NPR Sports

Transcript

JACKI LYDEN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Jacki Lyden in Washington, sitting in for Neal Conan. Stalking and killing one's prey is one of the world's oldest acts. In modern culture, hunting has been dominated by a stereotype of burly men in camouflage who view the pastime mostly as a sport. But a new, younger generation of hunters has started shooting not as a recreational activity but more as an ethical method of connecting with the source of their sustenance. And more women are entering the sport, changing the shape of the industry, literally.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK. The NBA season is only two weeks old, but already there's controversy. The Los Angeles Lakers are scheduled to introduce their new head coach in the next day or so. He's Mike D'Antoni, who resigned last season after a largely unsuccessful four years at the New York Knicks. Many Lakers fans are livid the team did not rehire Phil Jackson, who won 11 NBA titles as a head coach, five of them with L.A., and who was ready to come out of retirement to coach again. NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman is with us.

Tom, good morning.

With baseball playoffs becoming a distant memory, NPR's Mike Pesca talks to host Rachel Martin about basketball becoming more like baseball. People are increasingly trying to identify more valuable statistics for individual basketball players.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is Weekend Edition from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. Time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: The NFL season at the half-way point. Big game this weekend. Sunday, tomorrow night, two 7-1 teams in a classic face-off. Ha-ha. One of them's the Bears. In college football, Notre Dame and Kansas State are in the top 5. What is this, 1997? And the L.A. Lakers send their coach packing. Are they already chanting ohm in Santa Monica?

Federal prosecutors say they will not bring charges against former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, who a year ago was accused of having sexually abused young boys.

According to The Post-Standard in Syracuse, "after nearly a year of police scouring more than 100,000 pages of seized documents and interviewing 130 witnesses, the investigation that attracted national media attention has ended, prosecutors said."

Darrell Royal, who coached the University of Texas Longhorns to three national titles "and became the biggest college football icon in a state that worships the sport, has died at age 88," Austin's American-Statesman reports.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin. More than 40,000 people were supposed to run through the streets of New York City today in that city's famed marathon. But the race was canceled Friday in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had all week insisted that the marathon would go on. But he eventually relented, saying the issue and the outcry had become too divisive. NPR's Mike Pesca joins me now to talk more about this. Hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.

For the first time since it began in 1970, the New York City Marathon will not take place.

Marathon officials and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had initially insisted that Sunday's race would go on despite the devastation caused by Sandy. But mounting opposition forced the organizers to change their minds Friday.

All week, the group that organizes the race, the New York Road Runners, kept saying the marathon would go on. But on Friday night, Road Runners CEO Mary Wittenberg made this announcement:

In New York City, the lights are coming back on, and the annual marathon has been called off. Robert Siegel talks to Joel Rose.