Professional Sports

The prominent NBA player met a beautiful young woman after a road game at a restaurant near the arena and, after a few drinks, asked if he could go home with her. She agreed, with one condition. In return for her companionship, he had to give her a pair of autographed sneakers. When they arrived at her bedroom, he fulfilled his part of the agreement, producing the shoes from his shoulder bag and signing them.

Jason Collins had long been keeping a secret. As a standout high school player at Harvard-Westlake School, as a star at Stanford and through a 12-year NBA career, he had hidden something fundamental about himself from his family, friends and teammates. On Monday Collins came out, becoming the first active male athlete in a major U.S. professional team sport to acknowledge he was gay. The reaction was swift. President Obama, who just last year gave his support for gay marriage, called Collins to say "he was impressed by his courage," according to a White House Twitter post.

Is bull riding really a sport? Ask Chris Shivers, who lost six teeth when a bull gored him in the mouth. "I see it as a sport," Shivers said. "It's probably the toughest sport going. Basketball players get hurt, and they sit out for two or three months." Is bull riding really big business? The Professional Bull Riders tour stops tonight at the Arrowhead Pond, with real bulls and real athletes.

Earlier this season, when Kobe Bryant was in the middle of a mindless streak during which he played at least 40 minutes in 10 consecutive games, his coach could only laugh about it. "I told him they'll put a statue of him at Staples [Center] but it might be literally me riding him to death," said Mike D'Antoni at the time. "They might just take him off the floor and bronze him right there. So be it. We need a win. " Earlier this month, when Kobe Bryant was in the middle of a streak of seven consecutive 40-minute games, his general manager could only shake his head.

The first professional football player was a 16-year-old high school star recruited-for $10-by a YMCA team in western Pennsylvania as an emergency fill-in at quarterback. That was in 1895, so the controversy caused by Alabama linebacker Keith McCants and about two dozen others pushing their way into the NFL draft next Sunday is more about quirks and contradictions than history. Until Spencer Haywood yelled foul and took the National Basketball Assn.

The Dodgers' pitchers and catchers will show up at Camelback Ranch in Arizona in a few days for spring training. And so will Sue Falsone. She won't be in the stands; she'll be in the dugout and the clubhouse, with the guys. She's the Dodgers' new head athletic trainer and physical therapist - and she is the first woman to become head trainer in any of the four major professional sports. This Buffalo gal has taken a career lap around the country, from her native upstate New York to a master's degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, to the boys of summer's spring training turf in Arizona, and a previous stint at Dodger Stadium, where she was first hired as an assistant trainer for the team in 2007.

With athletic and after-school sports programs from elementary schools through colleges imperiled by what the state Department of Finance is calling California's worst economic and fiscal situation since the late 1930s, Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-Riverside) believes the fans of the state's professional sports teams should provide a bailout. Clute is sponsoring AB 694, which would impose a 3% tax on professional sports tickets costing $5 or more to help fund existing school sports programs.

In a move that rocked the baseball world and signaled the end of one of the great family-owned dynasties in American enterprise, Peter O'Malley announced Monday that he plans to sell the city's most celebrated and successful sports franchise, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. - John Harbaugh has an appreciation of history, and also a sense of perspective. So the Baltimore Ravens coach chuckled Monday at the notion that he and his brother, San Francisco 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh, will be making history in Super Bowl XLVII when they become the first sibling coaches to face each other in a major professional sports championship. "I guess it's pretty neat," Harbaugh said. "Is it really going to be written about? It's not exactly like Churchill and Roosevelt or anything.

When I was 7 years old, my friends and I would play football in my backyard for hours, often with my mother watching through the kitchen window. One of the games we played was called "smear the queer. " At the time I didn't know what "queer" meant. I only knew if you were brave enough to pick up the ball, you were "the queer" and would get creamed. As I got older, I learned what that term meant, and then, in high school, I realized that I was gay. But that image of how "the queer" got "smeared" stayed with me. I ultimately realized my goal of becoming a professional football player, but being open about my sexuality while I was a player seemed far too dangerous to consider.

A lost cause? Embattled Cleveland Coach Byron Scott, a former Lakers All-Star, on the struggling Cavaliers' mentality: "If guys don't fear or hate losing as much as I do, we're going to keep going through what we're going through. You have to be to the point where you hate losing. In the '80s, we hated losing games. It was gut-wrenching. I don't know if we've gone through that. I have. I don't know if they have. " She got game Miami forward Shane Battier, on the prospects of someone such as Baylor's Brittney Griner playing in the NBA: "There's no doubt that in our lifetime, there will be a woman NBA player.

Jerry Buss may be gone, but Jerry Buss hasn't gone anywhere. Jerry Buss may have died on Feb. 18 at age 80, but Jerry Buss lives. When watching the Lakers makes you howl, when watching the NBA makes you smile, when watching anything in professional sports makes you tap your toe, Jerry Buss is there. "He was nothing less than a transformational force in the history of sports," said NBA Commissioner David Stern at Buss' memorial service. Forever and ever, amen. When you are cheering the Laker Girls, you are cheering Jerry Buss.

A day after the death of Lakers owner Jerry Buss, writers from around the Tribune Co. discuss who they consider to be the best owner in pro sports. Check back throughout the day for their responses and feel free to join the conversation with a comment of your own. Ben Bolch, Los Angeles Times The NBA retains the distinction of having the best owner in pro sports even after the passing of Jerry Buss. His name is Mark Cuban. Not only do his teams win (with the notable exception of this season)

The Dodgers tipped their cap, much like the whole city, the entire sport, like all American professional sports. Jerry Buss was an original, a transformative figure. Visionary is a strong word, but not too strong. Buss not only influenced the Lakers, but all of Los Angeles. He changed the way sports were presented, and it did not matter what sport. His death Monday of complications of cancer at age 80 brought reaction from across the country, and down the freeway. Said the Dodgers in a release: “The Los Angeles Dodgers organization extends its deepest sympathies to the Buss family and the Los Angeles Lakers' organization on the passing of one of the greatest owners in NBA history.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. - John Harbaugh has an appreciation of history, and also a sense of perspective. So the Baltimore Ravens coach chuckled Monday at the notion that he and his brother, San Francisco 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh, will be making history in Super Bowl XLVII when they become the first sibling coaches to face each other in a major professional sports championship. "I guess it's pretty neat," Harbaugh said. "Is it really going to be written about? It's not exactly like Churchill and Roosevelt or anything.

When I was 7 years old, my friends and I would play football in my backyard for hours, often with my mother watching through the kitchen window. One of the games we played was called "smear the queer. " At the time I didn't know what "queer" meant. I only knew if you were brave enough to pick up the ball, you were "the queer" and would get creamed. As I got older, I learned what that term meant, and then, in high school, I realized that I was gay. But that image of how "the queer" got "smeared" stayed with me. I ultimately realized my goal of becoming a professional football player, but being open about my sexuality while I was a player seemed far too dangerous to consider.

Within hours of creating one its most glorious moments, the pro sports world exposed one of its dirty little secrets. Hours after the New York Giants' dramatic Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday, the losing team threw a loud party where two key players, tight end Rob Gronkowski and tackle Matt Light, stripped off their shirts and joyfully danced onstage. The video went viral , and plenty of people got sick. Many Patriots fans couldn't understand it. A least one notable former Patriot couldn't accept it. "There's no reason for that to happen … it's not right," said former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison on ESPN Chicago Radio 1000.

He didn't look like much of a revolutionary. He looked like an economist, which he was, only with some serious attitude. Kind of bookish, but with an unnerving gleam in his eye. The last guy you ever wanted to get into a fight with was Marvin Miller. He was a bulldog, feisty and intractable and fearless. He was 5 feet 8 and 150 pounds. He had silver hair, a thin mustache and looked like somebody who went through three packs a day. And just might have been the most influential man in sports history.

All bummed are you that since Frank McCourt sold the Dodgers for a record $2.15 billion - and kept half the parking lots! - he's disappeared from public view? Thought not. I, of course, miss him so. He was good for at least four easy posts a week. Now that he's a billionaire, doing whatever billionaires do, you're hoping he keeps doing it. Just as long as he stays away from the Southern California sports scene. Which is not to say he doesn't continue to have significant impact on Los Angeles professional sports.