California’s Ever-Expanding High School Football Season Is Risky

As Evidence Mounts on the Danger of the Sport, Why Do We Keep Adding State Playoff Games?

How many state champions does California need?

There’s a new answer to this question: 13. That’s how many state football champions California will crown this weekend during five state bowl games at Sacramento State’s Hornet Stadium and eight other games around the state. And that’s a big increase from the five state champions we had in 2014—and 13 more than California had before the state’s governing body for high school sports, CIF (the California Interscholastic Federation), started holding state bowl games a decade ago.

Even in the largest football-crazy state of this …

By Joe Mathews | December 17, 2015

Inglewood Prepares to Shapeshift Again

An 80,000-Seat Stadium Stands Poised to Change a Neighborhood Already Trained in Transformation

by J. Malaika Beckford-James | May 6, 2015

To live in Inglewood is to live constant change. In my lifetime, I have seen the Forum transformed from championship basketball venue to mega church to top concert destination.

Residents …

Why I Quit High School Football

I’d Waited My Whole Life to Play, But the Hits and the Pain Outweighed My Desire for Glory

by Rian Bosse | April 14, 2015

I wore football pads, real pads, like the pros wear, for the first time when I was 12 years old, walking out onto the practice field at the start of …

Why My Hometown Regrets Hosting the Super Bowl

Not Only Were the Economic Gains for Glendale Exaggerated, But I Can't Even Go Shopping This Sunday

by Joyce Clark | January 29, 2015

My family and I moved to Glendale, Arizona–where the Super Bowl will be played next week–in 1968, when it was one of many small Arizona towns ringing Phoenix.

Why Glendale? Serendipity. …

The NFL’s Return to Los Angeles Is a Terrible Idea

Angelenos Don’t Need a Distracting, Wasteful, and Financially Risky Team

by Joe Mathews | October 30, 2014

Mayor Eric Garcetti is wrong when he says Los Angeles shouldn’t give taxpayer dollars to the National Football League. To the contrary, L.A. would be wise to pay the NFL …

What Color Should a Quarterback Be?

How James Harris Changed the NFL’s Marquee Role

by Samuel G. Freedman | September 30, 2014

An hour or two before kickoff on the night of August 15, 1969, a rookie quarterback named James Harris noticed a well-dressed man about a foot shorter than him approaching …

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