Sports Poets Society

Tadej Pogacar lit Il Lombardia on fire in 2021 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport) https://www.cyclingnews.com/races/il-lombardia-2022/preview/ Last Classic of the season to offer spectacular racing and emotional farewells By Stephen Farrand  - cyclingnews.com Autumn has officially begun and the leaves are already falling in the hills between Bergamo and Lake Como but warm weather means this year’s Il Lombardia should be a sunny, aggressive and ever so spectacular final Monument. The hilly Il Lombardia course, its history and its prestige bring together the best climbers and the best WorldTour riders for an a final showdown each October. Other races and a desperate chase for UCI points to avoid WorldTour relegation have stretched the 2022 season into next week’s Veneto races and even the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, but Il Lombardia traditionally brings down the curtain on big-time European road racing. This year’s Il Lombardia will offer many things, including a Tour de France re...

The New York Times Archives By Malcolm MoranFeb. 19, 1983 See the article in its original context from February 19, 1983, Section 1, Page 18 CHICAGO Life was so much less complicated when Bernard Randolph was younger, and the basketball team at DePaul University was built around the talents of his friends. He had come from Westinghouse High School in Chicago, the same public school that sent Mark Aguirre and Skip Dillard to DePaul. Aguirre and Dillard are gone, and Terry Cummings gave up his final year of eligibility to play in the pros, and Teddy Grubbs is no longer playing basketball. Their replacements may possess strong individual instincts, but with the expansion of DePaul's recruiting area, this season's group of freshmen grew up on basketball courts from Florida to California, not the playgrounds of Chicago. And so at the age of 21, Bernard Randolph, once the clever young substitute and now the senior expected to help this new group grow together, sounds much older and ...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-01-15-8902250866-story.html By Bill Jauss Chicago Tribune • Jan 15, 1989 at 12:00 am Like the seasons of the year and the gospels in the Bible he reads in his prison cell, Skip Dillard `s life can be divided into four sections. Dillard didn`t define them as such. But as he described his plunge from De Paul basketball star to cocaine addict to inmate in the maximum security Joliet Correctional Institution, the divisions became obvious: The Dream. The Nightmare. The Resurrection. The Future. The inner-city environment on Chicago`s West Side , his own short-sightedness and what he calls the ''spoiled'' life of a high school and college star thrust Dillard into his lifelong dream that he would play pro basketball. His trauma when that dream died turned him to the nightmare of drugs and prison. He says he`s been reborn in prison. He dreams now of earning his college degree, being paroled in 1992 and working with kids. When Dil...

  Montage Une : Laurent Rullier pour Basket Rétro Plus de 18.000 points en carrière, deux bagues de champions, trois sélections au All-Star Game , des amis parmi les plus grandes stars de la Ligue, pourtant Mark Aguirre s’est coltiné longtemps une sale réputation. Un scoreur orgueilleux qui n’a jamais réussi à porter une franchise sur ses épaules, mais qui s’est parfaitement ajusté en cours de carrière. A l’occasion de ses 62 ans, retour sur le parcours mouvementé d’un homme mi-ange, mi-Piston. L’Histoire de Mark Aguirre aurait pu commencer dans un train. Mary, sa mère âgée de 16 ans, décide brutalement de quitter sa maison de l’Arkansas pour rejoindre sa famille à Chicago. Arrivée quasiment au terme de sa grossesse, elle ne se voit pas assumer seule la charge d’un enfant et décide de laisser son bébé à sa sœur Daisy. En plein périple, le travail commence et la jeune mère est à peine arrivée en gare qu’elle est transportée à l’hôpital. Quelques heures plus tard, Mark vient au mond...

https://www.sportscasting.com/whatever-happened-to-nba-all-star-mark-aguirre/ by Jake Elman | More Articles: NBA Published on February 19, 2021 When the Detroit Pistons needed another capable player to join Isiah Thomas and the “Bad Boys,” they called Mark Aguirre. Technically speaking, the Pistons called the Dallas Mavericks , who held Aguirre’s rights. But when the Pistons acquired Aguirre in 1989, everything changed for a franchise on the fringes of winning an NBA title. Nearly 30 years after playing his final NBA game, what has Aguirre done in retirement? Mark Aguirre was the No. 1 overall pick in 1981 How Will the Mavericks Fill the Absence of Jalen Brunson? Bally Sports Southwest NBA analyst Derek Harper joined "The Rally" to break down how the Mavericks will replace the void left by Jalen Brunson who left via free agency. If one examines Mark Aguirre’s career in Dallas and compares it to the one that John Wall had in Washington , they’ll find some interesting par...

https://www.mavs.com/markaguirre/ “The defense knew Mark was coming every night and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it,” Blackman told Mavs.com. “They were wasting all that damn chalk on the board. “I don’t even know why they wrote those (strategies to contain Aguirre) on the chalk board. He was just wearing them out from the low block, outside, inside . It was just all over the place.” Indeed, of the Top 10 individual single-season scoring averages in Mavs’ history, Dirk Nowitzki and Aguirre own four each. Luka Doncic and Jim Jackson each have one. In fact, with the 29.5 points he averaged during the 1983-84 season , Aguirre owns the highest individual single-season scoring average in Mavs’ history. “He was a superior basketball player , period,” Blackman said. “He (could) post up down low and take anybody — all of y’all. The players who tried to guard Mark know who I’m talking about.” During his seven-and-a-half years with the Mavs, being double-teamed became a way of NBA life f...