This is the original version of an obituary I wrote for The Guardian newspaper in London. I first trimmed it down from this 1,030 words to something close to the tight 800 they’d asked for; they then performed a final edit to get it to fit that limited space. The…

For many people, the Super Bowl halftime show is the highlight of the evening, and this year’s extravaganza was significant beyond just its being a demonstration of vintage hip-hop and rap which both pleased the core adult audience with nostalgia, while also presenting, in effect, a safe show for those…

Tom Brady announced his retirement today, at the age of 44, after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost to the Los Angeles Rams last Sunday in the NFL playoffs. I wrote this piece as part of my longer Friday column on Patreon (patreon.com/mikecarlsonfmte) but given Brady’s announcement, I thought it would…

John Madden was one of a kind, or one of three kinds maybe. One of the most successful coaches ever, the most influential television sports analyst ever and the inspiration for and voice of the first great sports video game. He was at once the personification of Oakland, coming as…

Twenty years ago, I was writing a Friday NFL column for a British magazine, and, with the Sunday schedule of games cancelled by the 9/11 attacks, I was tempted to write about terrorism. Like many with roots in the New York area, I knew people affected by the September 11…

Watching this summer’s European Championships managed to rekindle acutely my festering love/hate problem with association football, or, to give it its English diminutive, soccer. I’ve lived in England for 44 years and I’ve admired football in many ways: indeed, when I was sports editor at the television news agency UPITN…

In the dark of the early morning, Sara Lathus’ husband Sigurd kisses her on the forehead, off early for a weekend with friends at a holiday cabin. A few hours later, he leaves a voicemail on her phone while she is working, telling her he’s arrived and all is well…

Books discussed in this essay: The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joel Dicker, translated by Howard Curtis (UK: MacLehose Press £20.00 ISBN9780857059208) The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain (UK: Quercus £14.99 ISBN 9781529407242) It may have been only a coincidence that I should be asked to review two crime novels…

Why is it important that Carl Nassib came out as gay, publicly on social media, the first-ever active player in the National Football League to do so? American football is the most violent of team sports, and thus the most macho. Its structures and ethos are militaristic, everything from terminology…