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Hader, Urias make cut for arbitration; Garcia out

Published in Baseball
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 12:59

NEW YORK -- Milwaukee Brewers closer Josh Hader just made the cutoff for salary arbitration eligibility with two years, 115 days of major league service.

Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Julio Urias also is on the list of 23 so-called Super 2s, with two years, 117 days. The cutoff was down significantly from two years, 134 days last offseason.

Miami Marlins left-hander Jarlin Garcia just missed with two years, 114 days, and Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Luke Weaver had two years, 112 days.

The top 22% of players by service time with at least two years but less than three are eligible for arbitration as long as they had at least 86 days of service this year. They join the older group of three- to six-year players.

Players and teams are scheduled to exchange proposed salaries on Jan. 10, and hearings for those lacking agreements will be scheduled for Feb. 3-21 in Phoenix.

The New York Yankees have four Super 2s: right-handers Luis Cessa and Jonathan Holder, left-hander Jordan Montgomery and third baseman Gio Urshela.

Urias is joined by Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger and Hader by Brewers left-hander Brent Suter.

Other teams with two eligible Super 2 players include the Colorado Rockies (LHP Kyle Freeland, OF David Dahl), Tampa Bay Rays (RHP Tyler Glasnow, SS Daniel Robertson), Los Angeles Angels (RHPs Keynan Middleton and Noe Ramirez) and San Diego Padres (OF Hunter Renfroe, RHP Dinelson Lamet).

Also eligible are Atlanta infielder Johan Camargo, Oakland right-hander Jharel Cotton, Detroit outfielder JaCoby Jones, Toronto right-hander Derek Law, San Francisco left-hander Wandy Peralta, Miami outfielder JT Riddle and Chicago Cubs left-hander Kyle Ryan.

Milwaukee first baseman/outfielder Tyler Austin, Texas left-hander Jesse Biddle, Cleveland right-hander A.J. Cole and Yankees right-hander David Hale would have been eligible but were dropped from 40-man rosters.

St. Louis shortstop Paul DeJong would have been eligible but will earn $1.5 million as part of a six-year, $26 million contract.

World Para Athletics Championships: Who, what and when?

Published in Athletics
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 14:05

A guide to the action in Dubai, including ones to watch, schedule and TV info

More than 1400 athletes from 120 nations are set to compete at the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai from November 7 to 15.

A qualification event for the Paralympics, the championships will prove a great test ahead of the Tokyo games, which starts on August 25 next year.

A number of reigning champions from London 2017 feature in the GB squad, which can be found listed in full here. They include 10-time world champion wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft, grand slam champions Hollie Arnold and Sophie Hahn and two- time Paralympic gold medallists Aled Davies and Richard Whitehead.

Two years ago the GB team placed third on the medals table behind China and the United States.

Ones to watch

Photo by Mark Shearman

Photo by Mark Shearman

Classification

Running and jumping (20 classes)

T11-13 (vision impairment), T20 (intellectual impairment), T35-38 (co-ordination impairments (hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis)),  T40-41 (short stature), T42-44 (lower limb competing without prosthesis affected by limb deficiency, leg length difference, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement), T45-47 (upper limb/s affected by limb deficiency, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement), T61-64 (lower limb/s competing with prosthesis affected by limb deficiency and leg length difference).

Wheelchair racing (7 classes)

T32-34 (co-ordination impairments (hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis)), T51-54 (limb deficiency, leg length difference, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement).

Standing throws (19 classes)

F11-13 (vision impairment), F20 (intellectual impairment), F35-38 (co-ordination impairments (hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis)), F40-41 (short stature), F42-44 (lower limb competing without prosthesis affected by limb deficiency, leg length difference, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement), F45-46 (upper limb/s affected by limb deficiency, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement), F61-64 (lower limb/s competing with prosthesis affected by limb deficiency and leg length difference).

Seated throws (11 classes)

F31-34 (co-ordination impairments (hypertonia, ataxia and athetosis)), F51-57 (Limb deficiency, leg length difference, impaired muscle power or impaired range of movement).

More detailed information on classification can be found at paralympic.org/athletics/classification

Sessions schedule

A full event-by-event timetable and live results can be found at paralympic.org/dubai-2019

Times stated are local (UK time in brackets)

Thursday November 7
Morning 9:30-12:00 (5:30-8:00)
Evening 19:00-22:30 (15:00-18:30)

Friday November 8
Morning 10:00-11:30 (6:00-7:30)
Evening 18:00-21:30 (14:00-17:30)

Saturday November 9
Morning 9:00-12:00 (5:00-8:00)
Evening 18:00-21:00 (14:00-17:00)

Sunday November 10
Morning 8:55-12:30 (4:55-8:30)
Evening 18:00-21:10 (14:00-17:10)

Monday November 11
Morning 9:00-12:10 (5:00-8:10)
Evening 18:00-21:30 (14:00-17:30)

Tuesday November 12
Morning 9:00-12:30 (5:00-8:30)
Evening 18:00-21:20 (14:00-17:20)

Wednesday November 13
Morning 9:00-11:40 (5:00-7:40)
Evening 18:00-21:00 (14:00-17:00)

Thursday November 14
Morning 9:00-12:20 (5:00-8:20)
Evening 18:00-21:20 (14:00-17:20)

Friday November 15
Evening 18:00-20:00 (14:00-16:00)

TV guide

A total of 24 broadcasters from all continents will receive coverage of the championships, reaching 88 countries.

In countries with no geo-block restrictions, sessions will be streamed via the Dubai 2019 official website and the World Para Athletics Facebook and Twitter pages.

Channel 4 has the rights for the UK and is set to show coverage at paralympics.channel4.com

Injury Keeping Ballou Sidelined For Western Swing

Published in Racing
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 11:40

ROCKLIN, Calif. – Still recovering from a broken arm endured on June 23, Robert Ballou had high hopes of making his return to USAC National Sprint Car Series action on the tour’s West Coast swing.

Unfortunately, the healing process is taking longer than expected, meaning Ballou will be unable to make the trip West and is now looking toward a 2020 return to the driver’s seat.

“I am pretty bummed to not be able to get out West and race in front of so many friends, as well as my family,” Ballou said. “The recovery process is going well, but it is just taking longer than we thought to get full strength back. My doctors have been great and I am pain free; it is just a long process from what was a pretty brutal injury.”

During the season, Ballou and his Robert Ballou Motorsports team lost long time sponsor Harry Dickinson of Dickinson Farms, who passed away back on April 10.

Ballou and his team are sending one final farewell to Dickinson and thanking him for supporting ‘The Mad Man’ over the years.

“It was said to lose Harry back in April, we wanted to race a couple more times to honor him but it wasn’t mean to be,” Ballou added. “I’d also like to thank all of my partners for their continued support. 2019 didn’t go as planned by any means, but I will be back and better come 2020.”

As he continues the road to recovery, Ballou is in the process of finalizing his 2020 plans.

Seven Races For ARCA Menards Series East

Published in Racing
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 11:55

TOLEDO, Ohio – The ARCA Menards Series East officially enters a new era with a seven-race slate in 2020 that will provide a mix of short-track showcases and national series companion events.

The compact stand-alone schedule will also allow for the opportunity for competitors to compete for the new 10-race ARCA Menards Series Showdown championship.

The East season will kick off as the main event of the 54th World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway on Monday, Feb. 10.

The champion will be crowned on Saturday, Sept. 12 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s Full Throttle Fall Weekend.

Sam Mayer captured the 2019 East title at 16 years of age to become the youngest national or regional series champion in NASCAR history. He’s already counting down the days until the green flag at New Smyrna.

“I am looking forward to returning to the East series to defend my title in 2020,” Mayer said. “I had so much fun racing in that series this year and learned so much at every race. The competition was tough, and I’m sure it will be even better next year. With the series combining, it will give me the opportunity to race against some new drivers and become more competitive. Hopefully we can go out and win a bunch of races and take home another East series championship.”

“We are really looking forward to being a part of the new East series with Sam Mayer,” added Keith Barnwell, GMS Racing manager of driver development and special projects. “This will be a great series for young drivers to hone their skills and prepare for the next phase of their careers. We consider the East series like our home games, and when we travel for the Showdown it will be like home and away. We are looking for the opportunity to defend our home races and our title.”

With the blending of the ARCA Menards Series with the newly renamed ARCA Menards Series East and West, and a consolidated rulebook to go along with it, opportunities now exist for traditional ARCA Menards Series teams to test the waters in the East Series.

One team looking to do just that is the reigning ARCA Menards Series championship team, Venturini Motorsports.

“This is a great schedule with excellent spacing between events,” said Venturini Motorsports co-owner Billy Venturini. “Our team will continue to compete in the ARCA Menards Series, as we have since 1982, but this schedule gives us the flexibility to run these seven races as well. It’s great to be able to offer this to the young drivers we are working with in 2020 and beyond.”

Other schedule highlights include:

– New Smyrna Speedway will host the season opener for the seventh consecutive season. The high-banked half-mile is just ten miles from Daytona Int’l Speedway, and the World Series runs parallel to Daytona Speedweeks presented By AdventHealth at the “World Center of Racing.”

Daytona will be the site of the opener of ARCA’s 68th season, with the Lucas Oil 200 driven by General Tire on Saturday, February 8.

– A pair of tracks that have hosted both East and ARCA races will be featured on the ARCA Menards Series East calendar: Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., and Michigan’s Berlin Raceway. Five Flags is the home of the super late model crown jewel, the Snowball Derby, held annually in December. The quick half-mile will be the second race on the East schedule on Saturday, March 14.

Berlin is the home track of former NASCAR Gander Trucks champion Johnny Benson and has been integral in the early careers of other NASCAR Hall of Famers such as Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin.

– Toledo Speedway will also transition from the ARCA Menards Series on Saturday, May 16 to give the series a cornerstone event in the Midwest. Toledo’s high-speed half-mile will give a great test for the East drivers and teams. The race will now be the headline event of a full Saturday of racing activity at the popular Glass City oval.

– The series will be part of two short-track national series weekends: Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, April 4, and Dover International Speedway on Friday, Aug. 21. Bristol, the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile,” was swept by Mayer in 2019.

Dover moves to the penultimate race on the East schedule as part of the larger national series schedule re-organization for 2020.

The ARCA Showdown Series will feature 10 events with a separate points championship and will include several traditional East race dates, including the annual combination races at Iowa Speedway and WWT Raceway at Gateway.

The complete NBCSN schedule for the ARCA Menards Series East, including broadcast times, will be released at a later date.

Clint Bowyer Discusses His Dirt Late Model Team

Published in Racing
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 12:37

CONCORD, N.C. — Clint Bowyer always has high expectations for his dirt late model program and this year was no exception.

With two champions — Josh Richards and Don O’Neal — at the wheel of his two dirt late models in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, Bowyer had good reason to have high expectations.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned. O’Neal suffered a knee injury that sidelined him for several weeks, ending his hopes of a strong season at the wheel of the No. 5 DEKALB entry. He did, however, bank $20,000 for a win in the Pittsburgher 100 at Pittsburgh’s PA Motor Speedway following his return from injury.

“This year was certainly frustrating,” Bowyer admitted. “Anytime you set out on a series like we do with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, you set out to win races and ultimately win the championship at the end of the year. So anytime you don’t do that, you didn’t meet your goal.

“We had good runs. The biggest thing was a lot of things that were out of our control. Don getting hurt certainly put a damper in our program. But we got through it. I’m proud of my guys for making the most out of the situations.”

Richards, on the other hand, had a solid season in his first year driving for Bowyer. He collected three Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series victories, including a $30,000 victory in the Hillbilly Hundred at West Virginia’s Tyler County Speedway.

He finished third in the series standings, but he wasn’t in the same league as series champion Jonathan Davenport.

“Josh finished third in points. Obviously, that’s not where we wanted to be, but it’s not 10th either,” Bowyer said. “We definitely have stuff to build on.”

Bowyer, who was at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Wednesday for a media event previewing the Can-Am World Finals later this week, said he doesn’t know if Richards and O’Neal will be back in his dirt late models next year.

“I hope so,” Bowyer said when asked if Richards and O’Neal would return in 2020. “We’re working on a lot of things. I’ve been in this deal a long time. You can’t do this without partners. No different on the Cup side. Every single year things get later and later and later. I don’t like that.

“Just two weeks ago I signed for next year (in the Cup Series with Stewart-Haas Racing). The last time I signed a contract it was a year and a half in advance. This year it was three races to the end of the season and I just got the deal done. Now it’s time to focus on everything else.

“I told them boys a long time ago, don’t ever worry about a thing until you look over and see me not in that Cup car. Then all of a sudden, we’ve got to figure a lot of stuff out. That’s the first piece of the puzzle you have to get on table and all the rest of it seems to come together quite well.”

Clint Bowyer gives ride-alongs Wednesday at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. (CMS photo)

Bowyer, a native of Kansas who started his career racing on dirt before landing an opportunity to drive for Richard Childress Racing in 2004, is thankful he can continue to be involved in dirt racing and give back to the grassroots level of the sport.

“I’m proud to have late models and be able to give back to something that has given so much to me,” Bowyer said. “That was my dream man. It was my dream to have semi and roll up and down the road with your buddies and roll into a race track and know you can kick their ass and then go out there and do it because of your hard work and determination to work harder than the next guy.

“Somehow, some crazy way, I never got the chance to do that in a late model,” Bowyer continued. “I never dreamed of going to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Maybe, possibly, the Charlotte Dirt Track if I could ever get over there halfway across the country. But literally, just making a living racing was the extent of my dream and I was perfectly satisfied chasing after that.

“So to be able to have late models and race at this level is very important to me.”

LIVE: Ronaldo, Juve visit Lokomotiv; Bayern in action

Published in Soccer
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 09:45

Baker shaved because 'didn't deserve' handlebar

Published in Breaking News
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 12:34

BEREA, Ohio -- Baker Mayfield curiously shaved twice Sunday, before and after a 24-19 loss in Denver. The Cleveland Browns quarterback showed up to Empower Field with a beard. Sported a Fu Manchu or handlebar mustache in the game. And then afterward, showed up to his press conference with a simple mustache.

As a result, Mayfield's look went viral, even culminating with actor Macaulay Culkin reenacting the movie Home Alone, casting Mayfield as Daniel Stern's "Wet Bandits" character in the movie.

Wednesday, Mayfield explained what happened.

"The original thought for me, do handlebars," said Mayfield, still with the plain mustache. "I was undefeated before Sunday with the handlebar mustache.

"So I shaved it off because I didn't deserve it."

It's been a rough season for Mayfield and the Browns, who are 2-6 despite massive preseason expectations. Mayfield is last in the NFL among qualifying passers in both completion percentage (58.7%) and touchdown-to-interception rate (0.58).

Last week, Mayfield stormed away from his media availability after a testy exchange with a reporter and admitted afterward in a tweet that he was "frustrated." Wednesday, after yet another loss, Mayfield was far more tranquil, preaching how the Browns need to "stay the course" to turn their season around heading into Sunday's game against the 6-2 Buffalo Bills.

"Now we just have to make the plays when they're there," Mayfield said. "We have to do those obvious things. We know that right now, eight games left in the season, just have a single week focus coming into it and do our job."

One downfall for the Browns offense, which ranks 26th in efficiency, has been the inability to consistently get the ball to their best playmaker, All-Pro wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

According to ESPN Stats & Info, Mayfield ranks last in the NFL in Total QBR while targeting wide receivers. Beckham hasn't had a touchdown catch since Week 2, his only one of the season.

"People had this picture-perfect thing where it was going to be sunshine and rainbows and he was going to have a whole of one-on-ones," Mayfield said. "It's Odell Beckham. He's going to have double coverage. We have to find ways to format things to get him the ball and force feed him early on to where he can make an impact before we can have the perfect to-give-him-a-shot play. And I think that's something we learned the hard way."

Despite the lack of touches, Beckham came to the defense of the second-year quarterback last week, saying he'd "jump in the fire" with Mayfield.

"I'm going to be the first one here to defend him every single time," Beckham said then. "I've always got his back."

Mayfield admitted Wednesday that OBJ's support through a four-game losing streak "means a lot."

Bottom 10 Inspirational thought of the week:

Unforgettable, that's what you are
Unforgettable though near or far
Like a song of love that clings to me
How the thought of you does things to me
Never before has someone been more
Unforgettable in every way

-- "Unforgettable" Nat King Cole

Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the custodial closet off the men's room at the College Football Hall of Fame, we have thoroughly enjoyed the depth and breadth of this year's CFB150 celebration.

Yet while we have appreciated the images, stories and moments created by the legendary players, teams and games, we can't help but obsess over what HAS been missing. Where are the fumbles in crucial moments? Where are the ugly uniforms, dropped passes, terrible third-and-long playcalls and coaches with the "Where am I?" looks on their faces?

In other words, where are our people?

The Rose Bowl? Notre Dame? Hail Flutie? Herschel? That's such low-hanging fruit. To find who and what we're looking for at the Bottom 10, it takes digging. Like, you're-gonna-get-dirty digging. Like, seriously, man, I'm getting out the Bush Hog and a Roto-Rooter, and if we hit a sewer line and it spews all over us, whatever. I don't care because we ain't stopping until we find what we're looking for. That kind of digging.

We've been dredging like that all season, through hard drives and cabinets full of yellowed newspaper clippings and at least two cardboard file boxes that were the final resting places of a nest of mice and Charlie Weis' last contract from Kansas.

Why endure that? Because we love misery and because we realized that this week's Bottom 10 was going to drop on the exact 150th birthdate of college football, commemorating Nov. 6, 1869, when Princeton visited an old Bottom 10 friend, the In-A-Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That means that instead of posting our regular, run-over-by-the-mill weekly Bottom 10 rankings, we're going bigger by going even more bottomer.

With apologies to William J. Leggett and Steve Harvey, here's the CFB150 All-Time Bottom 10 Teams of All Time.

1. 1991 Prairie View A&M Panthers (0-11)

We don't normally include FCS programs here in the Bottom 10, but the '91 Panthers are so legendarily bad that they burst through such barriers like the Kool-Aid Man. After being shuttered for one season to deal with a financial scandal involving its former head coach, Prairie View returned to the field in '91 and lost with the kind of panache that assaults the very fabric of mathematics. The Panthers scored 48 points all season while surrendering an average of 56 points per game. They were outscored 617-48, including a 92-0 loss to Alabama State that was 72-0 at the half. It was the start of a seven-year losing streak that finally ended in 1999 at 80 games, dwarfing the all-levels collegiate mark previously thought unbreakable, a 50-loss streak set in 1980 by NCAA Division III's Macalester College. Go Scots!

2. 1981 Northwestern Wildcats (0-11)

There are so many sorry seasons to choose from the annals of the Big Ten's smallest school, from Ara Parseghian's 0-9 1957 team to this year's shockingly bad squad that has flirted with our most recent Bottom 10. But those teams didn't make history. The '81 team did. Between 1979 and '82, the Wildcats set the major college record for consecutive losses, with 34. The pinnacle of that futility came in the second half of the '81 season, when a 61-14 loss to Michigan State moved Northwestern into sole possession of the longest losing streak, then at 0-29. The home crowd (I'm using that term very loosely) celebrated witnessing history by storming the field, tearing down the goalposts and chanting "We're the worst!" They must have been students from Northwestern's legendary journalism school, because that statement was extremely accurate.

3. 1985 Columbia Lions (0-10)

Columbia was slogging through a 12-game losing streak when it hired head coach Jim Garrett in '85, who showed up wearing blue coach's shorts, a blue T-shirt with "COACH" emblazoned across the chest and the personality of a bag of drywall nails. In his first game, the Lions held a 17-0 lead over Harvard in the third quarter ... and then surrendered 49 points in 22 minutes. Afterward, Garrett unleashed a tirade to The New York Times in which he wholly blamed the punter for the loss and said that punter had been kicked off the team. After finishing the year 0-10, Garrett was fired amid -- shocker -- allegations of verbal and physical abuse. The team lost its next 22 games, completing a 44-game slide. The Lions set an unofficial record for positive embracement of futility when the band started playing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song and saw the playing of the official fight song banned because they kept replacing the lyrics "Roar, Lion, Roar, and wake the echoes of the Hudson Valley" with "We always lose, lose, lose, by a lot and sometimes by a little." Losing became such a fabric of Columbia life that when success came, fans couldn't handle it. In 2017, after a 6-0 start, the Times ran a story under the headline "Columbia Football Keeps Winning. Some Fans Aren't Happy About It."

4. 1946 Kansas State Wildcats (0-9)

Trying to choose the best worst season in Kansas State history is like asking one to choose their favorite kid ... if someone has a house full of pitifully ugly kids. The Wildcats have posted seven winless seasons in all, but the worst was right smack in the middle of a 28-game losing streak that ran from 1944 to '48. The '46 team was outscored 233-41, never topping seven points in any game. Sure, it lost big to Oklahoma and Nebraska, but it was also housed by San Francisco and Hardin-Simmons. The following year, the Wildcats went 0-10. In '48, they ended the streak and won at Mizzou ... then lost 46 of their next 51 games. Their last great run of futility came in 1987-88, when they went 0-21-1 in the final two years before hiring Bill Snyder as head coach. Snyder had to have walked on water to his KSU job interview, and then he turned that water into wine while healing a blind man during that interview because what he did in Little Apple after getting the job was the college football miracle of miracles.

5. 1916 Cumberland College Bulldogs (0-1)

The CFB150 Coveted Fifth Spot goes to a team that played only one game, and that team wasn't actually a team at all. Following the 1915 season, Cumberland College of Lebanon, Tennessee, shuttered its football program, but it had already signed a deal to play Georgia Tech in 1916. When the time came for that game, Tech head coach John Heisman (yes, that Heisman) demanded that Cumberland either send a squad in Atlanta or pay the $3,000 ($70,667 in 2019) penalty. George Allen, the former football student manager, recruited a bunch of his fraternity brothers, and they traveled to Atlanta to play some ball. They lost 222-0, the biggest beatdown in college football history and perhaps the biggest in the history of sports. "My career coaching record was 0-1," said Allen, who went on to become a confidant of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. "But I still managed to make history."

6. 1959 Virginia Cavaliers (0-10)

The Hoos matched Kansas State's 0-28 slide with a brutally bad ACC effort -- still a conference record -- from 1958 to '60. The '58 team won only once, and the '60 team went winless, but the '59 team went winless more spectacularly, outscored 393-80 with an average margin of 31 points per game. It became so bad that the ghost of Thomas Jefferson appeared in the office of head coach Dick Voris and said, "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today ... like run the damn ball, Dick!"

7. 1886 Stevens Ducks (0-7-1)

Our lone representative from college football's 19th-century days, the Stevens Institute of Technology was founded in 1870 in Hoboken, New Jersey, a few months and only 35 miles removed from the inaugural college football contest at Rutgers. In 1873, Stevens was one of the five schools (along with Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia and Yale) invited to establish the original set of collegiate football rules. In '86, the Ducks were outscored 294-6, including a pair of losses to Princeton 58-0 and 61-6. They did tie Lehigh 0-0 but then lost to them 14-0 the next game. The Ducks actually finished 13th out of the nation's 14 teams in '86, worsted by the 0-9 Tufts Jumbos. But in '87, they went 0-6-1 to finish last among 15 teams, including a loss to something called the Active Football Club. In 1924, Stevens shut down the program, becoming the Inactive Football Club.

8. 1955 Alabama Crimson Tide (0-10)

J.B. "Ears" Whitworth (no, not the 877-CASH-NOW guy), aka the Last Guy Who Coached Bama Before Bear, walked into a brutal schedule that included four top-13 teams in his first season at the helm in Tuscaloosa. He limped out with an 0-10 record, one of only three winless seasons in the history of the Crimson Tide and the only one in the 20th century. Every loss was by 15 or more points. In a precursor to today's "change the culture" mantra, Ears tried to kick-start a youth infusion by benching all of his seniors. As a result, future Pro Football Hall of Famer Bart Starr, who spurned Bryant at Kentucky to stay home and play for the Tide, threw for 587 yards and one TD ... on the season. I like to envision someone driving to Memphis and walking up to an infant Paul Finebaum, who was born that July (but still has the same haircut today), and screaming into the baby's face, "Bama ain't played nobody, Pawl! As in, they don't let nobody play!"

9. 1923 Wyoming Cowboys (0-8)

The Cowboys were coached by John Corbett, aka the Grand Old Man of Athletics (no, not the guy from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Sex and the City") and a former Harvard halfback who was a member of the second All-American team. Corbett's team was outscored 265-16, including five shutouts. But what officially landed the team on this list was the fourth of those defeats, a 14-0 loss to the University of Wyoming faculty. Local papers reported that an English literature professor wearing an ascot high-stepped over the goal line like Deion Sanders and blew pipe smoke into a Wyoming player's face as he danced the Charleston in the end zone and yelled, "Thine hath been schooled!" OK, that didn't actually happen, but it would've been awesome if it had.

10. 2015 UCF (0-12)

Is this one of the 10 worst teams of all time? Probably not. But it's hard to recall a team that was as unexpectedly terrible as George O'Leary's last squad. In 2013, the Golden Knights went 12-1, won the Fiesta Bowl and finished the season ranked 10th. In 2014, UCF was 9-4 and 7-1 in the still-new American Athletic Conference of America. In 2015, they were picked to finished fourth in that conference and even received a first-place vote. Instead, they won zero games. At 0-6, O'Leary resigned as interim athletic director. At 0-8, he resigned as head football coach. At 0-12, the team edged Kansas, also 0-12, to win the Bottom 10 championship. At season's end, Scott Frost was hired as the head coach, and two years later UCF went 13-0 and declared itself national champion. That's the craziest Central Florida roller coaster since Space Mountain.

Waiting List: 2013 Georgia State Not Southern (0-12), 2001 Duke Blue Devils (0-11), 1989 New Mexico State Aggies (0-11), 1981 Eastern Michigan (0-11), 1973 UTEP Miners (1973), 1962 Colorado State Rams (0-10), 1950 Auburn Tigers (0-10), 1945 Coast Guard Bears (0-7-1), 1937 Washburn Ichabods (0-10), 1928 Western State Mountaineers (0-7), 1924 Erskine The Flying Fleet (0-8), 1920 Colorado Mines Orediggers (0-6), 1907 Maryville Scots (0-5), 1904 Florida Gators (0-5), 1886 Tufts Jumbos (0-9)

Raps' McCaw has benign mass on knee removed

Published in Basketball
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 11:38

Toronto Raptors swingman Patrick McCaw had a benign mass removed from the back of his left knee on Wednesday, the team announced.

The arthroscopic procedure was performed at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

The Raptors said McCaw will be reevaluated in four weeks.

The fourth-year guard is averaging 4 points, 3 rebounds and 1.5 assists in two games this season.

Westchester provides successful home for North America

Published in Table Tennis
Wednesday, 06 November 2019 10:29

Mini Cadet Camp Head Coach Pieke Franssen, with a team of coaches from the United States and Canada, led proceedings, six hours of training per day, split into two sessions and preceded by a morning running session for 25 minutes before breakfast. The environment was one that the young players were not accustomed but a very beneficial experience for their future development.

The camp for the mini-cadet players focused more on foundation skills, they still fell within an overall theme of playing from the middle, targeting the elbow, footwork and positioning which revolved around alternatives to playing safe cross-court angles.

Schedule

Sessions from 9.00 am to 12.00 noon and 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm session provided the tough and challenging conditions needed to nurture improvement in the talents; the three hour long sessions building a more high intensity atmosphere than most were used to in their weekly training routines.

Alongside the on-table training, the group also engaged in physical training which had a large focus on building core stability, as well as acceleration, stamina and co-ordination exercises throughout the five day training event.

On the final day the cadet players underwent a large practice tournament; it provided a perfect opportunity for the coaches to organise a longer multi-ball session for the mini-cadets, going through a variety of drills and providing another intense training method into the mix.

Preparation for Wladyslowowo

Under the guidance of Canada’s Anqi Luo, North American Team Coach at this year’s ITTF World Cadet Challenge, the cadet camp served as a preparation for the North American team travelling to the event in Wladyslowowo, Poland. It gave the Canadian and United States players an opportunity to prepare together in the best conditions possible for the internationally acclaimed event.

Aside from the unified training, the North American team players were also able to undergo some very important doubles practice in anticipation of the world-class event.

Overall, the focus of the training camp revolved around match preparation exercises.

Initiative welcomed

Mini Cadet Camp Head Coach Pieke Franssen was positive about the event overall and hopeful for more joint training exercises in the future.

“The camp went very well, it was a great atmosphere to have co-operation between the United States and Canada, bringing different playing styles among the training partners and different philosophies and methodologies among the coaches. Westchester Table Tennis Center has been a really good facility for this experience and hopefully we can continue to have more of these training camps in the future.” Pieke Franssen

Anqi Luo’s reflections on the camp were echoed by the team of coaches present.

“At the Westchester training camp, we gathered top cadet players in North America along with many young athletes with high potential. We were able to offer high quality and intense training that players would otherwise have to travel out of the continent for. The players selected for World Cadet Challenge also had a great opportunity to meet each other and to pair up for doubles in preparation for the upcoming tournament. It was overall a very successful training camp; these camps will definitely help to elevate the level of young players in North America.” Anqi Luo

Most beneficial

One of the United States coaches and team leader on duty, pivotal in the organisation of the event, Daniel Rutenberg, was most positive.

“I think the training camp was beneficial for all participants; this one of very few joint training events between the United and Canada in past years. I was very glad that we’re able to pull this camp off by providing such an intense and a high performance environment for the kids. I think all the participants worked hard and it was an ideal preparation for those getting ready for the World Cadet Challenge event.” Daniel Rutenberg

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