2011, as has been well documented, was statistically the greatest year in Wisconsin sports history. Never before has there been a major sports championship, another of the state's major professional teams come within two games of a championship round, two minor league sports championships, two Sweet 16 appearances, and the greatest amateur tournament of its sport in the world, all sandwiched around back-to-back Rose Bowl appearances. This is a year that someone could legitimately write a book about.

Nationally, 2011 was hardly what anyone could call great. Scandals both mundane and sinister dominated headlines, destroyed the reputation of a once-revered and beloved figure, forced a once-dominant program to its knees, and showed exactly the lengths someone will go to for influence and access. Sports became more about board rooms than back boards in the NBA; more about gridlock than gridiron in football. One baseball team pulled rabbit after rabbit out of their hat, while another got to spend an entire offseason asking "what if?"

Moreover, 2011 was an unforgettable year, both on the local and national level. Tomorrow we will look at the year in sports here in Wisconsin; today we will look at what shaped the sports world around the country.

My top ten sports stories nationally:

10. The night in baseball on Sept. 28. In 135 years of Major League Baseball, there was never a night like this. Entering play, four teams were vying for two playoff spots. Four games were to determine playoff spots in game 162. In those four, three of them saw ninth inning rallies. Evan Longoria became the first player to hit a final-day walk-off home run to clinch a postseason berth since Bobby Thompson in 1951. Within a half-hour of each other, the Red Sox and Braves both completed record breaking September collapses. The Yankees blew an eighth-inning 7-0 lead to allow the Rays to win the Wild Card. As one not prone to hyperbole, this was baseball's greatest night ever.

9. The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. On Sept. 1, St. Louis trailed Atlanta by 8 ½ games in the Wild Card race. It was at that time the Cardinals forgot how to lose and the Braves forgot how to win. After the Cardinals advanced to the postseason after the insanity of Sept. 28, they eliminated the No. 1 seed Phillies and then the No. 2 seed Brewers before coming within a strike – twice – in Game 6 of the World Series against the Texas Rangers of finally losing. When David Freese's two-out, two-strike triple eluded rightfielder Nelson Cruz, you had the sense that destiny was afoot. When Lance Berkman tied the game with a two-out, two-strike single in the 10th, you knew this game was one for the ages. When Freese forced a Game 7 with a walk-off home run in the 11th, you knew the series was already over.

8. The Green Bay Packers win the Super Bowl. Obviously this will rank higher in our look at local sports headlines, but the very fact that a Wisconsin event ranks this high nationally is significant. The Packers, similar to the Cardinals in baseball, had to knock off the No's 1, 2, and 3 seed in the NFC on the road to advance to the championship. At 10-6, Green Bay's flaws were apparent. They lacked a significant running game, they had many of their key players hurt, and they shot themselves in the foot with silly mistakes. However, they caught fire at the right time and made a household name of their exceptional young quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, who emerged from the considerable shadow of his predecessor, Brett Favre, to lead the NFL's most historical franchise to their 13th league championship.

7. Longtime Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine is accused of sexual molestation. Well, "accused" is a bit of an understatement as Fine's own wife appeared to confirm the abuse in a taped telephone call from one of her husband's victims. Upon learning of the taped evidence, Syracuse fired Jim Boeheim's longest-serving assistant and close friend of almost 50 years and Boeheim distanced himself from earlier statements of support. So far, four victims have accused Fine of molestation, but Boeheim appears to have not been involved in a cover-up. Thus, he still has his job coaching the No. 1 team in college basketball.

6. NBA Lockout. Just about any other year, the significant loss of games would be enough to vault this story into the top five. However, there are bigger stories to cover because of a couple of reasons. First, there is a feeling among many casual NBA fans that the league only cares about certain teams (namely, Miami, Dallas, the Lakers, New York, and Chicago). Secondly, despite the doomsday entire-season-cancellation scenarios that were floated out there, only 16 games will be missed by each club. With as long as the NBA season is to begin with, shortening the season to 66 games may be a blessing in disguise. Remember, even though the season was shortened to 50 games in 1998-99 season, the brand of basketball seemed to be better, as there was a much smaller margin of error, magnifying each game that much more.

5. The Ohio State football scandal. Jim Tressel had always held himself up as a moral authority and leader of young men. That image came crashing down in March when it was discovered that Tressel knew of improper benefits given to his players and knowingly hid that information from his superiors. After an investigative expose appeared in Sports Illustrated almost three months later uncovering all of Tressel's dirty little secrets and exposing how widespread the Buckeyes scandal went, the coach had no other option than to resign from the one job he had always aspired to. For getting run out of town not for losses but for an off-the-field scandal was a shocking turn of events for the coach who was nicknamed "The Senator."

4. NCAA Realignment. Spurred on by ESPN's desire to manipulate matchups, schools discarded longtime rivalries and geographic borders to grab their piece of the pie; the rest of college sports be damned. When the dust settled, Texas A&M was in the SEC, TCU went first to the Big East then to the Big 12, Missouri landed in the SEC after more or less begging the conference to take them, Pittsburgh and Syracuse both left the Big East for the ACC, while the Big East may have to change its name after San Diego State and Boise State were admitted as football-only members. In the non-BCS conferences there has been so much movement I would need three more pages to document them all. Is all of this movement good for the student-athlete? Of course not. Is it good for ESPN? What do you think?

3. The Miami athletic department scandal. In August, Yahoo! Sports investigative reporter Charles Robinson blew the lid off jailed former booster Nevin Shapiro's dealings with his beloved Hurricanes. According to the report, Shapiro lavished impermissible benefits to athletes including but not limited to "cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel, and on one occasion, an abortion." It has been suggested that the Hurricanes are in danger of incurring the NCAA's dreaded "death penalty" for allowing such malfeasance to occur. Others suggest that will never happen. One thing is for certain; this scandal makes all other impermissible benefits cases pale in comparison.

2. The NFL Lockout. It is only in the NFL where a community of just a shade over 100,000 can have their team thrive both on and off the field. It is only in the NFL that it is not unusual to see a team go from last place to first place in the span of one season. After all, the NFC has sent ten different representatives to the Super Bowl in the last ten years. Parody and revenue sharing means that everyone has a chance; thus, the sport has been the most popular in North America for some time. The mere suggestion that the owners and players might not be able to get together and divvy up the $9 billion in profits sent some into flat-out panic mode. Even though in the end there were no games missed, this was a story that dominated the sports page all spring and summer long.

1. The Penn State sex abuse scandal. Simply put, there has never been anything like the week we all witnessed the week of Nov. 4 – 11. Over the span of just a few days, a longtime respected assistant coach was arrested on child molestation charges. After his shocking arrest, the onion began to peel as to the extent of what people know, when they knew it, and what they did about it. When all was said and done, arguably the most revered person in sports was tossed out on his ear. After it was discovered that Jerry Sandusky was first investigated in 1998 for child molestation but was still granted access to the Penn State facilities for his sickening perversions, there was nowhere for Joe Paterno to hide. He knew that children were being victimized and in an effort to not bring negative publicity to the program he put on the map, he covered it up. How many other kids were victimized because of that conscious decision we may never know.

But even though it happened late in the year, it was by far the biggest sports story of 2011 nationally.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the headlines that dominated Wisconsin in 2011.