Sports

Nickey Van Exel, Son of Former Mavs Player, Opens Up About Murder Conviction

Posted on by Charles Nichelson

For the first time since being sentenced to prison for 60 years, Nickey Van Exel, the son of former Dallas Mavericks forward Nick Van Exel, is talking about the night he shot and killed his best friend.

Van Exel said he was playing with a gun when he accidentally fatally shot his friend Bradley Eyo in 2010. Prosecutors didn’t agree with his account, charged him with murder and he was convicted three years later. In an exclusive sit-down interview with NBC 5’s Pat Doney, Van Exel said the night he killed his friend still haunts him today.

CLICK HERE for the full story on Nickey Van Exel’s exclusive sit-down with NBC 5.

Baylor’s New Coach Knows He Can’t Avoid Title IX Questions, And He Doesn’t Want To

Posted on by Charles Nichelson

With pending lawsuits still hovering over the university, Baylor’s new head football coach, Matt Rhule, is not shying away from the tough topics and says he’s addressing them head on.

“I feel like I’m called to be here,” said Rhule, who left the University of Temple last year to become the head man in Waco. “To kind of fix this.”
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A Summer of Learning: History, Our Greatest Teacher

Posted on by Charles Nichelson

Incidentally, this summer, I took on the task of writing up a brief history lesson everyday. Another great opportunity, thanks to my internship at NBCDFW, as a part of the Emma Bowen Foundation. While it’s a simple reading-and-reporting piece, it’s a great place to start exploring. It has energized me many-a-times to expand on my brief research and learn much more about the related people and topics that have shaped this nation and our world. Maybe you can find something of interest. And remember, history is day by day.

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My All-MLB Team

Posted on by Charles Nichelson

I am a sports fan and, like many other sports fans, I like to imagine super teams. Not Warriors super teams, but like “what if Steph, Klay, KD, LeBron, and Anthony Davis were all on the same team?” super teams. I feel like we all have a lot fun envisioning these kind of unbeatable All-Star squads. So I am releasing my All-MLB team, because some of these players are already on their way out or will be shortly.

This team is not the nine best players of all-time or the nine players I like the most. This is my dream team. The players I have seen in my life, several live (thanks Dad), that were just better than everyone else around them. I’ll share each player by numerical placement on the field and give a little explanation.

1. Pitcher – Clayton Kershaw
This one is easy. It does not matter what you say about his postseason record — he’s only had three bad series, if we are being fair — and he’s unworldly in the regular season. Give me Clayton Kershaw. He’s the best pitcher in the bigs, period. Madison Bumgarner, the next most accomplished pitcher under 30 in the MLB, has a career Wins Above Replacement (WAR) slightly over 20. That is impressive in its own right, but Kershaw has a career WAR of 47, in just one more season of service time. There is no comparison you can make to Kershaw from his generation. He is baseball LeBron. So now to who he is throwing to… Read More

Your Team Won the Trade Deadline… Maybe 

Posted on by Charles Nichelson

There were a lot of moves, as always, leading up to the MLB’s trade deadline. Every trade can be viewed as a win if you look through the lens of that teams fan base, but when you look objectively, sometimes it just ain’t so. While I understand the need for GM’s to make moves to appeal to rabid fan bases, most of time these moves are meaningless.

Charlie Clarke — who has now been contributing quality MLB related content to this blog for about a month now and knows just as much baseball as anyone — and I will be grading just how well your team actually did for itself. Read More