YourBlackSports is a place for brothers to talk about sports from a black perspective. This is not ESPN, this is Your ESPN. We see the analysts on all the shows talking this and that about black athletes, without a brother even being invited to the conversation. Well that doesn't happen at YourBlackSports, since this site is all about you!
Electronic Arts, the second-largest video-game publisher, circumvents the rules by allowing customers to upload player names directly into games and creating images that closely resemble student athletes to increase sales and NCCA royalties, according to the complaint filed by Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University.
The practice is sanctioned by the NCAA and a licensing company for the association, Keller said in his complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Oakland, California. Keller seeks to represent all NCCA football and basketball players featured in Electronic Arts’ NCAA video games.
‘Full scholarship’ can leave college athletes with as much as $30,000 in expenses
With the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball tournament heating up, the National College Players Association (NCPA), formerly known as the Collegiate Athletes Coalition (CAC), released results of another significant study revealing the estimated shortfall between college athletes’ full scholarships and the actual cost of attendance at each Division I university.
The NCPA asserts that, by and large, universities have been deceiving recruits, many of whom are under the age of 18 and from disadvantaged backgrounds, into unknowingly being responsible for paying thousands of dollars while on “full” athletic scholarship.
“The fact is, coaches fill high school recruits’ heads with promises of free rides and full scholarships, when in fact no such things exist. The NCAA designs full scholarships to fall short of the advertised price tag of a school, leaving recruits scrambling to make ends meet,” stated United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard.
Officers stunned a drunken and agitated Jayson Williams with a Taser at a swank Manhattan hotel Monday morning after reports that the troubled ex-NBA star appeared suicidal, police said.
Police were called to the hotel in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan around 4 a.m. after a report that the former New Jersey Nets star was suicidal, authorities said.
When officers arrived, there were empty bottles of prescription drugs strewn around the disheveled hotel suite of the 6-foot-10 Williams, police said.
Emergency Services Unit police, an elite team trained to deal with emotionally disturbed people, responded and stunned Williams with a Taser, handcuffed him and took him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Williams played nine seasons in the NBA with the Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers before retiring in 2000.
The reaction to the news of California high schooler Jeremy Tyler's plan was as predictable as it was tired. The New York Times reported Thursday that Tyler, a 6-foot-11 junior at San Diego High, plans to skip his senior year in high school to play professionally in Europe. In two years, when his high school class is one year past graduation, he'll return to the U.S. and enter the NBA draft.
The tongue-clucking was deafening. You'd think the Book of Revelation had been revised to include skipping a year of high school to play pro basketball right between the sun turning black and the moon turning red. This will kill college basketball, some said. This kid is throwing away his future, others said.
Since no European newspaper sports editor offered me a six-figure salary to skip my senior year of high school, I don't feel qualified to rip Tyler's choice. I've never walked in his high-tops. But I do have a few questions for the folks who consider Tyler's move an abomination.
Former Chicago Bears defensive lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry is in serious condition at a South Carolina hospital, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Perry, 46, was hospitalized to deal with complications from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a chronic inflammation disorder of the peripheral nerves, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune reported.
Aiken Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Melissa Summer declined to give additional details Tuesday.
Perry’s nephew, Purnell Perry, told the Sun-Times his uncle was admitted more than a week ago but was expected to recover.
1. What are the Celtics' prospects if Kevin Garnett is unavailable for the playoffs?
Ian Thomsen: They were able to stave off Orlando for the No. 2 seed without Garnett, so at the very least they're still one of the top three teams in the East. At best, they can exploit the home-court advantage to win a second-round series against the Magic, who have no latter-round experience in the playoffs. But I don't see how they'll be able to win a game or two in Cleveland's building unless Garnett miraculously returns or the Cavaliers themselves are weakened by injuries over the month ahead.
Jack McCallum: Garnett is their spiritual leader, and not just because of his over-the-top primal screaming. Playoff series are always partly about defensive schemes, figuring out how to stop a big scorer, like LeBron James or Dwyane Wade, over the course of five, six or seven games. Garnett keys the Celtics' schemes, and, without him, I don't think their defense is strong enough to get them to the conference finals. If he plays, I like them to beat the Magic and give the Cavs a test before going down.
Allen Iverson has gone from being a one-man economic stimulus plan for the city's downtown casinos to persona non grata. He has spent a ton of money down there, but recently he's been banned from both MGM and Greektown casinos.
The NBA is looking into a disturbance at Greektown that involved one of Iverson's body guards. Iverson may have been trying to act as a peacemaker but his body guard was involved in some kind of tussle.
NBA Commissioner David Stern refused to put his foot down when it comes to the dancing Cavaliers.
During a pre-playoff conference call with reporters on Monday afternoon, Stern was asked about the Cavs' celebratory performance during Sunday's blowout victory over visiting Boston.
According to a transcript of the call, Stern was asked, "Is there some way of dealing with LeBron James, who danced on the sidelines yesterday? It was an embarrassment toward the Boston Celtics, and approaching the playoffs where emotion tends to run high?"
Three-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt tried marijuana as a kid, according toBild newspaper.
Bolt, who set world records in the 100 and 200 meters at the Beijing Olympics and was part of the Jamaican team that broke the world mark in the 400-meter relay, made the admission in an interview published online Sunday.
Paul Williams hasn't been able to pick a fight with anyone in his preferred weight class, so he's moving up again Saturday.
The career 147-pounder, whose last two bouts have been at junior middleweight (154), is climbing to middleweight to face Winky Wright in a non-title bout (HBO, 10 p.m. ET).
"Forty-seven is my weight class, if I can get anybody to fight me at '47," said Williams, who stands 6-1 with an 82-inch reach, after a recent training session. "The only reason we're going up is to get people to fight us."
Wright, 37, is the former undisputed champion at junior middleweight. His last fight was against Bernard Hopkins, but that was two years ago.
That unanimous-decision loss was Wright's first loss in eight years. Not noted for his punching power, Wright (51-4-1, 25 KOs) — like Williams, who is also a southpaw — is known for having a high work rate, a steady jab, a solid chin and a tight defense.
College sports fans, be careful of the company you keep on Facebook.
You might get yourself -- and the program you support -- in trouble.
That was the lesson this week for Taylor Moseley, a North Carolina State freshman who expressed a common-enough opinion on campus when he started the Facebook group called "John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!!"
More than 700 people signed up for the group encouraging Wall -- a local standout and the nation's No. 1 basketball recruit -- to pick the Wolfpack by national signing day next week.
But the NCAA says such sites, and dozens more like them wooing Wall and other top recruits, violate its rules. More than just cheerleading boards, the NCAA says the sites are an attempt to influence the college choice of a recruit.
Moseley got a cease and desist letter from N.C. State's compliance director, Michelle Lee, warning of "further action" if he failed to comply. In an interview Friday, Lee said that people who act as boosters but fail to follow recruiting guidelines could face penalties such as being denied tickets or even being formally "disassociated" from the athletic program.
Burress and the Bloomberg
By: Dave Zirin Reprinted From Edge Of Sports
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: all Plaxico, all the time. There's nothing like an NFL player shooting a hole in his own leg in a packed nightclub to become our latest walking, talking weapon of mass distraction. Why ponder the global economic meltdown, two wars, and rising unemployment, when millionaire black athletes like Plaxico Burress walk among us... with guns?
Don't think that this is a defense of the New York Giants star wide receiver. Having a loaded gun in your pants, with no safety, in a crowded club, is about as smart as using a toaster as a bathtub toy. In fact, shooting yourself in the leg is really one of more preferable outcomes. Now Burress faces three and a half years in prison for carrying a loaded handgun in the city.
Right on cue, the moralists are slithering onto their soapboxes to hiss at the latest athletic bogeyman. Hypocrisy reigns supreme.
There's the now-suspended emergency room physician at New York Cornell Hospital, who was persuaded to treat Burress under a phony name and failed to notify the authorities of the shooting incident as state law requires.
There's the New York Giants organization: New York police officials say the Giants let at least ten hours elapse before reporting the shooting. What were they thinking--that the cops wouldn't notice the wall-to-wall coverage on TV?
Next, the Giants self-righteously suspended Burress for the rest of the season "for conduct detrimental to the team"--easy to do when Burress has played next to no role for the first-place team. Suspending Burress is easy. They even did it earlier this season. But there is no talk of suspending Giants middle linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was with Burress that evening, drove him to the hospital and is alleged to have hidden the weapon from police. He was set to explain to police today exactly why he didn't report the shooting either. But Pierce is also an indispensable cog in the team. Suspend Pierce? That might affect their Super Bowl chances.
There's former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who has made a call for all NFL players with handguns to be suspended without delay. Ditka, who calls himself an "ultra-ultra conservative" and hosted rallies this fall for Sarah Palin, clearly finds the Second Amendment expendable when exercised by these ungrateful... athletes. Here are his comments to ESPN:
"This is all about priorities. When you get stature in life, you get the kind of contract, you have an obligation and responsibility to your teammates, to the organization, to the National Football League and to the fans. He just flaunted this money in their face. He has no respect for anybody but himself. I feel sorry for him, in the sense that, I don't understand the league, why can anybody have a gun? I will have a policy, no guns, any NFL players we find out, period, you're suspended."
But no one is deserving of more scorn than New York City Mayor-for-Life Michael Bloomberg, who excoriated Burress for violating city gun laws. On Monday, Bloomberg seemed to channel Vincent Bugliosi: "Our children are getting killed with guns in the street. Our police are getting killed. If we don't prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, I don't know who on earth would. It makes a sham, a mockery of the law. And it's pretty hard to argue the guy didn't have a gun and that it wasn't loaded. You've got bullet holes in and out to show that it was there."
All right, Mayor Mike. But there are a few people--including ESPN columnist Jemele Hill--who detected more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the mayor's rant:
"Why wasn't the mayor as willing to stand on his soapbox when New York City police officers shot and killed Sean Bell?" she wrote. "Bloomberg called for a 'thorough' investigation at that time, but he didn't damn those police officers the way he did Burress. (All three officers were acquitted earlier this year.)"
Rage as he has against Burress, Bloomberg displayed no such anger in 2004, when police beat and jailed protesters by the hundreds at the Republican Convention at Madison Square Garden.
Bloomberg's friends on Wall Street have helped precipitate a crisis which we will spend a generation digging ourselves out from. But there have been no sermons on the greed and lawlessness of the financial sector heard from the mayor's bully pulpit.
There's no defending the stupidity of bringing a loaded gun to a place where people party. And so far, Burress hasn't given much of an explanation about his motives. But contributing factors are obvious--growing up in the slums of Virginia Beach, Virginia, he saw plenty of violence. And athletes make easy targets: Giants teammate Steve Smith was robbed at gunpoint just a couple of weeks ago. And it's a terrible irony that the Burress imbroglio happened almost a year to the day that Washington football all-pro Sean Taylor was shot to death in his home by an intruder.
Far too many players feel like they have targets on their backs, and they refuse to surrender their freedom to walk the streets of the country where they are told they are living the dream. Hiring bodyguards or staying home just aren't choices many players want to make.
Guns can't protect professional athletes from real or imagined harm, especially when the gun owner has no clue how to use them. But three and a half years in prison for Burress hardly seems like a solution either. We need less moralistic prattle and more serious discussion about how we have gotten to this point. Too many athletes are like gated communities with legs: fearful, isolated, and looking over their shoulder.
Eddie Jordan Fired... But Why? By: Tolu Olorunda Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com
On Monday, Nov. 24, The Washington Wizards fired veteran coach, Eddie Jordan, who helped transport the Wizards to the playoffs four years in a row. Over the last few days, however, many fans/sport columnists, pundits, and even coaches have expressed their regret over this brash and unexpected decision. Here are a few reactions:
We've all seen this movie before: A general manager stocks his roster with a dysfunctional mixture of players, but since he's the one who procured the players he thinks they're better than they really are. Eventually the team loses, and the coach is canned — because it's easier to fire the coach than to fire the players, and because the GM is certainly not going to fire himself. This is approximately what happened to Eddie Jordan in Washington. [...] Since he's been in Washington, Jordan has done a magnificent job with this team even though Arenas and Etan Thomas have been periodically down and out — repeatedly leading them into the playoffs.
When a team struggles out of the gate of a regular season, the fans harboring the fringe of the team's fanbase always begin hollering for a change of leadership.Some franchises are mature enough to disregard the cries of the extremists, however, others are as weak-minded as stormtroopers—easily influenced by forces beyond them [thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi.] From the firing of Eddie Jordan and his assistant Mike O'Koren, the Washington Wizards have proven to be the NBA's weakest franchise as of this moment for the 2008-09 season and, perhaps, the next couple of seasons to follow. Moronic is not even a strong enough word for this debacle. Travesty is a better word. Abortion! Now, that is the best word for this fiasco...abortion! Disgusting, inhumane, immoral, stupid! [...] This decision to fire Eddie Jordan was not moronic. It was not a travesty. IT WAS AN ABORTION!
"I'm very, very disappointed, not just because he's a close personal friend, as well as Mike, but when he came to Washington (they) hadn't been to the playoffs in like 20 something years," Frank said, "(and they) go there four straight years and to do what he did last year, where you could have made a very easy argument that he should have been the coach of the year, or at least co-coach of the year along with Byron (Scott). [...] It wasn't like they were losing by 40 points a game. He was doing a hell of a job, so it's very, very disappointing he won't finish out what he started."
- New Jersey Nets Head Coach, Lawrence Frank at a Press Conference
So what was Eddie Jordan supposed to do? [...] Jordan has nursed the Wizards to the playoffs four years in a row despite dealing with, at different times, significant injuries to Antawn Jamison, Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. Now, this year, Haywood is out and backup point guard Antonio Daniels is sitting, too. [...] Don't forget, when the Wizards hired Jordan, he was one of the most sought-after assistants in the league, and his dedication to the Princeton offense makes him a unique asset. Just about every team in the league has stolen from Jordan's playbook[.]
