Hey that was fun: A goofy annual tradition raised $36k for regional charities last month. It was my second year, and this year we won the championship of the NRG Charity Philadelphia media flag football game.
Some pics and video below.
Continue reading NRG Philadelphia media flag football tournament: Champions!For all the meaningful sources of life lessons I received as a kid, from my parents to religion, and the many shades of the Golden Rule, I was still a sports-crazed boy growing up in the 1990s.
That means I internalized a lot of advice from athletes, whether or not they actually ever said them (sports quotes are full of apocryphal and fictitious claims). I was amused recently to think of a handful of very-90s-era memories I have about lessons from North American sports legends. In addition to being stuck in time, this collection is funny because I am so far from a knowledgeable sports fan today.
So these are corny for all sorts of reasons. Yet I do find myself thinking of these even today.
Continue reading 4 lessons from sports stars that stuck with me as a kid
I hit the final free throw to put my team up four points in the last few seconds of the final championship game of the inaugural Jimmy Quinn Memorial Basketball League in Fishtown.
Including a playoff game and a best of three championship series (we won in two games), our team went 7-2, through September, October and November (lost one game due to a week of bad weather as we played outside at the Fishtown Rec before the playoffs inside at Shissler).
The league featured an active Facebook group, on which one of the league coorganizer’s wrote weekly wrap ups of the first few games before the contributions slowed, though they were fun while they lasted. Naturally I plucked some of the wrap ups below:
Continue reading Jimmy Quinn Memorial Basketball League in Fishtown
The legacy of your work has a value harder to compare with pure money, so we should try our best to incorporate that in our professional decision making.
I’m not a professional athlete. That may surprise many of you.
Still, without any real awareness of the experience, I find myself scratching my head whenever a big name, well-paid professional athlete chooses more money over legacy. In most cases, it seems ill-advised.
I understand that with injuries threatening livelihood, athletes are smartly coached to get what upfront money they can as soon as they can. And I understand that there is often a mind-boggling amount of money on the table, but they seem to be facing on only one axis of success.
When Albert Pujols signed a quarter of a billion dollar, 10-year contract with the major market Los Angeles Angels, leaving the devoted St. Louis Cardinals after 11 seasons, I wasn’t surprised. (In fact, the Pujols’s wife seems more surprised, saying they had never wanted to leave St. Louis but the club wouldn’t offer a long enough, guaranteed deal.)
But if the celebrated and beloved Pujols becomes a target for boos and taunts, he’ll have to assess how much money an attack to his legacy is worth.
Continue reading Balancing legacy and money in professional sports has lessons for the rest of us
With Mike Herzenberg and Scott Hoffman, two of my childhood idols, I played in the three-on-three basketball portion of the 19th annual Freddy Adams Sports Tournament in Fishtown, Philadelphia.
In honor of a teenager who was killed in 1993, the tournament is a big cultural anchor point of my neighborhood.
We played well enough for being a bit out of shape and practice. We made it to the quarterfinals, the fifth to last team standing of 50 or so teams. Photos and video below.
While on our two-week national park puddle jumping trip through Utah and Colorado, my buddy Michael Butler and I took a day to do some amazing whitewater rafting on the Cache La Poudre River with Mountain Whitewater Descents.
The trip included a handful of Class Four rapids, a half dozen Class Three rapids and consistent Class Two water. I had done a trip on the Delaware River that I enjoyed, but this was even more thrilling.
Tonight, I finally made it out to a rodeo. Though I had watched for years portions of events during the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show in Northwest Jersey where I grew up, I had never attended one in full.
With friends, I was excited to get the chance to watch a handful of different contests at the Cowtown Rodeo, the country’s oldest weekly rodeo show, as put on in Cowtown in Salem County, New Jersey.
Below, see video of some past barrel racing, one of the contests I saw in the 4,000-seat arena.
I ran the Broad Street Run again, after having such a great time running 10 miles through the heart of Philadelphia last year.
I started off by joining the Back on My Feet circle, but, even with the motivation of a few hundred members and volunteers, I ran slower than last year, having offered much less preparation.
Someone else took some video as some of the 30,000 runners took to the hot run around City Hall, nearly midway point. Hear the band playing nearby.
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When my reporting career starts intersecting with World Series baseball — twice — why wouldn’t I keep coming across Phillies theme songs?
Ill State of Mind by NeeKo ft. Deanie Marie, as I previously shared.
Goin’ Back to Philadelphia, PA- A Tribute to the Phillies by Bobby Burnett
This is played in the ballpark after a Phillies home win
Fightin’ Phils by Richie Rosati 2008
Fightin Phils Anthem – Tone Love
Parading Down Broad Street
“Phillies Go Hard” by Jakk Frost
Others listed here.
I was paid by Metro to parade around a rainy Center City Philadelphia last Wednesday wearing a Yankees hat, ahead of their World Series matchup with the Phillies, who won that first battle.
Diane Allman took a second glance at the only piece of Yankees memorabilia for sale at the Moell’s at 16th and Chestnut streets, turning up her nose at the Derek Jeter shirt. [Source]
See how the clip appeared in print here, and check that Thursday New York edition, which ran the experience of a reporter who dressed as a Phillies fan in Manhattan.
It’s one of those experiences that remind you why freelance writing can be a sweet gig. Below some background and extras from the story.
![Freddy Adams Tournament [VIDEO]](https://i0.wp.com/christopherwink.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/freddyadams-wink.jpg?resize=550%2C410&ssl=1)
![Whitewater Rafting in Colorado [VIDEO]](https://i0.wp.com/christopherwink.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/colorado-whitewater-rafting-wink-butler.jpg?resize=720%2C480&ssl=1)