Sports

Reflections Rising from My History with Arizona Football

September 13, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I’d been anticipating the football game between the University of Arizona Wildcats, my hometown team, and the San Diego State Aztecs, my adopted town’s team.

My alma mater got creamed: 38 to 14. Oh, well, if they’ve got to lose to somebody it might as well be to a team I almost love as much as I do them.

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Simone Biles Showed What It’s Like to Be a Caring Human Being

August 2, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Some are saying that
Simone Biles is
a “national embarrassment”
who “quit on her team,”
when the truth is
she’s a
superbly talented gymnast
who, for years,
has mesmerized
the world
with dazzling routines
featuring
an array
of twists and turns and flips
that seem to defy
the laws of physics,

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Heroes of the Week:  Governor of Alabama, the NFL, and Tokyo Olympics

July 26, 2021 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Finally, some clarity from unlikely quarters. No more bumbles, stumbles, and contradictory sound-bytes.

Start with the best truth teller on the planet; Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey. Her candor on COVID caught everyone by surprise. She blasted a reporter who asked, “What is it going to take to get people to get shots in arms?”

“I don’t know — you tell me. Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”

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Remembering Marv

June 21, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Lost my favorite teammate
of all time:
Marv Dutt.
We haven’t, over the years,
kept in touch
but I have fond memories
of how he could,
no matter what,
get the ball to me
with that instinct
great passers have
of rewarding you
as long as you keep
moving to a great
spot on the floor to be.

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An Out of This World Moment with Steph Curry

May 27, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

The other day
I was distracted
from
the troubles of the world,
via the NBA,
in a glorious way,
watching Steph Curry
trying
to break free
underneath his basket,
looking for a quick score
instead of getting
to where he’d need to be

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Mural of Padres’ Fernando Tatis Goes Up in Ocean Beach

May 12, 2021 by Staff

Appletree on Newport Avenue just joined the modern age with a brand new mural of Padres player Fernando Tatis.

Muralists Paul Jimenez and Signe Ditona were the creators of the large image – which is part of a series of murals the Padres commissioned they are painting.

The muralists also did the Tony Gwynn and Joe Musgrove murals earlier this year.

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A Team That Believes in Change

April 8, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Wow! What a game!

A game that was truly anybody’s game as the University of Arizona Women Wildcat Basketball team lost to Stanford, 54 to 53.

A “March Madness” NCAA Championship game that ended like a well-crafted suspenseful drama where you really don’t know how it’s going to end until the very end of the last scene…

Oh, it was so much fun seeing those young athletes chasing their dream, steam rolling over one team like they were merely running drills, then scratching and crawling to get a win, then, voila, they were enjoying the thrill of being in the “Sweet Sixteen,” the “Elite Eight,” and the “Final Four,” rings on a ladder upon which no Wildcat women had ever climbed before.

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The Ring of Honor Represents the ‘Wow’ Moments of My Life

March 5, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

For being able to basically snatch rebounds and whip outlet passes to start fast breaks and swish the ball through the hoop from all over the place, a space has been made for me, alongside some other guys who could really play, in the “Basketball Ring of Honor” at my alma mater, the U of A.

Just the other day.

And pretty much all I can say is “Wow!”

I’m loving it and how.

And I’ve loved my university and its teams since before I knew what a basketball was.

I became a fan at my mother’s breast as she listened to Arizona Wildcat football and basketball games on the radio, humming soothing lullabies.

I used to pick cotton in Marana on Saturdays so I could pay for a cheap seat in the knothole section at the night’s football game and a butterscotch milkshake at Dairy Queen on my way home from the game.

Did the same thing after track meets, basketball, and baseball games.

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February 6 – Then and Now

February 10, 2021 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I got my first vaccine for covid-19 on February 6, 2021. One more to go for this old son of a gun.

But when I got back home after my shot I was reminded that this wasn’t the first time that February 6 was special to me, since on that day 61 years ago I took to the court with my teammates in Bear Down Gym at the University of Arizona and got to shaking and baking and whipping outlet passes to start fast breaks and shot the lights out all over the place, and came away with 46 points, a record that stands to this day.

The fun and glory of that will never go away.

And I couldn’t help but think, in those moments, what a difference six decades can make in one’s life. In so many ways. I was so strong back then physically, even with a bad back, something that’s plagued me since those days.

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Sports in 2020: They Should Have Been Stopped or It Was the Year the Champions Thrived

December 29, 2020 by Source

Editordude: Here’s two views of sports in 2020: sports should have been halted during the pandemic versus ‘everything was weird – except who won.’

2020: The Year Sports Should Have Stopped

In this awful year, sports didn’t deliver normalcy. But they did nudge us toward justice.

By Dave Zirin / The Nation / December 2020

This cursed year of 2020 should be remembered as the time when sports was put in a meat grinder, mixed with all manner of offal and served to us as hope.

Professional sports, we were told, represented a “return to normalcy” in a time that was anything but normal. “The games must go on” was the mantra, with athletes presented as “essential workers” by sports leagues and colleges desperate for their billion-dollar fix of television cash.

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Forget the Election, the Real Fraud Was in the Baseball Playoffs

December 14, 2020 by Source

By Steve Rodriguez / Times of San Diego / December

I don’t want to talk about the recent election. I’m tired of politics.

It was a long campaign and I’m emotionally worn out from all the debates, and the tweets, and the rallies.

Instead, I want to discuss the past baseball season. I’m sure all of you know the Dodgers won the World Series, but in order to get to the Word Series they first had to beat the San Diego Padres in a playoff series. Sure, if you’re a Dodgers fan, you’re really happy about beating the Padres.

But there’s one thing I want you to know…those games between the Dodgers and the Padres back in October were RIGGED.

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Feeling Warm and Sunny

October 22, 2020 by Ernie McCray

Feeling Warm and Sunny

by Ernie McCray

It’s such a warm
and sunny feeling
to sense
human progress
in the air
like the other day
in a Zoom meeting
with a few athletes
at the U of A
about inclusion,
human beings being
valued for who they are,
me sharing
how, in my day,
there was little to no interest
in social
or political change,
how we athletes, in the main,
just played our games.

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National Basketball and Hockey Leagues Are Not Interested in San Diego Arena – Even If Measure E Passes

October 7, 2020 by Source

By Evan Weiner / Sports Talk Florida / October 5, 2020

In four weeks, voters will mull over a referendum that could pave the way for a new San Diego arena.

Measure E, if approved, would allow structures to be over 30 feet in height in the Midway District.

In 1972, San Diego decided to limit development near the city’s coast line by not allowing structures over 30 feet in height. There are people who are pushing to do something about replacing the city’s 54-year-old arena and envision a Midway District building.

San Diego has a problem.

The National Basketball Association is not interested in returning to a city that did not work for them twice and the National Hockey League is probably not going to be adding any teams.

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From an Old Jock to Young Jocks at the U of A

October 6, 2020 by Ernie McCray

From an Old Jock to Young Jocks at the U of A

by Ernie McCray

Hey, you Wildcats!
I write this
after co-hosting
a fundraiser
for a candidate for City Council
in my town
who’s totally devoted
to social justice
and equality
for everyone
no matter their ethnicity,
color or creed
or background.

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Caster Semenya, a Gift of Nature

September 23, 2020 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

One of my favorite athletes is Caster Semenya.

As a former half-miler I love the way she comes off that last 200, so strong, yet relaxed, at a pace the other runners totally lack.

As we used to say: “She can step, Jack!”

But people in the world of track have barred her from running track – unless she undergoes surgery or takes drugs to regulate her high testosterone levels – to “level the playing field,” not taking into consideration that, no matter how they feel, Caster Semenya is still a woman.

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John Moores’ Hidden Hand in Sports Arena Redevelopment

August 21, 2020 by Source

Editordude: Matt Potter over as San Diego Reader reminds us that John Moores, the former Padres owner and super-rich San Diego developer, has a hand in one of the proposals before the city in the redevelopment of the the Sports Arena / Midway area.

By Matt Potter / SD Reader / Aug. 19, 2020

How much would a brand-new Midway sports arena cost San Diego taxpayers?

The answer hasn’t yet been made public, but leaks and news releases emerging from city hall indicate a closed-door deal for a costly new sports palace may be just around the corner.

It comes as no surprise to city insiders that a key covert player in the potential giveaway is John Moores, the ex-Padres owner. The super-rich Rancho Santa Fe denizen got himself a ballpark and millions of dollars in taxpayer-financed downtown development rights after showering then-city councilwoman Valerie Stallings with undisclosed gifts back in the 1990s.

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Baseball in the Summer of Dread: Summer Chronicles 2020 #6

July 27, 2020 by Jim Miller

By Jim Miller

The pandemic belongs to Swole Daddy. In case you missed it, Swole Daddy is the mascot of the NC Dinos of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). He is, as his name aptly signals, the super buff cartoonish dinosaur who joins the cheerleaders on top of the dugout in the empty ballpark during games. Actually, his name is Sseri, but “Swole Daddy” took off on social media and it stuck.

“We love you, Sexy Dino,” the meme exclaims. Yes, a jacked dinosaur wearing a necklace is as good as it gets this year, really.

As FiveThirtyEight recently noted, statistically speaking, the NC Dinos may just be the best KBO team to ever take the field at this point in the season. That’s the kind of thing you learn if you take a few moments off from obsessively checking the daily polling and political punditry on the site and scroll over to their sports analysis. Here is where sports and politics meet: in the strange alchemy of the daily numbers. They create their own reality as they seek to document it. The tool of measurement grants an aura to that which can be quantified and reified.

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Sports and Politics Mix Together Quite Nicely If You Ask Me

July 22, 2020 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

There are a lot of folks who are complaining about black athletes drawing attention to Black Lives Matter, saying “Politics and sports don’t mix.”

Have to say that’s news to me since, in our country’s history, particularly, if black athletes didn’t confront the racism inherent in our society and in our politics, there would have been very little notice of a people’s struggle to achieve equality.

I think back to July 4, 1910. On that day Jack Johnson, an African American, entered the ring in Reno, Nevada to face Jim Jeffries, the “Heavyweight champion of the world,” in the “Fight of the Century.”

J

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Barbara Bry: ‘Why Is the SDSU Deal Really Taking So Long?’

May 27, 2020 by Source

By Barbara Bry

Here’s the story insiders don’t want to be told, but you deserve the facts:

In November 2018, San Diego voters approved Measure G, authorizing sale of the Mission Valley stadium property to San Diego State University.

Measure G set clear guidelines for that sale: The price to be determined by fair market value, SDSU to build a regional river park along with neighborhood parks, trails, and a multi-purpose stadium and SDSU to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact report and perform appropriate mitigation.

Rather than a rushed process, as has occurred on many recent city transactions, there has been over a year of intensive negotiations and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the city on outside attorneys and consultants.

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Arizona Wildcats’ Game Scoring Record-Holder Ernie McCray Celebrates 82nd Birthday With a Dance

April 21, 2020 by Source

By Javier Morales / AllSportsTucson.com / April 18, 2020

Ernie McCray turned 82 years old today, a legendary figure in Arizona history as the first African-American men’s basketball player to graduate from the school and also his program-record 46 points against Cal State Los Angeles 60 years ago at Bear Down Gym.

McCray, ever spry and whimsical, still writes a column titled, “Thoughts From the Soul of the Tucson Kid,” published by the OB (Ocean Beach) Rag.

The Tucson High School legend (Class of 1956) posted today this video of him celebrating his birthday, dancing at his San Diego home.

Made it.
82.
On my feet,
still grooving to a beat.
A moment…

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‘The Most Irreverent, Wild and Loved New York Yankee Player’ Was Point Loma’s Own David Wells

April 6, 2020 by Source

By William Parlee / Empire Sports Media / April 6, 2020

Of New York Yankees players, none may have been as irreverent, wild, and loved than David Wells. Wells was cut from a different cloth than most Yankee players. He didn’t care who he threatened, who he offended, or what the Yankee brass thought of him.

He only wanted to be the best pitcher he could be, and he did that, even pitching one of only three perfect games in the Yankee’s 117-year history in 1998.

David Lee Wells was born on May 20, 1963, in Torrance, California.

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Racism Continues to Plague Soccer

March 3, 2020 by Source

By Andrew Hansen / LomaBeat – The Point PLNU

On Feb. 16, FC Porto forward Moussa Marega left the soccer field in the middle of the second half, both middle fingers raised to the crowd after opposing fans showered him with racist insults.

Marega is the latest victim of racism from fans in European soccer as the sport’s struggles to deal with racism continues in 2020. Marega is a French-born Mali international player and currently plays for FC Porto, one of the top clubs in Portugal. He previously played for Vitoria Guimaraes, which was the opposing team whose fans racially abused Marega.

League officials from Liga Portugal released a statement that said, “Liga Portugal will do everything to ensure that this episode and all other racist incidents do not go unpunished.”

If the incident with Marega was an isolated incident, then the league’s statement might have validity. However, Marega is only the most recent soccer player to deal with racist fans.

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Basketball Has Been Very Good to Me

December 4, 2019 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Late in the morning, on Thanksgiving Day, I turned the television on, thinking, in that moment, of what I’m thankful for: my beautiful children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, my sexy woman, my wonderful friends, my health, my pension, so many things…

The first image I saw when my TV came on was a basketball player, dribbling right at a defender and suddenly, ever so smoothly, with grace, pulled up and sunk a jump shot right in the defender’s face.

That very shot was always money in the bank for me back in my playing days.

And, in the blinking of an eye, I was reminded of something else I’m thankful for: the role basketball has played in my life.

I mean basketball in many ways probably saved my life – from the front end, giving me a kind of spiritual place to go to, a place where I would get caught up in the sound of a ball being bounced smartly on a gym floor, where I could hear my and my teammates’ pounding feet as we hustle down the court to the rhythm of a fast-break being nicely run, on its way to being complete – when all that was going on, old Jim Crow and the other manifestos of racism in America were screened out of my mind much as a dense cloud hides the sun.

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Dave Hubbard Stole the Show at the 2019 Bodyboarding US Festival in Ocean Beach

November 26, 2019 by Source

From SurferToday / November 26, 2019

Dave Hubbard has taken out the inaugural Bodyboarding US Festival, at Ocean Beach, in San Diego, California.

The event gathered around 109 professional and amateur bodyboarders from all over the United States, including Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and at least six other countries.

Athletes competed across six divisions: pro open men, pro open women, pro open drop-knee, amateur junior men, amateur junior women, and masters. There was no shortage of waves during the two-day contest run by APB North America and Bodyboarding US.

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Trump Booed and Met With Chants of ‘Lock Him Up’ at D.C. World Series Game

October 28, 2019 by Frank Gormlie

The president of the United States was loudly booed at the Washington DC World Series game when he was shown on the Jumbotron- and met with a chorus of chants of “Lock him up! Lock him up!”

Reportedly, the sustained boos and chants were the loudest expression of the fans at the game.

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Albert Spalding, Madame Tingley and the Great Myth of Baseball

September 10, 2019 by Source

By Randy Dotinga / Voice of San Diego / September 2, 2019

If you head out to a Padres game this month, you might assume you’re enjoying the national pastime invented by a man called Doubleday in a bucolic place called Cooperstown. But this origin story is a hoax, perhaps the greatest in all of sports, and it has its roots right here in Point Loma, where wealth, the occult and shameless myth-making collided early in the 20th century.

At the center of it all was a man named Albert Goodwill Spalding,

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Keepers of the Dream -To the Boys of Excellence of Hoover High

May 10, 2019 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Hey, I just want to say
“Hi” to you “Boys of Excellence”
of Hoover High,
especially since I haven’t
met with you as much as
I would have liked to.

But, I often think of you
and I value each moment
I have spent with you
kicking back in my seat
munching on a treat
listening to you speak,
coming to realize
that you young men,
when it comes to excellence,
can’t be beat.

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Y’all Bad (a Shout Out to the Lady Wildcats of the U of A)

April 24, 2019 by Ernie McCray

Y’all Bad – (A Shout Out to the Lady Wildcats of the U of A)

by Ernie McCray

Wow, what a season
you Lady Wildcats had.
Y’all bad!
Champions of the WNIT!
So honored to be
in your family
as a Wildcat
great-grandaddy,
both literally
and figuratively.

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A Golfer With No Quit in Him Rises Again

April 19, 2019 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I’ve never witnessed
a more beautiful scene:
Eldrick Tont Woods,
“Tiger,”
leaning over
a “gimme,”
gently tapping it in
to a Hallelujah chorus
of cheers
and chants
that came suddenly
like a gust
of wind
and continued
as though
there was no end,
bringing tears to my eyes,

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San Diego Gaelic Football Club Wins North American Championship for Second Year in a Row

October 3, 2018 by Source

Setanta San Diego Gaelic Football and Surf Club Does It Again!

By Nate Bazydlo

“To win the second championship is infinitely harder than the first.” Magic Johnson. Fending off angry competition, keeping satiated players hungry, and maintaining laser-like focus in the
midst of fanfare all mount in opposition to the conquest for a back-to-back championship. In the face of substantial obstacles, the men of San Diego Setanta Gaelic Football Club entered the
2018 campaign with their sights set high on the Junior A North American Cup.

Last year, San Diego went to San Francisco and ended a 7-year drought

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