Category Archives: Sports

White Paper: Brain Trauma and the Legacy of Injury—Exploring CTE, Tau Proteins, and the Nature of Psychological and Physical Trauma

Posted on May 25, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive SummaryThis paper explores the implications of trauma on the human brain, comparing physical trauma such as concussive injuries in contact sports with other forms of trauma including emotional, psychological, and developmental trauma. It investigates whether chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) … Continue reading →

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On The Decline Of Serve And Volley

Posted on March 31, 2025 by nathanalbright

Serve-and-volley, where a player charges the net after serving to finish points with volleys, has largely faded from tennis, overtaken by baseline hitting, where players slug it out from the back of the court. The reasons boil down to equipment … Continue reading →

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The WNBA and the Elusive Quest For Financial Stability

Posted on December 16, 2024 by nathanalbright

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) represents a complex case study in professional sports economics and social dynamics. Since its founding in 1996, the league has faced persistent challenges related to revenue generation, media coverage, and broader cultural acceptance within … Continue reading →

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College Football Championship Selection: An Analysis

Posted on December 10, 2024 by nathanalbright

The development of college football’s championship selection process reflects the sport’s continuous effort to establish a more equitable and comprehensive method for determining its national champion. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), implemented in 1998, marked the first systematic attempt to … Continue reading →

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Division I-A/FBS Conference Championships And Member Tenure: A Trend Analysis

Posted on December 8, 2024 by nathanalbright

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) pioneered the conference championship game format after expanding to 12 teams in 1992 with the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina. This development marked a significant shift in college football organization, as it required an NCAA … Continue reading →

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Anyone Could Have Done That

Posted on January 9, 2024 by nathanalbright

You know you are having a bad day as a college athlete, or any other kind of athlete, when a fairly ordinary casual fan of college football not only knows your jersey number, but knows enough to recognize that you … Continue reading →

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What Do The James Madison Dukes Need To Do To Get A Bowl Game?

Posted on November 9, 2023 by nathanalbright

There are some people who are fans of college football who hate bowl games and think that 39 bowl games that are completely unconnected to the playoff system are a bad thing. I must admit that I appreciate a playoff … Continue reading →

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The Root Of The Problem

Posted on August 1, 2023 by nathanalbright

As someone who has always been deeply self-conscious of the regional nature of American culture and indeed my own regional identities, such as they are, and the influence of one’s region on one’s experiences within larger nations like the United … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: The Program

Posted on July 4, 2023 by nathanalbright

The Program is a 2015 movie, and I had not heard of it during its original release (it was during a period when I didn’t watch many movies or pay attention to them), though as it happened to be a … Continue reading →

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Can’t Win Alone

Posted on May 23, 2023 by nathanalbright

I would like to take as my text the following message from a Sports Illustrated article: “76ers center Joel Embiid spoke to reporters in the aftermath of the team’s playoff exit on Sunday, and the league’s MVP appeared to have a message for … Continue reading →

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