Bill Simmons has a great piece on the collapse of David Ortiz.

The Big Picture has shots from this year’s Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling in Gloucester, England:

In a tradition that dates back at least 200 years, possibly much longer, groups of fearless competitors chase an 8 pound (3.5 kg) round of Double Gloucester Cheese down an extremely steep and uneven hill, with a 1:1 gradient in some parts. Thousands of spectators gather to watch the five downhill and four uphill races, and to celebrate the winners and console the losers afterward. Injuries such as broken bones and concussions are commonplace, but the event continues to grow in popularity. The winner of each race is awarded the delicious round of cheese they were chasing.

Usain Bolt lays waste to another world record, this time the 150 meters. Watching the race brings back Olympic déjà vu; total destruction of the field. Here’s the Science of Sport’s take. I wonder if he can score a WR in the 400 too? He’d need to take like 2.5 seconds off his personal best, I think. Michael Johnson thinks he can do it.

P.S. Here’s the super slow-motion replay of his 100m Olympic final again. Even slowed way down his feet spend such a remarkably short amount of time on the ground, and I love watching the clock tick down as he runs past it.

Two quick hits in defense of Michael Phelps: What Michael Phelps Should Have Said and Boycott Kellogg’s.

Dear Eli Manning Era Giants Fans:

First off, thank you for supporting my favorite team in sports for the past eleven months. It’s been a pleasure having your company since last year’s NFC Championship game – which, coincidentally, is when you first realized that “your” team actually had a chance to play in the Super Bowl.

Just the first two sentences as a teaser. Some harsh language, understandably.

A buddy of mine encouraged me to hit up YouTube for some Roberto Carlos clips, and I’m glad I did. First up is the physics-defying free kick against France HQ. It must have been disbelief that kept the goalie pretty much pinned in place. That post should not have been fair game. This top 10 goals compilation is also pretty good (alas, not in high quality). I think the goal at 2:57 is actually more impressive than the free kick, and if the soccer itself isn’t proof of his athleticism, check out the air on his celebratory leap at 0:40.

Thanks to reader llimllib for pointing out the Women's 100m Final. Like the men's race, totally worth watching for Shelly-Ann Fraser's dominant performance, but even better is the joy she expresses in her post-race celebration and interview. Makes me happy just watching her.

• First, I have to express my awe at the 100 meter dash. If you didn't see it live, you must watch Usain Bolt's world record run. Sweet Mother of God. His semifinal heat looked like that too; so relaxed, coasting to victory. Imagine how much he would have beaten the record by if he hadn't started celebrating 15 meters (!) out. Also, definitely watch the super-slow-mo version. I love watching the timer count off the tenths in the background as he runs by, celebrating. Related, here's Tyson Gay's hamstring injury footage. It's like a NASCAR crash. I knew those guys generated tremendous power, but I didn't truly appreciate how much until watching it go very wrong. Looks nothing like one of my hamstring pulls. You'll be prompted to install Microsoft's Silverlight plugin to watch these. It's basically Microsoft Flash (like we needed another rich media format).
• Admit it, Phelps has you thinking about getting into the pool. Tim Ferriss has a good post up on the Total Immersion program: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too. My big obstacle is the inability to keep the water from going up my nose.
• Discover magazine: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Sports Technology.
• Science stuff. Modern Forager on what happens when you fast: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
• More science stuff. Lyle McDonald on leptin: Part 1 and Part 2. Much more complicated than some of the recent popular press stories imply.

• I first read about the Thai sport of takraw years ago, and then forgot all about it. Crazy athleticism, volleyball without hands, bicycle kick spikes, etc. YouTube has some takraw action (via Frostillicus).
• The guys at The Science of Sport have put together a wonderful montage to kick off the XXIX Olympiad. Really well done.

Here's a NY Times piece that grabbed me, as I imagine it will for anybody else out there playing a fringe sport (and one without scholarship opportunties, at that): Odd Jobs Help College Teams Stay Afloat.

I continue to mull over Turning It, which I linked to a couple days ago. If you blew it off then, go read it now. I particularly like the "Strength Before Speed" section, but there's all kinds of gems in there:

One of the fastest ways to increase a football player's speed and running efficiency is to get him to run with his eyes. The head acts as an anchor if the eyes aren't first looking at the target. This forces a runner to get out of position when he changes direction, causing the shoulders to line up improperly and affecting body orientation. So we stress that when players set a foot to turn, their eyes should immediately find the target. This simple cue can fix some of the most complex problems in running mechanics.

That leapt out at me, having just been advised the day before that I should work on "finding the back cone." I used to know how to do that, before 15 years of handling took over my game. Should be a fun skill to rediscover. Anyway, this is what really got me thinking over the past couple days:

There are far too many good drills out there to cover them all. They can be as simple as the pro-shuttle that the NFL Combine uses, where athletes sprint back and forth over a specified distance (typically 20 yards), or as complex as a cone drill with five or more turns. The key is to remember that football speed is the ability to change direction and accelerate quickly, not how quickly someone can run a 40-yard sprint. We focus on the drills that will develop fast-twitch lateral movement over straight-line speed.

So what are these drills? I e-mailed the guy for a list, but haven't gotten a response. Oh well. I did find a couple interesting things in Googling around, though.

First up is this YouTube video of Jackie Battle's performance in the NFL Combine. The three-cone drill (which Battle demonstrates at 2:02 of that video, and which is described here) is one I'm definitely going to add to the mix.

Second is this Michael Boyle article on NFL Combine training (PDF), specifically focusing on the 40. Great article, too much good stuff to excerpt any one paragraph, but the key observation here is that the 40 is a test of acceleration, not speed. You should take that into consideration, along with the size of your playing field and how you move on it, before deciding how you want to strike the balance between acceleration, speed, and endurance in your training.

Two very good reads came across my desktop this week. First up is Purposeful Walking by Jim Parinella. It's Ultimate-specific, but I think has cross-sport value, as we all need to manipulate our opponents one way or another. Next up is Turning It, a very interesting read on the importance of training turning, acceleration, and lateral power rather than straight-line speed. Again, sport-specific (football), but with broad applicability (Ultimate players, depending on role, have more opportunities to get up to top speed, so don't neglect that part of your training, though).

Podium Sports Journal looks good, and I liked the piece titled, "The Nine Mental Skills of a Successful Athlete." The thing I particularly liked was his definition of a successful athlete:

What these athletes have in common is that their sport is important to them and they're committed to being the best that they can be within the scope of their limitations - other life commitments, finances, time, and their natural ability. They set high, realistic goals for themselves and train and play hard. They are successful because they are pursuing their goals and enjoying their sport. Their sport participation enriches their lives and they believe that what they get back is worth what they put into their sport.

Just a little diversion for you: talk about awkward moments in sports!

• Malcolm Gladwell asks: Abolish the NCAA? (then follows up with NCAA Redux).
• Man, the Supertraining table of contents looks fabulous. « via RossTraining forums»
• Also via RT, 660 one-arm push-ups?!?! And he's getting all the way down there. Reminds me of this one-arm rope climb video.

Roger Federer as Religious Experience by David Foster Wallace. He uses the first paragraph to lovingly describe an amazing "Federer Moment". He then concludes:

Anyway, that's one example of a Federer Moment, and that was merely on TV—and the truth is that TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love.

I don't know where that puts YouTube on the video porn/actual sex spectrum, but they've got a clip of that exalted Federer Moment, starting at 8:10 in. I think YouTube might be off the bottom end of the metaphor, actually, and the moment strikes me as one of subtle greatness, only really appreciable by fans. Love the article, though.« via kottke »

A couple Friday diversions: past and present YouTube highlight reels: Larry Bird and Dwyane Wade.

...allegedly (he pleads not guilty).

Holy crap. Imagine if Larry Bird's last act on the court was to knee Magic Johnson in the balls.

(The analogy almost certainly breaks down in drawing the Materazzi/Magic comparison, but still...)

A buddy of mine e-mailed succinctly: "Did you watch Zidane today? Amazing thing, competitiveness."

How sad.

Takeru Kobayashi ("who once ate 17.7 pounds of pan-seared cow brains to win $25,000") won his sixth straight hot dog eating title, but from my casual following of this event, it seems like the gap is closing. What really caught my eye though was this (emphasis added):

Other competitors included 100-pound Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., who once ate 65 hard boiled eggs in a little more than 6 1/2 minutes, and local favorite Eric "Badlands" Booker, a 6-foot-4, 425-pound subway conductor from Long Island who holds speed-eating records for pies and matzo balls.

Damn it, now I'll never be able to enjoy that Cool Hand Luke scene in quite the same way.

puddleduck asks:

I'd be curious to read your thoughts on skills development and ultimate specific training. Currently I play 2-3 times a week and hope to become an impact player at this level (RIPUL Summer League ... roughly equivilent to Buda's Hatleagues) over the next two seasons.

Other than playing as often as possible, and testing my wife's patients for throwing with me, do you have suggestions for learning the game? I missed out on the opportunity to get coached in college and I don't see myself making a club team anytime soon.

Alrighty! Instruction for new players with perhaps an emphasis on throwing seems to be the target, so here goes:

1. Buy a copy of Ultimate Techniques and Tactics by Jim Parinella and Eric Zazlow. It's fantastic. You will learn much more from it than you will from me.
2. Throw as often as you can. I sometimes feel that players that come to the sport after college are at a big disadvantage. When you are on a team in college, you throw every day, sometimes in multiple sessions, and that doesn't even count practices. You'll see teammates between classes and you'll kill time by tossing. You almost can't help but become a good thrower. I play with a fair number of guys who came to the sport after college, and their throws have taken much longer to develop. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

3. Fix your grips sooner rather than later. When I first started playing I threw my backhand with my index finger laying along the rim. It took six months before a more experienced player noticed and said to me, "you know, nobody who's any good holds their backhand like that." Argh (thank you, Will Heyman). Fortunately, with only six months under my belt the rebuild wasn't too painful. You should squeeze your backhand in your fist, all fingers curled under the rim. Much more power than the finger-out grip.

   As for the flick, they tell me you should have two fingers on the rim but I can't help you there, as I've been using the split-finger grip (index finger on the rim, middle finger pointing towards the middle of the disc) for 17 years and it's too late for me to change now (I've tried). But if you're still finding your style, you should probably get a two-finger flick thrower to teach you. Watching the teams warm up for the finals at Open Nationals last year, seemed like the split-finger grip was the rare exception.

   (A story about my inferior grip: a teammate was trying to convince another split-finger thrower to change grips. He was going around demonstrating that all the good throwers threw two-finger. Until he got to me, and was shocked to discover I was in the split-finger camp. Kinda undermined his case. So I've made do. But still, if I had it to do over again...)

4. When you practice throwing, throw like you will in a game. Fake, pivot, throw. Don't just stand upright and casually toss. Especially if you aren't throwing every day. Make your rare throwing sessions count. Most importantly...

5. Get your body low when you throw! Practice pivoting wide and throwing from a lunged position. Bend from the knees, not the waist. You want to be able to pivot from the forehand lunge to the backhand lunge and back while maintaining balance about your center of gravity. There are throwers that can break the mark at will while standing more upright, but in my experience many of the good mark-breakers do it with the legs and low throws.

   (Another story: the player that gave me the biggest nightmares was Jeff Capella. I often ended up covering him, and was always woefully outmatched. I remember once trying to mark him, and he had pivoted way out for the forehand. Then way back for the backhand. The thing was, he never came out of the crouch when transitioning. It was like he was on rails, and his shoulders never got higher than three feet off the ground. The worse part was when he'd get to the middle of transitioning from forehand to backhand, and would rapidly juke back-and-forth in this crouched position before extending out for an easy throw around my hapless mark. Nightmares, I tell you.)

6. Don't learn a high-release backhand. You will fall in love with it, and you will always use it to break the mark to the forehand side. You will use it at the expense of your low-release backhand and break-mark flick. It will become a crutch, but one that you can't use at all in the wind. You will use it for years anyway, before finally admitting to yourself that it sucks, and going back to learn the throws you should have been using all along. Trust me on this.
7. Get in shape, stay in shape. It feels worse to get beat by bad players who outrun you than good players who outplay you.
8. There are two ways to mark effectively: cheat, or move your feet. Cheating is easy, moving your feet is hard. You have to decide which kind of marker you want to be: [a] ineffective, [b] dishonorable, or [c] really, really tired from working so hard. Most guys that stop me from breaking the mark do it by blatant fouling on the pivot, so I really admire the guys that do it with footwork.
9. When covering a cutter, adopt a proactive mindset. Reactive defense generally sucks (when you wait to see what your man is going to do and then you chase him). Get where your man wants to go first. Even better, make him go where you want him to. This is a pretty subtle skill, requires a good team defense, and is not one I'm particularly good at. But every now that then I've felt it, and it feels great.

That's all off the top of my head. You'd think 17 years of play would amount to more advice. Any tips from readers?

My favorite Olympic story so far. I love how the guy really doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

Ron Zucker, a Hooverball player in the Baltimore area, noticed my earlier post on the sport and e-mailed me an invite to join their game if I'm ever in the neighborhood. Very hospitable of him, and he also gave me an informative answer to my question, "when you catch the ball, does any kind of rule or etiquette govern how quickly you have to throw it back?"

We use the "within reason" rule for throwing it back. In other words, if you dove, you can shake it off, get up, and throw. If you're heavily winded, go ahead and take a deep breath. And, of course, you can take a moment to look around and aim. It should be noted, though, that our experience is that the faster you return the ball, the less the other team has gotten set and the more likely you are to score, so we all try to get the ball back as quickly as possible.

Perhaps, though, an example is useful. At the Nationals this year, Iowa was going through a drought, so the ground was rock hard. I dove for one and caught it flat out. Obviously, that hurt when I hit the ground. Everyone waited for me to catch my breath, get up and return it. That probably took close to a minute all told, as I couldn't breathe at first. I apologized for the delay, but, as one of the Iowans pointed out, I did just hit a *planet* after all...

The other element of etiquette is taking steps, especially when going for the spike. The rule is that you have to get the ball from front court to backcourt. But if you catch it near the net, rising up and throwing as hard as you can right at the midline can be effective, though if the ball bounces before the midline, it's a point for the other team. This is more important with the 4 lb ball, which can be spiked very effectively, than with the 6 lb ball. And we frequently play a couple of games with a 9 lb ball for workout purposes, and that one can't really be spiked effectively at all, though we all try.

We try to use basketball rules for traveling. But it's always a bone of contention, as (let's be charitable here; these are my friends) some use NBA rules while others use college. Nobody calls traveling on the other team. It's a gentleman's game, after all. If you say you had your arms under the diving catch, then it wasn't a trap, and if you say you didn't travel, you didn't travel. But we all try to be honest, and I've been known to call traveling on myself. It's hard when you're close to being able to spike to not take the steps necessary to do it. Especially for me, as I'm a fat 40 year old smoker, so it's rare to be able to spike it. But I try to keep an eye on myself.

Thanks Ron!

P.S. Sounds a lot like Ultimate. An obscure sport governed by spirit of the game, and most laypeople will be surprised to hear there's a national championship.

If I could find five other like-minded lunatics and an 8-foot-high net I'd give Hooverball a try:

The sport originated in 1928, when shortly after his election Hoover took a goodwill trip to South America. While aboard the battleship Utah on his return, he watched a game of "bull-in-the-ring," a medicine ball game that was popular on naval ships. A soft nine-pound medicine ball was thrown from one to another of the players standing in a circle as the "bull" in the center tried to intercept it. During the trip, the president-elect played and enjoyed the game, which was the inspiration for Hoover-ball.

There's a national championships and everything. And I thought I played an obscure sport...

The training paid off! My team, "Salt", qualified in the Masters division. We have a couple studs, but mostly we are a team full of role players from small towns, and it was a true team effort to make the grade at Regionals (especially after an abysmal Saturday showing in equally abysmal weather). I couldn't be more proud of my teammates, so many of whom (myself included) have never qualified before. Heck, many of our players have only ever played small-town Ultimate, and have little or no college or club experience outside that afforded by the gradual evolution of their local game.

So one of our guys calls his wife (who, like all frisbee spouses, is a champ) and tells her we made it. Her response: "That's great. The basement is flooded."

Ah yes, such is the life of the non-professional athlete. :-) Did I mention three inches of rain fell on us during Saturday play?

There's a quick bit on the decline of some traditional ball sports in the October issue of Outside Magazine (issue not yet online at the time of this writing):

At a time when participation in some traditional ball sports is in decline nationwide, sports like surfing and climbing—long neglected at the youth level—are enjoying unprecedented support. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA), a trade group that tracks U.S. sports, reports up to 21 percent reductions in the number of school-age kids taking part in activities like basketball, baseball, and soccer from 1998 to 2004. At the same time, kayak academies, high school surf crews, and youth climbing teams have blossomed.

From this one paragraph it's impossible to know if one group is directly cannibalizing another, but it's still an interesting trend, one I wasn't aware of, and one I wouldn't have guessed from casual observation of local youth sports. I bet the SGMA reports are interesting. Too bad they range from $100 to $600 a pop (of the ones I looked at).