. But how can I just skip over the Tale of the Tiger and pretend the story doesn't continue to draw me in, draw you in? Dozens of texts to his various mistresses have now surfaced. The evidence is indisputable...

The shock waves emanating from this week's Tiger Woods fiasco are loud indeed...and growing. Tiger tried to retreat to silence so that only theoretical conjectures have swirled since he crashed his car last week, evidently after some sort of marital dispute with his wife. But when Tiger was backed into a fox hole yesterday, by the release of a voicemail message from a third woman he has been connected to sexually, he may not have issued a detailed confession to extramarital affairs, but on his website he issued a statement saying he regrets his “transgressions” with all his heart...

Boxing used to be a passion of mine. But it's been twenty years since I was constantly immersed in the fight game, since the glory days of Hagler, Hearns, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard. I've missed traveling or tuning in to the big bouts that drew worldwide interest beyond boxing purists. And I'm not the only one. And now I'm not the only one to be drawn back to the ring and the draw is a terribly exciting, magnetic, highly skilled Filipino named Manny Pacquiao...

Andre Agassi's autobiography came out early this week and the chapter that has drawn the most attention is his admission to using crystal meth through much of 1997, during a down-time in his career… and lying about it to tour officials. I've read the book, titled Open, and, for me, the crystal meth confession was the least revelatory of all the Agassi life stories...

As of last night, on a clear, chilly fall night in the Bronx, the Yankees became World Series champs for the 27th time in their storied history. How grand it was to see Mr. November, Derek Jeter, win his fifth ring. To stop worrying about Alex Rodriguez as he smashed his past of fading post-season. To admire the entirely likeable Andy Pettitte who commands the mound like a dependable, quiet giant. Matsui, Posada, Texeira, Damon. They're bursting with talent, brimming with heart, driven with focus. They're a heck of a team and it was a heck of a Series...