Growing up in Bloomington, Minn., I loved the ritual of dressing for Little League - in white socks, blue stirrups, belted pants, a double-knit jersey, and the cap I'd hold over my face to screen out mosquitoes in right field.

I had started writing for 'Sports Illustrated,' which was really my dream job growing up. But the writing probably read like I was auditioning to write for 'Letterman' or '70s-era Carson.

With the exception of undertakers, athletes are the only professionals obliged to feign sorrow on a daily basis, pretending that every June baseball loss is a tragedy requiring library silence in the clubhouse.

The first words Rebecca Lobo ever spoke to me when we met in a Manhattan bar in 2001 were, 'Aren't you the guy who just mocked women's basketball in 'Sports Illustrated'?' I blushed, broke out in a flop sweat and said, 'Yes.'

When you get into these NFL rushers - the power, the speed, the bull rush, and all those kind of things - it's just different than college football.

There's nothing like having a football coach yelling at you at homecoming in front of a bunch of people. You do kind of get used to being inflappable in front of all that heated emotion. At times, that's very useful in business.

Yahoo is still in many ways the definitive brand of the consumer Internet, but I don't think they can or should compete with Google any longer. That game is over.

I come from a very athletic family. But I didn't have the typical Jewish sports heroes. I mean, like lots of Jewish kids I admired Sandy Koufax. But I didn't look up to him as the one person who gave me the desire to push on and succeed. My brothers did that for me.