The world through the eyes of "Texas" Tim Cowlishaw- Point 1

Tim Cowlishaw is starting to have his name thrown around with some of the great sports writers of today some including Peter King, Rick Reilly, and Jim Rome just to name a few. Mr. Cowlishaw’s most incredible feature about his writing is that he doesn’t seem to have one sport that he favors over the others. He seems to be very well balanced in his opinion of what is going on in that certain sport or area and it appears that Tim has not agenda to follow in his sports reporting. In the past Cowlishaw has worked for many different newspapers in including the Tulsa World, the Daily Oklahoman (or the Jokelahoman as I like to call it), and now is working in one of the most promising newspapers in the country the Dallas Morning News. He is a very prominent user of facts and statistics when he writes on a given topic, one quality that the Daily Oklahoman does not look for when they search for a columnist when it comes to writing about sports. As a local boy who grew up in the Dallas metroplex, after being born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tim enjoys writing about his home town teams without coming across as a “homer.” But, writing columns is not the only thing Tim is comfortable doing. He is a frequent competitor on the weekday show Around the Horn on the world’s biggest sports network ESPN. On this show sports columnists from around the country give their opinion on topics from the world of sports, they gather points from the host for every good or great point they have to say, until one is standing(well really sitting) at the end. He has had quite a reputation on the show for giving very quirky remarks, having a good time, and his patented goatee, all of this has prompted the show’s host Toni Reali to give him the nickname of “Texas Tim,” although it seems not that great of a nickname to you and me, he believes it fits him to a “tee.” Tim’s credentials are outstanding. As a graduate of Richardson High School, a very familiar place for me, and the University of Texas (the largest university in the United States) he has done a very good job in his education and you can see that in his columns, but sometimes a person’s education could take over their own head. As we all know people are entitled to their own opinion, Mr. Cowlishaw sometimes goes a little out there with his. In one of his columns from January 16, 1998, a couple of weeks before the Super Bowl, Tim writes about a formula that has been used in the past to predict the winner of the game. Although very naïve to use a formula to predict winners instead of going with a gut feeling, Cowlishaw uses this information to give his opinion on who he believes the winner will be. His great mind was on overdrive and he might have gone a little overboard with his prediction using calculations instead of what he saw on the field. He predicts that the Green Bay Packers will be victorious and will defeat the Denver Broncos handily “One day, the AFC will win another Super Bowl, and chances are The Formula will be there to project it. It just isn't going to happen this year” (“Super Salute”). We would later come to find out a few weeks later that he would be wrong. The Broncos ended up on top in the big game, and Tim came away from his prediction with a little egg on his face. But not to worry, Tim had another column the very next morning, and it didn’t seem to bring him down one bit, because again we are all entitled to our own opinion.

Cowlishaw, Tim. "No Super Salute." Sporting News 222.426 Jan 1998 16. 04 Mar 2008 .