Rex Hammock and I agree that sports writing is often the best journalism around. There's more fun, creativity and feeling packed into good sports writing than in most other journalistic efforts, maybe because it's just about a game.

I especially like the headline writers at Sports Illustrated, who rarely miss the target when they aim to pun, wax ironic or just gig someone. They are at their best when verging on the literary, or pinging some element of pop culture.

For instance - check out the current issue's cover blurb. And of course, follow through is essential to good athletic form, as seen in the cover story inside hedder:

And with the well-deserved brouhaha over China's human rights record (and environmental and other issues) putting dents into the Olympic rings, it would not be a bad idea to turn loose sports writers on those news stories. I don't know if it happened here, but this headline "Slouching Towards Tibet" in a Philippines newspaper about China's oppression of its tiny neighbor perfectly references William Butler Yeats apocalyptic poem, "The Second Coming"

FOLLOW-UP
Tennesseans are grieving today that the Memphis Tigers couldn't quite get the job done, so the Kansas Jayhawks are clicking their sneakers together and going home with the trophy. Too bad, because, inspired by the Yeatsian headline, I had a headline all ready in case Memphis won: Tigers Burn Bright!