Sports & Recreation >>

• Best Place to See Bambi
  Armand Bayou Nature Center
  Living in the sweltering silver city, there are few places where you can get in touch with your inner Daniel Boone. But just outside of town, before you get to the ocean, there's a place where you can pretend you're going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house. Little... More >>
• Best Texan
  Tony Boselli
  There is no position more unsung in major professional sports than that of the offensive lineman, so let us sing the praises of one: Tony Boselli. The first player drafted by the Texans in their expansion draft, Boselli is, of course, huge; he's six foot seven and 320 pounds. He's also good;... More >>
• Best Astro
  Outfielder Daryle Ward
  Daryle Ward's 2002 season wasn't the breakout year everyone was hoping for, but his struggles exemplified the twin strands of frustration and elation that bind every Astros fan. God obviously didn't intend for the chunky Ward to be an outfielder, or He would have given him more willpower. Still,... More >>
• Best Yoga Studio
  Sundance Yoga Studio
  City life got the best of you? Sundance Yoga Studio offers beginner through advanced classes (levels 1-4) and Power Yoga classes for graduate students. Each class includes pranayama (proper breathing techniques), asanas (postures for flexibility, balance, coordination, strengthening) and... More >>
• Best Sporting Goods Store
  Sun & Ski Sports
  Sports is just too personal an endeavor for you to shop in a megachain that's missing personality. Sun & Ski Sports has multiple outlets, certainly. And visitors won't find diddly in the way of golf drivers with oversized heads or softball bats of metals exotic enough to make NASA envious. But... More >>
• Best Skate Park
  Vans Skate Park
  Sanctuary! Tony Hawk wannabes who are tired of getting kicked out of downtown have a 30,000-plus-square-foot refuge they can call their own. Vans Skatepark -- part of a national chain of skateboard facilities -- boasts an impressive indoor/outdoor collection of ramps, pools, rails and ledges... More >>
• Best Public Golf Course
  Tour 18
  Golfing vacations have become all the rage in recent years. Young power players and old gummers alike are paying top dollar for package trips that whisk them over the ocean -- and back in time -- to Saint Andrews or some other hallowed shrine of shankers everywhere. Houston doesn't lay (or even... More >>
• Best Disc Golf Course
  MacGregor Park
  When we first disclosed to a friend that we occasionally enjoyed a round of disc golf on the weekends, his reply was "That's so...collegiate." True, we did pick up the sport during our undergrad years, but its appeal hasn't waned a bit. And with great courses in Houston like the one at MacGregor... More >>
• Best Place to Shoot Up
  Survival Games of Texas
  When you just have to shoot someone, this little forest hideaway is the safest way to go. Just inside Beltway 8, these woods are still secluded enough that crews have used them to film the wilderness scenes for Blind Fury and Born on the Fourth of July. It also happens to be the oldest field in... More >>
• Best Place to Hike
  Big Thicket National Preserve
  It's no easy task to get off the beaten path, when every trail in the Houston area has been beaten senselessly by the throngs. But the Big Thicket is waiting -- and wild. It's an hour or so drive from Houston, and worth every minute of it. Exit I-10 onto U.S. 287 near Beaumont (and leave the... More >>
• Best Place to Bike
  North and South boulevards through the Broadacres neighborhood
  In a town as hot and biker-unfriendly as Houston, it seems almost pointless to purchase a two-wheeler. But once you check out this beautiful, highbrow Museum District neighborhood, you'll be apt to change your mind. The wide-open, well-paved streets are practically covered with a roof of oak... More >>
• Best Place to Play Racquetball
  Northwest Fitness and Sports Club
  Being locked in a cell with a bouncing blue projectile hurtling toward your head isn't everyone's idea of a good time. But we happen to love racquetball. And at Northwest Fitness and Sports Club, racquetball is the main attraction. The club offers ten courts, including the preferable windowless... More >>
• Best Rocket
  Moochie Norris
  Is it the hair? USA Today published an article that focused on Mooch's braids. Nah, can't be the hair. Moochie is a truly creative player. He slashes, he dashes, and most important, he gets in those just-in-the-nick-of-time shots. In his three years with the Rockets, the six-foot-one, 175-pound... More >>
• Best Park
  Bell Park
  The great explorer Christopher Columbus stands at one end of the park, pointing to the Italian Cultural and Community Center. Nonetheless, this respite from the noise and traffic of the Museum District, this diminutive stretch of trees and grass, remains undiscovered (or at least unnoticed) by... More >>
• Best Place to Fly a Kite
  Galveston East Beach
  Since their invention in China, kites have been used to carry messages, to ward off spirits and as instruments of war. Their principles of aerodynamics led to the airplane. Now, they're just for sport. The city doesn't offer many spacious areas for flying, and Houston's air is relatively still.... More >>
• Best Weekend Getaway
  Neal's Lodges, Concan
  Picture it. You're sitting on the front porch of your rustic cabin, which is perched on a bluff over the Frio River's crystal-clear headwaters. You're sipping a Shiner Blonde on a hot summer day, and all you can hear is the Frio rushing over the nearby crossing and the wind whispering in the... More >>
• Best Thing You'll Ever See on a Racetrack
  Weiner Dog Summer Invitational
  Shorty, Oscar Meyer, Razzle, Slinky and Conan. They're wiener dogs, dachshunds, charging down a greyhound track, their long low-to-the-ground bodies undulating, their floppy ears flapping, their pointy muzzles yapping, to the amusement of anyone willing to make the trip to La Marque. You don't... More >>
• Best Comet
  Sheryl Swoopes
  Last season, Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes heard the three most dreaded letters known to an athlete: ACL. Those three letters stand for a sports injury that often means the end of a career. But while Swoopes missed all last season with a torn ligament in her knee, she returned this year... More >>
• Best Play-by-Play Announcer
  Bill Brown
  Baseball announcers have traditionally been genial, low-key companions who take you through a hot, lazy summer night. But more and more are turning into Dick Vitale-like screamers shouting, "There's a looooong fly ball that has a chance! -- but it's caught by the shortstop." Luckily, Astros fans... More >>
• Best Sports Radio Talk Show
  Rich Lord and Charlie Pallilo, KILT/610 AM
  There used to be many more sports-talk shows on the radio in Houston, but thankfully the best has survived. Rich Lord and Charlie Pallilo have the afternoon-drive slot on all-sports KILT, and they've made many a rush hour less frustrating for Houstonians. Lord's a bit of a goof, and Pallilo's... More >>
• Best Sports Columnist
  Richard Justice, Houston Chronicle
  Picking a Best Sports Columnist in Houston is no easy matter. And it's not exactly because there's a wealth of riches to choose from. So our winners tend to be somewhat of a cheat -- they've not been the paper's regular sports columnists, they've been the beat guys who do a "news and notes"... More >>
• Best Sports Broadcaster
  Mark Berman, KRIV, Channel 26
  Channel 26, KRIVWhen it comes to breaking sports news in Houston, few folks do it better than Channel 26's Mark Berman. There's more than a bit of truth to that ad the station runs showing rivals watching Fox's 9 p.m. news to see what they'll need to catch up on before 10 p.m. Sure, he sometimes... More >>
• Best Scuba Instructor
  Robert "Scuba Bob" Knapick
  Scuba Bob is so badass that he once bit a nurse shark on the dorsal fin just so his students would see that they shouldn't be afraid to swim with sharks. "I kissed it after I got through biting it," he says. "I petted it, too." Scuba Bob estimates he's made around 3,200 dives and taught more... More >>
• Best Motivator
  Fitness instructor John Dalton
  It's 4:30 p.m., and you've had one of those days at the office. You know you need to go work out. You also know you could go straight home and work out the cushions of your oversized, overstuffed sofa. Then you remember that he'll be at the gym. You suit up. He's John Dalton, a fitness... More >>