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There was a time when 18-year-old boys and girls joined a college athletic team and left four years later as 22-year-old men and women, confident, trained, and effective team members. Coaches had time to focus on long-term development, looking at the big picture rather than short-term gains. Coaches helped individuals identify their strengths and weaknesses, set goals, and worked to help them improve, enabling them to reach their potential. The successful coach had a basic philosophical understanding of the place of sport in the student’s life. Good coaches understood that their athletes were also students and that achievement in the classroom was paramount to success.

March Madness starts in two weeks and we’ll be watching a lot of basketball. I’ve been watching basketball for over 75 years, starting with my All American father when I was just a boy. Later, I followed my brother who was the point guard on a great high school team. With all this legacy, I thought I would be good at basketball as well, but that was not to be. I could run, jump, and shoot, but when I got on the court with nine other guys, I felt like I was in the middle of Hwy 91 without a car. Not so for many of the players we will see in the coming weeks. I continue to be amazed by the skill of today’s players, their ball handling and speed is truly amazing.

As soon as I write “Picture Main Street” here, I’ll hasten to say this is not an opinion piece about whether or not widening sidewalks, reducing the number of automobile lanes in downtown Northampton from four and a half to three, and adding more bike lanes is a good idea. I appreciate concerns from downtown businesses about losing sales because getting around town may be difficult during the remodeling. I also think narrowing Main Street ultimately won’t make the traffic more congested, and the result may look as nice as the pedestrian-friendly centers of Boulder, Colorado, and Burlington, Vermont.

Within the disciplines of sport management and sociology of sport, there is a common phrase that many sport academicians know to be true: Sport is a microcosm of our social world. This phrase argues that sport is a repackaged enterprise of our values, politics, culture, economics, etc.

It’s NGWSD season!National Girls and Women in Sport Day is celebrated annually to honor the achievements of women and girls in sports, raise awareness about the importance of gender equality in athletics, and encourage more participation in sports at all levels.

When I was in high school in Tennessee, I came north to visit Amherst College. Among the campus buildings that caught my attention was the Coolidge Cage. I had never seen such a thing before: a square floor plan, four-sided pyramidal roof, and space not only for basketball but for sports I associated with the outdoors, including tennis, baseball and especially track.

It’s Saturday morning and you’ve just come down on the side of your ankle while playing in the neighborhood basketball game. The pain is immediate as you limp to the sideline. “Get some ice,” someone yells. You lie down, put your leg up on a chair and wait for the ice. Upon arrival you wrap the ice tightly around the ankle. You have just satisfied the age-old rule of RICE, the recommended treatment for acute injuries for 46 years. RICE stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation, all factors designed to reduce blood flow as well as inflammation. RICE was first proposed by Harvard physician Gabe Mirkin in his 1978 text “The Sports Medicine Book.”

(Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a new monthly column that will run in print on the second Monday of each month)

Last month I wrote about the benefits of unsupervised play, that children who play outdoors with other children learn not only physical skills but how to get along with other children, how to play fair, to be creative, to learn how to get up when...

An eccentric teacher who was the inspiration for the Robin Williams character in the movie “Dead Poets’ Society,” Sam Pickering writes essays that are as edgy as Williams’ acting. Long before the era of NIL and transfer portals, Sam wrote that the...

Sport fandom is all about building community in the professional sport industry, but most sport takes place within our communities. From a financial perspective, participatory sports accounted for 63.5% of the global sport market in 2023 and in the...

Attention, shoppers! Are you thinking of gifting someone on your list a pair of running shoes?Don’t.I’ll qualify that instruction. Give someone running shoes if you (A) are giving them the exact same brand, model and size as the shoes they already use...

There was a vacant lot on the corner of 10th Street and Avenue H. I learned to play there, meeting up daily with other children in the neighborhood after school. There is something irreplaceable about unsupervised play; many lessons are learned. We...

By JOAN AXELROD-CONTRADA

Taylor Swift’s song “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” has turned me into a full-on Swiftie. Yes, you read that right: This 60-something widow is now belting out lyrics about pain and power with a vigor that could rival any teenage girl wrapped in...

Thanksgiving is almost upon us and I’m ready to carve the turkey. White meat or dark meat? I go for the white but I always remember my grandfather; he said the neck was the best part. I have yet to eat a neck, but one does wonder why turkeys have two...

The cusp between colorful early autumn and chilly later autumn footraces is loaded with activity. This Sunday, for Valley runners who aren’t in New York for the marathon, the local running calendar offers four different races in the space of three...

When Charlie Baker left the Massachusetts Governor’s Mansion in 2023 for the last time as its resident, he presumably had a whole host of professional options to move onto as America’s most popular governor. However, few foresaw Baker choosing his...

By JIM JOHNSON

For years, athletic directors and coaches have referred to their college athletes as scholar athletes or student athletes. The reference is that college athletes are students first and athletes second. Meanwhile, college athletes, especially...

Historically, American sprinters have been one of the biggest stories at the Olympics, and this summer’s excellent Games in Paris hardly altered that pattern. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone broke the world record for the 400-meter hurdles for the sixth...

By AMY NEWSHORE

Part 1 of a 2-part seriesWhen you think of someone you consider to be intelligent, what comes to mind? Perhaps they are well-schooled, are good problem solvers, or are self-taught, knowledgeable and passionate about a subject. It is most common to...

By RICHARD MCCARTHY

Sometimes life teaches you things you never wanted to know.As I alluded to in a previous column, I broke my femur, or thigh bone, this past March 25th, when I went down on a patch of ice while bicycling. For those of you who do not know, the femur is...