1
OK, we knew his writing was like sweet, sweet music, but even we didn’t realize he was Beethoven.
Matt Calkins, The Columbian’s Trail Blazers beat writer, has been awarded three first-place honors in the national Associated Press Sports Editors contest. Calkins won for column writing, beat reporting, and feature story in the 30,000-to-75,000 circulation category.
Several weeks ago, it was announced that Calkins had earned top-10 awards in each category. This past weekend, the winners were announced.
The APSE contest is the most prestigious contest in sportswriting, featuring the finest writers for both daily newspapers and prominent Web sites, and Matt was the only writer this year in any circulation category to win three first-place honors.
Congratulations to Matt.
2
Arena football players will never be confused with savvy negotiators.
If you are going to make demands, do it mid-week. When one of your teams is not on the road.
The players authorized a strike on a Friday. The Pittsburgh team then waived all of its players. In the middle of the team meal. At Olive Garden. Oh, in Orlando.
The team’s owner said once the players were released, the team no longer had any travel obligations to the players. Yes, the players were on their own to get back to Pittsburgh.
Certainly, this is not too much of a hardship. A long drive home in a rental van.
But our guess is the next strike will be called on a Tuesday, days before a game, not hours before a kickoff.
3
Look at a map and explain this one:
Stanford garnered one of the four No. 1 seeds for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, and was placed atop the Fresno Region. Hey, Fresno’s not far from Palo Alto, so so far, so good.
So, naturally, the Cardinal will play their first-round game (and potentially their second-round game) in… wait for it… wait for it… Norfolk, Va.
Makes perfect sense.
