From March 13, 2013 edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly

With the initial tipoff of Wednesday’s Conference USA Championship Tournament opening game, the City of Tulsa began a four-day soiree that will yield an estimated $3 million in local tax revenue.

It’s not something the average citizen thinks all that much about — especially if they’re not too interested in sports — but major sporting events like this week’s tournament are as much about the reputation of their host city and potential city growth as they are about the on-field or on-court action they provide.

While the most memorable moments wi...

Already this year, without a single game being played, Major League Baseball has made history.

With the help of a select few sportswriters privileged enough to determine the destinies of some of the game’s greatest players, 2013 will mark the first year since 1960 that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America didn’t elect anyone to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Though it’s a well-known fact that many recent potential inductees enjoyed careers during baseball infamous “steroid era,” the association has undoubtedly changed the game and the tradition that accompanies it forever.

Fan fav...

Michael Jordan is a gambling degenerate.

Walter Payton was a philanderer.

Whether you choose to acknowledge these statements as factual is your own decision.  Of course these are two of the most highly regarded professional athletes in history — both on and off their respective playing surfaces — but the idea of either superstar being fallible is something many sports fans and members of the media simply fail to recognize.

The same can be said about former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o.

For the better part of the 2012 college football season, Te’o played the role of hero to near perfec...

[UPDATE: So much for that...]

Let’s put Peyton Manning’s season into perspective:

First, Manning returned to the NFL after missing an entire season recovering from having his neck basically reconstructed. Choosing to go another direction, Manning’s longtime employer, the Indianapolis Colts, chose to let their two-time MVP quarterback go.

Essentially, Manning entered 2012 with a future that could not have been any more uncertain.

He signed with the Denver Broncos, an outdoor team that had far fewer offensive weapons than Manning enjoyed as a member of the Colts, and has gradually returned to p...