Has the whole idea of sportspeople standing for something greater gone, asks Donal Óg Cusack?

When I hear somebody saying politics and sport should never mix I often wonder what planet they are dialling in from.

It’s that time of year again when some of this country’s finest and fittest stare into the inky blackness of those dark winter nights and decide that one more spin on the GAA’s carousel is beyond them.

During the last days of May 1995, two monumental New York Yankee debuts occurred within a week of each other.

ELECTRIC PICNIC: For many people, this week has revolved around the back to school shenanigans, but a lucky few thousand were preparing bags of a different kind as they set out for the Electric Picnic.

It’s no surprise that the dominance of Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 would overshadow every other story that emerged out of those iconic pre-World War II Games.

The US Navy’s baseball team, the Rota Blue Devils, will make history in July along with the Liverpool Trojans when they play at the first ever Peter O’Malley Invitational Tournament in Dublin.

NBA player Jason Collins caused a stir in the US this week by becoming the sport’s first active player to come out as gay, writes John Riordan

At first the words seemed to trip nonchalantly from the mouth of Walter ‘Clyde’ Frazier, a basketball analyst for whom loquaciousness is a job description.

The most high profile rebranding of a US sports team of the past decade needs all the help it can get and the Brooklyn Nets ticked two important boxes this week: they beat the New York Knicks on Monday night and got into a fight in Boston on Wednesday.

AS the Manchester United first team filed in from training at the Cliff, a young Kevin Grogan stood hopefully with his autograph book at the bottom of the stairs.

EVEN all these years later, with Ireland just one game away from qualifying for a major tournament, Eoin Hand sometimes thinks about just how close he was to qualifying for Spain 82, only for that “cheat” of a Portuguese referee in Brussels.

US PRESIDENT BarackObama has written a book for children about inspirational Americans which is set to be released later this year.

AMERICAN sport can offer an experienced perspective on the issue of compulsory helmet wear, their mandatory use having come into effect for hurlers this season.

Two men in their 30s travelling to the Irish rugby clash in Dublin were among four people killed in a two-car crash today.