1. “Kieran Donaghy was about 40 feet away from this great hulking figure coming against him when he realised he would soon be in the company of basketball royalty. Manna from Heaven! Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, five times an NBA winner and three times MVP, just happened to be on the same stretch of sand at that hour of the morning when he stopped by a young man with stars in his eyes. Being the outgoing sort that Donaghy is, the Austin Stacks clubman managed to detain ‘Magic’ for five minutes, somehow procured a camera to grab a picture with him and told him of his preference for Larry Bird, Johnson’s great Boston Celtics rival through the 1980s.”
Great piece from Colm Keys in the Irish Independent: when Star met Magic.
2.“For those 15 excruciating minutes in front of the TV cameras, he put on his best game face. “I was never going to run and hide from this—I couldn’t,” he says. And yet, in walking off the stage he was walking away, at 32, from an astonishing career and driving passion and into the frightening unknown. What were his chances, and what would become of his young family?”
Speaking of the great Lakers star, Magic tells Newsweek how he’s coped with being HIV positive.
3. “During my hundreds of hours of interviews with him, the boxing champ never mentioned his bombshell revelations of abuse at the hands of a coach. So why are they coming out now? The New York Times published an eye-popping story yesterday. Sugar Ray Leonard, the last boxer to hold the world in his hands with his speed and stamina and charisma, is about to publish a book in which he claims he was sexually abused as a teenager.”
Buzz Bissinger on Sugar Ray’s disturbing revelations this week.
4. “The Strong Counties: The same three or four strongholds rich in people, land, tradition, ballads, nicknames, eccentric radio broadcasters, boarding schools and the kind of collective bloody-mindedness required to keep on winning All-Irelands. Always careful about how they speak about the counties whose asses they have been kicking since Michael Collins was chasing Kitty Kiernan because they don’t want to appear smug – which makes them seem even smugger. Have an inkling but not the full picture of just how much they are hated by the nation at large.”
It’s Championship time. Keith Duggan in the Irish Times explains it all.
5. “The company would have Christmas parties up at some horrible place in Bristol. A couple of them were drunken orgies…. It became like a big frat party. There were a lot of drugs being done in the bathroom.”
The biggest book of the sports publishing year, Those Guys Have All The Fun, is about to blow the lid on the culture at ESPN. I’ve pre-ordered mine I must admit. Deadspin have extracts all week.
6. “I am still trying to get over the fact that Gael Monfils, a Frenchman, has a “cheese allergy.” Ridicule! . . . Ironique! But as we all know, French players have an even worse allergy—to success at Roland Garros.”
Why do home players do so bad in at the French Open, asks Pete Bodo.
7. “The first thing to start with is always a Kerry moan. When did everyone suddenly decide that this is Colm Cooper’s s time, that he is the man of the generation and the saviour of gaelic football? Spillane was at it again on Sunday night. Why is 2011 different to another other year since 2002?“
Irish Examiner sports editor Tony Leen ‘throws in the ball’ for a championship debate with staffers and columnists.
