Time was most questions were answered through the advice and wisdom of a revered figure of authority — perhaps a teacher or a neighborhood wise man. Now the most curious of appetites can be sated with a simple trip online, while the human experience developed from going to someone for help has all but vanished.Things may change, however, after Charles Carleton’s latest development, which has found a way to combine that voice of human expertise with the boundless capacity of the Internet. Read More

Each step looked like it could have been his last of the night and the simplest movement registered a pained grimace on his face.But Lowell senior forward Arthur Jones wasn’t about to let his team lose Friday night.Despite a groin strain and a nasty contusion on his shooting hand, Jones sank four foul shots in the final minute to help his team survive an inspired effort from Mission in Lowell’s thrilling 72-69 overtime victory in the San Francisco Section championship game at Kezar Pavilion. Read More

Read any book on the subject by George Will, or watch one of those sepia-toned Kevin Costner movies, and it’s easy to see why baseball is known by the folklorish title "The National Pastime." It’s all about eating Cracker Jacks, and watching the big game with your pop — a Norman Rockwell portrait of nostalgia and sentimentality. But with increasingly exorbitant ticket prices for regular-season games — and overpaid and unapproachable players stocking rosters — baseball doesn’t exactly embody the innocence of Americana ascribed to it for so many decades. Read More

When Alan Wiggins Jr. first stepped foot on the USF campus in August 2003, he earned the nickname "young boy" from his men’s basketball teammates because of his precocious status as a 17-year-old freshman.Four years later, Wiggins may still hear the nickname from an occasional teammate or coach old enough to remember his arrival, but any USF opponent expecting to find a "young boy" on the court was in line for a rude awakening. Read More

As it prepares for the West Coast Conference tournament opener, the USF women’s basketball team finds itself in a situation very similar to what it faced last year at this time.In the 2006 tournament, the Dons entered as the WCC’s No. 7 seed, but they shocked tournament host and second-seeded Gonzaga in the first round 75-67 and played the No. 1 seed, Santa Clara, tough before losing a 75-65 overtime heartbreaker. Read More

Despite the tears welling in her eyes after her team’s 47-39 loss to Santa Cruz in the Central Coast Section Division IV semifinals, Mercy senior forward Kristy Lee still found the appropriate words to summarize the season for her gritty squad."We just keep fighting to the end," said Lee, the co-Player of the Year in the West Bay Athletic League. "No one expected us to get this far, but we just kept fighting, no matter what happened to us." Read More