Subject: Hakeem Olajuwon

• Van Chancellor v. Guy Lewis

  April 4, 2007

• We Luv Earl Campbell

  December 11, 2007

• The Year of Living Anxiously

  Are We Having Fun Yet? Or is it just the jangly buzz of advanced urban stress syndrome?

  December 29, 1994

• God's Plan

  At Dan Patrick's KPRC talk-radio station, it's politics with a capital G

  August 26, 1999

• Tear Down

  Mattress Mac waves good-bye to two decades' worth of home

  February 3, 2000

• Overblown and Underrated

  So you know Houston's goats, heroes and high points? Think again.

  February 1, 2001

• Houston Rockets: This Needs To Be Yao's Team

  Coming off a 2-3 road trip, plus wins over OKC and the Hornets, the Rockets make me feel the same way I did a few weeks back. Good, not great. They convincingly won the games they should have, home or away (Clippers, Thunder, Suns), and lost the games they should have (Lakers and a pretty decent Trail Blazers team). So the Spurs loss was disappointing, but it was the last game of a five-game road trip and they did come on strong the next night against one of the best of the West. What

  November 19, 2008

• Pete Newell, RIP

  Basketball fans ought to stop for a moment this weekend and mourn the loss of former San Diego Rockets General Manager (1968-1972) Pete Newell, who died on Tuesday at the age of 93. Long before UCLA made John Wooden a coaching legend, the blue and gold UC university system discovered another coaching diamond in the rough. After four middling seasons at Michigan State, Pete Newell was offered the head coaching job at the University of California at Berkeley. Newell coached the Golden Bears t

  November 21, 2008

• Letters

  December 16, 1993

• Into Africa

  January 27, 1994

• The Man Behind Mad Max

  May 12, 1994

• Letters

  May 26, 1994

• Rockets Mania

  June 23, 1994

• Press Picks

  July 28, 1994

• CondoMania

  October 13, 1994

• Manna from Sugar Land

  March 16, 1995

• The Insider

  June 8, 1995

• The Mt. Rushmore of Texas Sports

  ESPN is about to start on one of those stupid SportsCenter promotion things that has helped to make SportsCenter virtually impossible to watch. But over here at Ballz, we like stupid things - I'm sure that many of you think anything I write is stupid and virtually impossible to read anyway. So I've decided to rip-off ESPN's idea, which frankly I hear done on sports talk radio all of the time anyway, so... What ESPN is going to do is come up with is a Mt. Rushmore of Sports for each of the 50

  January 21, 2009

• Soles on Ice

  May 16, 1996

• The Passionate Pilgrim

  June 6, 1996

• The Insider

  February 20, 1997

• The Insider

  April 10, 1997

• Press Picks

  June 19, 1997

• Bad Deal

  December 4, 1997

• Press Picks

  January 22, 1998

• Rockets Fast Break: Adelman Stresses Consistency at Point

  To Rockets coach Rick Adelman, consistency trumps contrast. When fans initially heard the Rafer Alston trade Thursday afternoon, much of the immediate reaction was negative. In addition to questioning the team going forward without an experienced starting point guard, many wondered why the team would trade away Alston's size for Kyle Lowry, another 6-foot jitterbug of comparable height and style of play to Brooks. According to Adelman, that's exactly the idea.

  February 21, 2009

• Descent into Madness: The Dale Robertson Story

  March 19, 1998

• Geezer Follies

  March 19, 1998

• Sports Injera

  June 11, 1998

• Letters

  December 24, 1998

• Storm Damage

  September 2, 1999

• Rockets Fast Break: Adelman Stresses Consistency at Point

  To Rockets coach Rick Adelman, consistency trumps contrast. When fans initially heard the Rafer Alston trade Thursday afternoon, much of the immediate reaction was negative. In addition to questioning the team going forward without an experienced starting point guard, many wondered why the team would trade away Alston's size for Kyle Lowry, another 6-foot jitterbug of comparable height and style of play to Brooks. According to Adelman, that's exactly the idea.

  February 21, 2009

• The Mt. Rushmore of Texas Sports

  ESPN is about to start on one of those stupid SportsCenter promotion things that has helped to make SportsCenter virtually impossible to watch. But over here at Ballz, we like stupid things - I'm sure that many of you think anything I write is stupid and virtually impossible to read anyway. So I've decided to rip-off ESPN's idea, which frankly I hear done on sports talk radio all of the time anyway, so... What ESPN is going to do is come up with is a Mt. Rushmore of Sports for each of the 50

  January 21, 2009

• Best Restoration Project

  Houston region in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison

  September 20, 2001

• Taking the Plunge

  Saad Mahmoud is a Rice engineering grad. Instead of fielding $60,000-a-year job offers, he's been trading manual-labor skills for rent-free living -- while waiting out one of the worst job markets in two decades.

  June 19, 2003

• Tough Guys

  Full pads, full contact, no slackers allowed

  November 9, 2006

• Inside the Glide

  Hometown hoops hero Clyde Drexler airs it out in his new autobiography

  November 25, 2004

• This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

  March 11, 2004

• Holiday Puree

  A pinch of this culture, a dash of that make Fiesta Navideña

  December 11, 2003

• Best Reincarnation

  Compaq Center becomes the Lakewood International Center

  September 25, 2003

• The Love of Giants

  Yao Ming and Ye Li won't be seeing each other May 6 after all

  April 24, 2003

• Tall Orders

  Local tailor clothes the NBA

  April 17, 2003

• Year of the Yao Woo

  The crazy times in 2002 — Kmart raids, Olympian losses, stadium mania and more —- now make sense. Houston was just mining Ming.

  December 26, 2002

• History in the Unmaking

  Drexler's has finally outgrown its 50-year-old barbecue pit

  November 8, 2001

• Way Out There

  A new TV news operation is coming to Houston. More or less.

  August 9, 2001

• Dream Taker

  When political egos and a basketball star vow to beautify a derelict building next door to Enron Field, what do you get after more than a year? Nothing.

  March 30, 2000

• Alison Cook looks back at 1996: Year of the Rat

  December 26, 1996

• Where Does Sunday's Rockets Victory Rank? It'll Have To Top These To Make The Top Five

  Where does yesterday's deceptively close 99-87 shellacking of the Lakers rank in the annals of great Rockets victories? It's too soon to tell. If they build on that win by taking this series and then slip into their fifth NBA finals, minus not just Yao but also his geriatric Congolese understudy, not even to mention T-Mac, it will be one of the great ones for sure. But somehow Hair Balls doubts David Stern will allow his foul minions to let this bunch of scrappy no-names cheat him out of his lon

  May 11, 2009

• Listen Up, People: The Top Ten Coaches In Houston History

  ​The Chron's Jerome Solomon has another of those endless lists we writers like to do, this one asking for input on the top 10 coaches in Houston college and pro sports history. And he helpfully provides us with some candidates for the list. So I thought I would help out and provide what I consider to be the definitive list of the Top 10 coaches in Houston college and pro sports history.  1. Guy V. Lewis: One of the most underrated, under appreciated coaches in history. It's a crime that t

  August 11, 2009

• A Talk With UH's New Athletic Director: Facilities, Graduation Rates And Selling The Program

  Photo courtesy UH​Mack Rhoades has been on the job as the University of Houston athletic director for a little over five weeks. He's settling in. He's meeting his coaches and the support staff. He's meeting the players. He's touring the facilities.And he's been thinking and analyzing and trying to work up a plan that will take a sports program that has long been absent from the national stage and turn it, once again, into a national program. It's going to take a lot of work."We want to

  September 21, 2009