Sep 28

The Ultimate Fighter: Season 14, Episode 2

By Beau Dure mma No Comments »

Slight change in the opening credits from season past — it’s almost all fight footage. Very little from the gym. It’s as if they’re sending a message that the fights this season are going to be as impressive as we saw last week.

Rare bit of trivia: The house is 15,000 square feet.

“We ate and ate and ate and ate,” they say of their early time in the house. John Dodson is manning the grill.

Draft day — we see Miller’s rankings. Dodson (bantamweight) and Diego Brandao (featherweight) are No. 1.

The coin toss goes awry when “we have a roller,” in Dana White’s words. Bisping wins and opts to take the first pick rather than first fight. That suits Mayhem, who’d rather have the first fight.

In a change from years past, they draft each weight class separately. Bantamweights first:

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Sep 28

The Frimpong questions

By Beau Dure soccer 1 Comment »

Former UC-Santa Barbara soccer player Eric Frimpong, now serving time for an alleged rape, has lost another round in court. Bill Archer has reacted angrily, dropping giant tomes of evidence suggesting that Frimpong is a long-suffering victim of a misguided prosecution, a hapless defense lawyer, and a judge with his hands over his ears and eyes. This is on top of an exhaustive ESPN piece that summed up quite a few questions about the case.

Fake Sigi, in the final bit of proof that he is not Bill Archer (in case anyone was still clinging to that theory after Fake Sigi offered up his real name and met many of us in the soccer media), disagreed with the call for a new trial.

Fake Sigi pointed out a pretty good flaw among Frimpong’s defenders. The avalanche of words can sometimes lead to a rather cluttered argument. And in the case of the “bite mark” dispute, it might not be relevant. (That said, the investigator cited in Bill’s second post – James Clemente – makes you wonder why any of this made it into court in the first place, and he reopens the issue about whether the third person in this case may in fact have left such a bite.)

I’d suggest refocusing along the following questions:

1. The DNA evidence. There was none of his on her. Her DNA was on his genitals. The Frimpong defense is that she put her hand there. (Some BigSoccer commenters accuse Archer and others of “ignoring” the DNA evidence, which is why we don’t take those commenters seriously.)

2. Dirt vs. sand. Joel Engel, who has written extensively on Frimpong’s behalf, cites a soil expert who said in the habeas corpus (which I have not found online and probably wouldn’t have time to read in its entirety this week) that the dirt on the victim was not sand and therefore not from the beach where the rape allegedly occurred.

3. Frimpong’s defense. The lawyer called just one witness, a strategy that could be classified somewhere between “backfired” and “negligent.”

4. The underwear. Mind if I skip the details here? They’re in Bill’s second post, citing Clemente. Let’s just we already know plenty of people have questions about the victim’s ex.

5. The tide charts. In this case, Clemente is either completely misinformed or the legal work here is shocking. Clemente claims, reading tide charts and visiting the crime scene, that the victim could not have gone where she claimed she went without getting wet. See point 6 of Clemente’s evisceration of Frimpong’s defense lawyer.

6. The alibi. Clemente (point 15) says three people could place Frimpong somewhere other than the crime scene.

7. The victim’s recollection. She may have had an alcohol-related blackout, but was her story otherwise consistent? Is that possible?

8. The lack of evidence on Frimpong (again, other than the DNA for which Frimpong has a plausible explanation). That’s emphasized in the ESPN piece.

For points 9, 10 and 11, read the two paragraphs in the ESPN piece starting “On Jan. 31, 2008″:

9. Dentist shopping. Why was the prosecution allowed to do this?

10. The jurors’ questions after the fact. The jury asked for information it did not receive, and the juror says she felt they rushed to be done by Christmas.

11. Why did Judge Hill dismiss the motion on the dentistry?

There’s more. Some of it is nonsensical — Clemente implies that Frimpong was such a celebrity in Santa Barbara that he would’ve been recognized. Frimpong isn’t Messi, and Santa Barbara isn’t Argentina. Again, that’s why some of these points should simply be discarded if you’re arguing in public. (In a court of law, throwing the spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks is apparently more common. Trust me on this.)

Other points — whether or not racism was a factor, how often rape accusations prove false — really obscure the issues.

And then here’s the real issue: Can these 11 questions be answered so well that we don’t think a new trial is necessary? If so, please have at it. Comments are open. Just be respectful.

Sep 23

Single-Digit Soccer: The Shin Guardian “treatise” and the fundamentals

By Beau Dure soccer 1 Comment »

A blog post making the rounds this week is the ambitiously headlined “A Treatise: The State of American Youth Soccer.” To underscore how serious an effort this post really is, The Shin Guardian presents it with an intro saying the author, Ryan McCormack, is a USC master’s candidate who “spent hours refining the piece with TSG’s US Youth expert Nick Sindt.”

Given that buildup, I was a little disappointed. The piece wasn’t terrible, but given that introduction, I guess I expected more novelty and perhaps less of a fixation on Jurgen Klinsmann. But this piece is far better researched and argued than a lot of what you’ll find on the Web and much more worthy of actual discussion. And the commenters have brought on that serious discussion.

My basic objections are that the treatise is big on unanswerable problems, and it doesn’t take into account what makes the USA unique, for better or for worse.

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Sep 21

The Ultimate Fighter: Season 14, Episode 1

By Beau Dure mma No Comments »

I’m optimistic about this season. It might be because they’re bringing bantamweights and featherweights into the mix, two weight classes that haven’t already been scraped of their top talent by several seasons of this show and years of UFC scouting. It might be because Michael Bisping and Jason “Mayhem” Miller have compelling personalities — neither one a true villain but both willing to mix it up verbally. It might be because I’ve outgrown my youthful cynicism.

I also saw the tryouts, and I’m worried about one thing. The most best personality there was John Dodson, a strong flyweight fighter I’ve seen in action before. But we’ve been told that there were some surprises in the preliminary fights (seriously, Dana — have the “wild card” after the prelims, not after the first round), and I didn’t see Dodson in a long preview for the show. The second best personality there was a guy nicknamed “Haggis Basher,” and he didn’t even make the final 32.

Can’t have everything, I suppose. As Steven Wright said, where would you put it?

Off we go …

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Sep 21

Kids in the cage: How not to do mixed martial arts

By Beau Dure mma 1 Comment »

A big fear for the UFC and other reputable MMA promotions is that some promoter or sports commission with more brashness than brains will put on a card that puts the sport in a bad light or actually gets someone seriously hurt.

Case in point: This youth grappling exhibition from England. See the YouTube video and the Telegraph piece about it.

Some of the criticism in the Telegraph is nonsense. The griping about protective gear misses the mark — this is grappling. They’re not hitting each other. And the condescending quotation marks around “mixed martial arts” are unnecessary. It’s as if people saw two kids walk into a cage without gloves and headgear and just assumed the rest.

Kids grapple all the time. They do it in youth wrestling programs — locally, we start at age 7. Kids can start training in jiu-jitsu at an early age, just as they can learn karate and do “sparring” sessions with more protective gear than the kids who do sumo matches in between innings of minor league baseball games. Like any other youth sport, the safety is a matter of proper supervision. You wouldn’t let your kid play football for a maniac teaching dirty play, and you wouldn’t let your kid grapple without nearby adults who know what they’re doing.

The exhibition in question, however, is a shaky concept executed poorly. The promoters are simply lacking common sense in a couple of facets:

1. Stop the danged fight. The announcers, who seem fairly level-headed, plead for several minutes for the ref or one kid’s corner to put an end to the proceedings. One poor kid is clearly overmatched, and his tears may be tears of embarrassment or frustration rather than tears of pain. He clearly can’t defend against the other kid’s leglocks. An MMA bout ends with one tapout. Bully Beatdown bouts ended with five, but that show’s raison d’etre was to humiliate an adult who deserved it. This bout should’ve stopped by the third tapout.

2. Leglocks? Seriously? U.S. grappling promoter Grapplers Quest has a lot of restrictions on leglocks. For beginners, none. For advanced kids’ classes, only a couple of holds are allowed. These are kids — they might not understand the damage that a leglock can cause, and they might not tap until their underdeveloped joints have been stretched. To put this in perspective — UFC president Dana White doesn’t even allow leglocks at tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter, and these are professional adults.

3. Hey ref! Wake up! In at least one case, the announcers are pleading with one kid to tap out. The ref should be able to see what the announcers see. Let’s put this in perspective: At Grapplers Quest tournaments, they remind the adults to tap out and make sure they leave the mat without a limp or a messed-up arm. At tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter, White stops the proceedings and awards a submission bonus when one guy clearly has a strong hold, even if the other guy is being stubborn.

This is pretty simple, folks: When a referee sees an 8-year-old kid trying to be brave by not tapping out to a leglock, he needs to step in and stop it.

4.  Should this be in a cage with a crowd? Kids love to be in the same arenas as their athletic heroes, sure. I played football in front of about 20 people at the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium about two hours before the Bulldogs played. (All I remember is that I missed a tackle.) D.C. United and the Washington Capitals let youth teams play in between halves or periods. But a one-on-one bout, particularly a mismatch such as this one, might be a bit too much for an 8-year-old to handle in front of a riled-up crowd. Most martial arts sparring sessions take place in front of fellow students and watchful instructors … and no one else.

So is this footage “disturbing”? Not quite. They’re not punching each other and causing potential long-term damage. There are some trained supervisors in place, even if they’re operating under dubious rules.

But the promoters really need to rethink the way they’re doing things. And we can only hope the media and the tut-tutting medical boards will realize that major promoters have a little more sense than this.

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Sep 19

Single-Digit Soccer: Do small-sided games backfire?

By Beau Dure soccer 2 Comments »

Start with a nearly unanimous point in today’s youth soccer: We don’t take 6-year-olds who’ve never played soccer and fling them out onto a 110-by-70 field playing 11-on-11 games. We start them with small-sided games where they can get used to touching the ball often, and we worry about teaching them the tactics of being a withdrawn forward or holding midfielder a few years later.

The idea is perfectly sound. But like many sound ideas, can it be taken too far?

In U6 soccer, you can hope the kids eventually pick up a few basic ideas. I’ve seen coaches try to assign positions in pregame warmups and huddles, and it all collapses into chaos as soon as the ball is kicked. The English family on my team tells me kids in England learn positions around age 5 or 6, but that may require a more ingrained soccer culture than we have here. The 3-on-3 games are fine, and if you yell “Pass!” enough for kids to grasp the concept, great. Our practices are all about getting comfortable with the ball at your feet.

But by U8 soccer, the mob that forms around the ball is getting rather intense. You still have a handful of kids who are more physically imposing than the others, and they can run all over and dominate play.

The result: The kids who are getting the most touches on the ball are the ones who might be better at rugby than soccer. Players who have terrific skills on the ball but aren’t likely to emerge from a ruck with the ball won’t get to show those skills in games.

Some regional variations may be at fault here. The U.S. Soccer curriculum calls U6 through U8 the “initial” stage and tells us not to bother with tactics. But by U8, we’re supposed to have moved up from 4-on-4 games to 7-on-7. My club, though, usually plays 4-on-4. Because we had so many people sign up this year, they let us move to 5-on-5.

We’re still not playing with goalkeepers at this age, which makes sense on some levels but confuses the kids who think someone needs to be standing right in front of the goal, no matter how many times we yell “No goalkeepers!” at them.

This week, I’m going to try to break up the rugby-style ruck a little bit. We already have players who veer back toward defense. With five players, I should be able to convince two of them to drop back and get a concept of “left” and “right” rather than “goalkeeper” and “everybody else.” And I’m going to do some 2-on-1 drills to get them to understand the benefits of passing.

But I can’t help wondering if we’re just failing to give our kids enough credit at this age. At the rec-level YMCA program I described last time, we had positions in 2nd grade (I was a mediocre goalkeeper, though not as bad as I was in the parents league last Friday). Surely if we told kids we were all playing positions, they’d get the concept. Wouldn’t they?

In 4-on-4, positions are little more difficult to assign. When I’ve played pickup with that many players, we may drift into “left” and “right,” but we have to overlap quite a bit to cover the field. I might make some progress in 5-on-5. Perhaps 7-on-7, I could put my mini-Messi out on the wing and let him beat a few defenders before slicing into the middle. And then maybe he’ll be confident if he goes into a tryout for U9 travel next year.

Because we want the most skillful players, not just the big, fast dudes who can physically overwhelm people. Right? Isn’t that what small-sided games are all about?

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Sep 15

2012 update: Track and field

By Beau Dure 2012 medal projections, olympic sports, track and field No Comments »

Did the World Track and Field Championships shake up the medal projections at all? Oh yes. The original posts are here: men’s running, women’s running, field events.

The results that matter in 2011: World Championships and top performances.

Changes are in bold italic.

MEN

100 meters: We won’t hold Usain Bolt’s false start against him. If anything, Jamaican gold just seems that more likely. Maybe even gold/silver. Jamaica, Jamaica, USA

4×100 relay: The USA and Britain collided at Worlds, adding to a long series of relay mishaps that make this event more difficult to predict. Until we see that someone else is actually faster, we’re not changing the projection. Jamaica, USA, Britain

200: The track and wind in Daegu didn’t lend themselves to a lot of fast times, but this race was an exception — the top three times of the year were posted in the final. We’ll go with that. Jamaica, USA, France

400: Where have all the U.S. quarter-milers gone? Only one, LaShawn Merritt, made the final at Worlds, and he’s still fighting for Olympic eligibility. And he was run down at the line by the new 2012 favorite, Grenadan teenager Kirani James. Belgium’s Borlee brothers are making a European medal here more likely as well. Grenada, USA, Jamaica

4×400: Still enough depth for the USA to win here, especially when the hurdlers are pulled into the pool, though Merritt needed to pull off some last-leg heroics to take gold at Worlds. Hard to explain how South Africa finished second. Britain was flat-out disappointing, which is why Russia will take their spot in the projections. USA, Jamaica, Russia

800: Kenya’s David Rudisha is simply the master, with Sudan’s Abubaker Kaki the only guy within range of catching him. Third place is wide-open, with the USA’s Nick Symmonds in the mix, but we’ll stick with the original projections. Kenya, Sudan, Kenya

1,500: The results at Worlds matched the original projection of Kenya, Kenya, USA. Matthew Centrowitz, who is far down on the list of top times, wasn’t the American runner I had in mind, but it shows that the U.S. runners can get in there in a sprint finish. No change. Kenya, Kenya, USA

5,000: As predicted, we had an Ethiopia-Kenya-Ethiopia finish. They just happened to finish 3-4-5 while Britain’s Mo Farah held off the USA’s Bernard Lagat in a thriller. And we’re changing the projections to match what happened at Worlds. Britain, USA, Ethiopia

10,000: Another classic finish here, with Farah barely failing to complete the 5,000/10,000 double. Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele didn’t finish; his fellow Ethiopians took gold and bronze. In retrospect, projecting the USA for bronze here may have been a stretch. The U.S. runners won’t be far behind, but they’re not quite as likely as Farah to interrupt the procession of Ethiopian and Kenyan medalists. Ethiopia, Britain, Kenya

Marathon: The World Championships don’t draw the best runners. Not changing the projections. Kenya, Kenya, Kenya

Steeplechase: World Championship results matched the projections, and other 2011 results don’t give any reason to change. Kenya, Kenya, France

110 hurdles: David Oliver curiously fell out of form this summer and had an abysmal start in the final at Worlds. Then came the controversy — Cuba’s Dayron Robles was disqualified for interfering with China’s resurgent Liu Xiang. Unheralded American Jason Richardson, who posted a couple of other sub-13.1 times this summer, was the surprise winner. So it’s the USA, China and Cuba, but in what order? USA, Cuba, China

400 hurdles: The USA has three of the top five on the times list and six of the top 10. Their results at Worlds? Sixth and seventh. That’s a head-scratcher. We’ll have to take down the projection of a U.S. sweep and add world champion David Greene of Britain and South African L.J. Van Zyl, who isn’t the only South African in the top five. A USA-South Africa duel? What kind of event is this? Britain, South Africa, USA

20k walk: Top list: China, China, China, Russia, Russia, Russia. Worlds: Russia, Russia, Colombia, China, Russia. Russia, China, Russia

50k walk: More China and Russia, but Australia got two of the top five at Worlds. Russia, China, Australia

High jump: Jesse Williams (USA) held off a gaggle of talented Russians for the world title and top mark in the world. We’ll flip the projection accordingly. USA, Russia, Russia

Pole vault: At this point, it may only be sentimentality that has me believing Australia’s Steven Hooker is going to regain his form. The World final was wide-open, with Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski edging the rapidly improving Cuban Lazaro Borges. France’s consistent Renaud Lavillenie was third ahead of another Polish vaulter, Lukasz Michalski, and German Malte Mohr. France, Poland, Cuba

Long jump: In the year 3012, the bionically and cryogenically preserved Dwight Phillips will rise from his box and win yet another gold medal. The American vet is the world champion once again, even though Australia’s Mitchell Watt had four of the year’s five best. Third at the moment is Zimbabwe’s Ngonidzashe Makusha. USA, Australia, Zimbabwe

Triple jump: There I was, watching the usual assortments of Europeans and Cubans contesting the world title, and then these two young Americans turned up and blew everyone away. Well, not quite — Christian Taylor and Will Claye took gold and bronze, surrounding Britain’s Phillips Idowu. Recalculating … USA, Britain, France

Shot put: Surely the USA couldn’t be shut out in this event at Worlds AND the Olympics. Germany’s David Storl came up with a personal best to win the world title ahead of reliable Canadian Dylan Armstrong, Belarus’s Andrei Mikhnevich and all four Americans. Germany, Canada, USA

Discus: Germany’s Robert Harting is the most consistent thrower in the world these days, so his world title is no surprise. Olympic champion Gerd Kanter of Estonia hasn’t had as many big throws but came on strong for second at Worlds. Poland’s Piotr Malachowski faltered in Daegu, leaving the door open for surprise bronze medalist Ehsan Hadadi of Iran. Hungary’s Zoltan Kavago posted the top mark in the world this year but didn’t even make the final in Daegu. So we’ll switch the top two and slide Kanter into bronze position. Germany, Poland, Estonia

Hammer: Japan’s Koji Murofushi didn’t throw much this year but came up big at Worlds. He briefly had a medal from the 2008 Games when two Belarus throwers were stripped after a doping test, but the Belarus crew got the medals back on appeal. Hungary’s Krisztian Pars, in the same boat as Murofushi as a temporary 2008 medalist, finished second at Worlds and has a lot of the world’s best throws this year. So does Russia’s Aleksey Zagornyi, who wasn’t in Daegu. Japan, Hungary, Russia

Javelin: Yes, Norway’s beautifully named Andreas Thorkildsen only finished second in Daegu. He’s still our favorite. And the throwers who accounted for the next two countries in the projections — Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki and Germany’s Matthias de Zordo — handed Thorkildsen rare losses in Shanghai and Daegu. But we’ll need to switch Finland and Germany because de Zordo won in Daegu, had a better season, and is still relatively young. Norway, Germany, Finland

Decathlon: 1-2 USA finish in Daegu, and Bryan Clay wasn’t even there. Trey Hardee and youngster Ashton Eaton did the honors ahead of consistent Cuban Leonel Suarez. USA, USA, Cuba

WOMEN

100: We’ll switch the top two because Carmelita Jeter is in awesome form, with Jamaican veteran Veronica Campbell-Brown right behind. Third place is tough call — USA’s Marshevet Myers, Trinidad and Tobago’s Kelly-Ann Baptiste, Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart and Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Hyphen-Overkill all in the mix. USA, Jamaica, Jamaica

4×100: Projection: USA, Jamaica, Ukraine. Finish at Worlds: USA, Jamaica, Ukraine. Sure, Trinidad and Tobago was a close fourth, but there’s not reason to change now. USA, Jamaica, Ukraine

200: Doing the “double” is difficult, as the USA’s Jeter and Allyson Felix can attest after losing to Campbell-Brown in Daegu. Jeter, who won the 100, was second. Then came Felix, who was second in the 400. The USA is very deep — Shalonda Solomon posted the year’s best time but finished fourth at Worlds. Because any of those three can win, the projection is unchanged. USA, Jamaica, USA

400: Botswana’s Amantle Montsho didn’t quite come from nowhere — she has posted several sub-50 times over the years — but her win at Worlds is still a bit of a surprise. And a thriller, beating Felix by 0.03 seconds. Fellow American and defending world champ Sanya Richards-Ross managed to find her sub-50 form once this year, but not in Daegu. A pair of Russians went sub-50 in Russia, with Anastasiya Kapachinskaya leading the world with a 49.35 and coming close to the 50 mark to take bronze in Daegu. Defending champion Christine Ohuruogu of Britain was a victim of the false-start rule and could be a wild card on home soil. The projections again give the USA credit for having more than one contender. USA, Russia, Botswana

4×400: Jamaica set a national record but still couldn’t run down the USA even with an unnerving late fade. They did, however, put some distance on Russia, so we’ll switch those two. USA, Jamaica, Russia

800: Russia’s Mariya Savinova and South Africa’s Carter Semenya had a terrific duel in Daegu, posting the top two times of the year. Russia has the deepest talent here, but the USA has a couple of decent contenders along with the occasional threat from Kenya or Jamaica. Russia, South Africa, Kenya

1,500: The stats tell us 21 women ran this distance faster than the USA’s Jennifer Simpson this year. In Daegu, no one did. While all the African runners botched the tactics, going much too slowly through 1,400 meters or so, Simpson and Britain’s accurately named Hannah England blasted through at the finish. Then came Spain’s Natalia Rodriguez, who at least posted one time in the top 10 this year. Surely they won’t make such a mess of things in London, right? This event is simply beyond prediction. Therefore, the projections are unchanged. Kenya, Bahrain, USA

5,000: That’s more like it. The expected Kenya-Ethiopia duel materialized, with Kenya’s peerless Vivian Cheruiyot winning the world title and posting the best time this year. No change. Kenya, Ethiopia, Kenya

10,000: Cheruiyot did the double, leading a Kenyan sweep of the top four places. The times list shows a couple of challengers from Ethiopia and Japan, along with a couple of credible contenders from the USA, including 2008 bronze medalist Shalane Flanagan. But Kenya’s depth is forcing a few changes. Kenya, Kenya, Ethiopia

Marathon: Again, the World Championships aren’t the best gauge for this distance, but the Kenyan sweep mirrored what happened on the rest of the world scene this year. Kenya, Ethiopia, Kenya

Steeplechase: Finally, the Kenyan logjam is broken — Russia’s Yuliya Zaripova won in Daegu with the best time of 2011, and Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi set a national record to finish second. Then came the three Kenyans. Zaripova’s win is enough for us to flip the projections. Russia, Kenya, Kenya

100 hurdles: Forget the talk of a North American sweep unless something happens to Australian world champ Sally Pearson. The Americans have the depth to contend even if Lolo Jones can’t regain her form, but they’re far behind Pearson. Australia, USA, USA

400 hurdles: Fantastic year for the USA’s Lashinda Demus, edging defending champion Melaine Walker of Jamaica for the world title in the year’s fastest race. Russia’s Natalya Antyukh finished third to make this another event in which the 2012 projection came true in 2011. Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer has posted several fast times, but with mild trepidation, the projection is unchanged. USA, Jamaica, Russia

20k walk: China has replaced Portugal as the country most likely to prevent a Russian sweep. Hong Liu did just that in Daegu. Russia, Russia, China

High jump: The long-standing top two of Croatia’s Blanka Vlašić and the USA’s Chaunte Lowe had an off year. Vlašić was injured and nearly missed Worlds — then came back to finish second, anyway. Lowe is on her way back after childbirth. Such a comeback is never a given, but let’s put some faith in Lowe and leave the top two unchanged. World champ Anna Chicherova had a good enough year to change the bronze medal projection. Italian Antonietta Di Martino is the only other jumper over two meters this year. Croatia, USA, Russia

Pole vault: Another case of wondering if the top two can come back. Yelena Isinbayeva has the top 11 jumps in history but hasn’t reached such heights since returning from some time off. The USA’s Jennifer Suhr is more erratic, splitting the next several jumps on the all-time list with Isinbayeva and posting the best this year but missing the podium in Daegu. That left a bronze medal space for Russian veteran Svetlana Feofanova. German Martina Strutz set a national record to take silver, and Brazilian Fabiana Murer equalled her national record for the gold. So the results in Daegu make this a nervous projection, but it’s unchanged. Russia, USA, Brazil

Long jump: The USA’s Brittney Reese turned back the Russian revolution with her second straight world title. Another flip forthcoming. USA, Russia, Russia

Triple jump: Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha won the world title. Host Britain will have a contender in roundabout fashion — Yamile Aldama left Cuba in 2001 and competed for Sudan while waiting for Britain, her new home, to grant her citizenship. That took 10 years, but she finally got it. Cuba still has plenty of talent — Yargeris Savigne faltered in Daegu but posted the top jump so far this year, while Mabel Gay barely missed the podium. The 2011 top performances list shows a distinct top four of Savigne, Colombian bronze medalist Caterine Ibargüen, Salahuda and silver medalist Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan. Cuba, Kazakhstan, Ukraine

Shot put: The two athletes who dominated in 2010 did so again in 2011, but New Zealand’s Valerie Adams moved ahead of Belarus’s Nadzeya Ostapchuk. The top four in Worlds were the top four on the 2011 list, with bronze for the USA’s Jillian Camarena-Williams. New Zealand, Belarus, USA

Discus: Slight issue with the World Championships — Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic was serving a six-month suspension for an apparently accidental doping infraction. Didn’t think WADA allowed such short terms these days, even if aliens came down to Earth and injected athletes with modafinil, but that’s the story. In any case, China’s Li Yanfeng has the world title and three of the four top marks in the world (Perkovic has the other), and world runner-up Nadine Müller of Germany had the next three. Cuba’s Yarelis Barrios is next, at Worlds and on the top marks list. China, Croatia, Germany

Hammer: Germany’s Betty Heidler and Russia’s Tatyana Lysenko have soared past Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk, with Heidler breaking Wlodarczyk’s world record and Lysenko winning the world title. China’s Wenxiu Zhang also is ahead of Wlodarczyk now. So Germany and Russia bump up a place in the projections, and Poland falls out. Germany, Russia, China

Javelin: The Czech Republic’s Barbora Špotáková still has the world record, but Russia’s Maria Abukumova wrested away the world championship with the best throw of the year. Those two, Germany’s Christina Obergfoll and South Africa’s Sunette Viljoen account for virtually all of the top throws of the year. Abukomova is younger, so we’ll project her ahead of Špotáková next year as well. Obergfoll slipped to fourth in Daegu but had more good throws this year than Viljoen. Russia, Czech Republic, Germany

Heptathlon: It’ll break British hearts to hear this, but Russia’s Tatyana Chernova’s win over Jessica Ennis in Daegu was no upset. Yes, Ennis would have a decent chance if she could even learn to throw a javelin, but that’s a lot to ask, and Chernova is solid all around. Germany’s Jennifer Oeser is a clear third. The USA’s Hyleas Fountain was in position for a medal, but the 800-meter closing run isn’t her best event, and she wound up unable to finish it in Daegu. Russia, Britain, Germany

Sep 15

The Atlantic, the NCAA and the wrong discussion

By Beau Dure sports culture 1 Comment »

By now, you’ve probably seen at least three of your friends Tweet or share The Atlantic’s sprawling expose, The Shame of College Sports.

My question: Was anyone else disappointed? Is anyone else worried that the wrong issues are emphasized?

A lot of effort went into reporting this story, and it touches on several issues that rarely see the light of day. The NCAA comes across as a petty organization, consumed with power, that aims to destroy the careers of anyone who dares to question nonsensical rules. The cases are shocking and should be fodder for follow-up discussion.

But reporter Taylor Branch digresses from this damning expose to pontificate about amateurism and offer simplistic solutions for paying players. And in doing so, he doesn’t address the fact that most schools with football programs actually are NOT making money on sports, and many of them are losing money on football alone. See for yourself. And it doesn’t help that the bowl system is a gravy train for all the wrong people.

So most schools’ athletic departments are accomplishing two things. First, they’re enhancing the prestige of the school, giving students more reason to attend and alumni more reason to donate. My alma mater’s rise to national prominence came partly through a slow-moving movement to enhance and advertise its academic stature, but the 1986 Final Four team of Dawkins, Bilas, Alarie and company turned that slow growth into an outright boom.

Second, they’re fulfilling that Greek ideal of developing mind and body. Or, more simply, offering students activities through which they can be well-rounded. A swim team is like an orchestra — it won’t generate much direct revenue, but it’s a part of the school’s student life. And the occasional rare talent may go on to make a living at it.

So before we can call football players slaves — a suggestion Branch dismisses and then uses anyway — we have to bear in mind a couple of things. The money from jersey sales (as an aside: I was told in my college days that schools couldn’t sell jerseys that *named* a player — is that no longer true) does more than fill coaches’ and administrators’ pockets. And while those coaches may be overpaid, their work enhances a player’s earning ability down the road. If they’re excelling on a college playing field so much so that they’re selling merchandise by the ton, they’re likely in that 1-2 percent of people who’ll reap pro benefits down the road.

All that said, Ed O’Bannon’s suit is interesting. Once a player has completed college eligibility, shouldn’t he be allowed to trade his fame for modest fortune? Perhaps so.

And paying college players, frankly, would be less of an issue if other people paid them. What is the harm to the game if Lauren Cheney takes her bonus money from winning the 2008 Olympics and returns to the UCLA soccer team? If a collegiate golfer wins the U.S. Open, what’s the point of returning the money?

Sponsorships are trickier. If Nike and adidas start sponsoring college players, the divide between “Nike schools” and “adidas schools” will just get wider. But if the school doesn’t gain a recruiting edge from, say, a basketball player endorsing Starbucks, then why not allow it?

Those are the real issues of “shamateurism.” The NCAA is full of counterproductive rules, and woe be to the college tutor or student-athlete who questions them. Might be nice to see a follow-up that focuses more on that aspect and less on questions of slavery.

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Sep 14

Single-Digit Soccer: Can youth soccer be an afterschool program?

By Beau Dure soccer 3 Comments »

Like many kids who grew up in Athens, Ga., I’m a child of the Athens YMCA. A couple of days a week, we’d pile over to the Y to practice whichever sport was in season — football in the fall, basketball in the winter, then short soccer and softball seasons. Game days were usually Friday or Saturday.

The Y has modernized a bit with the times, giving families a few more choices. You can play soccer in the fall as well as the spring, and they have taekwondo and other programs as well.

The best part — between the Y and the schools, kids can take buses from school.

We have afterschool programs in my area as well. At my school, they can take buses to karate, taekwondo and a private school. At school itself, they have chess, science, cooking, dance and all sorts of things.

Notice anything missing? There’s no soccer.

Instead, parents pick up their kids from these afterschool programs, toss some food down their throats and drive them to soccer practice, sometimes at the schools from which they departed a couple of hours earlier.

And then the parents sigh with resignation when they realize their kids are graduating from the “one practice, one Saturday game” weekly schedule to something more serious.

The net result: They gripe that it’s overkill to have two soccer practices a week. Meanwhile, their kids are in karate five days a week, and they think nothing of it because the dojo picks them up. The parents don’t even see it. And they’re happy to pay for it because their kids have afterschool care.

Those soccer practices, meanwhile, are being run by volunteer parents who may have gone through some U.S. Soccer training program to teach fun drills — excuse me, games – but are poorly equipped to deal with 15 kids who aren’t behaving.

Why aren’t soccer and other youth sports taught in afterschool programs? Why is a volunteer parent a better coach than a part-time PE teacher who might pick up a few extra bucks? And is there a goldmine waiting to be claimed by the first people who set up the soccer equivalents of afterschool karate and taekwondo programs?

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Sep 13

Single-Digit Soccer: OK, let’s back up a bit …

By Beau Dure soccer 2 Comments »

It looked so good in my head.

In my U8 team’s first scrimmage, they showed some aptitude for spreading the ball around, avoiding the “mob chasing a ball” mentality of U6s and U7s. I really thought we could build on it and make it a habit with a modified scrimmage that would encourage passing and using the width of the field.

So I put cones down to divide the field into thirds — lengthwise, like lane markers in a pool. We would play a 4-on-4 scrimmage in which, on each team, two players could be in the middle third and one could be in each outside lane.

The protests were immediate:

What are we trying to do? (Play soccer. Really.)

What can I do here on the wing? (Receive passes, then pass back.)

I don’t WANNA be on the wing! (We’re rotating – you’ll get your turn in the middle shortly.)

I don’t wanna wear a yellow penny! (OK, that’s an issue.)

I’d rather be doing math homework! (Oh, because you’re so good at following directions?)

(No, I didn’t actually say that.)

After about two minutes, I gave up on it and decided to use the lane markers for a simple passing drill. Form three lines, one in the middle and one along each line of cones. Each player has to touch the ball before scoring.

So while I struggled to get players into lines, the first group — the wise guys of this team — all ran to the middle of the field and literally touched the ball. Then one guy dribbled down and shot.

I finally got a group that would at least give it a try. A couple of players passed the ball back and forth, and it wound up on the feet of one player who stopped, slightly puzzled. “OK! Good job so far! Now pass it back to the middle.”

So he picked up the ball and started to cock his arm back like Tom Brady.

“No, no … with your feet.”

I gave them a water break, all the while lamenting that I hadn’t been committing this practice to video so I could email it to Claudio Reyna with a whole lot of profanity. (That would’ve been unfair — I can’t expect a youth soccer curriculum to account for kids who don’t know the word “pass” in a soccer context.)

I had already decided to yank the “angle of support” drill off the agenda for the evening. In the time it would’ve taken me to explain that one, two kids would’ve kicked half the team’s balls across the field, two more would’ve started a biology experiment with a couple of crickets they wound on the field, and the others wouldn’t be able to hear me.

First game is Saturday. Then I’ll have two days to figure out how to hold their attention and perhaps even teach a little soccer at the next practice.

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