In any normal year, America is dotted with sports camps of all types and sizes. This is where they promise to prepare young athletes for their next athletic step, often from high school to college. But aside from teaching them how to block, tackle and shoot, are they really preparing this next generation for the real skills and opportunities they will face? The Florida Rising Stars Foundation is changing the way camps are run, bringing in notable coaches and athletes to impart more than just playing skills

The NHL emerges from a successful 2020 COVID19 bubble season with more questions than at any time in their modern history. Exactly when that 2021 season will start, the desperate need to put fans in the seats, franchises in more financial distress than ever before, players being told to get ready for pay cuts, and then there's the players on the way up and the ones who need to break out the golf bags. Speaking of money, aren't these franchises owned by multi-millionaires? Doesn't it seem more than a little insulting to hear them cry poverty because of the pandemic?

Whether sports or politics, it seems everything begins in New York City. Prolific author and noted sports reporter/commentator Sean Deveney has proof, both via his more than 20 years spent along the NBA hardcourt and every other major American professional sport championship, but also in his research intertwining such diverse figures as Doc Gooden, Donald Trump and Ed Koch making a solid point about greed and glory in America.

After 40+ years as the dean of the Daytona International Speedway press room, now former Daytona Beach News-Journal Motorsports journalist Godwin Kelly joins Ed Berliner for a wide ranging discussion of things such as why NASCAR fumbled their chance at the really big time, how they can get it back on track, why drivers both past and present are essential to that recovery, and why reporters here in 2020, both in racing and other sports, need to take lessons in humility and professionalism before writing good stories goes completely out of style.

Those who continue to deny the dangerous and deadly facts of the COVID19 pandemic are at the forefront of the disinformation helping to crush the spirit and lives of America's frontline medical workers. Overworked, emotionally beaten in watching so much illness and death, there seems to be no level of truly fake news these frauds will propagate as the nation gets sicker and our hospitals reach the breaking point.

Anthony Fauci has been dealing in COVID19 facts since the pandemic began, and his most recent word on what is still to come should send a shiver down the spine of every America. Sad to note, because of disinformation from specific cable outlets and social media, America remains a nation of deniers seemingly bent on suicide.

College athletics has a long and despicable history of covering up crimes by their coaches and players in order to keep cashing fat conference and television contract checks. Louisiana State University is just the latest, but certainly the most blatant, in how they seek to change the subject when it comes to their athletes taking part in sexual assault. That's only part of the story, as local Louisiana media is more than happy to assist in the coverup, proving games and scores are more important that sexual assault.

He is one of, if not the, most prolific play by play announcer to ever call action on the ice. With more than 5000 regular season games to his credit, more than 200 NHL playoff games under his belt, and a few Stanley Cups to show for it, Jiggs McDonald is one of the very best there has ever been at calling hockey. Time to tell those tales as he joins Ed Berliner on "The Man in the Arena"

One thing is certain: The NFL has done a miserable job in dealing with COVID19. But have they taken the 2020 season and turned it into one that will forever carry an asterisk?

The rampaging sexual assault case at LSU should surprise no one, and indeed it doesn't shock those who know anything about big time college athletics. History shows those who claim assault are shoved to the shadows and usually demonized. The greater part of this is the coverup, and it's always been helped by those who should be bexposing it. Pete Rose & Jim Gray are doing the "Apology Tour" dance again, but this time the Hall of Fame road closes forever for Charlie Hustle.