sports

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It instantly became one of the most classic moments in sports history.

Coach Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State – a scrappy team that had fought tooth and claw in defiance of all the odds – against University of Houston for the 1983 NCAA Basketball Championship. Houston: the team of “Phi Slamma Jamma”. Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. No wonder one sports writer said that “Trees will tap dance, elephants will race in the Indianapolis 500 and Orson Welles will skip dinner” before Jimmy V’s Wolfpack would beat the Cougars.

But we all know what happened. With seconds left in the game and the scored tied at 52, State’s Dereck Whittenburg made a desperate launch of the ball. Lorenzo Charles was right at the basket, caught the ball and dunked it hard!

North Carolina State had done it! And in those wild seconds after the buzzer, Coach Valvano – overwhelmed ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr.. On this occasion, good friend Doug Smith wrote some thoughts and posted them on Facebook. Doug asked if I could post his essay here as well. I don’t follow NASCAR too well, but I remember Earnhardt as being one of the finest drivers to ever be in the sport, and Doug’s thoughts about the state of NASCAR today are quite provocative and intriguing.

So without further ado, here’s Doug Smith’s post about No. 3 and what has happened to his sport…

“So, who you gonna pull for when he’s not racing any more?”

This is gonna be very much a free for all and may not follow a lot of structure but I’ve been planning this for a while and been beating myself up all day about what I wanted to write and how I

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Chris Knight's avatar

The World Cup kicked off today in South Africa. Let’s hear it for soccer!

I have nothing else to say. The only reason I made this post is because if made one about “World Cup” and included the words “soccer” and “sports” and “South Africa” and probably also “Uruguay” and “Argentina” and “Spain” and “Belgium” (can’t forget our good friends in Belgium… yeah hey to you too Benny) then The Knight Shift blog is no doubt going to get slammed with a wazoo of hits during the next 72 hours or so 😛

Seriously though: good luck to everyone!

(And lest y’all think I’m completely clueless about the World Cup, I’ll have y’all know that I not only watched the Three Tenors in Concert live during the World Cup in 1994, but I’m also a proud owner of the CD too!)...

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Chris Knight's avatar

John Wooden coached UCLA to ten national championships. But since his passing last night he’s being remembered by most as a teacher, a friend, and a gentleman…

Wooden was also quite a wise figure. ESPN has collected many of his quotes, including this one that I found especially noteworthy…

“Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

John Wooden was just shy of reaching his one hundredth birthday. An amazing long and wonderful life, he had....

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