“The thing I liked about it most,” Owen Farrell says, “was having a look at yourself and what you’re doing. Seeing and understanding how things happened.”
On the verge of a new year, after a tumultuous 2018 in which he became England’s captain amid the team losing five Tests in a row following a winning run of 18 games, Farrell reflects on his recently completed university degree rather than his crucial role in steadying a country’s fluctuating rugby fortunes. Yet it is intriguing to hear Farrell investigate his analytical skills when so much of his game is built on fiery commitment and unyielding hardness.
This combination often boils over into brutal hits and battles with match officials. Yet Farrell remains England’s most important player and their leader talisman with the World Cup nine months away. His degree in management and leadership, which included a 12,000-word essay on reflective learning, proves Farrell is more than just a fierce competitor. The 27-year-old appears determined to become a calmer player and a better leader.
… Djordje Mihailovic, 20, is one of the players eager to get to Chula Vista for his first national team camp. The Chicago Fire homegrown playmaker played with U.S. youth national teams and broke into Chicago’s first team during the 2017 season in its run into the playoffs. That achievement, however, had a rough ending when Mihailovic tore his ACL in the opening playoff game and it forced him out of until he second half of the 2018 season.
But when Mihailovic returned to the Fire towards the end of the season, he played well – even as the Fire struggled. After getting back to full-fitness, Mihailovic now feels even stronger than he did before the injury. Following his call-up, the Florida-born, Chicago-raised attacker received many text messages throughout the Fire organization who were happy to have one of their own get named to the national team and represent the club at a high level.
Now he is ready to arrive at camp and perhaps address a position where the U.S. team lacks depth in the attacking midfield.
… those performances seemed to support the notion that he could be a worthy point guard to pair with James. Ball is an exceptional passer, the product of court vision reminiscent of a certain Lakers great who is now the team’s president of basketball operations.
But Ball continues to struggle with consistency and his jump shot. Entering Tuesday’s game, he was averaging 9 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists a game while shooting 39.7 percent from the field and 30.9 percent from 3-point range. (Against the Warriors, he had 6 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists over 24 minutes.)
… When Colliton is introduced, there is polite silence. In part, this is because Colliton is still an unknown. Chicago assistant coaches have insisted that Colliton’s NHL ID card be expedited because the coach has been stopped by security at visiting rinks (it’s unclear if they are joking). Colliton, 33, looks his age, with spiky black hair and no noticeable wrinkles.
For a league obsessed with getting younger — and that spent most of the fall debating the merits of Fortnite as a team-bonding activity — the hiring of Colliton feels like a response to those who say reaching millennials and Generation Z is increasingly difficult.
“That’s not the only reason we made the change,” Bowman said before making note of the prevalence of younger players in the league (the Blackhawks have suited up 15 players under the age of 25 this season.). “They grew up in a society where they were faced with different things. In order to get the most out of them, I do think you need to speak their language a little bit. Jeremy is good at understanding people.”
About three hours before every game, nearly without fail, Washington Nationals first baseman Matt Adams would look up from a conversation with a teammate, or from organizing his locker, or from indulging a reporter, and realize it was time.
“Time to go get right,” he would say, and the big, burly, tattooed man would lumber out of the room and into the dugout, where Mark Campbell, the team’s director of mental conditioning, awaited him. Then came a chat on the top of the bench, or a slow walk around the warning track, a private conversation as important to Adams’s day as the ones he had with hitting coach Kevin Long or working in the unfamiliar outfield with coach Bobby Henley.
Neither man would ever share the specific content of those conversations, of course. In fact, the Nationals rejected multiple interview requests for Campbell over the years. Trust is too important to his job to have anyone thinking he might be sharing secrets, or publicizing a player’s carefully obscured baseball demons.
Brian Kelly and Dabo Swinney won’t be the only ones delivering team-wide pep talks to the participants in Saturday’s Cotton Bowl Classic.
Amber Selking and Milt Lowder, team psychologists for the football programs at Notre Dame and Clemson, will have their say as well. Both are on site and available for individual sessions with the Irish and the Tigers as they prepare for a national semifinal in the College Football Playoff.
This study aimed to establish between-day reliability and validity of commonly used field-based fitness tests in youth soccer players of varied age and playing standards, and to discriminate between players without (“unidentified”) or with (“identified”) a direct route to professional football through their existing club pathway. Three-hundred-and-seventy-three Scottish youth soccer players (U11–U17) from three different playing standards (amateur, development, performance) completed a battery of commonly used generic field-based fitness tests (grip dynamometry, standing broad jump, countermovement vertical jump, 505 (505COD) and T-Drill (T-Test) change of direction and 10/20 m sprint tests) on two separate occasions within 7–14 days. The majority of field-based fitness tests selected within this study proved to be reliable measures of physical performance (ICC = 0.83–0.97; p < .01). However, COD tests showed weaker reliability in younger participants (ICC = 0.57–0.79; p < .01). The field-based fitness testing battery significantly discriminated between the unidentified and identified players; χ2 (7) = 101.646, p < .001, with 70.2% of players being correctly classified. We have shown field-based fitness tests to be reliable measures of physical performance in youth soccer players. However, results from the 505COD and T-Test change of direction tests may be more variable in younger players, potentially due to complex demands of these tests and the limited training age established by these players. While the testing battery selected in this study was able to discriminate between unidentified and identified players, findings were inconsistent when attempting to differentiate between individual playing standards within the “identified” player group (development vs. performance).
Richard Zane, an emergency room physician, developed a program so that engineers can understand the clinician’s workflow before they build their products
RxRevu is one start-up that shadows Zane on the job.
In the Bay Area, it’s become common for doctors to invite technologists from Google and elsewhere to follow them on the job.
Despite intensive research, the causes of the obesity epidemic remain incompletely understood and conventional calorie-restricted diets continue to lack long-term efficacy. According to the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) of obesity, recent increases in the consumption of processed, high–glycemic-load carbohydrates produce hormonal changes that promote calorie deposition in adipose tissue, exacerbate hunger, and lower energy expenditure. Basic and genetic research provides mechanistic evidence in support of the CIM. In animals, dietary composition has been clearly demonstrated to affect metabolism and body composition, independently of calorie intake, consistent with CIM predictions. Meta-analyses of behavioral trials report greater weight loss with reduced-glycemic load vs low-fat diets, though these studies characteristically suffer from poor long-term compliance. Feeding studies have lacked the rigor and duration to test the CIM, but the longest such studies tend to show metabolic advantages for low-glycemic load vs low-fat diets. Beyond the type and amount of carbohydrate consumed, the CIM provides a conceptual framework for understanding how many dietary and nondietary exposures might alter hormones, metabolism, and adipocyte biology in ways that could predispose to obesity. Pending definitive studies, the principles of a low-glycemic load diet offer a practical alternative to the conventional focus on dietary fat and calorie restriction.
An athlete’s body is like an engine. Of course you need plenty of fuel to keep it revving properly—but calories alone aren’t enough. Vitamins and minerals function like the nuts, bolts and spark plugs. Nutrients serve to catalyze fuel burning, recovery and muscle repair and rebuilding. Just like an engine missing a nut, your body will start to sputter without them. Check out these key players crucial for athletes—and see how you can better fill up your tank.
… He’ll be the best left-handed quarterback prospect since Matt Leinart, or perhaps even Michael Vick. But in a league that favors the right more than Fox News, will the NFL’s righty preferences hurt him?
“This kid is a good player,” said Mike Williams, a former NFL personnel director who worked in front offices for 18 years. “I’ve only TV scouted him, but every time I’ve seen him, he’s dropping dimes. The accuracy really jumps out to me. The issue [with left-handers] is if they’re a middle-of-the-road guy. You just go in a different direction. But it’s different if he’s your guy.”
The Colts hit a grand slam when they hired their general manager, a rising star with a vision about how to build a team, and a plan for how to achieve it. Here’s the blueprint for how to hire a GM—and 13 top candidates for openings.
… The use of machine learning and AI in basketball represents only the latest chapter in the analytics revolution that has been transforming basketball over the last 15 or so years. “It’s just a continuation of the spectrum,” said Brian Kopp, a sports technology executive who helped Stats, LLC roll out SportsVU to the NBA during the early part of the decade.
Of course, teams had long been recording basic statistics such as points, rebounds, and assists. But with analytics, as this statistical approach is called, the stat geeks established the power of math. Wielding statistical tools, they devised new metrics and formulas that more accurately quantified and predicted player and team performance. Tune into almost any basketball game or sports talk show today, and you’ll likely hear terms like offensive efficiency and PER (player efficiency rating) rolling off the tongues of analysts as easily as “layup.”
That statistical sophistication was widespread in the NBA by the time teams first adopted tracking cameras. But the new deluge of data demanded updated techniques and software. “Along came SportsVU, and the data we captured could not be contained in Microsoft Excel,” said Kopp.
It was fitting the Roberto Firmino no-look finish returned to Anfield on the day Liverpool threatened to disappear from view in the title race. Arsenal were annihilated with a swagger and a smile and the Brazilian forward was their tormentor once again. He could not have timed a return to centre stage any better.
When Jürgen Klopp claimed Liverpool had room for improvement before Arsenal’s latest ravaging at Anfield it was his forward line, and arguably Firmino in particular, he had in mind. Liverpool’s pursuit of that elusive 19th league championship has been based so far on a formidable defence – one that has conceded only eight league goals all season – but now the forward line that carried them to last season’s Champions League final is hitting its collective stride too.
The parts are all in place. Firmino’s mesmerising display, with Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané responding in kind to the Brazilian’s prompting, provides Manchester City and Tottenham with as much cause for concern as Liverpool’s healthy lead at the Premier League summit.
Liverpool have answered every question that has been put to them this season whether it concern resolve, resilience, strength in depth, consistency or focus.