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Why Olympic Swimmer Klete Keller, Arrested for Allegedly Invading the Capitol, Probably Won’t ...

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 18:46:18 GMT

As news broke Wednesday that U.S. swimmer Klete Keller, winner of five Olympic medals—including two golds—had been charged with violating federal law for allegedly participating in the January 6th riot on the U.S. Capitol, calls for his Olympic medals to be stripped immediately emerged on social media. “Lock him up,” wrote one commenter. “But first … take his medal[s] away.” Another: “the IOC needs to strip his medals.”

Even before Keller was arrested, some people were clamoring for Olympic officials to take action. “This is simple,” tweeted former ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann on Tuesday, after news reports pointed out Keller’s likely presence in the Capitol Rotunda, amidst the mob. “@TeamUSA, @USASwimming must insist @olympics strip Klete Keller of his Olympic Swimming Medals. Today. He has dishonored his sport and his nation.”

The calls for official punishment are understandable. January 6th will be remembered as a tragic day in American history; the violent attempt to subvert American democracy resulted in five deaths and a second House impeachment of President Donald Trump. Keller’s mere presence in the mob could permanently stain his significant accomplishments. In 2004, for example, he anchored the final leg of the 4X200 freestyle relay in Athens, holding off Australian legend Ian Thorpe and also helping Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte win gold. His alleged involvement in the riot is embarrassing for Team USA and the Olympic movement. And, one can reasonably argue, potentially more damaging than doping, an offense for which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has reclaimed well over 100 medals.

Still, stripping Keller of his medals seems like, at best, a long shot. According to Olympedia.org, an Olympic history and statistics site, 33 Olympic medalists have received prison sentences over the years, some for crimes as heinous as murder, sexual abuse, and international human trafficking. They’re all still Olympic medalists. There’s no historical precedent for taking Olympic medals away for bad behavior, no matter how noxious, outside of sports. “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Klete Keller is going to lose an Olympic medal for what he did,” says Olympic historian Bill Mallon, founder of Olympedia.org. “The IOC is ruled by a document called the Olympic Charter, which is basically the Constitution of the Olympic movement. And there’s nothing in here about stripping medals from people for behavior after the Olympics.”

The IOC can always change its rules. But the organization is in no rush to do so. “The Olympic Medals were awarded for sporting achievements in the Olympic Games 2000, 2004 and 2008,” says an IOC spokesperson, in response to questions about the potential fate of Keller’s medals. “For the IOC there is nothing further to add.”

In the Olympics, achievements are generally erased when the integrity of the competition is compromised. So drug cheats are fair game to have their medals stripped. A few athletes, like American Jim Thorpe, lost their medals for receiving money and violating old Olympic amateurism rules, though these medals were later reinstated. Boxer Ingermar Johansson, of Sweden, was disqualified from the heavyweight gold medal fight at the 1952 Helsinki Games for, in the eyes of the ref, failing to put up a fight against American Ed Sanders. Johansson eventually received his silver in 1982.

Bad sportsmanship can cost you. In 1992, weightlifter Ibragim Samadov of the Unified Team hurled his bronze medal to the floor and stormed off the stage during the awards ceremony. In 2000 Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian dropped his bronze medal on the mat in protest of the refereeing. The IOC stripped the bronzes from both of them: they haven’t been returned.

But James Snook remains a gold medalist in the record books. The American shooter won two golds at the 1920 Games in Antwerp. In 1929 Snook, who was a professor of veterinary medicine at Ohio State University, was convicted of murdering his mistress; the indictment claimed he severed her jugular vein after beating her with a hammer. Snook claimed self-defense. The trial was so salacious—Snook’s testimony detailed his sexual encounters with the victim—kids under 18 were not permitted in the courtroom. “Much of the testimony not having been printed in newspapers,” wrote the New York Times, “certain persons, securing an uncensored transcript, had booklets on sale on the street [in Columbus, Ohio] today before the jury returned its verdict.” The trial, a true spectacle for its day, drew national interest. “Direct wires leading to all points of the United States and Canada led out of the courtroom,” according to one of the booklets. “Each day of the trial thousands of curious stormed the small court room where the trial was conducted. So eager were some to hear the testimony adduced that it was not infrequent for them to appear at the Court House as early as three o’clock in the morning.” Snook was executed, via the electric chair, in 1930.

Or take Murray Riley of Australia who in 1956 partnered with a fellow New South Wales police officer, Mervyn Wood, to win rowing bronze in Melbourne. He soon left the force and turned to a career of bribery, fraud, and international drug trafficking, earning several prison sentences—he even escaped once. Austria’s Wolfgang Schwartz won figure skating gold at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. In 2002 he was sentenced to 1½ years in prison on trafficking charges related to bringing women from Lithuania and Russia to Austria to work as prostitutes. In 2006, he received another prison sentence—this one for eight years—for plotting to kidnap the teenage daughter of a Romanian businessman. American boxer Riddick Bowe, the former world heavyweight champion, won silver in Seoul in 1988; he received an 18-month sentence for abducting his estranged wife and five children from their home in 1998. Riley, Schwartz and Bowe are still Olympic medalists.

Keller fell on hard times after retiring from swimming after the 2008 Beijing Games. He had trouble adjusting to the working world. “I lost several jobs,” Keller said on a 2018 Olympic Channel podcast. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a good employee or worker for the longest time because I expected it all to come to me as easily as swimming did.” He got divorced and spent a period of time living in his car. But Keller seemed to turn his life around. He worked with a real estate company, Hoff & Leigh, in Colorado. On Tuesday, Hoff & Leigh released a statement saying Keller resigned from the company. “Hoff & Leigh supports the right of free speech and lawful protest but we cannot condone actions that violate the rule of law,” the company said. (Keller could not be reached for comment.)

On social media prior to January 6, Keller reportedly wrote pro-Trump messages. He has since deleted his accounts. The criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges that Keller knowingly entering a restricted building without lawful authority to do so, engaged in disorderly conduct to impede government business, and impeded law enforcement from performing official duties. As the case against Keller unfolds, the USOPC could lobby the IOC to take away Keller’s medals. Given the lack of precedent, however, such a move would be surprising. Keller may face justice but he’ll likely still hold onto his gold.

How Olympic Athletes Are Coping with the Wait for the Postponed 2021 Games

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:15:12 GMT

Wedding cupcakes may propel a javelin thrower to gold at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. In typical times, such a statement would seem ridiculous. But these days, it sounds plausible.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year, Kara Winger, a three-time Olympian and the U.S. national record holder in the javelin, needed to adjust. Since she could no longer access indoor facilities for her typical strength and technique drills, she and her husband, former U.S. discus and shot-put thrower Russ Winger, connected a 30-ft. cable from their back fence to a hook at the rear of their house, running it through a metal tube that’s about a foot and a half long. On this neatly angled wire, which allows Winger to replicate proper javelin-throwing motion, she tosses the tube, once a portion of the cupcake stand Russ built for their 2014 wedding. “Both were made,” says Winger, “with love.”

All over the world, the pandemic has forced athletes like Winger, with their Olympic hopes on hold after the postponement of the Games for a year, to find innovative ways to stay sharp during extended lockdown periods. Bottles of laundry detergent—and beer—have subbed in as weights. Norwegian wrestler Stig-Andre Berge did push-ups with his baby on his back; Oktawia Nowacka, a modern pentathlete from Poland, did squats while holding her dog. Brooke Raboutou, a U.S. climber, crawled along her kitchen counter, scaled the back of her stairs and maneuvered across her fireplace chimney, like Spider-Woman.

With much of the world now facing a COVID winter-—and the potential for further surges in cases and shutdowns—Olympic athletes may again need to rely on Spidey sense and pets and backyard contraptions as the postponed Games approach. With such creativity, however, comes the potential for crippling uncertainty. Olympic sports often offer a single shot at glory. Careers hinge on an event that occurs every four years, so any tweak to carefully crafted training routines can send the minds of elite athletes spiraling. And even with vaccine rollouts promising a safer 2021, and Olympic officials insisting the Games will go on this July, athletes are keenly aware that givens don’t exist. This year could somehow prove more disheartening than the last one. “We’re now going back to a space where you don’t know if the gym is going to be open tomorrow,” says U.S. fencer Daryl Homer, who trains in New York City. “It’s like Olympic dreams on hold, 2.0.”

David Zalubowski—APWinger uses a cable system to simulate throwing a javelin as she trains outside her home in Colorado Springs in April

No athlete is immune from disruption. Noah Lyles, the reigning 200m world champion who in Tokyo will seek to replace Usain Bolt as the face of track and field, lifted weights in a park near his Central Florida home. British gymnast Max Whitlock, who won two golds at the Rio Games, used his sofa as a pommel horse. Rio double gold-medalist swimmer Lilly King joined a few teammates for laps in a Bloomington, Ind., pond. “Once I saw a snapping turtle,” King says, “I hightailed it out of there.”

When the pandemic struck, the makeup of Samantha Schultz’s sport, modern pentathlon, only compounded her stress; she couldn’t conduct her usual training for five different events: fencing, shooting, equestrian, swimming and running. Schultz improvised—she shot a laser pistol at a target in her Colorado Springs neighborhood. “People would drive by and see me with an oversize handgun,” she says. “They were like, ‘She’s so weird.’” Despite her adjustments, the toll of the delays finally hit her on July 27, when she realized she would have been in Tokyo, the Games under way. “I felt like I was carrying a bag of bricks on my back,” Schultz says. That day, she broke down and cried. In her journal, she recorded her motivation level: low.

In a May 2020 International Olympic Committee survey of more than 3,000 athletes worldwide, 50% of respondents labeled “keeping myself motivated” as a major challenge; nearly a third said “managing my mental health” was difficult too. U.S. judo hopeful Angelica Delgado was in the best shape of her life when the lockdown hit, leaving her depressed in the aftermath. Social distancing is not an option in combat sports, so she fretted about falling behind. “I’m not going to slam my fiancé onto our concrete floors, you know?” she says. In late July, she returned to the gym to work with her coach and training partner: they all got COVID-19 and had to cease training for a few weeks, but have since resumed Olympic prep. For now.

Marcos Brindicci—APArgentinian boxer Yamil Peralta bench lifts a weight made of cement in the backyard of his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires in July

Nearly all Olympic athletes mentioned blocking out what’s beyond their control—the state of the world, canceled competitions, and health and safety regulations—as a key coping mechanism during this unprecedented run-up to the Games. “It’s tough, but if I worried about every possible thing that could go wrong, I would never compete again,” says Delgado.

Perspective also helps. “This is much bigger than us, much bigger than sport,” says Matthew Centrowitz, who won 1,500m gold for the U.S. in Rio. “This is a pandemic that’s affecting everyone in the world, all ages, all ethnicities. People are losing jobs. People are dying. So if we have to push back the Olympics, or have them be completely canceled, there are far worse things out there that can happen.”

These next few months will be busy for Sean McCann, senior sport psychologist for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. He’s worried about athlete burnout caused by chronic stress: the daily hassles like finding a place to train during lockdowns, or uncertain schedules during a confusing Olympic prep period that’s already stretched another full year. “It’s been a long haul,” says McCann. “We’ve got to still keep doing the basics and taking care of ourselves physically, socially, emotionally.”

McCann and other experts offer some encouraging signs. In a November article published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the basic advice from the sports-scientist authors is that athletes should keep doing what they’re doing. Habits like meditation, visualizing competitions and sharing home workout routines on social media—which helps builds human connectivity—can pay off once the Games begin.

Muhammad Hamed—REUTERSJordanian judo practitioner Hadeel Alami uses the sofa as a part of her trainings at her home in Amman in April

Some competitions have already restarted. The International Swimming League, a five-week event, took place in a Budapest bubble in October and November. None of the more than 300 swimmers tested positive for COVID-19. One athlete told McCann that when she dived into the pool and her hands hit the water for her first race, her whole body smiled.

Any sort of successful Olympic bubble involving more than 11,000 athletes will be harder to pull off. But no matter what happens in July, athletes will take their victories along the way. “I’m doing everything I can with the stuff that I have, and I feel really good doing it,” says Winger, who plans to keep using her backyard cable system while also rehabbing from an ACL injury she suffered in August. “It’s just cool to still be viable without leaving my house.” Come this summer, Winger hopes to be leaving her cupcake stand in its proper place.

Patriots Coach Bill Belichick Won’t Accept Trump’s Offer of Presidential Medal of Freedom

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 03:50:46 GMT

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick announced Monday night that he will not accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying “remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award.”

In a delicately worded, one-paragraph statement, the six-time Super Bowl-winning coach did not say explicitly that he had turned down the offer from President Donald Trump, whom he has called a friend. Instead, Belichick explained, “the decision has been made not to move forward with the award” in the wake of last week’s deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump announced on Saturday, three days after the riots, that he would be awarding Belichick the nation’s highest civilian honor — part of a late flurry of presentations that also included golfers Annika Sorenstam, Gary Player and the late Babe Zaharias.

Sorenstam and Player accepted their awards in a private ceremony the day after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Five people died in the mayhem, including U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. Belichick was to be honored on Thursday.

“I was flattered … out of respect for what the honor represents and admiration for prior recipients,” the coach said in a statement, which was forwarded to The Associated Press by the Patriots.

“Subsequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award. Above all, I am an American citizen with great reverence for our nation’s values, freedom and democracy. I know I also represent my family and the New England Patriots team.”

Although he describes himself as apolitical, Belichick has waded into politics on occasion.

The architect of the Patriots dynasty wrote Trump a letter of support that the candidate read aloud the night before the 2016 election at a rally in New Hampshire, a bastion of the team’s fandom.

Although Trump said the letter offered “best wishes for great results” on election day and “the opportunity to make America great again,” Belichick said it was it was merely to support a friend.

Belichick also wore an Armenian flag pin to the White House in 2015 when the team celebrated its fourth Super Bowl victory — believed to be a sign of support for the team’s director of football, Berj Najarian, who is of Armenian descent. Last month, Belichick called on the U.S. government to take action against Turkey and Azerbaijan for “unprovoked and violent attacks against Armenians.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death this summer, Patriots players praised Belichick for providing an open forum for them to express their feelings on race and social injustice in America. In his statement on Monday, Belichick called that “one of the most rewarding things in my professional career.”

“Through the great leadership within our team, conversations about social justice, equality and human rights moved to the forefront and became actions,” he said. “Continuing those efforts while remaining true to the people, team and country I love outweigh the benefits of any individual award.”

‘We Did That’: Inside the WNBA’s Strategy to Support Raphael Warnock—and Help Democrats ...

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 18:12:21 GMT

On August 4 players from the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury appeared on national television wearing black shirts, with an all-caps message, written in white font, on the front: VOTE WARNOCK. Players across the WNBA started donning those shirts that day, and the “Vote Warnock” message spread on social media. Elizabeth Williams, a forward for the Atlanta Dream, recalls some confusion at the time. “People were like, what is a Warnock?” she says.

They know now.

On Jan. 5, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, won his runoff election against incumbent Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, becoming Georgia’s first Black Senator. Warnock’s victory, combined with Democrat Jon Ossoff’s win against incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue in the other runoff race, flipped Georgia blue, and now gives Democrats control of the Senate in addition to their majority in the House and White House win.

WNBA players have been at the forefront of social-justice movements in sports in recent years—players were among the first, in 2016, to wear “Black Lives Matter” warm-up shirts before games several incidents of police violence—but this year they took their activism to a new level. Following reports that the WNBA planned to paint Black Lives Matter on their courts in WNBA bubble—or “wubble”—in Bradenton, Fla., Loeffler wrote a letter in early July to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert criticizing the league’s embrace of the movement; the next evening, she called Black Lives Matter “divisive” and “Marxist” during a Fox News interview. WNBA players quickly condemned Loeffler’s stance, and later that month WNBA dedicated its 2020 season to Breonna Taylor, the Louisville, Ky., medical worker killed by police in a botched raid of her home. Then they took it a step further and wore the shirts.

Several factors contributed to Warnock’s win. Barack Obama’s endorsement surely helped. His criminal justice reform message resonated. But Angele Delevoye, a PhD candidate in political science and quantitative methods at Yale has also concluded through data analysis that the WNBA played a role in Warnock’s ascension. “The WNBA helped generate momentum,” she says. “The WNBA has a long history of activism. So the players were ready for this moment.”

Dream shooting guard Tiffany Hayes agrees. “We were definitely the loudest voice,” says Hayes. “We were the sternest voice. And we backed what we said. I don’t see any other hand that was bigger.”

“I Knew Right Away That I Wasn’t With It”

Loeffler’s anti-Black Lives Matter stance angered many WNBA players, around 70% of whom are Black. “E-N-O-U-G-H! O-U-T!” the WNBA players’ union tweeted. Atlanta Dream guard Renee Montgomery, who already opted out of playing the 2020 season to focus on social-justice reform, wrote on Twitter: “I’m pretty sad to see that my team ownership is not supportive of the movement and all that it stands for. I was already sitting out this season and this is an example of why. I would love to have a conversation with you about the matter if you’re down?” (They never spoke.) “I’ve been around her, and it just never came across my mind that this was who I was working for, so to speak,” says Hayes. “So it was kind of disappointing, kind of sad to learn something like that. And I knew right away that I wasn’t with it.”

Dear @SenatorLoeffler ….

I’m pretty sad to see that my team ownership is not supportive of the movement & all that it stands for. I was already sitting out this season & this is an example of why. I would love to have a conversation with you about the matter if you’re down?

— Renee Montgomery (@ReneeMontgomery) July 7, 2020

The Dream players met on Zoom. “There was a lot of frustration,” says Williams. “We had a lot of free agents this year, so for them, it was, ‘O.K., I came to this new team, and this is the first thing I have to deal with?’ There was a lot of emotion. It wasn’t an easy conversation to have.”

The Dream players, however, resolved to respond positively. “I think there was that level of determination, like all right, at the end of the day we are strong women who are professional athletes, and we’re going to do our job and continue to inspire through our play and we’re also going to use our voices off the court,” says Williams. “So despite the frustration and disappointment and all that, we still wanted to make sure that we were intentional about our words and our actions that would follow.”

“Just being on that call, I knew some good things were going to happen,” says Montgomery. “Just talking to the players, hearing how passionate they were about making sure their voices were heard.” The Dream players released a short team statement on July 10, three days after Loeffler’s letter went public. “Our team is united in the Movement for Black Lives,” it read, in part. “It is not extreme to demand change after centuries of inequality. This is not a political statement. This is a statement of humanity. Black lives matter.”

As the summer progressed, however, players began to believe that Loeffler was just playing politics. Her attacks on the progressive WNBA played to Georgia’s conservative base—and could steal votes away from her main Republican opponent in the special election, former Republican Congressman Doug Collins. Loeffler could also cast calls for her removal as Dream owner as a symptom of “cancel culture” intolerant of opposing views.

“It was like, ‘oh s–t,'” says Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird, who won her fourth WNBA title this season. “The more we fight her—people were asking, ‘Should she be an owner?’— the more we were basically calling for her head, the more it was just playing into her hands. She got to show the state of Georgia, ‘Oh, look at me, I am standing up to these people and telling them to keep politics out of sports.’ It was ironic that this woman was saying, ‘Keep politics out of sports,’ when she was actually using us as a political pawn.”

“Vote Warnock”

Bird and other players decided to shift their focus from Loeffler to Warnock. “We recognized in our work with the Say Her Name movement, there’s power in saying Breonna Taylor’s name,” says Williams. “And so you can do the opposite and not say someone’s name. We kind embraced that and haven’t shied away from that since.”

They consulted with Stacey Abrams, a member of the WNBA players’ association’s board of advocates who vouched for Warnock. On two Zoom calls—one involving the executive committee of the union, the other open to all players—the players vetted Warnock. “After that, players were like, ‘O.K., this guy’s legit,'” says Williams. “He was so confident, saying that ‘even if I don’t win in November, I am going to win in January.'”

That’s exactly what happened: Warnock failed to receive the requisite vote in the November 3 general election—more than 50%—to avoid a runoff, but prevailed over Loeffler in January 50.8% to 49.2%. “He supported all the things that we supported as it related to criminal justice reform, women’s health, reproductive rights all these things that we had talked about as WNBA players,” says Williams. “And so once players liked him, we were like, ‘How do we show our support?'”

This tweet aged well.

Congrats Senator-Elect @ReverendWarnock! I'm especially grateful for my fellow @TheWNBPA members on being strategic, fearless, and relentless. And to @staceyabrams, who turned a crushing gubernatorial defeat into sweet, sweet victory for an entire nation. https://t.co/2hYCKR4Fe1

— Elizabeth Williams (@E_Williams_1) January 6, 2021

Bird suggested that players wear “Vote Warnock” T-shirt before games. She texted Montgomery about the plans, which took Montgomery by surprise. “So the shirts are going to say what now?” Montgomery recalls saying. “And she was like, ‘The shirts are going to say, ‘Vote Warnock,'” and I’m like, ‘Whoa, that is big lit.’ That’s all I could say. That is lit.”

Montgomery was excited but was also apprehensive. “There’s always that stigma of ‘stick to sports,’ ‘shut up and dribble.’ And we’re not talking about just going against maybe a sponsor of the team or someone that’s like a little bit connected to the team. We’re literally talking about a team owner,” Montgomery says. “So there was a power dynamic there where she is my boss and you just know that people that have money have a lot of connections. And you could end up being blackballed and not even know what happened.”

Many people, however, have seemed to embrace the WNBA’s activism. Average viewership rose 68% going into the WNBA Finals. Players worked to increase voter turnout—and recruit poll workers for both the general election and in Georgia. They posted about the elections on social media. Hayes helped host a voter-registration event at the gym she owns in Atlanta. Williams worked a phone bank. Montgomery talked to students throughout the state, explaining the particular importance of the Georgia runoff to the future of the country.

“I really wanted to make sure people understood you can’t sit this one out,” Montgomery says. The day before the runoff, More Than A Vote, the voting-rights organization started by LeBron James, released a get-out-the-vote ad voiced by Montgomery, Hayes and Williams and fellow Dream player Courtney Williams.

Back in the summer, Montgomery had asked Bird to send her a “Vote Warnock” T-shirt from the wubble. She’s still waiting for it. “I need to get a shirt,” she says. “But it shouldn’t even say ‘Vote Warnock’ anymore. I need to have a shirt that says, ‘We Did That.'” — with reporting by Francesca Trianni

Becky Hammon Makes History as First Woman to Serve as Head Coach in NBA Game

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:42:31 GMT

(SAN ANTONIO) — Becky Hammon would have preferred a victory over history after becoming the first woman to coach an NBA team.

The assistant coach took over the San Antonio Spurs in the second quarter after coach Gregg Popovich was ejected in a 121-107 loss to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night.

“I try not to think of the huge picture and huge aspect of it because it can be overwhelming,” Hammon said. “I really have had no time to reflect. I have not had time to look at my phone. So, I don’t know what’s going on outside the AT&T Center.”

Hammon and the Spurs already had a lot to contend with against the defending league champion Lakers.

James celebrated his 36th birthday with 26 points, eight assists and five rebounds in the Lakers’ third double-digit victory. The teams will complete the two-game set Friday night.

“(I was) trying to get the guys in the right spots,” Hammon said. “Trying to get them motivated. Obviously, it’s a learning situation for all of us, but I would have loved to have walked out there with a win with the guys.”

Popovich was ejected by official Tony Brown with 3:56 remaining in the second quarter. Popovich screamed at Brown and entered the court following a non-call on DeMar DeRozan’s attempted layup and a subsequent attempted rebound by Drew Eubanks.

As he exited the court to applause from several of the team’s family members in attendance, Popovich pointed a finger at Hammon and had a succinct message.

“You got ‘em,” Hammon said. “See? He doesn’t treat us any differently than he does you guys.”

Said LeBron James: “Obviously she’s been paying her dues over the last few years and Coach Pop has given her the opportunity. … It’s a beautiful thing just to hear her barking out calls, barking out sets. She’s very passionate about the game. Congrats to her and congrats for our league.”

Hammon took over the team’s huddles during timeouts and walked the sideline following Popovich’s ejection. Hammon was the first full-time female assistant coach in league history.

“Well deserved,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “I’ve talked to her before and she really knows her stuff and obviously she’s here for a reason. She’s equipped, intelligent (and the) guys have great respect for her. She’s going to be a great coach one day.”

A three-time All-American at Colorado State, Hammon played for the New York Liberty and San Antonio Stars in the WNBA as well as overseas before retiring to join Popovich’s staff in 2014.

“Even in timeouts with Pop as head coach, she is quick on her feet,” DeRozan said. “She tells us about defensive assignments, offensive sets we should run. Seeing her in the forefront, it would have definitely been cool to have won for her.”

The Lakers contributed to Popovich’s frustration and the Spurs’ fortunes didn’t get much better after the veteran coach exited.

Dennis Schroder had 21 points, Anthony Davis had 20 points and eight rebounds for the Lakers. Wesley Matthews was 6 for 6 on 3-pointers in scoring 18 points off the bench.

The Spurs opened with a 9-2 run, including an uncontested drive through the lane by Keldon Johnson for a two-handed slam. The Lakers responded with an 11-0 run that promoted a timeout by Popovich.

The Lakers took their first double-digit lead at 35-25 on Kyle Kuzma’s 3-pointer with 1:14 remaining in the first quarter.

Dejounte Murray had a career-high 29 points, seven assists and seven rebounds.

“At the end of the day, it don’t mean nothing, we lost,” Murray said.

DeRozan added 23 for the Spurs, who lost their second straight after opening the season with two consecutive wins.

‘This Means a Lot.’ After Their City Was Battered by Coronavirus, Wuhan’s Soccer Fans ...

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 05:01:34 GMT

They came bearing orange banners, scarves and crates of Tsingtao beer: 4,000 diehard soccer fans swarmed Wuhan Railway station on Nov. 22 looking for train G1718 to Suzhou—and a helping hand from the Fates.

Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, is globally infamous as the place where the coronavirus was first detected last December—a discovery that prompted the unprecedented, 76-day, enforced quarantine of its 11 million inhabitants. But before the pandemic, this city straddling the Yangtze River was famed for several prestigious universities as well as some of China’s most boisterous soccer fanatics.

After lockdown measures were lifted, those fans came out in force to support the Wuhan Zall soccer team as the club sought to avoid relegation from China’s apex Super League. To do that, Wuhan Zall needed to beat rivals Zhejiang Greentown in the Olympic Stadium at Suzhou, a comparable sized city about 600 kilometers away in Jiangsu province.

“Our heroic city has been traumatized this year,” says He Xinping, 42, of the Wuhan Zall supporters club. “For our fans, victory in this game at least means we can end on a high.”

Wuhan officially notched up more than 50,000 coronavirus cases with a death toll of around 4,000—80% of China’s total. (Although independent experts have questioned these numbers, the reality still pales in comparison to the millions of cases in the U.S.A., and the hundreds of thousands of American lives lost.) The city’s success—and China’s—in conquering the virus is testament to a strict regimen of lockdowns, travel controls, masks, testing and contact tracing.

“During the pandemic, everyone had to stay home and couldn’t go outside,” student Zhu Fulei, 19, tells TIME. “For months, more than half a year, we couldn’t watch any soccer matches. We felt awful.”

STR/AFP via Getty Images Wuhan Zall’s Ming Tian kicks the ball during the Chinese Super League football (CSL) promotion/relegation play-off qualification match between Wuhan Zall and Zhejiang Greentown in Suzhou in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on November 22, 2020.

Expressing Wuhan’s identity

Wuhan Zall mirrors the grit and unyielding spirit of the place that gave birth to it. Natives of Hubei have a reputation for resilience and ingenuity, often compared to China’s mythical “nine-headed bird” that is impossible to kill.

The soccer team was founded in 2009 after its predecessor, Wuhan Optics Valley, dissolved itself rather than accept what it considered a grossly unfair eight-match ban on a star player for an on-pitch brawl.

“Maybe there’s something about Wuhan having a somewhat independent spirit,” says Cameron Wilson, founder of the Wild East Football blog that covers Chinese soccer. “And there’s no other forum as public as [soccer] in China when it comes to expressing the identity of a city.”

In 2018, Wuhan Zall returned to China’s star-studded Super League. But while every team experienced a stop-start campaign in 2020 due to COVID-19, Wuhan Zall suffered more disruption than most, with the entire team stuck outside China for three months due to travel restrictions. When the players finally returned to Wuhan, thousands of fans thronged to airport to welcome them home.

“It wasn’t easy for our team,” says fan Li Wei, 22. “When they finally managed to come back, they had to go into quarantine. So being able to see Wuhan Zall returning to the soccer pitch makes us really happy.”

For the most part, life in Wuhan has returned to normal, with bustling malls and gridlocked streets. In November, China’s exports stood 21% higher than the year before, the strongest showing since 2011, owing partly to huge quantities of PPE shipped overseas—much of it produced in Wuhan. But while Wuhan’s factories have roared back to life, the recovery has been uneven, and many of the city’s smaller shops and restaurants remain shuttered.

Wuhan Zall, meanwhile, is still not allowed to compete at its home stadium, but fans are allowed to travel to third cities to attend games, providing they submit to strict quarantine and testing protocols.

For them, the journey to Suzhou was worth it. Wuhan Zall triumphed 1-0 over Zhejiang Greentown, thanks to a first-half penalty kick that sent the orange army into raptures. It seemed like a good omen for plucky Wuhan—on and off the soccer pitch.

“It felt cathartic,” says Qin Youxiong, 48. “There is this sense of victory, a feeling that we defeated the pandemic. This means a lot for Wuhan.”

—With reporting and video by Zhang Chi/Suzhou

How One Man Survived a Plane Crash and 5 Days in the Snowy Canadian Wilderness—and Went On to ...

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 11:00:58 GMT

On an early spring afternoon in 1969, John Gow climbed into a Cessna 140 fixed-wing airplane on the runway of the tiny airport in the rural logging town of Golden, British Columbia. His friend Bernard Royle sat in the pilot’s seat, preparing the little plane for flight. The snow-capped teeth of the northern Purcell range stretched out gleaming before them.

In the decades that followed, this rural region would become famous as the world’s mecca for heliskiing: downhill skiing in wild terrain only accessible by helicopter, now one of the world’s most coveted adventure experiences. But in 1969, those mountains represented a vast wilderness, and heliskiing called for pioneers to lead in this whole new sector of skiing—ones willing to accept mortal risk in exchange for unlocking its glory.

Gow and his business partner, Bernie Scheisser, had thus far only been able to take their heliski guests to the front slopes above the great Columbia River. They were reined in by the small Bell B1 helicopter they leased, a cramped plastic bubble that usually served the logging outfits around town. But hundreds of square miles of mountains with unlimited ski potential lay beyond the front slopes, and Gow had plans to get there, in a larger, faster helicopter. To bring those plans to fruition, he just needed to identify the right terrain. The Cessna was the perfect vehicle for a casual reconnaissance mission.

At 22, Gow was already accomplished in the mountains. He and Scheisser also ran a mountaineering camp for youth, he was a high-level ski instructor being groomed to take over management of Banff’s glamorous Sunshine Village Ski Resort and he’d completed his mountain-guide certification two years before. That morning, Gow left his office at Sunshine wearing insulated boots and carrying a down coat. It might be spring in the valley, but it was winter on the peaks, and the weather could change in an instant at this time of year. In the open day planner on his desk, he left a note for anyone looking for him: Gone flyin’.

Courtesy John GowGow skiing in the 70s

Royle and Gow flew south along the Dogtooth Range, a subrange of the Purcells, jetting deeper into the wild from three thousand feet in the air, until a side valley cut by Gorman Creek edged into view. Craning his neck, Gow noticed the creek flowed out of a high whitewashed cirque with enormous skiing possibility. He gave Royle the thumbs up. The pilot banked toward the valley.

Suddenly the little Cessna dropped, hitting a stomach-lurching downdraft, robbing it of the speed to clear the mountain wall directly ahead. Royle made a sharp turn to the right to swerve away from the danger. The plane stalled, and plummeted.

Mountain guides are trained to keep escape routes and backup plans in the backs of their minds. But as Gow watched the thick trees accelerate toward them from his seat on the right side of the plane, his last thought was: There is no way out of this.

In 1969, Gow had only one competitor in the heliski business: Hans Gmoser, the Austrian-born mountain guide who had trailblazed this idea of accessing untouched peaks—and their untouched snow—using flight.

Since 1899, the Canadian Pacific Railway had brought Swiss mountain guides across the Atlantic to guide the guests staying at the railway’s famed lodges in Banff, Lake Louise and on Rogers Pass. Those guides laid the foundation for skiing as the winter obsession it is today in this region. When Gmoser immigrated to Canada in 1951, he landed at the tail end of that first phase of western Canada’s celebrated mountain culture, and just in time to effectively lead the way into the next.

At that point, the only way to access the bottomless powder of the backcountry—a coveted kind of snow impossible to find on the crowded resorts—was through ski touring, which required hiking up mountains with sticky mohair skins on the bottom of skis. But in 1965, Olympic ski racer Brooks Dodge sought out the famed Gmoser and asked him to guide a backcountry trip, with a twist: could Gmoser use a helicopter to access the peaks, so that Dodge and his party could ski that snow without the hiking?

Gmoser had recently guided a ski touring group up to the Bugaboo Glacier on the southern end of the Purcells. He knew the site represented glorious potential for skiing, but in talking later to a documentary filmmaker, he called it “quite an ordeal” in winter just to get skiers up the interminable road to where they could even start hiking. It would be a perfect place to test the idea. In 1965, Gmoser set up rustic accommodations for Dodge and his guests in a recently abandoned logging camp outside the tiny town of Radium, and guided 18 people in the world’s inaugural heliski venture.

The trip represented the birth of a new era in skiing, and a new era in Canada’s mountain legacy, opening a fresh frontier that drew skiers hankering for uncommon adventure and guides hungry for challenge.

Courtesy CMHHans Gmoser and the first crew heliskiing in the Bugaboos in British Columbia, Canada in 1969

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Gow awoke face-down in the snow in a dark room of behemoth trees, lifting his head from the bloody imprint left by his face. Probing his jaw for the source of bleeding, he could feel his teeth from the outside, clear through a deep gash in the skin. He had no recollection of the impact. His memory cut short before reaching the timber.

A hundred feet up the slope, a massive downed tree lay at an odd angle. A sinking feeling weighted his gut. Deeply concussed and sore around the waist and hips, Gow struggled through the deep snow toward it.

He approached to find the plane laying silent with both wings ripped off, the nose embedded in the trunk of the tree that had fallen across the cabin where Gow’s seat had been. Royle was still strapped in, his body heartbreakingly, obviously lifeless. Gow reached over to check his friend for a pulse anyway. But Royle’s skin had gone cold. In despair, Gow pulled a seat cushion from the wreckage, collapsed on it in the snow, and passed out again.

When he came to this time, he pushed away the thought of Royle’s death, trying to focus his numbed mind. He was the sole survivor in a snow-encased wilderness, laughably far from any human help. He rummaged through the wreck in search of solutions. The radio was destroyed. There were no flares to be found, no available fuel for a fire for signal smoke. Even if people were searching for him, no one would ever see the crash site beneath the thick ceiling of forest. He had no food, no shelter from the temperatures that even in springtime plunged the nights well below freezing.

Jagged, uninhabited mountains stretched in all directions except one: southeast from here, a 12-mile slog out of the drainage would bring him to a rickety mobile home that signaled the outskirts of the little settlement of Nicholson, south of Golden, and his salvation. He tied rags to the top of his boots for makeshift gaiters, pocketed a pair of pliers in case the mobile home was locked, and stepped away from the ruin.

Each step required him to pull his body up nearly clear of soft waist-deep snow before the next step plunged him back in, sending snow cascading into his boots past his flimsy gaiters. Exhausted after only a few hundred feet, he understood that he’d never make it out in these conditions before exposure set in.

Just then, in the near distance, a sound cut the hush: the thwopping of helicopter blades. Gow floundered down the slope, trying to find a clearing in the thick trees. His deliverance from this nightmare flew less than two hundred feet above him. He plunged into a small opening, only to glimpse the belly of a Bell helicopter as it banked out of sight over the timber. He was 30 seconds too late. The hush returned, broken by Gow’s desperate panting. And faintly, down below, the roar of a river.

Courtesy Glenbow Western Research CentreThe front page of The Calgary Herald (cropped), April 16, 1969

Gorman Creek was close. On the other side, he knew, lay a packed snowmobile road he’d used as a staging area for his heliski clients earlier that winter, where the going would be easier. He struggled downhill until the creek came into view. Huge with spring snowmelt, it raged in an angry, dangerous torrent. Upstream, a thin snow bridge stretched across the flood. He knew with finality that he didn’t have the strength to continue struggling through impossibly deep snow along the precipitous bank in hopes of a better option. Late afternoon lengthened the forest’s shadows. He would have to cross.

His energy leaking away and his head pounding, he laid his body down on the edge of the tenuous trestle to spread his weight. He inched over slowly, one arm and one leg at a time, anticipating the fateful whumpf of a collapse that would drop him to drown. After an eternity, he sprawled on the other side. He didn’t recall his head hitting the ground when he passed out a third time.

More: Read TIME’s 1959 cover story about the skiing craze

The same conditions that make this region of British Columbia legendary for skiing—steep and rugged terrain, and some of the most reliably enormous snowfalls in North America—seemed likely to spell Gow’s death.

Just over the Dogtooth Range to the west, Mount Fidelity on Rogers Pass consistently records the highest snowfall in Canada, with an average of 546 inches annually, and tops out for the most days with snow on the ground—the same deep snow pushing Gow to mortal exhaustion. The sharp landscape of the Purcells is shot through with avalanche paths where this oft-formidable snowpack frequently releases itself and thunders down the mountain, destroying everything in its path. Gow was well-trained in understanding the complicated formula of weather, snowpack conditions and terrain that leads to avalanches. But he was wearing no beacon to signal his location under the snow, should anyone even be searching for him.

Beyond the incredibly difficult travel conditions and specter of avalanches, the temperatures that keep snow on the ground for so long threatened Gow with hypothermia. While the days were warmer in early spring, hypothermia is still possible even in temperatures between 30-50°F if the person is wet with snow or soaked in sweat. And Gow was both.

It was morning by the time he regained consciousness. He realized with alarm that he couldn’t feel his feet. The ginger removal of his boots revealed red and swollen lumps that had been encased in ice and snow for the unknown hours he’d blacked out. With no way to warm them and resigned to the damage done, he wrestled his boots back on and rose to press on. He post-holed a few meters past what would be, in 31 years’ time, the clear-cut runs of Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, one of the premier destinations on B.C.’s aptly named Powder Highway, but was now just unpeopled thick forest. But the interminable sinking and rising through the soft snow with each step proved too much this time. Pulling his coat tight, he rested his back against a tree and fell into vivid dreams of his apartment in Banff, his office at Sunshine.

He woke with a start. Shivering violently in the biting cold, starving, feet ruined. He smiled. The bitter temperature was a sign the snow had frozen enough to move across its hard surface without sinking. He staggered ten miles, relying on the last of his adrenaline and the muscle memory of his training. If he faltered now, he would die where he fell.

Finally, around a bend close to where Gow’s increasingly cloudy mind placed the mobile home, stood a man. Both of them froze, shocked at the sight of the other.

“Help,” Gow croaked, and collapsed.

Courtesy CMHThe original heliskiing lodge in the Bugaboos

That was April 15, 1969. Gow learned he had been missing for five days in the snowy wild. In the dense forest, he’d eluded the official search parties—including that helicopter that had narrowly missed him—that had been dispatched as soon as he and Royle failed to return the evening of the crash.

A half-century later, seated at a table on the busy main street in Banff, his blue eyes are sharp above the mask the city requires for COVID-19 as he recites the details of his survival. He’s 73 now, and he doesn’t talk about it much these days. While some local press covered the crash at the time, he mostly preferred to get on with his life. But he remembers it all with astonishing clarity.

He recalls the name of the man who found him at the end of the road in 1969: Emil Czillinger-Horvath, a forester with Selkirk Spruce Mills who happened to be out checking snow depths. He recites whole conversations with the surgeons who worked over 100 days to remove his right leg below the knee and half of his left foot, due to a horrific combination of trench foot and frostbite. He tells me of the Ministry of Transportation officer who came into his recovery room and asked him to locate the plane wreckage on a map. An air crash investigator later presented him with a neatly cut bolt—the anchor piece from Gow’s seat belt, sheared off by the force of his body when the plane first hit the timber, throwing him out a hundred feet above the ground while the machine was still traveling over two hundred miles an hour, keeping him alive as Royle was killed on impact.

The next winter, Gow shoved what remained of his left foot into a ski boot and taught himself to ski on a prosthetic.

He left the heliski business in Schiesser’s hands, and went on to become CEO of Sunshine Village Ski Resort at 29 years old, then ran SilverStar Mountain Resort for another dozen years.

Today, more than a score of heliski operations with hundreds of renowned guides take tens of thousands of skiers annually to live their dreams of the ultimate Western Canada ski adventure. Gmoser’s company became the biggest of them all: Canadian Mountain Holidays now boasts 12 luxe lodges scattered throughout B.C.’s ranges.

“I don’t think even Gmoser could have seen what it would turn into,” says Gow. “When it started out in that logging camp… you couldn’t have envisioned it.”

As the clouds scud over Cascade Mountain bounding Banff’s north end, he brushes off a question about whether he still feels any of his youthful thirst for adventure. “I think we took it for granted back then,” he says. “There was so much that was still unexplored.”

But, he goes on, although the mountains have been unlocked and the unknown mapped, the adventure of exploration is still out there for those willing to dig a little deeper for it. Gow is content to leave it—and the life-risking in its name that comes with the territory—to the next generation of Canadian mountaineers.

Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer Becomes Winningest Coach in Women’s Basketball History

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 09:48:57 GMT

(STOCKTON, Calif.) — Tara VanDerveer made history, and then took a moment to tell her Stanford players what they mean to her.

“The most important thing I can do as a coach is love you,” VanDerveer said. “I love the game of basketball and I want to help you be the best you can be. You’re the people that I care about. Thank you.”

Typical Tara, wanting to share the joy on a night when the spotlight shined brightly on her — and her alone.

VanDerveer became the winningest women’s college basketball coach Tuesday night, passing the late Pat Summitt with her 1,099th victory as No. 1 Stanford romped to a 104-61 victory over Pacific.

Dressed casually in all black, VanDerveer received the game ball after the final buzzer. Her dancing players chanted “Tara! Tara!” and gave her a new oversized pullover reading “T-DAWG” to celebrate the latest milestone for the Hall of Fame coach in her 35th season on The Farm and 42nd overall as a college head coach. The wearable blanket was forward Francesca Belibi’s idea.

“It’s really sweet,” VanDerveer said.

The 67-year-old VanDerveer improved her career record to 1,099-253. The road to this historic night began with her first head coaching job at the University of Idaho from 1978-80, and then moved to Ohio State (1980-85) and Stanford, where she is 947-202. Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma is right behind at 1,093 wins.

“This is special because of the magnitude of that many wins,” VanDerveer said. “You never go into coaching, I never thought, ‘Well, I’m going to try to win 1,000 games’ or anything like that. This is special, currently having the No. 1 team, being undefeated, playing in a pandemic, I will never forget this, for sure.”

After the history-making win in a draped-off area upstairs that served as Stanford’s locker room, VanDerveer received a plaque containing a piece of the floor from Stanford’s home court at Maples Pavilion. A framed proclamation from Palo Alto Mayor Adrian Fine was another memento. White long-sleeved shirts commemorating the night were made for the players as well as hand-held confetti poppers and individual mini cakes with an attached sticker that read, “Tara at the top.” Silver balloons with the numbers 1,099 adorned the room.

Just as the humble VanDerveer prefers, she broke Summitt’s mark going largely under the radar and with little fanfare given the game took place in California’s Central Valley — about 80 miles from the Bay Area. No fans were allowed into Spanos Center, either.

“I really hope Pat Summitt is looking down and saying, ‘Good job Tara, keep it going,’” VanDerveer said. “I loved coaching against Pat, and we miss her.”

Tennessee women’s basketball posted a photo of VanDerveer and Summitt on Twitter and a message that read: “1099. Pat would be proud. Congratulations, Coach VanDerveer!”

“We were friends and obviously competitors,” VanDerveer said. “She had great passion for the game and I think she sees that with me. She loves unselfish basketball which I think she would see with our team. More than anything she helped me get better as a coach because you had to work really hard to prepare. We lost more games than we won against Tennessee. She was a great mentor and a great friend. I think she would be proud of us.”

Stanford (5-0) couldn’t play a home game with the Tigers on Nov. 29 because of a positive coronavirus test in the Pacific program and then again Tuesday because of COVID-19 restrictions in Santa Clara County that sent the Cardinal on the road for three weeks. It spent much of that stretch in Las Vegas before traveling to Berkeley to play California in a Sunday night game, when VanDerveer tied Summitt’s record.

“I look at it as a blessing in disguise. We’re living in a hotel,” senior Kiana Williams said. “It’s not ideal but we have more time to spend together.”

Traveling from Berkeley on Tuesday, Stanford wound up getting caught in traffic due to an accident that delayed the Cardinal’s arrival at the arena by 30 minutes.

It hardly mattered.

Anna Wilson got Stanford off to a fast start with an opening four-point play.

“That’s why I came to Stanford, I wanted to be coached by a winner,” Wilson said. “Even in this challenge of being in the middle of quarantine and having to deal with all these adjustments, she’s done a really great job of being here for us and providing the very best that we can experience during this time.”

VanDerveer thanked her parents and family.

“Hi Mom! Don’t cry, Mom,” VanDerveer instructed mother Rita, who was watching on TV. “It’s happy.”

GIVING HEART

VanDerveer planned to donate $10 for each of her wins — $10,990 — to local food banks.

“We’re playing games and we know people are really suffering, they don’t have jobs, their unemployment is running out, they’re hungry, so I’m so thankful for my job and my opportunity that I just want to make sure I’m giving back,” she said.

FROM ONE COACH TO ANOTHER

David Shaw, Stanford’s 10th-year football coach, considers VanDerveer among the best ever in any sport, at any level — man or woman.

“I’ve said it over and over again, I think Tara VanDerveer is one of the best coaches of any sport on this planet because of her ability to change and to cater to the abilities of her athletes at the same time giving them a standard that is necessary for them to grow and to reach their peak,” Shaw said earlier Tuesday.

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry offered a video shoutout on Twitter.

BIG PICTURE

Stanford: Being 5-0 is impressive enough. Doing it while basically being nomads and having to stay away from home so long is even more so. The Cardinal didn’t let the emotions of the night get in the way and shot the ball efficiently most of the game.

Pacific: The Tigers made their season debut after having their first four games canceled due to Covid-19. They hung tough with the top-ranked Cardinal before eventually wearing down.

UP NEXT

Stanford: The Cardinal resume Pac-12 play at Southern California on Saturday.

Pacific: The Tigers play LSU on Saturday as part of the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops tournament.

___

AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.

Exclusive: LeBron James’ Foundation to Open New Community Hub With Job Training and Financial ...

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 13:00:19 GMT

Throughout his career, no matter where he’s played, LeBron James has remained staunchly loyal to his hometown of Akron, Ohio. His off-court initiatives in the city started with an annual charity bike-a-thon, then evolved into educational investment in local students: in 2013 his foundation gave $280,000 worth of Samsung tablets to Akron third graders. “I had a notion, maybe we should start a school,” James tells TIME. “And people, besides those who were inside our bubble, didn’t believe we could accomplish that.”

In 2018, James’ I Promise School opened: it now has more than 450 students in 3rd through 6th grade, and students and their families receive access to services outside the classroom like medical care and mental-health support. High school students who are part of his I Promise program are offered the opportunity to attend the University of Akron and Kent State University for free. I Promise students and staff members recently appeared as the backdrop of a Wheaties box with James.

This is a different kind of Wheaties box. Our latest cover features the @ipromiseschool, founded by @ljfamfoundation. Visit the link in our bio to learn about how they are revolutionizing education and creating opportunities in @kingjames hometown of Akron, OH. pic.twitter.com/3hvjuv8FEo

— Wheaties (@wheaties) October 23, 2020

James, however, refuses to be complacent. “I said, ‘OK, what more can we do?'” says James.

On Tuesday, the world will find out: the LeBron James Family Foundation (LJFF) plans to announce the latest step in its efforts to transform Akron: a 60,000-square-foot venue, called House Three Thirty—a nod to the city’s area code—which promises to offer a variety of services and opportunities, such as financial-literacy advice, job training and recreational activities for area youth. The foundation says these and other House Three Thirty amenities, like a dining space, coffee bar and private card room, will be available to the entire Akron community. “House 330 is going to be a sanctuary for our families,” says James. “It’s going to be a place where all our families can grow and learn. This will be a hub for everything possible our families will need.” According to LJFF, the facility should be fully up and running in 2022.

The concept for House Three Thirty germinated this summer, when LJFF staffers asked families who moved into the new I Promise Village—a transitional housing complex—about their biggest needs. “It really started, much like everything we do, from the ground up,” says LJFF executive director Michele Campbell. “You have more intimate relationship when you have people living in your building 24/7. We started listening to some of the struggles with employment and job training and really digging deeper with our families. So we learned pretty quickly that the next part of the movement, if you’re to going to change the trajectory of a whole community, was we need that job-training piece.”

The LJFF will run House Three Thirty, and students and families can work at places like the Old El Paso fast-casual dining outlet and receive hands-on job training in sectors across the facility like plumbing, heating and cooling, food service, merchandising, accounting and event planning. The foundation has acquired the Tangier, a local landmark event and entertainment complex that once hosted performances by Tina Turner and the Temptations, to house House Three Thirty; the building is located a few blocks from the I Promise School. “It’s a well-known name,” Victoria Young, whose great-grand niece is a twelfth-grader in the I Promise program. “So when you say, ‘Oh, I’m going down to Tangier tonight,’ anybody who’s somebody knows what the Tangier is. And now we’re going to know it’s Three-Three-O.”

The foundation is also partnering with JP Morgan Chase to provide a dedicated space where bankers will offer families specialized advice and other products to improve financial health. “LeBron is taking a real leadership role here,” JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon tells TIME. “You’d think schools would be teaching financial education. Just like they should be teaching wellness and health and nutrition. All these studies show you start to save, you continue to save. These communities, white or Black, that are underbanked, or unbanked, it’s partially because the people don’t trust banks. They don’t really understand them, they don’t know them, they’re not coming and walking in them. Part of it is that we have to reach out. These community centers are a great way to reach out to people and just bring them in. Explain saving products, how checking accounts work, how you can get a checking account for your kids, start them on the process of saving.”

Dick’s Sporting Goods will helped the foundation turn the top of the Tangier parking garage into a youth sports complex; preliminary plans call for three basketball courts, a soccer field, and other recreation space. The J.M. Smucker HomeTown Hall will host meals and community events.

One major motivation for House Three Thirty is to broaden the foundation’s imprint on all of Akron. “People come by the school all the time, and they are taking pictures outside and they are intrigued, but you can’t have people off the streets just going into a classroom or walking into the village where people are living,” says Campbell. “So it’s really hard to let people into the magic that’s happening here. This facility, if you’re not in the I Promise program, is for you and allows you to be a part of that movement. This is our way to expand this movement to our whole community.”

“People who are in poverty,” says Young, who sits on the foundation’s parent advisory board, “this says to them, this is my chance.”

House Three Thirty will also house a museum dedicated to James, who just signed a two-year, $85 million contract extension with the Los Angeles Lakers. He’s currently preparing to defend his most recent championship, which he won in October; James now has four titles, and the 2020-2021 season tips off on December 22. In June, James started a voting right organization, More Than A Vote, which helped recruit more than 40,000 workers to polling stations across the country: on December 10, TIME named James its Athlete of the Year. He hopes the House Three Thirty blueprint will be replicated in other cities.

“It’s another win for our families,” says James. “But also a win for the city of Akron, and then for the people that are actually going to be there and see our model and hopefully they take it to another community as well.”

‘Tokyo Is the Best-Ever Prepared Olympic City. ...

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 07:00:39 GMT

Despite record COVID-19 infections in Japan and elsewhere in the world, the country is plowing ahead with plans to hold the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Olympics next summer. In mid-November, before Japan’s resurgent coronavirus outbreak, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach visited Tokyo to inspect facilities, saying the Games “would be the light at the end of this dark tunnel.”

The cost of cancellation is astronomical: Japan has spent more than $12 billion preparing for the Games, though some estimates put the true cost at around $26 billion when infrastructure investment, and an extra billion or so for the year’s delay, are both factored in.

But the risks are also clear: welcoming 15,000 athletes from over 200 different territories, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of spectators, has the potential to create a catastrophic super-spreader event. Local attitudes have also turned frosty. An October survey by the Kyodo News wire service revealed that only 38% of Japanese support hosting the Games next summer, while 31% favor another postponement, with nearly a quarter wanting them canceled altogether.

In an exclusive interview with TIME, Bach explains why he’s confident the Games will happen and be a success. (The following has been edited for length and clarity.)

What was your impression of the Olympics facilities and preparations during your visit to Tokyo last month?

Tokyo is the best-ever prepared Olympic city. And if you look at the venues, they’re highly impressive and inspiring. I visited the Olympic Village because, for an athlete, this is the place where the Olympic spirit is, where you have all the athletes together. It’s an iconic village with a view of the rainbow bridge looking towards the towers of the city center. It’s very well planned and is already adapted to [coronavirus] requirements because there is enough space for social distancing. The Japanese have been thinking about every detail. The ceiling is seven meters high allowing for a good air circulation and so on.

So athletes would be allowed to mingle and wouldn’t be confined to bubbles and these types of measures?

This is work in progress. An interim report has been published based on the tools we have available now concerning [coronavirus] countermeasures. We will be able to add to these tools by the time of the Games—the latest developments in rapid testing and the tool of vaccination.

Right now, some measures in the interim report [are] about wearing masks, guidelines for the duration of stay in the Olympic Village, not to have the village at full capacity all the time to allow for better social distancing, a test center in the village, and many other things.

Japan has really been planning very diligently and the IOC, on our side, will work very closely with the National Olympic Committees, and with athletes and officials, so we have our package of countermeasures from both partners.

Carl Court/Getty Images Commuters, mostly wearing face masks, walk through Shinagawa train station on November 18, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan.

You sound very confident. If you had to give a percentage possibility that the Olympics will go ahead in the summer what would you say?

This is an unfair question because what is 100% in our world? But we are very, very confident and at this moment we have no reason to believe that the Games could not take place.

This is a based on facts and figures. We can see, on the one end, the strong commitment of the Japanese government and of the prime minister [Yoshihide Suga] to make the Games happen—and this is absolutely in line with our own commitment.

When you look at the venues, the infrastructure, the work of the organizing committee—which is already entering the operational phase right now—[and] the fact that in Japan big sports events have already been successfully organized even under these restrictions, all these together does not give us any reason for not believing that we would have the opening ceremony on July 23 and that we will have a very meaningful and very successful Olympic Games.

But at the moment there are rising rates of coronavirus infections across the world. Do you fear that many athletes may choose to stay away—like some did because of Zika in Rio 2016? And are you worried that many athletes cannot train properly because of lockdown measures?

No, and for Rio I think it was one golfer who stayed away. We can see from athletes that they’re eager to compete, they are taking all precautionary measures and are already now in preparation. So they are taking part in those events which can take place right now, and we will support them and we are supporting them in this. I do not think that the Games will be greatly affected by a big number of athletes staying away. On the contrary, the athletes want to be in the Games.

Yohei Nishimura / POOL / AFP via Getty Images Japan’s badminton player Kento Momota disinfects his hands prior to a training session in Tokyo on June 26, 2020. He has vowed to bring home Gold at the postponed Tokyo Games.

Still, there are many factors to consider, including the health of the Japanese public, who might be put in jeopardy by all these people arriving from across the world. The U.S. is also in a very bad situation regarding the coronavirus at the moment. If cases continue on the current trajectory, could you foresee American athletes and spectators being asked to stay away?

No, there are measures that go with testing, which are already planned in the interim report. And officials would be regularly tested during the Olympic Games. And the situation in the U.S. right now [might not be the] situation in eight months from now.

Up until the 1990s, the summer and winter Olympics were both held in the same year. Given the current situation, isn’t the ideal solution to delay Tokyo until 2022 and have both Games in the same year, when stadiums could be full, the athletes would be properly prepared and public health could be safeguarded?

No, the preparation of the athletes has started already and for some of them it would be too long to be prepared. You also cannot maintain the infrastructure of the Games for such a long period. All this infrastructure has a legacy, as the Olympic village will be turned into apartments for the population of Tokyo, for instance.

The broadcasting center will be needed for an exhibition center and other [uses]. You cannot employ the thousands of people working in the organizing committee forever. You cannot have the National Olympic Committees and the IOC having to support athletes even longer. In this respect, the one year postponement was the right [choice], otherwise we would have to take cancellation into consideration, and this is what nobody wanted or wants.

Japan’s Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto recently said Tokyo 2020 would be held next year “at any cost.” Is there a risk that organizers are so determined to recoup financial losses that they are ignoring public health concerns?

No, this is not the choice. We in the IOC set the first priority [as being] a safe organization for all participants. The minister did not say at any cost of safety or whatever. She has to be interpreted—and I can tell you this because we are in close contact—[as expressing] confidence that the Games will take place at this moment. And we have no reason to believe that they could not take place.

This has has been a year where racial and social justice has hit the headlines, especially with Black Lives Matter. A lot of sporting franchises from the NBA to Premier League Soccer have embraced that movement. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe recently voiced support for allowing peaceful protest at the Olympics. Is it now time to revise Article 50 of the Olympic Charter that bans any form of protest during the Games?

First of all, we are fully supportive of freedom of speech and this is highlighted in the athletes’ rights and responsibilities declaration, which has been devised by our Athletes’ Commission with the input of more than 4,000 athletes worldwide. Athletes from a number of National Olympic Committees have already made it very clear that they want the field of play and the Olympic ceremonies protected from any kind of political demonstrations. Because otherwise you could have … one athlete demonstrating against an athlete from another country or its politics.

We think that the field of play and the ceremonies are not the place for this. Athletes can express themselves in press conferences, in social media, in team meetings, in all the different events in the mixed zones. At the same time, we want to be creative and so we are expecting recommendations from the Athletes’ Commission for how athletes … can express their support for Olympic values.

Carl Court/Getty Images A couple wearing face masks walks away after viewing the New National Stadium, the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, as they visit the Shibuya Sky observation deck on March 24, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan.

The Olympics in the past has been used as a political force for good. There was the exclusion of apartheid South Africa and allowing the Korean peninsula to march and compete under a united flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Instead of holding consultations, doesn’t the IOC have an opportunity to be a thought-leader?

We could only achieve the joint march of the [Korean] team in PyeongChang because we are politically neutral. If we had taken a political side there, no way could we get North Korea on board. And only by supporting the North Korean athletes in the lead up to the Games could we get them on board. Our mission is to bring people together and to emphasize what humanity is sharing, not what is dividing humanity. If the Athletes’ Commission has good ideas [to enable us to] emphasize this role—this inclusivity, this unity, this non-discrimination, this equality—we will be very creative [about including them].

There are growing calls from the U.S., U.K., and now even the E.U. to boycott the Beijing Winter Games over China’s persecution of Uighur Muslims. Do you feel that the Olympics should consider serious action against China?

No, on the contrary. First of all, [the] anti-apartheid [movement] was an action by the entire society of the world. It was not sport alone. You had an economic boycott, cultural boycott with regard to apartheid. And this made it work.

If you speak about the Games in general or in Beijing, of course there are different opinions and some politicians are arguing for this. On the other hand, the most recent resolution of the G20 welcomed the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo and in Beijing. If you look at the most recent resolution adopted by consensus by all the U.N. member states, [it] recognized the contribution of the Olympic Games to peace and emphasized [its] unifying power. So our role in this world is first of all about sport and our social role is to unify and not to divide people.

When it comes to human rights, the responsibility we have, and [which] we take very seriously, is within the framework of the Olympic Games. There is a host who has to respect the Olympic Charter and the host city contract, [which is where] human rights find their expression. This is our remit and this we take seriously. But we are not a world government and cannot achieve what generations of politicians and U.N. general assemblies have not achieved. Our role is a different one.

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images A COCOA, COVID-19 Contact-Confirming Application (L), is displayed next to its detection device (R) at an entrance of the Yokohama Stadium, which will host baseball and softball games during the Tokyo Olympics, prior to a professional baseball game in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture on October 30, 2020.

This has been a tumultuous year for everyone. How have yourself and your team at the IOC dealt with the mental toll?

For myself, what I learned during this crisis is what a weekend means. I didn’t really have weekends for many, many years, because there are 40 events and the meetings that usually taking place on weekends. So I had the opportunity to finally do some sport, so I lost a good amount of kilos and I’m more fit than at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis. Many colleagues around me had the same experience.

So you can see how much sport is contributing to physical and mental health, and how it helps you to cope with stress and to keep you physically fit. So I’m ready for an extraordinary Olympic year ’21.

It was just announced that break-dancing, or breaking, has been added to the roster of sports for 2024. Are you a personal fan of breaking? Have you ever break-danced yourself?

Unfortunately, this is more about passion than talent [for me], but I followed breaking in particular during our Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018. That was a really exciting experience and having the opportunity to be with those young guys there taught me a lot. So I am really looking forward to breaking in ’24, but I will not be participating in the qualification events.

—With reporting by Sean Gregory/New York

Cleveland Baseball Team Reportedly Dropping Indians Name After 105 Years

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 04:26:04 GMT

(CLEVELAND) — The Cleveland Indians are changing their name after 105 years.

Citing three people familiar with the decision, The New York Times reported Sunday night that the team is moving away from a name considered racist for decades. The Indians have been internally discussing a potential name change for months.

A team spokesman told The Associated Press the franchise has no immediate comment on the report.

The Times said the team could make a formal announcement later this week. It’s not known when the name change will take affect or if the team has settled on a new moniker.

Cleveland’s move away from Indians follows a similar decision earlier this year by the NFL’s Washington Football Team, which was previously known as the Redskins.

For years, Native American groups and others have protested against Cleveland’s use of Indians as its name as well as other imagery used by the American League charter franchise founded in 1901. Last year, the team removed the contentious Chief Wahoo logo from its caps and jerseys, but the smiling, cartoonish mascot has remained popular and merchandise is still sold bearing its image.

The Indians have dealt with a backlash from fans upset over Chief Wahoo’s removal and the club is certain to hear more with the decision to change its name.

In July, just hours after Washington’s plans became known after being pressured by several sponsors, including FedEx which holds naming rights to the football’s team’s stadium, Cleveland owner Paul Dolan released a statement saying the team would review “the best path forward with our team name.”

In the months since, the team has consulted players, front office members, coaching staff, community leaders, share holders and Native American groups.

A few days after Dolan’s statement, Indians manager Terry Francona said it was time to “move forward” with the name change.

“I’ve been thinking about it and been thinking about it before we put out that statement,” said Francona, who has been with the club since 2013. “I know in the past, when I’ve been asked about, whether it’s our name or the Chief Wahoo, I think I would usually answer and say I know that we’re never trying to be disrespectful.

“And I still feel that way. But I don’t think that’s a good enough answer today. I think it’s time to move forward. It’s a very difficult subject. It’s also delicate.”

Rafer Johnson, Olympic Decathlon Champion Who Helped Subdue Robert Kennedy’s Assassin, Dies at 86

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 19:38:08 GMT

(LOS ANGELES) — Rafer Johnson, who won the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics and helped subdue Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin in 1968, died Wednesday. He was 86.

He died at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, according to family friend Michael Roth. No cause of death was announced.

Johnson was among the world’s greatest athletes from 1955 through his Olympic triumph in 1960, winning a national decathlon championship in 1956 and a silver medal at the Melbourne Olympics that same year.

His Olympic career included carrying the U.S. flag at the 1960 Games and lighting the torch at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to open the 1984 Games. Johnson set world records in the decathlon three different times amid a fierce rivalry with his UCLA teammate C.K. Yang of Taiwan and Vasily Kuznetsov of the former Soviet Union.

Johnson won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1955 while competing in just his fourth decathlon. At a welcome home meet afterward in Kingsburg, California, he set his first world record, breaking the mark of two-time Olympic champion and his childhood hero Bob Mathias.

AP—1969In this Sept. 5, 1960, file photo, Rafer Johnson of the United States competes in the shot put event of the Olympic decathlon competition in Rome, Italy.

On June 5, 1968, Johnson was working on Kennedy’s presidential campaign when the Democratic candidate was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Johnson joined former NFL star Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton in apprehending Sirhan Sirhan moments after he shot Kennedy, who died the next day.

Johnson later called the assassination “one of the most devastating moments in my life.”

Born Rafer Lewis Johnson on Aug. 18, 1934, in Hillsboro, Texas, he moved to California in 1945 with his family, including his brother Jim, a future NFL Hall of Fame inductee. Although some sources cite Johnson’s birth year as 1935, the family has said that is incorrect.

They eventually settled in Kingsburg, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. It was less than 25 miles from Tulare, the hometown of Mathias, who would win the decathlon at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics and prove an early inspiration to Johnson.

Johnson was a standout student and played football, basketball, baseball and track and field at Kingsburg Joint Union High. At 6-foot-3 and 200-plus pounds, he looked more like a linebacker than a track and field athlete.

During his junior year of high school, Johnson’s coach took him to Tulare to watch Mathias compete in a decathlon, an experience Johnson later said spurred him to take up the grueling 10-event sport.

As a freshman at UCLA, where he received academic and athletic scholarships, Johnson won gold at the the 1955 Pan Am Games, and set a world record of 7,985 points.

After winning the national decathlon championship in 1956, Johnson was the favorite for the Olympics in Melbourne, but pulled a stomach muscle and strained a knee while training. He was forced to withdraw from the long jump, for which he had also qualified, but tried to gut out the decathlon.

Johnson’s teammate Milt Campbell, a virtual unknown, gave the performance of his life, finishing with 7,937 points to win gold, 350 ahead of Johnson.

It was the last time Johnson would ever come in second.

Johnson, Yang, and Kuznetzov had their way with the record books between the 1956 and 1960 Olympics.

Kuznetzov, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist who the Soviets called their “man of steel,” broke Johnson’s world record in May 1958 with 8,016 points.

Later that year at a U.S.-Soviet dual meet in Moscow, Johnson beat Kuznetzov by 405 points and reclaimed the world record with 8,302 points. Johnson won over the Soviet audience with his gutsy performance in front of what had been a hostile crowd.

A car accident and subsequent back injury kept Johnson out of competition during 1959, but he was healthy again for the Olympics in 1960.

Yang was his primary competition in Rome. Yang won six of the first nine events, but Johnson led by 66 points going into the 1,500 meters, the decathlon’s final event.

Johnson had to finish within 10 seconds of Yang, which was no small feat as Yang was much stronger running at distance than Johnson.

Johnson finished just 1.2 seconds and six yards behind Yang to win the gold. Yang earned silver and Kuznetsov took bronze.

He was named The Associated Press Athlete of the Year and won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s outstanding amateur athlete in 1960.

At UCLA, Johnson played basketball for coach John Wooden, becoming a starter on the 1958-59 team. In 1958, he was elected student body president, the third Black to hold the office in school history.

Johnson retired from competition after the Rome Olympics. He began acting in movies, including appearances in “Wild in the Country” with Elvis Presley, “None But the Brave” with Frank Sinatra and the 1989 James Bond film “License to Kill.” He worked briefly as a TV sportscaster before becoming a vice president at Continental Telephone in 1971.

In 1984 Johnson lit the Olympic flame for the Los Angeles Games. He took the torch from Gina Hemphill, granddaughter of Olympic great Jesse Owens, who ran it into the Coliseum.

“Standing there and looking out, I remember thinking ‘I wish I had a camera,’” Johnson said. “My hair was standing straight up on my arm. Words really seem inadequate.”

Throughout his life, Johnson was widely known for his humanitarian efforts.

He served on the organizing committee of the first Special Olympics in Chicago in 1968, working with founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Johnson went on to found California Special Olympics the following year at a time when positive role models for the intellectually and physically disabled were rare.

Peter Ueberroth, who chose Johnson to light the Olympic torch in 1984, called him “just one great person, a marvelous human being.”

Johnson worked for the Peace Corps, March of Dimes, Muscular Dystrophy Association and American Red Cross. He remained active for many years at UCLA, serving on various committees and boards. In 2016, he received the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest award for extraordinary accomplishments. The school’s track is named for Johnson and his wife Betsy.

His children, Jenny Johnson Jordan and Josh Johnson, were athletes themselves. Jenny was a beach volleyball player who competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is on the coaching staff of UCLA’s beach volleyball team. Josh competed in javelin at UCLA, where he was an All-American.

Besides his wife of 49 years and children, he is survived by son-in-law Kevin Jordan and four grandchildren.

Lewis Hamilton Tests Positive for COVID-19 and Will Miss the Sakhir Formula 1 Grand Prix

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 10:03:34 GMT

SAKHIR, Bahrain — Seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss this weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix.

The Mercedes team said in a statement Tuesday that Hamilton was tested three times last week and returned a negative result each time, the last on Sunday afternoon at the Bahrain International Circuit.

“But he up woke Monday morning with mild symptoms and was informed at the same time that a contact prior to arrival in Bahrain had subsequently tested positive,” the team said. “Lewis, therefore, took a further test and returned a positive result. This has since been confirmed by a retest.”

Hamilton is in isolation in accordance with the health protocols in Bahrain.

“Apart from mild symptoms, he is otherwise fit and well, and the entire team sends him its very best wishes for a swift recovery,” the team statement said.

The 35-year-old Hamilton appeared to be drained at the end of the Bahrain GP, which was marred by a crash that left Romain Grosjean with minor burns to his hands and ankles after his Haas car crashed and burst into flames moments after the start.

“It’s physical, this track has always been physical. We’ve got lots of high-speed corners so I was definitely feeling it,” Hamilton said following Sunday’s race. “I was sliding around a lot out there and I wasn’t really quite sure how it would play out at the end.”

There is another race in Bahrain on Sunday — on Sakhir’s shorter outer circuit — before the 17-race season concludes in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton clinched the drivers’ championship last month in Turkey and has a big lead in the standings with 332 points, well ahead of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas (201) and Max Verstappen (189).

The Mercedes team said it would announce a replacement driver later in the week. Reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne was already scheduled to travel to Bahrain after Formula E testing in Valencia.

Hamilton is the third F1 driver to test positive for COVID-19 this season, following Sergio Perez at Silverstone and Lance Stroll in Germany.

Formula One organizers said Hamilton needs a negative test before being allowed to return to the F1 paddock and, therefore, remains a doubtful starter for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Cost to Delay Tokyo Olympics Is Estimated at $2 Billion

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 16:09:28 GMT

TOKYO — The cost of the one-year postponement of the Tokyo Olympics is estimated to be just under $2 billion, or about 200 billion yen.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency and the Yomiuri newspaper both reported the figure on Sunday citing unnamed sources close to games organizers.

The reported cost of the delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic is in line with repeated estimates over the last several months. The organizers, the Tokyo metro government and the Japanese national government are expected to report next month how the costs will be shared.

The International Olympic Committee has said it would chip in about $650 million to cover some of the costs of the delay, but has offered few public details.

Tokyo is becoming very expensive.

The official cost of putting on the Tokyo Olympics is $12.6 billion. However, a government audit last year said it was probably twice that much. All but $5.6 billion is public money.

Tokyo said the games would cost $7.3 billion when it won the bid in 2013.

The $2 billion only adds to the total. A University of Oxford study published early this year — calculated before the postponement — said Tokyo was the most expensive Summer Olympics on record and the meter is still running.

The IOC and organizers have been campaigning over the last several months to convince sponsors and a skeptical Japanese public that the Olympics can be held safely in the middle of a pandemic.

The Olympics are to open on July 23, 2021, followed by the Paralympics on Aug. 24. They involve 15,400 athletes and ten of thousands of officials, judges, staff, VIPs, sponsors as well as media and broadcasters.

IOC President Thomas Bach, who was in Tokyo earlier this month, has said a vaccine and improved rapid testing would help pull off the Olympics. But he cautioned they are not “silver bullets.”

Athletes are expected to be closely monitored, held in quarantine-like conditions, discouraged from sightseeing and encouraged to leave as soon as they finish competing.

Some fans are expected at the events, but it is unclear if many fans from abroad will be allowed to attend.

Japan has controlled COVID-19 better than most countries, but has seen a spike over the last several weeks in Tokyo and elsewhere. Tokyo set a one-day record for new infections on Friday with 570. About 2,000 deaths in Japan have been attributed to COVID-19.

Argentines Bid a Raucous Farewell to Soccer Legend Diego Maradona Amid Clashes

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 02:17:58 GMT

BUENOS AIRES — Soccer superstar Diego Maradona was buried Thursday in a private ceremony attended by only two dozen people — a stark contrast to earlier in the day when tens of thousands of weeping fans filed past his coffin for hours in an observance that mixed head-of-state-like honors with the chaos of a rowdy stadium.

Only family members and close friends were permitted at Jardín Bella Vista cemetery for the final religious ceremony and burial of Maradona next to the graves of his parents, Dalma and Diego.

Fans waving Argentine flags had gathered along roads as Maradona’s funeral car drove by under heavy security. Many tried to touch the vehicle whenever it was stopped by traffic.

The earlier viewing at the Argentine presidential mansion was halted shortly before 6 p.m., 12 hours after it started, as Maradona’s family wished and the body of the Argentine icon was taken away for burial, frustrating many who were waiting to pay their respects and causing new tensions at the gates of the cemetery.

Fans, some draped in the national flag, sang soccer anthems as they formed a line that stretched more than 20 blocks from the Plaza de Mayo, where Argentines gathered to celebrate the Maradona-led triumph in the 1986 World Cup.

But with the time for viewing the coffin at the presidential palace drawing short, police moved to cut off the back end of the crowd, enraging fans who hurled rocks and other objects at officers, who responded with rubber bullets.

The crowd overwhelmed organizers and the violence resulted in injuries and arrests, which led Maradona’s family to end the public visitation. The casket was placed in a car that carried the former footballer’s name on a paperboard by the window.

Desperate to say goodbye, Maradona’s fans climbed on the fences of the presidential mansion as if they were in a soccer stadium, while firefighters worked to clear the ground.

“Diego is not dead, Diego lives in the people,” people chanted as the coffin was taken to a cemetery outside Buenos Aires. The motorcade, accompanied by police, was followed on a local highway by dozens of honking cars and motorcycles.

Hundreds of fans blocked entry to the cemetery before the arrival of Maradona’s casket, dancing and chanting as police moved in to open a way. The crowd continued making noise after the final ceremony began.

Maradona died Wednesday of a heart attack in a house outside Buenos Aires where he had been recovering from a brain operation Nov. 3.

While the viewing bore the hallmarks of a state funeral, with Maradona’s casket laid out in the presidential palace, the atmosphere often was that of a soccer stadium — chanting, singing, pushing and the occasional whiff of alcohol.

Fans wept and blew kisses as they passed the wooden coffin, some striking their chests with closed fists and shouting, “Let’s go, Diego.”

It was draped with the Argentine flag and shirts bearing his famed No. 10 from the national team and the Boca Juniors club, with other jerseys tossed around it by passing admirers.

Open visitation began at 6:15 a.m. after a few hours of privacy for family and close friends. The first to bid farewell were his daughters and close family members. His former wife, Claudia Villafañe, came with Maradona’s daughters Dalma and Gianinna. Later came Verónica Ojeda, also an ex-wife, with their son, Dieguito Fernando.

Jana Maradona, who the player recognized as his daughter only a few years ago, also attended.

Then came former teammates of the 1986 World Cup-winning squad, including Oscar Ruggeri. Other Argentine footballers, such as Boca Juniors’ Carlos Tévez, showed up, too.

Early in the morning some fans grew impatient as police tried to maintain order, and began throwing bottles and pieces of metal fencing at officers outside the presidential offices in the heart of Buenos Aires. Police at one point used tear gas to try to control them.

Interior Minister Wado de Pedro said he was upset over what he called the “craziness” of police actions against fans. “This popular tribute cannot end in repression and running of those that came to say goodbye to Maradona,” he said.

President Alberto Fernández appeared at midday and placed on the casket a jersey from the Argentinos Juniors team, where Maradona started his career in 1976.

In tears, Fernández also laid two handkerchiefs of the human rights organization Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, who wore them for years to protest the disappearance of their children under Argentina’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Maradona, an outspoken leftist who had an image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara tattooed on one bicep, was a friend of the Madres and other rights groups.

The lines started forming outside the Casa Rosada only hours after Maradona’s death was confirmed and grew to several blocks.

A huge mural of Maradona’s face was painted on the tiles that cover the Plaza de Mayo, near the Casa Rosada, which was decorated with a giant black ribbon at the entrance.

The first fan to visit was Nahuel de Lima, 30, using crutches to move because of a disability.

“He made Argentina be recognized all over the world, who speaks of Maradona also speaks of Argentina,” de Lima told The Associated Press. “Diego is the people. … Today the shirts, the political flags don’t matter. We came to say goodbye to a great that gave us a lot of joy.”

Maradona’s soccer genius, personal struggles and plain-spoken personality resonated deeply with Argentines.

He led an underdog team to glory in the 1986 World Cup, winning the title after scoring two astonishing goals in a semifinal match against England, thrilling a country that felt humiliated by its loss against the British in the recent Falklands war and that was still recovering from the brutal military dictatorship.

Soccer-stand insults chanted by the funeral crowd echoed that nationalist pride: “The one who doesn’t jump is English,” “Brazilian, Brazilian, you are so bitter, Maradona is bigger than Pelé.”

Many Argentines deeply sympathized with the struggles of a man who rose from poverty to fame and wealth and fell into abuse of drug, drink and food. He remained idolized in the soccer-mad nation as the “Pibe de Oro” or “Golden Boy.”

Many fans proudly displayed Maradona tattoos. Others, mindful of Maradona’s often tense relationship with the press, insulted journalists.

Lidia and Estela Villalba cried near the exit of the lobby. Both had a Boca Juniors shirt and an Argentinian flag on their shoulders.

“We told him we love him, that he was the greatest,” they said at the same time.

Many of those in line to enter the Casa Rosada wore masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they struggled to keep social distancing.

Social worker Rosa Noemí Monje, 63, said she and others overseeing health protocols understood the emotion of the moment.

“It is impossible to ask them to distance. We behave respectfully and offer them sanitizer and face masks,” she said. Monje also paid her last tribute to Maradona.

“I told him: to victory always, Diego,” Monje said as she wept.

—Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo, Brazil, contributed to this report.

‘Undoubtedly’ the Greatest: Why the World Is Mourning Soccer Legend Diego Maradona

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 04:51:33 GMT

Diego Maradona is about to dribble through two English defenders in the quarterfinals of soccer’s 1986 World Cup in Mexico. On a whim, however, he spins, somehow keeping the ball attached to his left foot, as if it were a toy and he the child who won’t let it go. And then he’s off—now moving past midfield, a trio of England defenders trailing in his wake. Here comes another English player to stop him; there goes Maradona right by him.

He slips between two more defenders before finishing off the greatest 70-yard charge in World Cup history, culminating in the so-called “Goal Of The Century” that still hasn’t been replicated in this one. England goalkeeper Peter Shilton is the last line of defense: Maradona shimmies to his right, the ball still somehow on his left foot. Shilton slides right past him, before Maradona punches in the goal, giving Argentina a 2-0 lead it would hold onto in this quarterfinal, en route to Argentina’s second World Cup title. The soccer-mad country still awaits a third.

“Cosmic kite, which planet did you come from?” shouts radio announcer Victor Hugo Morales.

“His greatest achievement, that goal, will forever live in my memory,” says Telemundo broadcaster Andrés Cantor, who has called every World Cup since 1990. Cantor, who grew up in Argentina, was in Mexico at the Argentina-England game in 1986 working in the press box as a correspondent for a Argentine magazine.

“I remember who sat next to me, what we did, how we cried together,” says Cantor. “We could not believe what we had just witnessed. Because I don’t believe we will ever see such an accomplishment in a World Cup. And yes, there were tears of joy, not just from myself, but all of the Argentinian contingent. There was not one person not crying.”

Maradona netted the most jaw-dropping goal in World Cup history just four minutes after scoring the most controversial one. He and Shilton had both jumped for a ball near the net. Maradona knocked in a goal via an illegal handball. “A little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God,” Maradona said, cheekily, of that goal.

How Maradona united the world of soccer

L’Equipe, the French sports newspaper, commemorated Maradona’s death, of a heart attack Wednesday at 60, with a headline on its cover: Dieu Est Mort. “God Is Dead.”

At least a million people are expected to pay their respects in Buenos Aires Thursday as Maradona’s coffin lies in state at the Casa Rosada (“Pink House”) presidential palace. In Naples, where Maradona led Napoli to Italian league championships in 1987 and 1990, thousands of people congregated in streets and in front of the Stadio San Paolo to sing, swap stories and mourn.

“He was the first power figure that united the world of football,” says Cantor. “Everyone, regardless of their nationality, wanted to see him play because of his magic. He made Argentina famous around the world. He made Napoli famous around the world. It’s very hard for any reader to understand what he meant for Napoli. The very poor southern city in Italy that no one paid attention to. And suddenly this kid put Napoli on the map playing soccer and rebelled against the industrial north and beat the powerhouses of Milan and Juventus and Inter who were the more important and powerful teams not only in Italy but in the world and Europe especially.”

Maradona hailed from a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and made his professional debut with the club Argentinos Juniors when he was 15.

“I was in the stadium for his first game,” says Enrique Mehl, a Florida psychologist who grew up in Buenos Aires. “Now, that’s become a myth: a million people now say they were there. But I really was. I promise.” Mehl talked to his niece in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. She said the streets were eerily silent, like a cemetery, during the day of Maradona’s death.

The 1986 Argentina-England World Cup quarterfinal, the game in which Maradona certified his legend, carried particular significance for Argentina following the 1982 Falklands War. England prevailed in the military conflict with Argentina over sovereignty of the archipelago some 300 miles off of Argentina’s southern coast.

“Maradona scoring the first goal with the Hand of God, and the second goal being the greatest goal in history, it gave the Argentinians some type or redemption against the English,” says Cantor.

On the World Cup stage, Maradona could not replicate the 1986 title. While he was still brilliant at the 1990 World Cup, Argentina lost to West Germany in the final; in 1994, in the United States, he was kicked out of the tournament for testing positive for ephedrine. Maradona’s demons were well documented: he struggled with drug addiction and voracious appetites. Before Wednesday, he dodged several near-death experiences.

“Diego had died so many times before,” says Cantor. “It’s incredible that he lived this long.”

Despite his imperfections, Maradona will be mourned the world over. Champions League games had moments of silence: one coach recommended that Maradona’s number 10 be retired throughout world soccer. The Vatican announced that Pope Francis was keeping Maradona in his prayers.

“Undoubtedly, for me, he is the greatest player of all time,” says Cantor. “He played in an era much different than today. It was a more physical game. He was butchered in every single game that he played. And he excelled. He had the ball glued to his left foot. His center of gravity was so low. He was just a magician with the ball. An artist. Poetry in motion.”

Diego Maradona, Argentinian Soccer Legend, Dies at 60

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 18:01:09 GMT

(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina) — Diego Maradona, the Argentine soccer great who was among the best players ever and who led his country to the 1986 World Cup title before later struggling with cocaine use and obesity, has died. He was 60.

The office of Argentina’s president will decree three days of national mourning because of Maradona’s death on Wednesday, and the Argentine soccer association expressed its sorrow on Twitter.

Maradona died two weeks after being released from a Buenos Aires hospital following brain surgery.

Famed for the “Hand of God” goal in which he punched the ball into England’s net during the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals, Maradona captivated fans over a two-decade career with a bewitching style of play that was all his own.

Although his reputation was tarnished by his addictions and an ill-fated spell in charge of the national team, he remained idolized in soccer-mad Argentina as the “Pibe de Oro” or “Golden Boy.”

The No. 10 he wore on his jersey became synonymous with him, as it also had with Pele, the Brazilian great with whom Maradona was regularly paired as the best of all time.

Bold, fast and utterly unpredictable, Maradona was a master of attack, juggling the ball easily from one foot to the other as he raced upfield. Dodging and weaving with his low center of gravity, he shrugged off countless rivals and often scored with a devastating left foot, his most powerful weapon.

“Everything he was thinking in his head, he made it happen with his feet,” said Salvatore Bagni, who played with Maradona at Italian club Napoli.

A ballooning waistline slowed Maradona’s explosive speed later in his career and by 1991 he was snared in his first doping scandal when he admitted to a cocaine habit that haunted him until he retired in 1997, at 37.

Hospitalized near death in 2000 and again in ’04 for heart problems blamed on cocaine, he later said he overcame the drug problem. Cocaine, he once said famously, had proven to be his “toughest rival.”

But more health problems followed, despite a 2005 gastric bypass that greatly trimmed his weight. Maradona was hospitalized in early 2007 for acute hepatitis that his doctor blamed on excessive drinking and eating.

He made an unlikely return to the national team in 2008 when he was appointed Argentina coach, but after a quarterfinal exit at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, he was ousted—ultimately picking up another coaching job with the United Arab Emirates club Al Wasl.

Maradona was the fifth of eight children who grew up in a poor, gritty barrio on the Buenos Aires outskirts where he played a kind of dirt-patch soccer that launched many Argentines to international stardom.

None of them approached Maradona’s fame. In 2001, FIFA named Maradona one of the two greatest in the sport’s history, alongside Pele.

“Maradona inspires us,” said then-Argentina striker Carlos Tevez, explaining his country’s everyman fascination with Maradona at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. “He’s our idol, and an idol for the people.”

Maradona reaped titles at home and abroad, playing in the early 1980s for Argentinos Juniors and Boca Juniors before moving on to Spanish and Italian clubs. His crowning achievement came at the 1986 World Cup, captaining Argentina in its 3-2 win over West Germany in the final and decisive in a 2-1 victory against England in a feisty quarterfinal match.

Over the protests of England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, the referee let stand a goal by Maradona in which, as he admitted years later, he intentionally hit the ball with his hand in “a bit of mischief.” But Maradona’s impact wouldn’t be confined to cheating. Four minutes later, he spectacularly weaved past four opponents from midfield to beat Shilton for what FIFA later declared the greatest goal in World Cup history.

Many Argentines saw the match as revenge for their country’s loss to Britain in the 1982 war over the Falkland Islands, which Argentines still claim as “Las Malvinas.”

“It was our way of recovering ‘Las Malvinas,’” Maradona wrote in his 2000 autobiography “I am Diego.”

“It was more than trying to win a game. We said the game had nothing to do with the war. But we knew that Argentines had died there, that they had killed them like birds. And this was our revenge. It was something bigger than us: We were defending our flag.”

It also was vindication for Maradona, who in what he later called “the greatest tragedy” of his career was cut from the squad of the 1978 World Cup—which Argentina won at home—because he was only 17.

Maradona said he was given a soccer ball soon after he could run. “I was 3 years old and I slept hugging that ball all night,” he said.

At 10, Maradona gained fame by performing at halftime of professional matches, wowing crowds by keeping the ball airborne for minutes with his feet, chest and head. He also made his playing debut with the Argentinos Juniors youth team, leading a squad of mostly 14-year-olds through 136 unbeaten matches.

“To see him play was pure bliss, true stardom,” teammate Carlos Beltran said.

Maradona played from 1976-81 for first division club Argentinos Juniors, then went to Boca Juniors for a year before heading to Barcelona for a world-record $8 million.

In 1984, Barcelona sold him to Napoli, in Italy. He remade its fortunes almost single-handedly, taking it to the 1987 Italian league championship for its first title in 60 years. A year after losing the 1990 World Cup final to West Germany, Maradona moved to Spanish club Sevilla, but his career was on the decline. He played five matches at Argentine club Newell’s Old Boys in 1994 before returning to Boca from 1995-97—his final club and closest to his heart.

Drug problems overshadowed his final playing years.

Maradona failed a doping test in 1991 and was banned for 15 months, acknowledging his longtime cocaine addiction. He failed another doping test for stimulants and was thrown out of the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

In retirement, Maradona frequented Boca matches as a raucous one-man cheering section and took part in worldwide charity, sporting and exhibition events. But the already stocky forward quickly gained weight and was clearly short of breath as he huffed through friendly matches.

In 2000, in what doctors said was a brush with death, he was hospitalized in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este with a heart that doctors said was pumping at less than half its capacity. Blood and urine samples turned up traces of cocaine.

After another emergency hospitalization in 2004, Maradona was counseled for drug abuse and in September of that year traveled to Cuba for treatment at Havana’s Center for Mental Health. There he was visited by his friend, Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In Cuba, Maradona took to playing golf and smoking cigars. He frequently praised Castro and Argentine-born revolutionary “Che” Guevara, who fought with Castro in the Cuban revolution—even sporting a tattoo of Guevara on his right arm.

Maradona said he got clean from drugs there and started a new chapter.

In 2005, he underwent gastric bypass in Colombia, shedding nearly 50 kilograms (more than 100 pounds) before appearing as host of a wildly popular Argentine television talk show. On 10’s Night, Maradona headed around a ball with Pele, interviewed boxer Mike Tyson and Hollywood celebrities, and taped a lengthy conversation with Castro in Cuba.

In retirement, Maradona also became more outspoken. He sniped frequently at former coaches, players—including Pele—and the pope. He joined a left-wing protest train outside the Summit of the Americas in 2005, standing alongside Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to denounce the presence of then-President George W. Bush.

His outsider status made it all the more surprising when he was chosen as Argentina coach following Alfio Basile’s resignation.

He won his first three matches but his tactics, selection and attention to detail were all questioned after a 6-1 loss to Bolivia in World Cup qualifying equaled Argentina’s worst-ever margin of defeat.

Victor Hugo Morales, Argentina’s most popular soccer broadcaster, said Maradona will ultimately be remembered for a thrilling style of play that has never been duplicated.

“He has been one of the great artists of my time. Like great masters of music and painting, he has defied our intellect and enriched the human spirit,” Morales said. “Nobody has thrilled me more and left me in such awe as Diego.”

COVID-19 Vaccinations May Be Required for Athletes and Fans to Attend Tokyo Olympics, IOC ...

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 08:28:01 GMT

(TOKYO) — Olympic participants and fans arriving for next year’s postponed Tokyo Olympics are likely to face requirements to be vaccinated to protect the Japanese public, IOC President Thomas Bach said Monday after meeting with new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

It was Bach’s first meeting with Suga and his first trip to Japan since the Olympics were postponed almost eight months ago.

“In order to protect the Japanese people and out of respect for the Japanese people, the IOC will undertake great effort so that as many (people) as possible — Olympic participants and visitors will arrive here (with a) vaccine if by then a vaccine is available,” Bach said. “This makes us all very confident that we can have spectators in the Olympics stadium next year and that spectators will enjoy a safe environment.”

Bach has two days of non-stop meetings and photo opportunities with politicians and organizers in Tokyo, aimed at persuading the Japanese public that it’s safe to hold the Olympics during a pandemic.

The Olympics are to open on July 23, 2021.

A possible vaccine was announced last week by Pfizer Inc., which could greatly help the IOC and local organizers stage the Olympics. There have also been advances in rapid testing.

All of this is taking place as cases around the world surge heading into the Northern Hemisphere winter. Bach traveled to Tokyo on a chartered flight, He called off a trip last month to South Korea because of the virus’ spread in Europe.

Some athletes and fans from abroad are almost certain to oppose any requirement to take the vaccine, which Bach has hinted previously could be almost mandatory for Olympic “solidarity.”

Japan has held baseball games recently with near-capacity crowds of 30,000 fans at some stadiums. It has also held an exhibition gymnastic meet with 22 athletes entering from abroad, attended by several thousand fans.

Japan has been largely spared during the pandemic with about 1,900 deaths attributed to COVID-19. It has also largely sealed off its borders, and has almost 100% mask-wearing by the public.

Several polls have shown the Japanese public is ambivalent to the games, facing larger concerns like a slumping economy.

“Our determination is to realize the Tokyo Games next summer as proof that humanity has defeated the virus.” Suga said.

The Olympics and Paralympics are gigantic. They involve 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and tens of thousands of coaches, officials, judges, VIPs, sponsors, media and broadcasters entering Japan.

The IOC gets 73% of its income from television, which is a critical factor in its drive to hold the Olympics. American network NBC pays well over $1 billion for every Olympics.

Costs are also an issue with the Japanese public. A government audit report last year said the bill for preparing the Olympics could reach $25 billion. All but $5.6 billion is public money.

‘It’s About Time.’ For Women Working In Men’s Sports, Kim Ng’s Historic Hiring Means ...

Sat, 14 Nov 2020 01:52:45 GMT

Jennifer Wolf, the Life Skills Coordinator for the Cleveland Indians, was fixing up some things around her home on Friday morning. Suddenly, her “Women In Baseball” group chat—which includes 80 women working inside the game—started buzzing. News had broken that Kim Ng, a longtime baseball front office executive, was finally hired to run a team: the Miami Marlins made her the first woman team general manager in the history of a major North American men’s sports league.

She felt elation, tinged with some frustration.

“I was so incredibly excited and proud of Kim,” says Wolf, who worked under Ng (pronounced “ANG”) in the MLB front office in the early 2010s. “But then I also kind of thought, it’s about time.” Wolf laughs, a clear acknowledgment of both her happiness about the hire, and the ridiculous nature of the wait. “This is so well deserved,” she says. “But it should have happened years ago.”

Ng, who will also become baseball’s first first Asian-American general manager, has spent three decades working in the game: in 1998, the New York Yankees made her the youngest assistant general manager in baseball, when they hired her at 29: from 2002-2011, she was vice president and assistant general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Recently, she’s worked in the MLB commissioner’s office as senior vice president of baseball operations.

At least seven times, she’s interviewed for general manager’s jobs. At least seven times, teams have passed over her. “You know going into it, it’s going to take longer for women to get to where men get to,” says Wolf. “It’s kind of an acknowledgment that our road is a little harder regardless.”

Linda Cataffo/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesNew York Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman, Kim Ng and manager Joe Torre (l. to R.), at announcement of Ng’s promotion to vice president and assistant general manager.

Still, for women working in baseball, Ng’s hire hit home. “It’s an iconic moment, it’s a historic moment. For me it’s just the beginning,” says Alexandria Rigoli, manager of pro scouting for the Marlins. “It should be celebrated. I’m excited to see what we can do, as women in baseball and as the Miami Marlins.”

“I want to be a baseball lifer,” says Wolf. “If that means I’m a GM, if that means I’m a farm director, if that means I’m a special assistant, I love the game and I never want to leave. But seeing Kim in this position, just makes it that much more possible. I always knew it would be possible, for her, for me, for other women. But representation matters. I don’t think it’s the only thing. But it is important. It’s important for people like me to have female bosses and role models and mentors. But it’s also important for girls who are growing up now, and boys growing up now, to see that being a person in a leadership role is not limited to white men.”

Ng’s hiring was cheered by women working across sports. “I looked at her years of experience, I thought 30 years, I think she’s more than earned it,” says Kelly Krauskopf, who became the NBA’s first female assistant general manager—for the Indiana Pacers—in 2018. “The double standard is, sometimes you see guys that work four or five years, and oh, they seem really smart, so they must be able to do this job. And then you see a woman, she’s been doing the same thing for twice as long, and still has to prove herself. That’s the hard part. Maybe someday you won’t feel that ‘prove it’ mentality, or that questioning around your qualifications. That’s gone. You get the chance just like your male colleagues.”

Krauskopf says it’s natural to think that Ng’s hiring in baseball could make an NBA team more likely to give her a chance at the top spot. She knows how much representation matters; Krauskopf has been stopped by female Pacers fans bowels of Bankers Life Fieldhouse, who let them know that her success is breaking barriers. Young girls from all over the country sent her congratulatory notes. A family from the Dallas area reached out to Krauskopf and asked if they can bring their seventh grade daughter to Indianapolis to pick her brain about sports management: Krauskopf obliged and they chatted down on the court before a game.

According to Krauskopf, male colleagues throughout the NBA have greeted her warmly: before joining the Pacers, she ran the Indiana Fever, of the WNBA, for nearly two decades. Still, the adjustment to the NBA could be jarring. Before the 2019 draft, she entered a Phoenix gym to scout prospects. “I remember walking it, and it was a gym full of, you know, hundreds of guys,” says Krauskopf. “The door opens and I walk through the door and I’ll never forget, for a slow motion moment, I felt like all these eyes were on me and I’d never felt my gender more than I felt in that moment. Wow, I really am the only woman. There’s not a female for miles here. And I had never felt that way before.”

While working in baseball, Wolf has faced resistance. She recalls not being included in meetings, not being given opportunities for promotions and feeling relegated to administrative tasks. Wolf hopes that Ng’s ascension and other signs of progress, like the San Francisco Giants hiring Alyssa Nakken as a coach, and the New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs hiring women as hitting coaches, can help eradicate such thinking. “It was a big year for women in the game,” says Wolf. “And then we now have a woman in the White House as VP. And so I think it’s just, with all the negatives that have happened this year, and struggling through the pandemic, it’s a really awesome to see the bright spots. And it gives me hope for 2021 and beyond. These women can’t be the only ones. We’ve gotta make sure that this isn’t just a one off.”

The Weeknd To Play Super Bowl LV Halftime Show

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 16:50:45 GMT

Super Bowl LV, scheduled to kick off in Tampa, Fla. on Feb. 7, 2021, will likely unfold under a singular set of circumstances; due to COVID-19, there may be few, if any, fans filling Raymond James Stadium during America’s greatest sporting extravaganza. Still, the NFL is settling on a familiar strategy: book a popular musical act for the halftime show, to draw the not insignificant amount of the game’s 100+ million viewers who tune in for a televised concert more than the game. On Thursday, Pepsi, the NFL and Roc Nation announced that the The Weeknd, the versatile, massively popular pop star will perform during the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show, which will air on CBS.

This is the second year in which Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment company, has collaborated with the NFL and Pepsi to select the Super Bowl halftime performer. Last year’s show, which generated much enthusiasm and many memes, was co-headlined by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. “The Weeknd has introduced a sound all his own. His soulful uniqueness has defined a new generation of greatness in music and artistry,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “This is an extraordinary moment in time and the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show is going to be an extraordinary experience with an extraordinary performer.”

Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world this year, The Weeknd’s 2020 album After Hours is the no. 1 most streamed R&B album of all time (followed by his 2016 album Starboy at no. 2); and his ubiquitous hit track “Blinding Lights” has spent a record-breaking 46 weeks on Billboard’s Pop Songs airplay chart. “‘Blinding Lights’ is 2020’s best pop single, very ’80s-influenced, but it’s from an album that’s otherwise very introspective,” Elton John wrote about The Weeknd for the Time 100. “He has so many different types of music tucked up his sleeve that he incorporates into his vision. He’s not interested in commerciality for commerciality’s sake, but he’s one of the biggest-streaming artists on Spotify. Like Prince, he marches to his own beat. That’s an exemplary way for an artist to be.”

Prince’s performance at Super Bowl in XLI, in 2007 during a steady Miami rain, is widely considered the best of all time. The Super Bowl halftime pick often draws criticism—the choice of Maroon 5 two years ago, before Roc Nation got involved in the selection process, was widely panned. Maroon 5 got the gig after Rihanna turned it down because she disagreed with the NFL’s response to Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the National Anthem. But The Weeknd, a Toronto-born son of Ethiopian immigrants whose given name is Abel Tesfaye, seems like a safe choice. During a time of great uncertainty, stress and division, featuring an artist who’s emerged as a global icon—and who’s responsible for the one song in 2020 we just can’t get out of our heads—can bring comfort, and even joy, to Super Bowl viewers who likely won’t be gathering at their usual parties to watch the big game. “We all grow up watching the world’s biggest acts playing the Super Bowl and one can only dream of being in that position,” says The Weeknd. “I’m humbled, honored and ecstatic to be the center of that infamous stage this year.”