On New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, Kansas State Wildcats football fell to the world-renowned Alabama Crimson Tide, 45-20 in the Sugar Bowl. Kansas State finished a historic season for the program, taking me to the press boxes of the Superdome in New Orleans and AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for the Big 12 Championship…
BY JOHN SHRADER / Sports journalism is dead. That was the notion in late August, when ESPN abruptly ended its relationship with PBS’ “Frontline.” ESPN had partnered with “Frontline” for more than a year on a documentary film examining the NFL’s handling of head injuries. It looked like the perfect collaboration of the hard-hitting documentary team and the biggest, most powerful media machine the sports world has ever known.
BY SCOTT LAMBERT / Sports Illustrated’s recent series of articles chronicling cheating at Oklahoma State University were meant to reignite a long-running conversation about the seedy culture of big-time college athletics. Instead, Sports Illustrated started a conversation about credibility and perceptions of bias that overshadowed its original plan.