Football’s ramifications so concerned the former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson that, after deciding to kill himself last Thursday, he shot himself in the chest, apparently so that his brain could remain intact for similar examination.

This intent, strongly implied by text messages Duerson sent to family members soon before his death, has injected a new degree of fear in the minds of many football players and their families, according to interviews with them Sunday. To this point, the roughly 20 N.F.L. veterans found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy ”” several of whom committed suicide ”” died unaware of the disease clawing at their brains, how the protein deposits and damaged neurons contributed to their condition.

Duerson, 50, was the first player to die after implying that brain trauma experienced on the football field would be partly responsible for his death.

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In “Everyone’s a Winner,” sociologist Joel Best notes in passing that the inflation of military rank is still very much with us, but his survey of America’s self- congratulatory culture concentrates primarily on contemporary suburban life. Everywhere the author turns his gaze””from bumper stickers that boast about “my kid the honor-roll student” to boosterish “employee of the month” awards ”” Mr. Best sees a proliferation of prizes that seems to arise from a desperate desire to exclude fewer and fewer people from the winner’s podium.

This tendency is evident in the broader cultural realm. Literary prizes are now given for every kind of category, including 12 different kinds of detective fiction recognized by the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar awards. The nominees for the Best Picture Oscar (nominations themselves are awards) have recently doubled from five to 10, and the number of Grammy awards given out last Sunday night came to more than 100. Valedictorians were once unique; now some high schools have dozens. The label “hero,” Mr. Best observes, is ever more broadly applied””not just to soldiers but to firemen, cancer patients and even community volunteers.

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[James] Eunice, a 17-year-old Valdosta native who drowned while duck hunting last month at Ocean Pond in Lake Park, has been posthumously named to the University of Georgia’s football roster by head coach Mark Richt.

During Eunice’s funeral last Saturday, Jay Rome and Malcolm Mitchell, who played football with Eunice at Valdosta High and have signed letters of intent to play for Georgia, came to the podium with a box. A letter that Richt had written to the Eunice family was read to the mourners in attendance.

At the end of the letter, Richt wrote, “Oh yeah, James made the team.”

Then Rome and Mitchell took an official Georgia jersey out of the box. On the jersey were Eunice’s last name and the No. 23 he had worn at Valdosta.

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Wonderful stuff-watch/listen to it all.

Update: There is a great picture there also.

Is this the greatest personal honor in his life?….

The tentativeness of the question elicited the familiar whooping roar of laughter occasionally emitted by this publicly serious man.

“When he was about 77, my father and I were talking,” Russell answered. “And he said: ”˜You know, you’re all grown up now, and I want to tell you something. You know, I am very proud of the way you turned out as my son, and I’m proud of you as a father.’

“My father is my hero, O.K., and I cannot perceive of anything topping that,” Russell continued, his voice becoming husky….

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By sheer happenstance, I happen to have caught this live this morning.What an amazing goal–KSH.

The smallest city with a professional sports franchise still is celebrating and the excitement no doubt will continue for days and into the next season.

Fans will have a chance to cheer for the team today when the Packers return home by motorcade from Austin Straubel International Airport to Lambeau Field via Packerland Drive and Lombardi Avenue. The team announced last week that police would secure Packerland, Lombardi and Hazelwood Lane along the return route where fans can watch as the team passes by. No other public appearances had been scheduled for today.

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Update: Rob Rogers has a fun picture.

A very sloppy game, but Pittsburgh deserved to lose with the turnovers and Green Bay’s offense outplayed the Steeler’s offense.

But according to Fox Sports, which will broadcast the Super Bowl this year, the verse you can see in the stands on television is not suitable for a commercial. The network’s rejection of a 30-second spot centered on John 3:16 is just one example of an advertising culture that can be allergic to expressions of faith.

According to Larry Taunton, executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation, which produced the advertisement, inspiration came during last year’s Super Bowl.

“Corporate America uses its creativity and millions of dollars to come up with 30-second blasts to get you to buy a beer or Coke or tennis ball,” said Mr. Taunton, whose evangelical group, based in Birmingham, Ala., promotes campus debates between atheists and believers.

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As you probably know, former Jets player Dennis Byrd was paralyzed during a freak collision in 1992. This is an awesome piece–please take the time to watch it. I haven’t had a chance to post it until now, but it is truly inspiring–KSH.

I got a chance to see the second half of the match–he played really well. Read it all–KSH.

If the sky is the limit for the Green Bay Packers and their fans, they can almost touch it now.

The Super Bowl, where best-of-show is earned and pro football history is made, awaits this version of the most historic franchise in National Football League history.

Fittingly and deservingly, the Packers made it to the big show by outlasting their oldest and most stubborn opponent, the Chicago Bears, 21-14 at Soldier Field Sunday.

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Hines Ward gripped a near-empty bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and joked that he had stolen it from the New York Jets, who had boasted that they and their fans would be drinking the bubbly.

“I’m sleeping with this bottle tonight,” Ward proclaimed after the jubilation around him in the Steelers locker room had calmed down.

Ward had just performed his as-promised Heinz Field leap, joining fans in the stands to celebrate the Steelers’ eighth trip to a Super Bowl after they prevailed against the New York Jets, 24-19, Sunday night in the AFC championship.

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Almost one in 10 sports fans has a blood alcohol content above the legal limit as they exit the stadium after football and baseball games, a study found.

There are 100 stadiums in the U.S. that schedule 5,000 games each year attended by more than 130 million fans, according to a report today in the journal Alcoholism. The New Meadowlands stadium, where the New York Giants football team plays, has a capacity of 82,500. If this study holds, about 6,600 people, or 8 percent, leave drunk after watching a game.

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A very strange game–two different halves. An amazing late long pass from Ben Roethlisberger to rookie Antonio Brown (58 yards). I feel very bad for Joe Flacco as his receivers dropped some crucial passes–KSH.

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu opened his red leather-bound playbook to a dog-eared page. “The life of a man hangs by a hair,” he began reading in a voice as soft as falling snow. “At every step our life hangs in the balance.”

It was three days before the Steelers’ A.F.C. divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, a matchup in which the Super Bowl aspirations of two worthy contenders hang in the balance, and Polamalu was getting himself centered.

“How many millions of people woke up in the morning, never to see the evening?” Polamalu read. And then: “The life of a man is a dream. In a dream, one sees things that do not exist; he might see that he is crowned a king, but when he wakes up, he sees that in reality he is just a pauper.”

The book in Polamalu’s hands, “Counsels From the Holy Mountain,” guides him in football and in life. It contains the letters and homilies of a Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Ephraim, whom Polamalu described as his spiritual doctor.

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Watch the whole ESPN video. My favorite moment–what he says about his parents in the interview–KSH.

Geno Auriemma was in the middle of a thought when a cellphone went off nearby. It was a call he just had to take.

“No, we haven’t lost since you’ve been inaugurated,” Auriemma told President Barack Obama. “How about we keep it that way for another couple of years?”

The UConn women’s basketball team has put together a winning streak for the ages. With their 93-62 victory Tuesday night over Florida State before 16,294 at the sold-out XL Center, the Huskies have won 89 games in a row, surpassing the record set by UCLA men’s team from 1971 to ’74.

“It’s a great thing for sports,” Obama told Auriemma. “It’s something to be celebrated.”

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Chasing history as well as victory, Connecticut appeared rusty and nervous in the first half Sunday, but this was a game less about artistry than about the record books.

Despite a tentative start and erratic shooting, the Huskies overwhelmed Ohio State, 81-50, before a crowd of 15,232 at Madison Square Garden, tying the N.C.A.A. Division I record with their 88th consecutive win.

Guard Tiffany Hayes scored 26 points, forward Maya Moore added 22 and center Stefanie Dolson grabbed 15 rebounds for UConn, which matched the win streak set by the U.C.L.A. men from 1971 to 1974. The Huskies (10-0) have not lost since an 82-73 defeat to Stanford on April 6, 2008, in the national semifinals.

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Anyone else see the end of the Giants-Eagles game? My goodness. The Eagles were down 31-10 with about 8 1/4 minutes left and won the game 38-21.

Update A NY Times gameblog is here–note especially this entry: “Not the Eagles Day” at 3:34 p.m..

[Chris] Collinsworth has become football’s most prominent critic of illegal tackling by drawing on more than just his intelligence, which is roundly praised, or his experience as an often-defenseless receiver, which is roundly surmised. Rather, with one son breaking wedges for Notre Dame and another in high school ball, and as a longtime Kentucky youth coach, Collinsworth communicates parental impatience regarding the N.F.L.’s self-proclaimed culture change.

“This is a league that we’ve always celebrated the biggest hits and the bone-jarring blows, but you can’t hide from the evidence anymore,” Collinsworth, in a telephone interview, said regarding the short- and long-term effects of football head trauma. “We’re talking about the very essence of the game. I’d be less than honest if I said I didn’t have my doubts as to whether my children should be playing football.”

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A friend sent me this–my oh my.

There will be many measures of the man remembered this weekend and beyond, but perhaps one above many, if not most, should tell you a few things about Ron Santo, who died at 70 Thursday in Arizona….

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A basic tenet of modern athletics involves separation of the sexes. Yet that principle is increasingly being challenged on the court and in the courtroom.

Earlier this month, Kye Allums, a female-to-male transgender student on the women’s basketball team at George Washington University, publicly discussed his decision to compete after coming out in a story first reported on Outsports.com.

The junior, 21, who once went by Kay-Kay Allums and has not had gender-reassignment surgery, is the first known transgender person to compete in Division I college basketball.

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(We first posted on Sister Rose Ann Fleming back in March–KSH).

I’ve written much on these pages about the often problematic nexus of collegiate academics and athletics. Over the years, I’ve pilloried Kentucky and Memphis and their 30% graduation rates. By contrast, I’ve held up Catholic colleges like Notre Dame””one of the few schools where athletes have a higher graduation rate than the general student body””as examples of schools that refuse to accept academically unqualified students simply because they have good jump shots.

My faith was shaken earlier this year when the New York Times interviewed Sister Rose Ann Fleming. She’s the feisty 5- foot-4-inch, 78-year-old nun who makes sure that the basketball players at Xavier University, a Jesuit Catholic college in Cincinnati, spend as much time in class as they do in the gym. Terrell Holloway, a sophomore guard at Xavier, praised Sister Rose in the Times article for keeping on him when he fell behind in a reading class during summer school.

Reading? Summer school?

It forced me to ask myself: Are the Catholic schools, after all, the same as Michigan or Temple when it comes to what kind of athletes they admit? The short answer seems to be yes. The critical difference is that schools like Xavier are making sure that their players receive diplomas.

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Clayton Kendrick-Holmes, football coach at SUNY Maritime College and a graduate of the Naval Academy and a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve, soon will be deployed to Afghanistan. This is part of his story.

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[Brian] Wilson has created some controversy with the cross-armed salute he offers up at the rear of the mound after every save. The gesture has been taken by some opposing players as a sign of disrespect, and Casey Blake of the Los Angeles Dodgers even went so far as to mimic it on the bench last year after hitting a home run off him.

Wilson said the gesture is a salute to his religious faith ”” he became a devout Christian four years ago ”” and to his father, Mike, who made his career in the Air Force and who died when Wilson was 17 and attending high school in Londonderry, N.H.

“He taught me that you don’t get anything for free,” Wilson said of his father. “You have to work for it. Nothing ever comes easy. That’s the way I’ve been, and that’s the way this team has been. We had to fly back to Philly” for the clinching game of the N.L.C.S. “We had to win in Atlanta in Game 4. It had to come down to the last day of the season. That’s our baseball team. That’s me.”

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