For Jason Terry, everything changed in 1997. It was the night before the NCAA national championship game and Terry’s Arizona Wildcats were set to take on the University of Kentucky. Terry shared hotels rooms with teammate Mike Bibby on road trips and the pair understandably had trouble sleeping before the biggest game of their lives so far.
Read MoreFran Harris remembers a late-night dinner in Sacramento. Her Houston Comets squad had just dispatched the lowly Monarchs by 10 points. To celebrate, she and a few teammates, including Cynthia Cooper, Tammy Jackson and Kim Perrot, decided to grab a bite. Cooper had scored 44 in the 25 July 1997 contest, and her talents dazzled even her dinner companions.
Read MoreOut crabbing, Les Claypool and Sean Ono Lennon sprang a leak. The longtime friends and musical collaborators were taking a break from the studio, from working on their new album, The Great Parrot-Ox And The Golden Egg Of Empathy (out today), and water started to fill up their boat. But that’s the fun of life, right? Adventure.
Read MoreIt was the night before the 1980 Women’s Professional Basketball League draft in New York City and the Dallas Diamonds had the No 1 pick. But the team’s top brass was split. Coach Greg Williams wanted to take the 6ft 5in Danish star Inge Nissen, and the team’s GM Nancy Nichols prized Nancy Lieberman, the American point guard people called “Lady Magic”.
Read MoreWhen the Golden State Warriors drafted Chris Washburn with the No 3 pick in 1986, it should have been a dream come true. Instead, it might have been the worst thing that could have happened for the 6ft 11in NC State prospect.
Read MoreThe following excerpt is taken fromThe Chief, a new memoir by Robert Parish with Jake Uitti. Below, Parish talks about his time with the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls, acclimating with the team, which included the likes of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and coach Phil Jackson. Parish, who is a Hall of Fame center who won three championships with the 1980s Boston Celtics, had the time of his life with the Windy City franchise.
Read MoreToday, words like “legendary” and “iconic” are used in just about every other sentence. But while we may feel surrounded by all-time cultural figures now, do we ever stop to ask the question: What’s the point of being a legend?
Read MoreButch Vig doesn’t have any hobbies. The co-founder of the rock band Garbage, who also produced the iconic Nirvana album Nevermind, among many others, isn’t distracted by building model ships in glass bottles or learning to paint by number. Instead, he remains immersed in music.
Read MoreAs an aspiring basketball coach in his teens and early 20s, Alex Sarama was often met with snickers when he talked about the game he loved. For the British-born Sarama, who on 28 October was named the head coach of the WNBA’s newest expansion team, the Portland Fire, people doubted him before he even put two sentences together.
Read MoreBelow is an excerpt from the new memoir from Hall of Famer Michael Cooper, COOP: The Making of a Showtime Lakers Legend. The text is taken from Chapter 7, in which Cooper talks about iconic coach Pat Riley taking over the Lakers in 1981. It was a seminal moment in both team and NBA history.
Read MoreToday, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Hardaway is known for many things. He was one of the best point guards in the 1990s. His Miami Heat teams clashed year after year with the New York Knicks. Hardaway was a brash trash talker and his “Killer Crossover” dribble was one of the most well-known moves in the league. All of these topics and more are highlighted in Hardaway’s new memoir, Killer Crossover: My Life from the Chicago Streets to Basketball Royalty.
Read MoreMichael Cooper knew pressure. The NBA’s 1987 Defensive Player of the Year had won five rings with the 1980s Showtime Lakers, blocking shots alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and finishing “Coop-a-loop” passes from Magic Johnson for dunks. But in 2000, things were different. He wasn’t in the game, he was coaching it from the sidelines for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. And despite Cooper being named coach of the year, the Sparks fell short in the playoffs to the Houston Comets.
Read MoreThe WNBA playoffs begin this weekend. It’s the latest in a string of glitzy moments for the league, which recently has seen the rise of Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and her rivalry with Chicago’s Angel Reese, along with skyrocketing revenue and the news of expansion into new markets. But as a bright future unfolds, we wanted to dive into the past to remember seven hoopers who helped make this all possible.
Read MoreDean Johnson wonders if he’ll ever be a bartender again. For 11 years, he worked in the neighborhood Seattle watering hole, Al’s Tavern, serving drinks at the cash-only spot, slinging drinks over long shifts. It’s the kind of job that makes you a local staple, a servant of the people. You get to know husbands and wives, friends and colleagues. But while patrons would come and go through Al’s door, and as Dean stood dutifully behind the bar, something else was going on. Some customers knew, but it was also something of a secret amongst them. Johnson was a world-class songwriter.
Read MoreToday (July 18), the Long Beach, California-born band Sublime has released their latest single, “Ensenada.” But while day-one fans of the ska punk band know it as a project fronted by vocalist Bradley Nowell, the group today is actually fronted by the late Bradley’s 30-year-old son, Jakob Nowell.
Read More
