The 2010 Belmont Stakes Day didn’t have a chance at crowning a new Triple Crown champ, but the upside was that most of the dilettantes and the see-and-be-seen crowd skipped the day and left it for the serious bettors. Yeah, there were people who don’t usually come out for a day of racing, but they were more interested in the horses than the “scene” and that was a nice change.

It’s ridiculous and funny that there has been such an uproar over the scheduling of the 2014 Super Bowl, in, dare we say it, New Jersey!
Football and cold weather are synonymous. The game of football isn’t played in the spring or the summer when the breezes are blowing and the hot dogs are on the grill.
No, this is a game that is played regardless of the weather conditions, and we like it that way.

Some race days are lucky, and most of your bets come in. Some days are lousy, and you couldn’t hit a winning ticket with a mallet. And some days are mutable — some good races, some not so great.

Over the years, the Preakness has grown into my favorite of the Triple Crown races. There are fewer celebutards wandering around trying to get photographed and spewing ridiculous comments proving that they couldn’t be bothered to prepare for the day.

As a filmmaker and sports junkie, I attended the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) festival to watch as many sports-themed films as possible and found some gems. I’ve summarized the most notable ones below. Check them out if you get a chance!

One of my favorite films was Pelada, which had its world premiere at SXSW. Filmmakers Rebekah Fergusson and Ryan White follow former college soccer stars Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham as they travel the globe in search of pick-up soccer games.

Another Derby, another shot at the Triple Crown for a three year old horse and its connections. This year was as full of ups and downs as any other year, although the favorite, Eskendreya, bowed out a week early due to injury, and my favorites had been dropping out all season. One of them, Tiz Chrome, was injured so badly, he had to be euthanized. Let’s just say that I felt personally much less at stake than usual. Which meant I could relax and enjoy it more.

One of the best quarterbacks in college football, Florida Gators Tim Tebow was drafted to the Denver Broncos during the first round of the 2010 NFL draft. He was the Broncos second pick, drafted in the 25th position. Unlike many people who did not think Tim Tebow would be drafted during the first round, I believed he would be. Who wouldn’t want an incredible quarterback of Tim Tebow’s caliber and moral compass, especially with all the bad press the NFL is getting lately with players being suspended and going to jail for gun and sex charges, and other crimes. It’s nice to have a player with good moral and family values for a change. Tim Tebow is a role model kids can definitely look up to!

I can’t keep silent anymore.
The antics of Big Ben, who apparently either has, or think he has, a gold plated Big Johnson, have finally derailed his celebrity ride.
In the world of “He Said”, “She Said”, it is fair to conclude that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I love football. The game intrigues me, excites me and it intoxicates me.
I will never play football, have never thought of playing football and we are all better for it! But there are young women doing exactly that, getting physical and playing flag football.

So how does an Olympian prepare mentally for a once-in-a-lifetime event that can literally be over in seconds, but its results will last for the rest of his or her life? Because of my background as the first American Olympic gold medal aerial skier, motivational speaker and author of a much-talked-about inspirational book, I was honored when the U.S. Olympic Committee engaged me to help train the current and upcoming athletes on overcoming challenges, finding motivation, and dealing with these pressures at the Games.

As we all know, Gatorade has been fueling NFL players for 40 years and at Super Bowl XLIV Gatorade redefined the sideline to meet the athletes’ pre, during and post-game fueling needs. A new Gatorade cooler and sideline hydration system was unveiled during the Super Bowl

As I enter this new decade, I am surprised that I am looking and thinking about the future. For nearly all of the past decade, I literally withdrew from contact with friends of many years, having experienced an unexpected major setback whose ferocity sucked all of the usual resilience from my spirit. For that, I have paid a heavy price from which I may not fully recover.

My reawakening has been marked by hesitant and slow steps of outreach to those I abandoned by my failure to take charge of myself. Writing an occasional article is a part of my recovery process. I may never become the Grandma Moses of writing, but I still have a point of view on a lot of things, including, of course, the main focus of Femmefan: sports in most of its facets.

The Tiger episode has given me two different perspectives.
The first is this:
Tiger’s situation is, in some ways, a take-off of the Wizard of Oz.
He has created an imaginary wall of protection to protect himself from contact with the general masses. From behind that wall Tiger speaks.
Or does he? In reality, only a select few know anything about how or where Tiger is.

Femmefan and I have been treated wonderfully by the San Francisco Forty Niners since the start of Femmefan.
Over the last nine years they have given me access to players, something typically reserved for the media big boys.
You know the ones, the media types that do this for a living.
It is a bit unusual to get player access when you are writing for a web site, and a female fan website at that.

In November of 2006 I conducted an interview with San Francisco Forty Niners fullback Moran Norris.
This link to that archived article is here.
Moran played for the Forty Niners in 2006 and 2007, paving the way, through his blocking, for two record setting seasons for Forty Niners running back, Frank Gore

If Chicks Ran the NFL is back for more fun and insightful ideas from all Female Fans.
We have had a little time off recently, but, the NFL 2009 season is ready to kick-off.
Another season full of fun, food, booze and big bodies colliding.
What can be better than that?

This week I am making my picks and leaving it at that because I want to tell you about New Orleans and the object of their affection, the Saints.
I though that by now the city and the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina would be restored and life would be normal again.
It is sad to say that in this great county of ours, with all the riches we possess and in spite of the hard work of many wonderful, humane and compassionate people, things are still not back to normal in New Orleans.
But, there is one positive in New Orleans, the love affair the City of New Orleans has with its team, the Saints.
The Saints did not reach the Super Bowl in 2006 and yet to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

Growing old provides an occasional opportunity to reconnect with youngsters who are now adults with families and careers of their own. I’ve lucked out and have now reconnected with 2 such persons whose lives engaged mine decades ago.
The first was with Femmefan‘s creator (a story, perhaps, for another day), and the other with Josie Washington McQuay of the greater Philadelphia area.
Each followed a path of balancing the responsibilities of raising a family, maintaining a professional career and later found challenges and established new, but different, vistas for women in the arena of sports.

As of this writing (July 5, 2010) Lance Armstrong is back in the Tour de France. He’s got some unfinished business, having lost the race last year to former Astana teammate and rival Alberto Contator. Can Lance win the Tour an unprecedented 8th time? The jury is out.

“I would never ever bet against him,” says Bill Strickland, the editor at large of Bicycling Magazine and author of the recently released book Tour de Lance (Harmony Books). And Bill should know.

As a disruptive force at outside linebacker, he revolutionized the game with his relentless pursuit of the quarterback – racking up a remarkable number of sacks throughout his illustrious career.

Taylor significantly altered pass rushing schemes, offensive line play and offensive formations used in the NFL because of his intense, hard-hitting style of play. But away from the field, his intense, hard-partying, and reckless lifestyle has earned him a quite another reputation.

Nearly 30 years ago, when Taylor was drafted by the Giants with the No. 2 overall pick, Coach Ray Perkins said, “He was the cleanest player in the draft. By that I mean there was no rap on him.”

Football might be in its off-season, but you can still catch some action from one of your favorite (or not-so-favorite) football players – on the dance floor, that is.

By Davin Colten
There were two big surprises this Thursday night while watching the long program in the men’s free skate finals. One, by having Evan Lysacek win gold without doing a quad. That is preposterous. …

Silly Wabitt..
The New Orleans Saints stunned the NFL on Super Bowl Sunday.
Saints fans everywhere could finally call themselves champions and remove their paper bags, Aints No More

At the ripe young age of 22, Tim Tebow has already become a football legend. Being a two-time national champion and the first Heisman Trophy-winning sophomore, it’s no wonder he is the focus of many football enthusiasts far and wide.

Men’s college basketball is heating up, the Super Bowl is over and “who” might be lingering on retirement. All this in the latest edition from ESPN’s sports guru, Howie Schwab.

He might be one of the best players in the NHL, but Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings isn’t going to the Olympics.

We’ve talked about Tiger and his Gang of Nine to death.
Now we have something else to talk about.
Something which many of us knew and suspected for a long time.
Add Mark McGwire to the growing list of baseball players on the juice.