The 2017 Sports Stories That Mattered to Me…
Sports in America can sometimes be a sanctuary for fans. A place where color, creed, religion, age, sex… none of it matters. Young and old, white or black, Muslim or Christian, we can all enjoy sports. The only walls in sports are green ones that grown men try to hit baseballs over, the only dislike is when someone is wearing your rivals jersey, and all shooting is done on the basketball court. Sports is three hours of peace, three hours where there are no politics or religious debates, no polls, no voting, no discrimination.
Just. Sports.
The following is a series of sports stories, stories that stood out, not to you, not even to me, but to the writer. GoingFor2 does our yearly recap different than everyone else. We don’t do a countdown of the biggest sports stories from 10-to-1, we don’t give out awards like the ESPYs, and we don’t just recant the stories in a boring, “This is what happened” way. Each writer has chosen a sports story that mattered to them. Please take the time to click through each story, and I’m sure as you read them you will be reminded of the sports story that mattered to you…enjoy.
“Ball Till You Can’t” by Matthew Garrett
We all have THAT guy in our family. The one who says outlandish things when it comes to sports and, well, life advice in general. He’s usually the same person that talks about how beast he was back in the day and that some outside entity held him back from reaching his potential.
Still can’t figure it out? I’ll explain it like this; the guy in your family that talks like Skip Bayless.
LaVar Ball is that guy but instead of the dinner table, it’s America that’s his platform. Yes, we’ve spoken about the Ball family before but 2017 was truly the year of LaVar. Earlier this year the Ball family made headlines by releasing their own brand of sneakers. After Lonzo declared for the draft LaVar said it was destiny that his son would be a Laker. Sure enough, Lonzo was drafted second overall by, you guessed it, the Lakers.
In October LaVar dropped the bombshell that he was withdrawing his youngest son, LiAngelo, from Chino Hills High School so he could be homeschooled and focus on his basketball career. As one can imagine, it wasn’t met with a lot of praise.
The Ball family also expanded their Big Baller Brand merchandise collection with the release of LiAngelo’s first signature shoe.
You gotta admit, having a signature shoe at 16 is pretty dope.
That wasn’t the most interesting part of LaVar’s year, though.
In November UCLA went on a trip to China for a tournament. Ball’s second son, LiAngelo, was a member of the team and was accused of shoplifting sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store near their hotel. It would later be revealed that LiAngelo and two other teammates stole from three stores total. The players involved were suspended by UCLA and could not play in the season opener against China.
Let’s take a moment to recognize that Georgia Tech and UCLA flew all the way to China for a season opener but there isn’t enough money to pay players.
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Moving on.
After being arrested the players paid a bond of $2,200 but had to stay in their hotel. Simultaneously, the President was in China and claimed to have spoken to President Xi and that he alone got their charges dropped. After returning stateside Trump wondered why the students didn’t pat him on the back and thank him for getting them off the hook.
Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2017
UCLA held a press conference and in it, all players involved, including LiAngelo thanked the President for his help. Trump later tweeted that they were welcome and to have a great life.
UCLA later suspended Ball and the other parties involved indefinitely. They can’t dress, practice, or travel with the team.
A few days later ESPN caught up with LaVar and asked what he thought about Trump’s role in his son’s release.
Ball, never one to mince words, dropped this.
“Who? What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”
Trump, being the guy that he is, had to fire back.
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
Let’s gloss over the racial undertones in this tweet and focus on how Ball baited the President of the free world into a twitter tantrum. It’s safe to say that LaVar is the greatest heel of all time, right? Seriously, the man made an appearance on Monday Night Raw.
The story gets more interesting.
LaVar went on CNN for and gave an interview that won’t soon be forgotten. He reiterated that Trump didn’t do anything to get his son out of jail and played Chris Cuomo like an Alicia Keys piano. Ball had broken out of the sports world spotlight and had America’s attention.
Twitter, of course, had a blast with all of this.
laVar ball and trump gotta play one on one and the winner gets america
— Desus Nice (@desusnice) November 19, 2017
Ball maximized on this opportunity and dropped the hottest tweet of 2017.
#thetrumpdunk #stayinyolane @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/q9HYDsba8U
— Big Baller Brand (@bigballerbrand) December 7, 2017
Even after all of this, there was one big problem for the Ball family. What would LiAngelo do now that he’s been suspended indefinitely from UCLA and what will LiMelo do now that he’s not in school anymore?
The answer: play for a professional Lithuanian basketball league! That’s right, the Ball brothers will play for the Vytautas Prienai club.
Big Baller Brand is now international. They’re pretty popular, too.
Meanwhile, in the NBA, Lonzo is having a decent rookie year. He’s averaging 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists and is the youngest player ever to record a triple-double. LaVar’s vision is for all three sons to play for the Lakers and if there’s anything 2017 has taught me is to not underestimate LaVar and the power of positivity.
You might not agree with LaVar’s tactics. You might hate LaVar and think he’s annoying. One thing you must do is respect the guy who’s main goal is to leave something behind for his children and isn’t afraid to question the system. Is he the perfect messenger? Probably not.
The question I pose to you is: has there been such thing as a perfect messenger?
Speak it into existence. pic.twitter.com/dGu4sWGahg
— Big Baller Brand (@bigballerbrand) December 19, 2017
As always, thanks for reading.
“The Philadelphia Eagles Finish 13-and-3” by Kellie Ruttar
When I think of my 2017 and a way to sum it up, the only thing I could possibly write about is the Philadelphia Eagles and their incredible NFC leading season. I know a lot of people may be thinking that now that franchise quarterback, and once MVP candidate, second-year player Carson Wentz is out with a torn ACL that having hope for the playoffs is futile. This doesn’t change what the season means to me on a very personal level and the fact that it was, with no doubt, the best season to watch in my lifetime. Let me explain.
Prior to this year, I had been living in Cleveland. Two and a half years ago, I made an Eagles friend, we’d discuss the team in great depth, discuss other topics, and joke around. After two years of this, he finally found the courage to say something about us potentially being a couple. We clicked immediately. The chemistry and connection between the two of us were similar to what we saw at the Linc with our beloved Eagles.
It was only fitting that our first weekend spent together was at the NFL draft in Philadelphia. Prior to the start of football season, we found a home together, about an hour outside of Philly.
Finally, I’d get to enjoy an Eagles season with someone who’s fandom rivals my own, in a place where I could watch every game on television without using illegal streaming services or sports bars filled with Cleveland and Pittsburgh fans. Going into the season, despite the so-called experts predicting us to have a losing season, we carried the mantra, “This is OUR year!” Both in reference to the team and us in our new life journey together.
Every game we kept defying odds, despite countless injuries, including season-ending ones for key players, Jordan Hicks, Chris Maragos, Jason Peters, Darren Sproles, Caleb Sturgis, and Carson Wentz, not to mention other key players out for stretches of games. Despite everything that was lost, the team kept a next man up mentality and created a winning culture of fun around second-year coach Doug Pederson. similar to any relationship, there were issues, but they were overcome with faith in the teamwork and knowing that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
With win after win, we seemed like we could do no wrong. Despite the injury to Wentz, it has become clear that the team has a long-term quarterback solution that will keep fans happy for years to come. One thing that was always lacking in other playoff-bound Eagles teams was a proper supporting cast. With moves made by Howie Roseman, we have many key skill positions locked up prior to the start of the off-season.
We may lose our defensive coordinator to a head coaching position on a rival team, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have the type of talent and depth in our defense that other teams only dream about.
Now that 2017 has come to a close, the Eagles are still in the mix and the top seed for the NFC. No matter what you think of our chances in the postseason, we finished 2017 strong and there’s a bright future ahead.
The big ball was dropped in Time’s Square and 2018 is here. We are going into the playoffs without the team leader in Carson Wentz, but no matter how this Cinderella season ends for the Eagles, 2017 was indeed OUR year.
After a Banner Year, Can Boxing Escape the ‘Niche Sport’ Tag?
As a boxing fan, and as a writer covering the sport for the past 18 months, my biggest sports moment of 2017 was the banner year the sport had, which was undeniably the best in recent memory. Showtime Sports alone aired nearly 30 world title fights over the past 12 months. And, several outlets ventured into various streaming options for boxing matches, enabling fans to watch fights online at specific sites, or through feeds on Facebook or Youtube.
Below are a few major highlights for boxing that encapsulate how one of the world’s oldest professional sports got up off the mat and began to earnestly compete for the time, money and attention of raving sports fans:
- On March 4 WBA welterweight champions Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia went to battle for 12 rounds at Barclays Center in front of a boxing-record 16,533 fans. The CBS primetime telecast averaged an audience of 3.74 million, peaking at 5.1 million per Nielsen Media Research.
- Anthony Joshua became a unified heavyweight champion (IBF and WBA) April 29 at Wembley Stadium with a signature 11th-round technical knockout of Wladimir Klitschko with a record 90,000 fans in attendance.
- On August 26 retired boxing great Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC champion Conor McGregor engaged in a one-off boxing match hailed as the “greatest fight in combat sports history.” The fight had both the second highest number of pay-per-view purchases and live gate totals in 4.3 million (which equated to $600M in revenue) and $55.4m, respectively.
- On September 16 pound-for-pound fighters Saul Alvarez and unified Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin fought in the year’s biggest boxing bout. The bout failed to compete with the Mayweather-McGregor pay-per-view performance, only reaching 1.3 million purchases, but the event did notch the third largest gate in boxing history with $27M generated by 17,318 sold tickets.
- The World Boxing Super Series was launched in September 2017, featuring 16 world-class fighters from Cruiserweight and Super Middleweight who competed in 14 fights in a bracket-style elimination tournament. The tourney, in its first year, wasn’t supported by the major U.S. premium cable networks, and only featured one or two American boxers, but the success of the venture will continue to promote ‘the best fighting the best’ as it moves on to other divisions in subsequent years.
- On October 28th Joshua fought and defeated substitute opponent Carlos Takam in front of a crowd of 80,000 in Cardiff, Wales.
- Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank Boxing both entered into agreements to return boxing back to ESPN with regularly scheduled cards over the next couple of years. The deal produced a prime-time world title fight featuring future Hall of Fame Welterweight Manny Pacquiao versus Australia’s Jeff Horn in July, attracting 3.9M viewers. In August, Super Lightweight champion Terence Crawford quickly defeated Julius Indongo by third-round knockout, becoming the first man to hold all four major belts in a division since Bernard Hopkins in 2004. And, the first year of the deals culminated with a rare match-up pitting a pair of pound-for-pound ranked world champions and two-time Olympic gold medalists in Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux – the bout garnered 2.1 million viewers.
- Two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields became the first woman to headline an event for a cable network, fighting on Showtime in March. In August, Shields fought in the main event of a ShoBox: The New Generation for the second time, defeating Nikki Adler to become the unified super middleweight champion – in just her fourth pro bout.
Boxing will unlikely break down its status as a niche sport, but ironically each year Hollywood continues to produce new boxing movies, and the sport still does well on the coasts and in Las Vegas. Fans of the sweet science finally got the Alvarez-Golovkin mega-fight in 2017, and we’ll all impatiently await the business to get worked out for the new most coveted match-up between the UK’s Anthony Joshua and the US’ Deontay Wilder.
If that showdown fails to materialize in 2018, legions of fans may feel scorned by the promoters and/or networks who control the purse strings in the sport. However, a lot was learned by all parties in 2017, and while no one may soon replicate the feats of Mayweather, the need for the best to continue to fight the best will remain the key harbinger for any fighter looking to pick up the mantle.
“28-to-3: The 31 Points of Heartbreak and Fandom” by Geoff Lambert
The day was Sunday, February 5, 2017. The day the Patriots scored 31 unanswered points to win the Super Bowl — and the day my wife learned what its like to be a football fan.
I’m not going to recant the Super Bowl events or bore you with the details that have been analyzed and scrutinized ad nauseam. Instead, I’m going to attempt to live the Super Bowl through the eyes of my wife and how that game, that collapse by the Falcons, showed her what being a fan really is.
Let me set the stage and talk about my wife and her “football experience” to this point in her life. She is a Packers fan by birth. Her parents are from Wisconsin and her younger brother is the biggest Packer fan in the Washington D.C. metro area — where also happen to reside. She, however, had never really been a fan of the Packers. She knew a few of the player’s names. She knew Aaron Rodgers, of course. She knew Jordy Nelson. And she knew Clay Matthews, but more for his appearance on Pitch Perfect 2 than for his play on the field. However, if you asked her what their record was, or who they played the following week, she probably couldn’t tell you. She had watched Super Bowls with me before, but she was always more interested in the social side of the party we were at more than the game.
Okay, back to Super Bowl Sunday. We were at a Super Bowl party at a friend’s house with probably 13 other people. It was your typical Super Bowl party; food, beer and… salad — don’t ask, long story. The majority of us — if not all — were rooting for the Falcons… or against the Patriots rather. We were high-fiving after every touchdown the Falcons scored, making jokes about how bad the Patriots were playing, and slowly becoming more interested in the commercials than the actual game.
Early in the third quarter, with the score…you guessed it, 28-to-3, it was time for my wife and me to leave. We had a babysitter at our house watching our 4-year-old daughter, and we didn’t want to stay too late. Besides, this game was over, right?
As we all know, it wasn’t. We got home, turned the game on to watch the rest of the second half, and were shocked at what was transpiring. Every time something bad happened to the Falcons, my wife would ask, “They can still win, right?”
And I would reply, “Yeah, the game isn’t over, the Falcons just need a field goal or something.”
Then the Patriots would score, and they would score again…and again. My wife is now totally engrossed in this game. Living and dying with every play. Both of us hoping the Falcons can do something — anything — to stop the Patriots.
The game ends in overtime, Patriots 34 Falcons 28, and as disappointed as I was in the outcome, something had changed with my wife. The same person that gave me a hard time when I went to the “man-cave” when my team had a big game. The same person that couldn’t understand why I was in a bad mood when my team lost. The same person that would give me to-do list that had to be done on Sunday game days. She finally understood. The Falcons, despite not being her team, despite the fact they had knocked her Packers out of the playoffs, and despite not entirely understanding what she had just seen, they had made my wife a fan and after 11 years together, she finally understood…
Fast-forward to the 2017 season. My wife watches every Packers game she can. She even had me buy an illegal stream for my jailbroken firestick so she could watch the games that weren’t televised in our area. She knew who the Packers were playing each week and whether they won or lost the week before. She was heartbroken, just like every other Packers fan, when Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone. And she was asking me about scenarios in which the Packers could still get into the playoffs as the season wound down.
So as much as I dislike Tom Brady and the Patriots and as much as I had liked for the Falcons to have won that game, I have two words I want to say to them…
“Thank You”.
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