What I'm Reading

Shortly before the Pepsi Don't Call It Firecracker Even Though Most Floridians Still Do 400 gets underway at Daytona International Speedway on the week of July 4th, Sun Sports will debut a new (and, as far as I know, final for 2007) episode of In My Own Words.

The guest for this show is Mike Helton, the president of NASCAR. Mike sat down with me two weeks ago at Daytona USA, the attraction in the venerable speedway's parking lot, for a chat about his background, his current position, and the future of racin'.

As the "IMOW" interviews go, this one is okay. Not terrific -- and I would consider LeRoy Butler's interview to be the standard in that regard -- but okay. It was a monumental task on the part of our producers to slice through the layers of NASCAR bureaucracy to get to Helton, and our only option was to travel the entire crew to Daytona. Conversely, Butler drove himself from Jacksonville to Orlando to tape his show in our studio, and all we had to do was, well, call him. There is a lesson here about the value of a title and the relevance of "layers," but I'm already digressing.

Apparently, Mike Helton is a voracious reader, particularly of historical non-fiction. I found this interesting because I have the same reading addiction. My house is floor-to-ceiling stocked with books, dating from childhood to last week's airport trip. On the topic of non-fiction, I just started "Flags Of Our Fathers," the true story of the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima as penned by one of their sons. I've kind of been on the WWII kick lately, reading stuff like "Flyboys," "Band of Brothers," and "D-Day," but I've got Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, Steven King, and Jon Krakauer on my shelf, among many others.

Still digressing. Should I see someone about this?

As a practical matter, my daily routine includes several "must-sees" on the Internet. These are all work-related, in the broadest sense of the term. I read up on the sports news of the day in order to better perform my job as a TV guy, while simultaneously enjoying the completely legitimate benefit of writing off my high-speed Internet service. This is the life we chose.

I provide this list as a public service. Perhaps someone will read this and hit on a site he has never heard of, and be better for the experience.

My daily stops:

Every Day Should Be Saturday: Shortly after my fellow Cornell alum Dick Schaap passed away, he was eulogized on ESPN by Mike Lupica thusly: "at least once a week, he [Schaap] wrote something so good, it made you angry. You'd throw stuff at the wall for not thinking of it first."

That's pretty much how I feel when I read EDSBS. Nobody should be that funny. It's not fair. My relationship with EDSBS is strictly love/hate. So very, very good.

College Football Resource: The editor of this site, Brian, has e-mailed back and forth with me several times on the topic of a playoff in Division I football, of which he is decidedly not a fan. He also loves the Artists and Mechanics Theory (and really, who doesn't?), and we've shared some space on that very topic. I always stop at CFR at some point during the day. Not only does it find all the interesting stories for me, I also get to enjoy weekly anti-playoff rants, which is worth the price of admission.

True Hoop: I was worried that ESPN's acquisition of the best NBA "collection" site on the Net would somehow cheapen it, but so far, so good. Henry Abbott is not for the casual sports bar NBA fan -- he is for the hoophead, the hardcore, those of us who not only understand the salary cap, but have specific opinions about it. This is serious basketball. Put simply, I had never heard of Beno Udrih until I read his name on True Hoop, and I'm a basketball guy. That should tell you something. I'm not sure what, but something.

Fistful Of Sports: Reid Kerr is a radio guy, and a television guy, and a sports information guy. More importantly, he's a guy who gets it. We got to know each other via Top Five, a site that relies on both of us as contributors (along with dozens of others), and I find his work to be, as I once wrote, "unfailingly funny." Funny is important. I know funny. Reid is funny.

Jamie Shapiro: Jamie is the senior studio producer at Sun Sports. He's also a Chicago apologist, an outed soccer fan, and a music geek. None of this offends me in the slightest. I love Chicago, I tolerate soccer (and at the very least, acknowledge its sphere of influence outside the US), and dig deep tracks. If I can lighten his load at Sun Sports enough to give him time to update his blog more frequently, I will have served humanity. We all need a goal (snicker).

Dodgy At Best: Jamie hooked me into this one. I have nothing to add other than this: if Kanu ever decided to direct his browser at college football, the world would be a better place.

Orlando Magic Blog: The editor of this site, Matt, has traded e-mails with me many times regarding the Magic's coaching situation, in particular his personal distaste for the departed Brian Hill. I'm okay with that, because everything he writes is well-grounded in fact, or at least informed opinion. I'm always cool with dialogue, as long as it's rational and logical. This blog fits the bill, and frankly, the Magic need fans as passionate as these. Many more of them, in fact.

Of course, I read all the Scout.com fan sites that pertain to Florida schools, since Scout has been a member of the Fox Sports family for some time now. I read Gator Country and Warchant to see what the UF and FSU fans are pissed about, respectively. And when it's been a long day, and I'm really fried, there's always Bill Simmons, who, love him or hate him, is much better at this than I am.

Here's where I play golf.

Here's where I read what the Chevy Florida Fishing Report viewers are talking about.

Here's where I want to retire.

Here's my high school, where I sit on the Board of Trustees and root shamelessly for the athletic teams.

And here is the most challenging, the most fulfilling, the most fun thing I do all week.

This list is by no means final. It changes every week. But if anyone ever wonders how in the world I got to wherever I got to, this is a decent point from which to start.

As always, thanks for watching, and thanks for reading.