… “I don’t really notice fans when the game’s going on, but warming up and practice before games, I mean for me it’s nice not having fans in the stands,” Greinke said Tuesday before Game 3 of the AL Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays. “Most people like it. When the game comes on it’s the same for me.”
Asked to explain, he said: “Because then there’s no one there to talk to you and ask for autographs and want pictures and all that stuff. I don’t like to do that stuff. It’s nice not having them, for me. Most people like it. I don’t like it.”
… The original Dec. 1 target start date is absolutely not happening, and Adam Silver said recently that the league was looking at early 2021 to begin next season, which will officially be the 2020-21 campaign, even though it will happen exclusively in 2021. As for a specific date, Jan. 18 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — is now the new target, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic.
Once Silver said the league was looking at some time in January, MLK Day always seemed like the logical choice. It’s become an increasingly important date on the NBA calendar over the past few years and presents an easy way for the league to turn opening night into a real event. As for when we’ll know for sure, Hollinger noted that the league is planning to give teams eight weeks notice ahead of the start of the season, which would mean Nov. 23.
After nailing down the start date, the league then has to move on to the more challenging prospect of actually designing the schedule
… “I welcome the challenge,” Pietrangelo said on a video call Tuesday. “I welcome something new. I think it’s going to push me to become a better player. I think it’s going to hopefully get me outside my comfort zone to certainly try something that I’ve never done before. This is a good team, and I think I can really help.”
The Golden Knights bent over backwards to trade other players and court and sign the 30-year-old defenseman simply because he makes them a much better team. Pietrangelo led all playoff players in assists during his Cup run, scored a career-high 16 goals last season and was fourth in voting for the Norris Trophy as the league’s best on the blue line.
Pietrangelo considered other destinations but only visited Vegas and signed there because of the chance to win, a contract worth more per year than St. Louis offered and control over his future in the form of a “no-movement” clause that’s even more powerful than no-trade protection because it means a player can’t be waived, either.
Lehigh University, The Brown and White student newspaper, Sharon Jo from
With the indefinite shutdown of all Lehigh athletics last week due to COVID-19 cases on and off-campus, teams are now back to training remotely.
Though the Patriot League had already canceled all fall sports competitions in July, teams had slowly transitioned from voluntary, individual personal training slots to full team practices with COVID-19 regulations, both of which are now on pause.
Sophomore women’s lacrosse attacker Katia Carnevale said the difference between a typical start to her season and the unusual, secluded format of this fall’s training with no contact drills and small group sizes was stark.
Dartmouth University, The Dartmouth student newspaper, Ethan Strauss and Vikram Strander from
On-campus student-athletes have begun ramping up their practices to prepare for potential seasons this winter or spring. Most teams are entering phase two of the athletic department’s three-phase return-to-sport protocol, which was designed in conjunction with Ivy League policies.
For the first two weeks of fall term, Big Green teams lingered in “phase zero,” or a moratorium on in-person practice due to the mandatory quarantine period for all returning students, according to head athletic trainer Ben Schuler, who oversees the group planning a safe return to sports. On Sept. 28, the teams entered phase one, which focused on individual strength and conditioning.
Now, many teams are entering phase two on a sport-by-sport basis. The second phase allows for sport-specific, socially distanced small group instruction with limited shared equipment. The timetable for returning to normal practice activities in phase three is conditional on a number of potential health developments in both the Upper Valley and the country as a whole, according to Schuler.
… Silver’s message for kids today: What you learn from playing sports matters more than winning and becoming a star – now more than ever as mental health challenges grow during the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down many sports opportunities for kids. “We’re in a very difficult time for youth sports right now,” he said. “Health and safety are understandably the top priorities. But it’s also a health issue if kids are not participating in life.”
The No. 1 outcome parents said they want from their child playing sports is positive mental health, according to a recent Aspen Institute/Utah State University survey. A study by the University of Wisconsin found that 65% of adolescent athletes have reported anxiety symptoms during the pandemic, with 25% suffering moderate or severe anxiety. Team-sport athletes who come from high-poverty homes reported higher levels of anxiety and depression than those who live in wealthier households.
Athletes increasingly relying on a coach over the course of a season may be a sign that they aren’t progressing in their development, according to new research from Binghamton University.
On the other hand, inspirational coaches will find that their athletes will become less reliant on them over time.
“Being increasingly needed by your athletes as time goes on is not a good sign,” says Chou-Yu Tsai, assistant professor of management in Binghamton University’s School of Management. “If your athletes no longer need your leadership and guidance as time goes on, that should be seen as a positive sign that you’ve helped them in their development.”
The NFL’s chief medical officer came down hard Tuesday against shifting to a bubble environment amid the league’s run of positive COVID-19 test results, saying it wouldn’t be foolproof and citing the mental health risks of an extended period of social isolation.
Dr. Allen Sills reiterated during a conference call that the league has been discussing the bubble option since March, long before it was successfully implemented by multiple professional leagues across North America, including the NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLS and NWSL. He said the league hasn’t ruled out the option of a bubble later this season
We think so much about nutrition when it comes to our physical health, such as how many calories or grams of protein we need to consume to gain this much muscle mass or lose this much fat.
With the topic of mental health being talked about more and more, it is important to consider how much our gut plays into the state of our psychological well-being.
We know the importance of the mind-muscle connection in weight training, now it is time to examine the mind-gut connection and the role it plays in our overall health.
One of the most important factors for a successful and fulfilling cross country season is nailing down and honoring your nutritional needs. You won’t be able to run very far or fast without enough of the right nutrients, and it won’t be any fun if you aren’t enjoying what you eat!
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of contradicting and fallacious information floating around out there about how distance runners should and shouldn’t fuel to run fast. We talked to registered dietician and distance runner Sarah Schlichter, author behind the nutrition blog Bucket List Tummy and co-host of the Nail Your Nutrition podcast, to get the facts straight about the best way to eat and nourish your body during the cross country season.
… Records aside, what is the best way to gauge how a team will do in the playoffs and ultimately contend for MLS Cup? It’s not winning the Supporters’ Shield or necessarily having a winning record. After all, teams that do well in the regular season very often fail to carry that momentum into the playoffs.
Tactics and the number of fouls a team commits can offer a window into what it takes to win a championship. Last season, for example, the top three teams who committed the most fouls during the regular season were New York City FC (467), followed by the Portland Timbers (459) and the New England Revolution (435). Meanwhile, Toronto committed the fewest with 330. Seattle committed the second-fewest fouls with 346.
Prescott was carted off the field Sunday with a compound fracture in his ankle. It brings a sudden end to the Cowboys QB’s season—and poses questions about what’s next for Dak, for Dallas, and for their future together.
Women’s gymnastics has a decades-old, reform-resistant culture of abuse. It’s hard to see a solution when child abuse isn’t an exception in women’s gymnastics – it’s the logical consequence.
A big six takeover by stealth? Or a much-needed reform to protect the future of the football pyramid? Welcome to the ‘Project Big Picture’ debate over a possible Premier League revamp.
But what do the radical proposals – which have been criticised by the Premier League, the government and supporters’ groups – actually involve?
Making Sense Of: Social Determinants of Fitness
Social Determinants of Health is a term, and an idea, that has been gaining traction since the pandemic forced so many people into increased social isolation. Because SDOH still does not have a consensus definition, it means different things to different people.
It’s interesting to see how widely applied the term is, but any insight is necessarily hazy and vauge. I’ve seen the term come up in articles about social media, about social justice, about the current pandemic, and about insurance. It’s all over the place, but for the most part it comes from a place that is data-aware and evidence-based.
In that hazy, vague, data-literate spirit I am going to stretch the concept to include Social Determinants of Fitness (SDOF). You can point to subjects like athlete buy-in but also to ideas like the link between sleep quality and loneliness. The psycho-social dimensions of health and sports are ripe for inquiring in both SDOH and SDOF, and because so much of athletic training involves learning, psycho-social aspects might be even more pronounced in sports, especially youth sports.
It will be a challenge for athlete management systems to capture and express SDOF cogently. But I think that doing so will bring depth and nuance to the insights those systems are capable of providing.