Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Jane Therese, 2004, New York Times) In years past, I've tended to recycle a lot of my previous years' posts when it comes to talking about "The Rivalry". That tradition will continue to some degree - as, really, the history doesn't actually change - but this year I'm going to less recycling and more new writing on this subject on which entire books have been written and documentaries have been made . The story of college football's most-played rivalry is a great one, and worth retelling. So many young Lehigh and Lafayette young men have participated in something truly special and unique in the world for more than 100 years. NFL players, future business leaders, athletic directors, football coaches and countless other young men have participated in this game to end all games. Harvard/Yale might be older. Ohio State/Michigan might be better known. But when it comes to the number of games played and just the sheer intensity of rivalr...

In this week's copy of ESPN the Magazine, Bill Simmons published a great article on " the depreciation of sports memories " that almost makes me forgive him for the hatchet job he wrote on the Patriot League after the NCAA tournament. Its subject matter is really the NBA, but it's really the subject of sportswriting and sports memories that is the subject matter. One of my favorite books is Wait Till Next Year, in which a sports columnist (Mike Lupica) and a Hollywood screenwriter (William Goldman) trade chapters about a particularly crazy year in New York sports. Writing as a fan, Goldman submits an impassioned defense of Wilt Chamberlain's legacy, called "To the Death," which is one of my favorite pieces. He argues that great athletes fade from memory not because they're surpassed by better ones but because either we forget about them or our memories are tainted by things that have nothing to do with their career (like Bill Russell's being a ...