They walked with heads held high, harboring dreams imagined in black and gold, marching to the peculiar orders of the times.

A movement was beginning. That day, 50,000 people passed through the doors of Three Rivers Stadium, the massive concrete structure looming just west of the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, this time hoping that the Steelers, after 40 irrelevant seasons, were finally taking them somewhere worth going.

Each person in the stadium had his or her own dramas outside of it. There was the war that seemingly would not end, the intensifying of racial tensions across the city and, for those who were paying close enough attention, the fear that those hulking mills that lined the rivers were not going to be needed forever. But, the Steelers were host to the Oakland Raiders in the first round of the NFL playoffs, and such pressing matters could be thrust to the back burner for the good of Pittsburgh.

An absolute must read article for oh-so-many reasons, but perhaps above all for what it teaches about American history. Take the time to peruse it all–KSH.

The National Football League (NFL) reached an agreement to end a labor dispute with its regular game officials on Wednesday, ending three weeks of questionable calls that had threatened the integrity of the sport.

The eight-year deal with the NFL Referees Association (NFLRA) will allow locked-out officials to return to action for this week’s games after replacements had struggled to act as cover for them in the early stages of the 2012 season.

Read it all. also, the regular referees are to work the Thursday game after the agreement, the AP reports.

Just when the anger and complaints from a weekend of contempt toward replacement officials couldn’t get any hotter, a disputed call trumps it all.

Replacement ref rage peaked Monday night thanks to Seattle’s Golden Tate, and a bizarre touchdown call that will be debated, questioned and re-ignite frustrations over the locked-out officials.

Tate pushed a Green Bay defender out of the way, wrestled another for the ball and was awarded a touchdown on the final play to give the Seahawks a 14-12 victory over the Packers.

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Fans and players of both Liverpool and Manchester United paid their respects at Anfield to the 96 fans who died at Hillsborough in 1989.

Flowers, shirts and cards were placed outside the Shankly Gates and the by the memorial to the victims of the tragedy 23 years ago.

And as both teams emerged wearing tracksuits bearing the number 96, while United legend Sir Bobby Charlton presented flowers to Liverpool counterpart Ian Rush before respective skippers Steven Gerrard and Ryan Giggs released 96 red balloons.

Take the time to look at the pictures–deeply moving.

When Major League Baseball umpire Mark Wegner, a Catholic, is in Baltimore to work at an Orioles game, one way he likes to spend his spare time is by helping people in need.

“I have free time, and I try to use it productively, but nothing is more productive than, going to Mass, No. 1, but No. 2, coming to do some things like this,” said Wegner.

Dressed in an Under Armour T-shirt, baseball cap and a green apron, the umpire was working with other volunteers on a recent Friday at Our Daily Bread, a Catholic Charities of Baltimore program that serves meals to the city’s homeless. He and the others were preparing tables, mixing salads and filling plates for the lunch crowd.

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As a goodbye present, the team recently gave Sundhage a guitar that was signed by all the players in ”” surprise, surprise ”” the color of gold.

“It’s the best present I ever got,” she said.

They gave her quite a few memories along the way, too.

Sundhage’s most poignant? That’s easy: When the team roared back against Brazil in the quarterfinals of the 2011 World Cup. Wambach tied it at 2-2 with a magnificent, leaping header in the 122nd minute. The United States eventually captured the match, 5-3, on penalty kicks.

Read it all and do not miss the fabulous picture.

Six months ago, the Harvard men’s basketball team was a source of uncommon athletic pride on campus. The team was ranked among the nation’s top 25 for the first time, and when it earned the program’s first berth to the N.C.A.A. tournament in 66 years, students and players spilled into Harvard Square chanting and celebrating.

The next day, Harvard’s staid campus of red-brick buildings was hardly one big pep rally, but from the Harvard bookstore, which printed commemorative basketball T-shirts, to the college’s president, who called the team “a real community building force,” the university seemed to bask in an atypical glow of sporting achievement.

But last week, days after published reports implicated the co-captains of the basketball team in a widespread academic cheating scandal that may involve dozens of varsity athletes, the mood at Harvard had shifted.

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It is important that you take the time to listen to this–it starts 36 minutes and 20 seconds in (click on the arrow above the “45 mins” to the left of the picture in the box).

Watch it all (click on the picture–21 and 3/4 minutes).

Wow.

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A certain brand of optimism had been required for James Franklin to forgive his father, to forget their past. But now it was being tested. In his father’s new home, Franklin listened to his father’s new wife deny his father’s sins against him, his sister and their mother.

Then Franklin’s father, also named James, stopped her. It was true, he said. He had done awful things to his former wife and their two children. A proud, stubborn man who was now defeated and dying, Franklin finally admitted this to his son. He was painfully frail, an oxygen tank by his side, cancer attacking his spine and lungs. Still, a sense of righteousness filled the younger Franklin. He wanted his mother and sister to feel it too.

Within a month, his father would be dead. But not before Franklin recruited him to visit their old home in Langhorne, Pa., where his father’s alcoholism and violence had ruined a marriage and nearly destroyed his family.

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Unbelievable stuff.

Wow. 7-6 in the fifth, after having been down 4-1.

The National Football League has faced unwanted scrutiny over the past seven months, ranging from lawsuits from former players over head injuries to a scandal exposing one team’s secret reward program for hard hits on opponents. But as the league opens its regular season Wednesday night, a new Washington Post poll suggests that football remains by far the country’s most popular sport and that the game’s inherent violence is as much of an appeal as it is a liability.

Even as many media critics have suggested the threat of injuries may impair the game’s long-term health, 44 percent of fans in the new poll say their interest in pro football is on the rise, while 32 percent report a drop-off. More than one in three of Americans polled said football is their favorite to watch ”” nearly three times as popular as baseball, which finished second in the poll.

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When Stakwell Yurenimo, a Samburu in northern Kenya, did well on his eighthgrade exams, the Kenyan government informed him that he had qualified to go to a high school that they would choose. They also chose his roommate, a young man named Paul, who was a member of the enemy tribe, the Turkana. Stakwell determined in his mind that there was no way he would room with a Turkana. In fact, part of his culture demanded that in order to be respected as a man, he needed to kill a Turkana….

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As I prepare to immerse myself in another season of ill-fated devotion, there is a question I can’t shake: Why? Not why do the Raiders keep losing, but why does anyone follow an incompetent, perpetually failing team? It’s a question that resonates across an entire nation of fanatics, from the frigid Cheeseheads of Wisconsin to the yodeling herds of Texas, from the mile-high multitudes to the bellowing masses of New York.

In offering explanations, the afflicted tend to stress the laudable aspects of sport. It’s perfectly natural, we note, to admire the grace and strength of our finest athletes. Their contests reconnect us to the unscripted physical pleasures of childhood. They simplify and lend moral structure to a world that feels increasingly chaotic. And they allow men, in particular, a common language by which to express deep emotions (rage, disappointment, joy) that might otherwise feel forbidden ”” as well as activating our ancient yearning for tribal affiliation.

Unfortunately, these reasons don’t quite justify the more pathological practitioners of fandom. By which I mean hard cases like me, who spend decades rooting for teams that almost invariably stomp our hearts. To understand this species of devotion requires the invocation of Omar Little, the mystical Robin Hood figure of “The Wire.” As he puts it, “A man’s gotta have a code.”

This is a must not miss from forlorn Oakland Raiders fan Steve Almond in a recent New York Times magazine–read it all.

Organised in conjunction with the British Paralympic Association and the English Federation of Disability Sport, “Courage and Faith: The opening service for the London 2012 Paralympic Games”, was not part of the official programme, but was billed as an “act of worship”, “part of the Christian response” to the Games. Lord Coe was unable to attend, and most of the current Paralympic athletes were too immersed in training to appear….

The wheelchair athlete Anne Wufula-Strike contributed to a sense of living faith, giving her personal testimony to sport as a means of witness: “God sees me as perfect. . . He uses me and has a purpose for me.” She went on to describe how sport could also educate and empower people, especially in the developing world, to fight the stigmatisation of disability and “to be included in their communities”.

In this, she echoed the address by Baroness Grey-Thompson, the Paralympic gold medallist, who described how the Games could “challenge the accepted view of what disabled people can do. . . Paralym-pic sport has the power to change the world.”

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The US television network NBC was branded an embarrassment yesterday for its coverage of the Paralympics as athletes, sports chiefs and disability campaigners called for better recognition by international broadcasters of the world’s second largest sports event.
Fierce reaction to the widespread blackout beyond Britain of the Opening Ceremony on Wednesday night came after a record number of people tuned in to watch the critically acclaimed event live on Channel 4.
The host broadcaster reported a peak audience of 11.2 million viewers, its biggest for more than ten years.
Conversely, NBC will wait until September 16 before screening its 90-minute special on the Paralympics, including edited highlights of the show.

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In your recently published autobiography, Wherever I Wind Up, you’re explicit about how God saved and changed your life. Journalists have interviewed you a lot over the past several months. What percentage of the interviewers have asked about your Christian faith? Probably 15 to 20 percent.

The subject didn’t come up in your NPR interview. I brought it up. They edited it out. I always look for opportunities to talk about my faith in a way that is congruent with the story or the question that they ask, because it is important to me that people know. Most of the time it will be edited out.

Your description of the knuckleball”””The pitch has a mind of its own. You either embrace it for what it is””a pitch that is reliant on an amalgam of forces both seen and unseen””or you allow it to drive you half out of your mind”””seems like a metaphor for the mysteries of God’s providence in the Christian life. To a certain extent it is, at least for me. An element of surrender has enabled me to get to the next place with the knuckleball. An element of surrender in my own life has helped me get to the next place in my faith and relationship to Christ. I didn’t necessarily draw the parallel intentionally, but as a Christian there were so many times in my life where I wanted to control things and I would hold on to them so tightly that God couldn’t get anywhere near them””or so I thought.

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“I had a lady come up to me and say, you know a lot of people are looking forward to seeing you get hit.”

–Peyton Manning, new Denver Bronco’s quarterback, as heard on ESPN Sportscenter

The Bishop of Chelmsford the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell has praised the vital legacy of the London Games saying in his own diocese – home to the Olympic Park and Village – and beyond, the Games are having an important impact on community life.

Commenting on the last day of the Olympics and looking forward to the Paralympics Bishop Stephen said that along with regeneration he believed the games could bring a further change – a legacy of good will….

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King Felix now has a crowning achievement.

Felix Hernandez pitched the Seattle Mariners’ first perfect game and the 23rd in baseball history, overpowering the Tampa Bay Rays in a brilliant 1-0 victory on Wednesday.

The 2010 AL Cy Young Award winner long has talked of his desire to achieve pitching perfection. He finally accomplished it against the Rays, striking out the side twice and finishing with 12 strikeouts. It was the third perfect game in baseball this season — a first — joining gems by Chicago’s Philip Humber against the Mariners in April and San Francisco’s Matt Cain against Houston in June. More than half of all perfectos — 12 — have come in the past 25 seasons.

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Melky Cabrera, whose breakout season with the San Francisco Giants was highlighted by his MVP performance in the All-Star Game, has been suspended 50 games for testing positive for testosterone, Major League Baseball announced.

Cabrera, a 27-year-old outfielder, has produced a major league-leading 159 hits this season, along with 11 home runs and 69 RBI. Acquired by the Giants in the off-season from the Kansas City Royals, Cabrera was on his way to a career year prior to being eligible for free agency this winter….

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Christian households have also enabled the families of foreign athletes to experience “the heart of British home-life” by providing accommodation during the Games, under the Homestay initiative organised by More than Gold.

“Jesus Christ was someone who served people, who met their needs, joined in their celebrations,” Canon Hugh Dibbins, a retired priest, told Radio 4’s Sunday programme this week. “Stories of what happened in the 2012 Olympics are passed on from generation to generation, and contacts continue, even though the Games finish.”

One story likely to make its way across the ocean is the tale of the Madagascan Olympic athletes and their families who landed at Luton with no luggage. On opening the door to guests with only the clothes they stood up in, Sister Anne Spilberg, part of the Homestay scheme, went to Brentwood Roman Catholic Church to ask for help. The immediate donations included 20 bags of clothes.

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It isn’t a pretty game the way they play it, and they seem never to make it easy, but they come through–KSH.

The United States women’s soccer team is not a Dream Team. It can’t be. After all, Dream Teams don’t have nightmares, as Abby Wambach grimly described last summer’s shootout loss to Japan in the World Cup final.

It is strange then how many and how widely the Americans continually captivate. Typically, fans in the United States fall in love with the fresh, new face ”” think of the gymnast Gabby Douglas and the swimmer Missy Franklin ”” or become obsessed with a team based on dominance and power and might. The Olympic men’s basketball teams are made up of N.B.A. mercenaries, yes, but they are almost always effective mercenaries. They throttle. They pummel. They thump.

The women’s soccer team does not, or at least it has not as often over the past few years….The attraction, it seems, lies in their flaws. Unlike the basketball Dream Teams and unlike their sporting ancestors, the commanding women’s soccer squads of the 1990s, the current incarnation is gloriously imperfect.

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Dave Hazewinkel, Sam’s father, wrestled in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. With Sam wrestling in London this week as part of the U.S. team, the pair becomes the first U.S. father and son wrestlers to compete in the Olympics for the United States.

“It’s hard to put in words,” Sam said about competing in the Olympics. “It’s been a dream of mine that I’ve been chasing since I was really young. It’s not everywhere that you get the kind of support that I got from my dad, where I understood that I could be an Olympian. He did it. I could do it. Hard work pays off.”

Dave and Sam share more than a father-son relationship, however. They’re also brothers in Christ, ever since Dave led Sam to the Lord when he was 6 years old.

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After the match’s final point, [Misty] May-Treanor and [Kerri] Walsh collapsed on the sand and embraced. They hugged their opponents before beginning a victory lap around the court, finding their friends, family and coaches in the stands.

One of the most touching moments of the celebration featured Walsh, wrapped in the American flag, holding both of her sons in her arms as fans cheered.

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Is it crazy for an Olympian to claim that God directs his training regimen? You’d think so from reactions to the much-publicized Christian piety of U.S. Olympic marathon contender Ryan Hall ”” his recent assertion, in particular, that God is his coach.

Commented one Huffington Post reader beneath an article on the role of faith in Hall’s training for this Sunday’s race: “I hope Ryan gets the medication he needs in a timely way.”

Thanks to Hall’s growing notoriety, and to public fascination with other young evangelical sports figures such as football icon Tim Tebow and basketball sensation Jeremy Lin, debates are breaking out anew whether an athlete can pray his way to a gold medal or championship. Let this skeptic suggest an answer that might surprise you….

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