Louisville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz was conducting the team’s normal pregame shootaround at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday when he got the call that Virginia wouldn’t be showing up for the teams’ scheduled 7 p.m. basketball game that night at the KFC Yum! Center. A thousand things run through your head at that point. What about…
Author: Eric Crawford
Russ Smith: Louisville’s most unlikely hero
By Eric Crawford, WDRB This column originally appeared at WDRB.com after Louisville’s 2013 NCAA Championship, as part of Eric Crawford’s e-book commemorating the title, “The Run.” It was an easy moment to miss, but in some ways, it was a defining Russ Smith moment. With two seconds left in the NCAA championship game, the University…
Still on Team Biles, even more than before
On the morning Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympic gymnastics team competition for mental wellness reasons, I couldn’t even write about Biles dropping out of the competition. For my own mental health reasons. Biles, who reaches a height of 10 feet on her vaults, lost herself somewhere mid-vault and did well to land on the…
Bob Valvano has cancer — and an entire nation in his corner
Bob Valvano would tell you, in the past year, his talk show on ESPN Louisville radio has been only marginally about sports. I know, because every Wednesday for at least a decade, I’ve called in to talk with Bob, and it has been part sports talk, part current events discussion, and for both of us,…
‘STOP THE STEAL:’ Louisville refuses to concede UVA victory
What if sports imitated life? Or even worse, politics? The following is a satirical piece and not meant to reflect actual views of any universities involved or individuals associated with either university. In other words, Fake News. CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The University of Louisville has refused to concede Saturday’s 31-17 loss at Virginia, and is…
Biden’s best strategy for the court-packing questions: Just say no
Republicans have found what they believe is a scoring punch against Joe Biden in the home stretch of the 2020 Presidential campaign, and it is a lone question: Do you plan to pack the Supreme Court if elected? Biden’s refusal to answer on the principle that his answer, either way, would become “a distraction” from…
COVID remains the one disruption that Trump has failed to harness
No operation in American political history has been able to manage, use and otherwise maximize disruption for its own interests better than the presidential administration of Donald Trump. But with a couple of recent disruptions, it’s hard to wonder if Trump hasn’t lost his touch. You may not like him, but you shouldn’t underestimate him….
GIRL POWER: Filly Swiss Skydiver puts a bow on unusual Triple Crown series with Preakness upset
In the finale of a Triple Crown season like we’ve never seen, Ken McPeek’s filly Swiss Skydiver turned in a performance like we’ve rarely seen. Darting through a hole at the end of the backstretch, earlier than might be customary but just in time to get advantageous position on the rail, jockey Robby Albarado guided…
Times breaks news with Trump’s taxes, but his debt is the real story
It’s not as much a tax story as it is a debt story. I’m not knocking The New York Times’ extensive and hard-won series of pieces on President Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2000 to 2018. It’s on its way to the Pulitzer Prize offices right now. But it’s also no surprise that Trump paid…
Biden’s basement, Trump’s taunts and the power of presidential action
Donald Trump’s election tropes make for great laugh lines at rallies and even sound bites for the evening news, but as he showed in 2016, they also can be effective lines of attack, and repeated often enough, become embedded in not only media narratives but in ways the public – or at least his supporters…