Geoffrey Norman

They ran the Daytona 500 yesterday and it was the kind of race that made you think fondly of the old days. Of a time, that is, when they raced on the actual beach at Daytona and among the great…

The Olympics — winter edition — are upon us in all their usual extravagance. They are being played in Korea — the one that is south of the 37th parallel — and this makes for a kind of tension. The…

It was probably exactly the game that the NFL craved. It was close; coming down, in fact, to the final play, which was one of those long desperation passes that they call a “Hail Mary.” No Patriots receiver could quite…

Many, many Super Bowls ago, it was a few days before the game, when the media was, as usual, desperately trying to find material for its coverage. Some desperate reporter asked a Dallas Cowboys running back named Duane Thomas how…

Could have been worse. That, anyway, is what serious NFL fans were most likely thinking after the conference championship games were done and the Super Bowl matchup had, thus, been decided. It had been a season of discontent. The worst,…

At about midway through the third quarter, the announcers started talking about how, if the New Orleans Saints could possibly come back from down seventeen points and beat the Minnesota Vikings, then the only playoff comeback of greater magnitude would…

The game between Alabama and Georgia, Monday night, had some of everything. Perhaps it would be better to say that it had it all. Or as the purest fan of the Georgia Bulldogs or the Alabama Crimson Tide might put…

The game went “down to the wire”… as they say. That phrase is lifted from horse racing but has become sort of an all-purpose sports locution that can be hauled out on occasions like the one Sunday night when the…

The regular season is over and it went out on a high note. Which the NFL needed badly. It had been a year of low ratings, lousy officiating, players protesting when they were not brawling, and an overall sense of…