It appears that Ndamukong Suh’s meeting last month with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t do any good. Suh — whose full name is pronounced “En-dom-ah-ken Soo”— initiated the sitdown in response to his growing reputation as a dirty player. The second-year defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions wanted league officials to give him a better…

After the USA won a gold medal last month in women’s team fencing at the Pan American Games, there was little chance of mistaking which one on the podium was Ibtihaj Muhammad. She was the one on the left, next to the two blondes. Muhammad is accustomed to sticking out in a sport that’s dominated…

Tom Williams must be a pretty smart guy, having climbed the ranks to become Yale’s first black football coach and the Ivy League’s second. According to the school’s website, he graduated from Stanford with honors and later earned a master’s degree there. But the bio also says he was a “Rhodes Scholar candidate,” and that…

If only it were that simple: shaking hands to erase a centuries-old superiority complex and wipe out perceptions passed from generation to generation. Maybe that possibility truly exists in the Pollyanna mind of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, but it’s hard to believe he could be so naïve. Yet, that’s what he said recently, responding to…

Muhammad Ali was there, his body frail and trembling in the throes of Parkinson’s disease. Fellow boxers Bernard Hopkins, Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks were there, too, among others, including promoter Don King, paying their respects to Joe Frazier at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The tributes poured out last week immediately following Frazier’s…

NBA players seem to be operating under a few delusions. Their league isn’t beloved like the NFL, which attracts hordes of devout fans who follow each season with religious zeal. NBA players don’t have a favorable image among many who otherwise might buy season tickets or luxury suites. And the guaranteed money that NBA players…

North Carolina coach Roy Williams, Kentucky coach John Calipari and Ohio State coach Thad Matta owe a debt a gratitude to the NBA. Because without the ongoing labor dispute, the coaches likely would have less star power on their teams, currently ranked first, second and third, respectively. Carolina sophomore Harrison Barnes was projected to be…

In the end, Joe Paterno lost his perspective and ignored the big picture. He thought about himself when he should have thought about the school he’d worked for since 1950. About the hundreds of thousands of Penn State students — past, present and future. About the countless child-abuse victims and the message he could send…

The disgust generated by Penn State’s swirling child-abuse scandal rose another level Tuesday night when Joe Paterno — smiling and laughing — emerged from his house to address a raucous crowd that was chanting his name. “We want Joe! We want Joe! We want Joe!” How about wanting justice for the alleged victims of Paterno’s…

There’s only one fight that every boxing fan wants to see, and it’s not Floyd Mayweather Jr. against fill-in-the-blank. It’s Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao, a bout that would pit the world’s two top pound-for-pound boxers. Unfortunately, the Mayweather camp’s recent announcement of a date for his next fight merely intimated that Pacquiao would be the…