Sports Illustrated

Rice Denies "Terrorist," "Axis of Evil" Racial Slurs Surrounding Implosion of Men's Basketball Team

It's been four long, sad decades for the Rice men's basketball program. There have been a few moments of levity -- the opening of Tudor Fieldhouse, Morris Almond's mid-range jumper, Willis Wilson's mustache -- but, by and large, the tale's been one of cumbersome academics and milquetoast community ... More >>

JaMarcus Russell's Quest To Become The First 350-Pound Quarterback Is Full Steam Ahead

My co-host John Granato and I have a standing breakfast bet (which I just now realized will have to be amended to something else at stake because we're moving from mornings to afternoons on 1560 Yahoo! Sports Radio) and it goes like this: True of false: Out of these three quarterbacks -- Tim Tebow, ... More >>

Seal Turning 50 Gives Us An Excuse To Use This Picture On A Blog

Today British singer Seal turns 50 years old, which is a perfect excuse for me to finally use the above picture and for you all to bask in its glory. Look at it. It's Seal's head on an actual seals head! I mean when I first saw it years ago I thought, "Internet, just when I think you can't get any b ... More >>

Sports Illustrated Gets In Depth with Rockets GM/Geek Daryl Morey

If you've ever seen the movie Moneyball, you probably have a tiny inkling of what goes into the data-heavy methodology behind modern sports analytics. It's a complex mix of raw data, probability and computing power. Prior to Daryl Morey's hire as the Rockets GM, no one had seriously tried it in the ... More >>

5 Things We Learned From SI.com's Fascinating 2012 Mock College Football Playoff Selection

Since the largely money driven epiphany of the college presidents and power brokers of the Bowl Championship Series finally gave us the promise of a four team playoff beginning with the 2014 season, one of my many questions has been "Why do we have to wait until 2014?" I think I know the answer -- ... More >>

Texans Rewind: I Found a 2008 NFL Preview Magazine, Man Alive Was the Texans Defense Bad

On our radio show on 1560 The Game this past Monday, John Granato and I were breaking down various aspects of both the Texans 26-13 win over the Panthers and the preseason in general. The topic was the defense, specifically Whitney Mercilus and the various ways that Texans defensive coordinator Wade ... More >>

The Mean, Evil, Bored & Ashamed Faces on 13 NFL Team Logos, Ready for Their Close-Ups

Our long national nightmare, otherwise known as the football offseason, is nearing an end. Exhibition Preseason games are in full swing, for better or worse. (If you watched all -- or even most of -- the Cowboys' 3-0 win over Oakland Monday, seek help.) Still, the appearance of the pads and unis i ... More >>

Four Earl Campbell SI Covers to Remember His Greatness

Anyone old enough to remember the Luv Ya Blue days of the Houston Oilers (hell, a lot of you probably don't remember the Houston Oilers!) likely remember very specific things like Bum Phillips, the rally in the Astrodome, Dan Pastorini and the AFC title games in Pittsburgh. But, above all else, you ... More >>

50 Rad Things Now on the Sig's Lagoon Walls

Within the past month, the walls of Sig's Lagoon have been transformed into a sprawling pop-culture collage of posters, photos, newspaper clippings, magazine covers, picture discs and cardboard cutouts courtesy of former Sundance Records owner Bobby Barnard. Since the longtime San Marcos music stor ... More >>

Top 5 College Football Drug Scandals: An Ode to TCU

Yesterday, 17 Texas Christian University students were arrested by Fort Worth authorities following a six-month drug sting. Four TCU football players -- including Tanner Brock, one of the team's top linebackers -- were among those nabbed for selling ecstasy, weed, coke and prescription pills to unde ... More >>

SI Swimsuit Issues: The Least-Read Articles Inside Them, Through the Years

Sports Illustrated is out with its latest swimsuit issue, much to the dismay of people who prefer to hear sports-talk radio hosts talk sports. The issue, in these porn0filled days, is not the major event it used to be, of course. Back in the day, its arrival in mailboxes was an eagerly awaited wint ... More >>

Top 5 Musical NBA Players

The NBA All-Star Game is coming up in a couple of weeks. There may not be any Rockets on the roster - even ex-Rocket/Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin didn't blow up in time to be added as a reserve - but musical names such as Kanye West, Rihanna (the halftime entertainment), Lenny Kravitz, Josh Groban, ... More >>

He Said, She Said: WTF Is With Fashion These Days?

Just as it is said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, the same can be said for writing about fashion, though we know a few fashion magazines, blogs and crazed fashionistas that would violently differ. Even still at the end of the day, it's just fabric or animal skin coverin ... More >>

Why Should Houston Want to Experience Another NFL Playoff? Five Painful Memories

Even though their team is coming off three straight losses, Houston is getting amped for the city's first NFL game since 1993. We have to ask: Why? Haven't the NFL playoffs caused our city enough emotional trauma through the years? Hey, we're football fans too, so we know how it goes. And we'll be ... More >>

Wikipedia Doesn't Think Much of Astros GM Ed Wade

​Wikipedia, the absolutely, impeccably never-wrong source of all information, apparently isn't impressed with Astros General Manager Ed Wade. The opening, in case you can't read it up there:

My Favorite 12 Nuggets from the Sports Illustrated Piece That Exposes Jim Tressel

Jim Tressel, tattoo victim​By now, you probably know the story at Ohio State. It's the age-old story of "football players befriend drug trafficking tattoo parlor owner, players swap memorabilia for tattoos (and quite possibly drugs), head coach finds out about scam via e-mail and does nothing ... More >>

Final Four: Find Yourself at the Game

Was Waldo there?​SI.com has got a neat feature up today -- a gigapan, searchable photo of last night's NCAA Final. In case you don't know what that is (and we probably got the terminology wrong), it's basically a GoogleStreetview of the arena last night -- you can zoom in, pan around and even ... More >>

College Football and NFL: This Weekend's Best Bets (And a Promise From Me)

You can't lose, except when you lose​I'm coming up on almost one year now writing a daily post on Hair Balls for HoustonPress.com. In that time, I've written tens of thousands of words about topics like the Summer of LeBron, the Brian Cushing saga, the Houston Texans, and the death of Jose Lima. ... More >>

NBA Rumors: Carmelo Anthony Is Interested In Bringing His Talents To Houston

'Melo is eyeing up the Rockets​Carmelo Anthony is interested in coming here? To Houston? To play for the Rockets? Don't be messing with us, Sports Illustrated.Supposedly it's so.SI reported that the Rockets are on a short list of teams Anthony would be interested in joining if he and his current e ... More >>

Game Time: Best of the Best -- Top 10 Moments from Clutch City Rockets (w/video)

Consensus Number One​I am a total sucker for lists.This makes me like roughly 95 percent of society; the fact that I openly admit I'm a sucker for lists makes me a little more unique. There are so many list books, list columns, list blog posts (many by yours truly) that it seems by admitting you ... More >>

Sports Illustrated's 10 Strangest Covers Of The `60s

We all know Sports Illustrated, for decades the leading athletic magazine around. Even in its heyday, though, editors felt the need to be hip and edgy.Sometimes.Or maybe they just did a lot of drugs in the Time-Life offices, and occasionally the boss who was supposed to stop terrible cover ideas was ... More >>

Texans' Eric Winston Pinch-Hits For Sports Illustrated's Peter King

A second career opens up for a Texan​Sports Illustrated's Peter King is off covering the World Cup (because why the hell not?), so the publication has turned to some substitutes to keep up the popular NFL rumors/analysis column Monday Morning Quarterback.Today's pinch-hitter: Houston Texan Eric Wi ... More >>

Remembering Good Things About The Astros, Part One

​As Shakespeare would have said if he was an Astros fan, there have been several summers of discontent lately, and there ain't no son of York hanging around waiting to make them glorious.In fact, it's a pretty dismal time to be a Stros fan. Since that big Game Seven against the Cards in 2005, ... More >>

Pop Rocks: More Like Hannah "Tetons," Am I Right?

​Sports Illustrated's annual Swimsuit Issue hit newsstands this week. The cover features model Brooklyn Decker, also known as "Mrs. Andy Roddick." That's far from the only athlete connection in this year's issue, however, as several U.S. Olympians (skiers Lindsey Vonn and Lacy Schnoor and snowboa ... More >>

For The Cold Snap: Bikinis Ain't What They Used To Be, Thank God

As Houston gets ready for an actual deep freeze this week, it brings to mind enduring winters up north. A day or two of nighttime temperatures getting near 20 is nothing like a few months when you're begging for the thermometer to get in the upper 30s, believe us.But growing up in New Jersey, there ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Long Live The BCS

​By the slimmest of margins, America was spared the unthinkable horror of seeing a (*shudder*) mid-major team contend for a national championship last Saturday. And if you don't think there were some urgent calls made from the executive office of the BCS to the replay booth in Jerry's World (Cowbo ... More >>

Game Time: Tiger, Why Can't You Be More Like Jeter?

​I have very few sports allegiances that drive me to either end of the emotional spectrum, especially professionally. Honestly, in the business that I'm in, I think it actually helps me think and assess things clearer than if I had a diehard rooting interest.Sure, I root for the Houston teams, a ... More >>

Rockets Once Again Get No Respect

A Rockets belt buckle -- what every taste-free fan should be wearing tonightThe Rockets season ends tonight at Toyota Center -- wait, wait, did we just say that out loud? We mean the Rockets season likely ends tonight -- no, wait, we mean the Rockets' improbable Game Four win will be repeated tonigh ... More >>

Local Dude's Lawsuit To Be A Hooters Waiter Ends With A Settlement

Photo by noelweathersNikolai Grushevski sued Hooters in January after the restaurant didn't hire him as a Hooters Girl. Mike McNeil, vice president of marketing at Hooters, told Hair Balls at the time, "If we lose this go around, you can next expect hairy legged guys in the Rockettes to line up and ... More >>

What We Lose, And What We Gain, If Texas Secedes

Rick Perry, our governor, has taken a steep dive off the sanity cliff with his preachin'-to-the-Rush-choir talk of seceding from the United States.This may be hard to imagine, but we think Perry might not have thought the whole thing through so well. And not just because he's presented the image of ... More >>

Don't Make Me Beg

The rumor mill has it that AOL Sports is about to start hiring beat reporters to cover the various sports in the professional leagues. This is supposed to be like what Yahoo! and CBS Sportsline have done - those of you who have read those sites know how those work. It's just like with the newspap ... More >>

Don't Make Me Beg

The rumor mill has it that AOL Sports is about to start hiring beat reporters to cover the various sports in the professional leagues. This is supposed to be like what Yahoo! and CBS Sportsline have done - those of you who have read those sites know how those work. It's just like with the newspap ... More >>

Erin Andrews: Playboy's Sexiest Sportscaster

Photo by speedye The competition has ended, and just like the Philadelphia Phillies putting down the upstart Tampa Bay Rays in last year's World Series, ESPN Erin Andrews' dominated her competition once again to repeat as Playboy.com's Sexiest Sportscaster. Playboy.com attempted to toughen things u ... More >>

Erin Andrews: Playboy's Sexiest Sportscaster

Photo by speedye The competition has ended, and just like the Philadelphia Phillies putting down the upstart Tampa Bay Rays in last year's World Series, ESPN Erin Andrews' dominated her competition once again to repeat as Playboy.com's Sexiest Sportscaster. Playboy.com attempted to toughen things u ... More >>

Top Ten Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Photos

It's that time of the year, time for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, when young hetero boys first discover the joys of women in bathing suits, when angry mothers and librarians fire off letters to SI decrying the pornography that the magazine has become. In tribute, here's a quick review of ... More >>

Top Ten Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Photos

It's that time of the year, time for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, when young hetero boys first discover the joys of women in bathing suits, when angry mothers and librarians fire off letters to SI decrying the pornography that the magazine has become. In tribute, here's a quick review of ... More >>

Twelve Best Sports Books of All Time

The State of Sports Journalism Today

Steroids and Roger Clemens: Richard Justice and Jon Heyman Join the Party (Which, Regretfully, Is Not at Jose Canseco’s House)

OU Fans Pretty Pissed

Perchance to Dream

You Thought the Cubs Had It Bad

The Metamorphosis

Boy turns bug in redemptive kiddie-lit adaptation

Sharp-Dressed Men

So Interpol's natty and into British post-punk. You got a problem with that?

Turn Down the Radio

Cuba gives a loud performance in the mawkish Radio

Unlucky Winners

Is there a Houston Press Music Award jinx?

Traditional and Trite

Plastic and the past melt together in a field of schemes

Luck of the Puck

Sweet irreverence works in Mystery, Alaska

Rockets Redux

That championship season makes its way to video