SPECIAL SECTION - 125 YEARS OF LA SPORTS
Featured players
IN the big inning, there was Koufax. More...
125 YEARS | THE MOMENTS
Taking a look inside ourselves
SPORTS are tribal. We line up with our team, our school, our city; paint our faces Trojan colors, dye our hair Dodger blue. We immerse ourselves in the history, in the rivalries: Magic against Larry, John Roseboro against Juan Marichal, Al Davis against the world. This is how we place ourselves, how we reckon with our lives. It is what Don DeLillo, in his novel "Underworld" — which opens with Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world"— calls our "secret history," something "that joins [us] all in a rare way, that binds [us] to a memory with protective power." More...
125 YEARS | THE RING
This City Was Full of Fight
FOR America's big-league sports, L.A. was a distant outpost for the first half of the 20th century, impressive for an off-season vacation, impractical as a home base. Before jet travel, any team moving to the West Coast would have presented a scheduling nightmare. More...
125 YEARS | THE HIGHLIGHTS
Story of the years
1890s More...
125 YEARS | THE LOOK
New materials help to shape the fabric of their success
FOOTBALL coach Bobby Bowden, who holds the NCAA record for consecutive bowl victories, once said, "You ain't gonna get to the top unless you've got a little poise." And a little style too. More...
125 YEARS | THE TRACK
It was always a good day at the races
IN 1982, there was a wonderful documentary film about the Weavers, the blacklisted folk singers, subtitled, "Wasn't That a Time!" Wistful California racetrack operators could use the same words to describe the so-called golden age of horse racing, which had an incredibly long run, arguably until the 1980s, before the start of a downward spiral that grips the sport still. More...
125 YEARS | THE DYNASTIES
Staying power
Rock music throbs through UCLA's John Wooden Recreation Center, home of the longest current sports dynasty in Los Angeles, as the powerful athletes fling their bodies through a four-hour practice session. More...
125 YEARS | THE TOURNAMENTS
Old-time events help shape all-time greats
Before they became among the best their sports had ever seen, Pete Sampras and Tiger Woods were Southern California teenagers performing in old, venerable tournaments that had been around since the turn of the 20th century. More...
125 YEARS | THE COACH
L.A. in Wooden's words
EVEN though most people call him Coach, John Wooden prefers to think of himself as a teacher, and not just one who taught hundreds of UCLA basketball players during his 28 seasons coaching the Bruins. His Pyramid of Success, a diagram of core values, has helped shape the lives of thousands. More...
125 YEARS | THE OLYMPICS
L.A. and the Olympics were a golden match
During the Los Angeles riots in 1992, the Amateur Athletic Foundation on Adams Avenue was on the edge of danger. Unarmed guards with nothing more than their uniforms and a plea for reason kept the building and its extensive grounds safe by telling potential looters that the place was a museum for the city's Olympic history. More...
PATT MORRISON
We play by our own rules
ANGELENOS and our sports — we're a match made on the 50-yard-line, at home plate, at center court. More...
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