Portside

It is March Madness, after all, when the NCAA makes 90% of its billion-dollar budget. As the business of college football and basketball expands, and as more and more players find themselves used up and spit out with neither compensation nor education to show for their time, this is the moment to talk about the future of the so-called "student-athlete."

Meanwhile ... we have the specter this weekend of games that could be a train-wreck waiting to happen.

For all the gay players that have played in the NFL, Michael Sam is the first to "live his truth" openly.

Athletes are going into the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics knowing that protesting homophobia may entail a sacrifice. It’s a stunning comment on our times that so many seem not only willing but eager to make it.

It is about the memory of who stood and who did not stand with Chile in their darkest moments.-

Most damning is that in each and every case, with the possible exception of Detroit and Tampa Bay, the team would be better served by just firing the owners and keeping the head coaches who were sent packing.

Tragically it is not the kind of character valued in the NFL, and that’s the heart of the damn problem.

Baseball may not be a game that handles change without crisis. But it is a game that makes saps of us all.

Based upon the speeches during the main portion of today’s events there can be little doubt that the Dr. King who was murdered in Memphis in 1968 would not have been allowed to speak at this commemoration of his life. There was no discussion of the “evil triplets.” Instead, we had far too many speakers pay homage to the narrowest possible liberal agenda in broad abstractions with none of the searing material truths that make Dr. King’s speeches so bracing even today.

The time to organize resistance begins now, with no illusions in the IOC, their corporate sponsors, or the good will of our own government.