Jim Karpen Tips

January 2001

Well maybe I'm not addicted to sports, but I sure do enjoy following a couple favorite teams, including the Iowa Hawkeyes. And I must admit that now it's not enough for me to simply know whether they won or lost, but I'm also eager to know how each of the players did, etc. Perhaps a bit of a junkie.

The Internet, of course, can feed with ease the most voracious appetite for sports info. My best tale is this: on one of the coldest nights this winter, the electricity went off. And I had been planning to watch the Iowa basketball game on TV. Big disappointment.

But I have a laptop with a battery, and the phone still worked. So in a room lit with a candle, I went online. I immediately went to my personalized Yahoo page, which reports Iowa scores--and updates the score minute by minute. It was a close game.

Then I noticed that there was link that would allow me to listen via Real Player. So on a dark and cold night, without electricity, I listened as the Hawkeyes won in two overtimes.

Yahoo is nice, but it doesn't usually give me the sort of detail about the game that I crave. Filling that need is a recent discovery: Sports Sleuth. It's part of the very same site that brings you Entertainment Sleuth

Sports Sleuth gathers info from other web sites and gives you the links to access it. The site covers professional basketball, football, baseball, and hockey and NCAA football and basketball, as well as NASCAR and PGA. Its coverage of the Big 10 is a little spotty, but is still very useful.

The link for National News brings up some excellent articles from national media about recent games, including good coverage from the Fans Only site. There is also a link down at the bottom the searches for news of alumni in the pro ranks: Ryan Bowen, Matt Bullard, and Ricky Davis. The Local News link brings up local stories, mainly from the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Oddly, it produces some unrelated items, but does find the sports stories.

The Final Results link offers a game preview, as well as log, wrap-up, and box score. When I was anticipating the game with then #7 Illinois, I was pleased at the detail it gave in the preview.

The Schedule and Standings links are useless, containing info from the 1999/2000 season. The Polls links gives current rankings. As with Entertainment Sleuth, you can sign up to receive a daily e-mailing with the latest info. Just what an addict needs.

© 2001 by Jim Karpen, Ph.D. (#249)