Applied Sports Science newsletter – December 16, 2017

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for December 16, 2017

 

Out of Knicks’ rotation, healthy Joakim Noah admits past heights could be past

Chicago Tribune, K.C. Johnson from

… “I know what my situation is — I’m not playing. Why are we talking about something that happened like five years ago? But I definitely feel I can help.”

This is what pains Noah the most. The ultimate team player, he is trying to balance being healthy and inactive, remaining competitive while in a cheering-from-the-sidelines role.

Like close friend Derrick Rose, Noah’s fall from grace has included injuries. Noah, who had knee and left shoulder surgery while with the Bulls, spent all summer rehabbing his right shoulder after surgery repaired a torn rotator cuff. He also served a 20-game suspension for violating the league’s anti-drug policy, taking a banned over-the-counter supplement late last season.

Unlike Rose, who recently took a leave of absence from the Cavaliers to ponder his future in basketball, Noah sounds as committed as ever.

 

Tim Krumrie suffers from brain trauma but he won’t accept its fate

Cincinnati Enquirer, Jim Owczarski from

… The Krumries say they first noticed symptoms of brain trauma after Tim wasn’t able to find another coaching job after his contract with Kansas City expired after the 2010 season. He had coached the defensive lines in Cincinnati, Buffalo and Kansas City for 15 years, a nearly three-decade career in the NFL was suddenly over.

“That’s when it becomes, really, kind of scary,” he said.

Routines were broken. His brain and body slowed down.

“It all just kind of hit me,” he said. “When I was always into the football stuff, I always had that brain part working. Now, you’re gone, and then that’s when all that stuff started coming out. It was after the fact.

 

Wizards get John Wall back from knee injury after two weeks

ESPN NBA from

Wizards star John Wall is returning from a knee injury on Wednesday against the Memphis Grizzlies, according to Washington coach Scott Brooks.

The point guard will be in the starting lineup after missing more than two weeks with discomfort and inflammation in his left knee.

Wall received platelet-rich plasma and viscosupplementation injections to reduce the inflammation after the injury was diagnosed via an MRI on Nov. 24.

 

Bill Belichick talks about being a dependable teammate

Coach & Athletic Director from

… Here is the advice Belichick offered to Annapolis head football coach Nick Good-Malloy and his players:

“It’s trust. What you want is you want to trust each one of your teammates — the guy sitting next to you, the guy sitting behind you, the guy sitting across from you. You want to be able to trust that guy to do his job, and you want him to be able to trust you do to yours.

 

The Reliability and Validity of A Submaximal Warm-Up Test for Monitoring Training Status in Professional Soccer Players. – PubMed – NCBI

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research from

Two studies were conducted to assess the reliability and validity of a submaximal warm-up test (SWT) in professional soccer players. For the reliability study, 12 male players performed SWT over three trials, with one week between trials. For the validity study, 14 players of the same team performed SWT and 30-15 Intermittent Fitness Test (30-15IFT) 7 days apart. Week-to-week reliability in selected heart rate (HR) responses [exercise HR (HRex), HR recovery (HRR) expressed as the number of beats recovered within 1 min (HRR60s) and expressed as the mean HR during 1 min (HRpost1)], were determined using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and typical error of measurement expressed as coefficient of variation (CV). The relationships between HR measures derived from SWT and the maximal speed reached at the 30-15IFT (VIFT) were used to assess validity. The range for ICC and CV values were 0.83 to 0.95 and 1.4 to 7.0% in all HR measures, respectively, with the HRex as the most reliable HR measure of SWT. Inverse large (r = -0.50, 90% confidence limits, CL (-0.78; -0.06)) and very large (r = -0.76, CL, -0.90; -0.45) relationships were observed between HRex and HRpost1 with VIFT in relative (expressed as the % of maximal HR) measures, respectively. SWT is a reliable and valid submaximal test to monitor high-intensity intermittent running fitness in professional soccer players. In addition, the test’s short duration (5-min) and simplicity mean that it can be used regularly to assess training status in high-level soccer players.

 

#39 Manchester United Youth Coach Tom Statham Discusses Two Decades of Watching Young Players’ Unique Pathways to the Pros

Changing the Game Project from

… In terms of football player development, Tom has great knowledge, experience and an excellent reputation. Aligned to that, he is a kind, caring, reliable and extremely trustworthy human being who loves his football and has a mission to ensure that young players develop a love and passion for football that has sustained him all these years. 23 years service in the Academy at Manchester United is a remarkable achievement.

I first met Tom in 1994 when he joined what was then the Centre of Excellence at Manchester United as a part-time coach. Since this time he has made an immense contribution to player development at the club with his football knowledge, experience, work ethic, energy, loyalty and enthusiasm for working with young people. In over 20 years working at the club, Tom has gained a deep awareness of the history, values and culture of this great institution which he embodies in everything he does when coaching young players. [audio, 1:11:38]

 

Understanding Stress at a Deeper Level

The Dana Foundation, Kayt Sukel from

It’s long been known that chronic stress, defined as a prolonged physical, mental, or emotional factor that results bodily or psychological tension, can alter the normal trajectories of childhood brain development (See “Early Life Experience, Critical Periods, and Brain Development”), leading to increased risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. What hasn’t been known are the various mechanisms by which stress can make those changes, negative or positive, to the brain. Bruce McEwen, a pioneering neuroscientist who has spent his career studying the effects of stress, as well as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (DABI), said that stress is one of the most commonly used words in the English language, yet it means something different to each person. That’s because the effects of stress are dependent on both genetics and environment.

“There used to be a time when we argued about what was more important to development—genes or environment. But now we understand there is an almost seamless interaction between genes and the environment and that has consequences for the brain in how it responds to insults,” McEwen said. “Among those insults is something we call toxic stress, the worst form of stress. And what we are learning about how the brain responds to stress, at the molecular level, may surprise you.”

 

New England Revolution hire ex-Tottenham fitness coach

MLSsoccer.com, Sam Stejskal from

… The Revolution announced on Thursday that they’ve hired Anton McElhone as the club’s new head of fitness. McElhone spent the last 10 years with Tottenham, where he worked with Friedel while he was a goalkeeper at the club from 2011-2015.

 

A Systematic Review of the Association Between Physical Fitness and Musculoskeletal Injury Risk: Part 3 – Flexibility, Power, Speed, Balance, and Agility.

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research from

We performed a systematic review and evaluation of the existing scientific literature on the association between flexibility, power, speed, balance, and agility, and musculoskeletal injury (MSK-I) risk in military and civilian populations. MEDLINE, EBSCO, EMBASE, and the Defense Technical Information Center were searched for original studies published from 1970 through 2015 that examined associations between these physical fitness measures (flexibility, power, speed, balance, and agility) and MSK-I. Methodological quality and strength of the evidence were determined following criteria adapted from previously published systematic reviews. Twenty-seven of 4,229 citations met our inclusion criteria. Primary findings indicate there is (a) moderate evidence that hamstring flexibility, as measured by performance on a sit-and-reach test or active straight-leg raise test assessed with goniometry, and ankle flexibility, assessed with goniometry, are associated with MSK-I risk; (b) moderate evidence that lower body power, as measured by performance on a standing broad jump or vertical jump with no countermovement, is associated with MSK-I risk; (c) moderate evidence that slow sprint speed is associated with MSK-I risk; (d) moderate evidence that poor performance on a single-leg balance test is associated with increased risk for ankle sprain; and (e) insufficient evidence that agility is associated with MSK-I risk. Several measures of flexibility, power, speed, and balance are risk factors for training-related MSK-I in military and civilian athletic populations. Importantly, these findings can be useful for military, first responder, and athletic communities who are seeking evidence-based metrics for assessing or stratifying populations for risk of MSK-I.

 

Subject-specific toe-in or toe-out gait modifications reduce the larger knee adduction moment peak more than a non-personalized approach. – PubMed – NCBI

Journal of Biomechanics from

The knee adduction moment (KAM) is a surrogate measure for medial compartment knee loading and is related to the progression of knee osteoarthritis. Toe-in and toe-out gait modifications typically reduce the first and second KAM peaks, respectively. We investigated whether assigning a subject-specific foot progression angle (FPA) modification reduces the peak KAM by more than assigning the same modification to everyone. To explore the effects of motor learning on muscle coordination and kinetics, we also evaluated the peak knee flexion moment and quadriceps-hamstring co-contraction during normal walking, when subjects first learned their subject-specific FPA, and following 20 min of training. Using vibrotactile feedback, we trained 20 healthy adults to toe-in and toe-out by 5° and 10° relative to their natural FPA, then identified the subject-specific FPA as the angle where each subject maximally reduced their larger KAM peak. When walking at their subject-specific FPA, 18 subjects significantly reduced their larger KAM peak; 8 by toeing-in and 10 by toeing-out. On average, subjects reduced their larger KAM peak by 18.6 ± 16.2% when walking at their subject-specific FPA, which was more than the reductions achieved when all subjects toed-in by 10° (10.0 ± 17.1%, p = .013) or toed-out by 10° (11.0 ± 18.3%, p = .002). Quadriceps-hamstring co-contraction and the peak knee flexion moment increased when subjects first learned their subject-specific FPA, but only co-contraction returned to baseline levels following training. These findings demonstrate that subject-specific gait modifications reduce the peak KAM more than uniformly assigned modifications and have the potential to slow the progression of medial compartment knee osteoarthritis.

 

The Case for Adopting a Multivariate Approach to Optimize Training Load Quantification in Team Sports

Frontiers in Physiology from

… Despite the perceived increases in computational demands placed on practitioners, the authors feel that this multivariate approach warrants further investigation, at least initially in research, given the importance of TL measures in optimizing the preparation of team-sport players. It is then envisaged that this approach could be integrated into athlete monitoring software platforms to “combine” unique aspects of information provided by multiple TL variables. Although developing our understanding of what individual TL measures represent is important (i.e., validity), it is hoped that multivariate approaches will further develop our knowledge of the dose-response nature of TL monitoring with important training outcomes such as the changes in fitness, performance, and injury risk.

 

Prototype Experts Help With Design, Development of Wearable Technology

Assembly Magazine, Jim Camillo from

… “We’re in the wearable business, so all of our components have thin wall thicknesses,” explains [Aurelian] Nicolae. “And, we wanted to design everything to be as small as possible.”

PL produced the tiny plastic parts for Whoop’s prototype to exact dimensions and with specified features, and delivered them quickly. The minimum size machined part PL makes is 0.25-inch square and 0.04-inch thick.

“In the development phase, we tried out all sorts of sensor configurations, sizes, size locations, housing designs and how they attach to the mostly fabric bracelets,” says Nicolae. “We quickly understood how accurate we were going to be in performance measurement.”

 

Self-regulated use of a wearable activity sensor is not associated with improvements in physical activity, cardiometabolic risk or subjective health status

British Journal of Sports Medicine from

Physical activity (PA) trackers are a pervasive feature of modern life. It is expected that by 2020, sales of wearable devices will reach approximately 300 million users1 many with the intention of increasing activity by tracking daily step count and other measures of PA. We assessed whether self-regulated use of a commercial PA tracker without prescribed goals improved (1) PA, (2) cardiometabolic (CM) risk factors or (3) subjective health status (SHS).

 

When Your Fitbit Goes From Activity Tracker to Personal Medical Device

WIRED, Business, Erin Griffith from

… Fitbit’s newest product, the Ionic smartwatch, uses a blood-oxygen sensor to screen for sleep apnea and detect a type of heart arrhythmia. The company has completed clinical trials on the use cases and will submit them to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval. If it receives approval, Fitbits could replace expensive chest patch scanning to perform initial screenings for atrial fibrillation on some patients, Park says. The company’s data has been popular with cancer researchers.

There are plenty of reasons behind the company’s transition: For one, Fitbit will always battle high abandonment rates. (“Fitbit? More like Quitbit,” The Atlantic once quipped.) Fitbit’s sales of fitness trackers, and in turn, its stock price, have reflected that fatigue; revenue fell 22% last quarter and its stock is trading at a 77% discount to its opening price in 2014. But most important, the company needs to differentiate its offerings from the Apple Watch.

 

A 12 million franc donation to create a Center for Artificial Muscles

EPFL, News from

Thanks to a donation from the Werner Siemens-Foundation, EPFL will set up a Center for Artificial Muscles, collaborating initially with the University Hospital of Bern (Inselspital) and then with the University Hospital of Zurich. The first project, slated to span the next four years, will focus on developing a less invasive cardiac assistance system for treating heart failure. This prosthetic device – a ring around the aorta – will avoid the complications of hemorrhaging and thrombosis because it will not be in contact with blood. A facial-reconstruction project aimed at restoring patients’ ability to create facial expressions will follow.

 

A New Sensor Gives Driverless Cars a Human-Like View of the World

MIT Technology Review, Jamie Condliffe from

When you stare through the windshield of your car, you don’t see the world the same way a dash cam does. What you see is being warped by the inner workings of your brain, prioritizing detail at the center of the scene while keeping attention on the peripheries to spot danger. Luis Dussan thinks that autonomous cars should have that ability, too.

His startup, AEye, has built a new kind of hybrid sensor that seeks to make that possible. The device contains a solid-state lidar, a low-light camera, and chips to run embedded artificial-intelligence algorithms that can reprogram on the fly how the hardware is being used. That allows the system to prioritize where it’s looking in order to give vehicles a more refined view of the world.

 

Better ECG Interpretation Criteria Needed for Professional Basketball Players, Study Suggests

TCTMD, Todd Neale from

ECG abnormalities detected as part of a cardiac screening program mandated by the National Basketball Association (NBA) were found in 15.6% of active players and potential draftees, a new analysis shows. This suggests not that there is a high rate of dangerous health problems in the league but rather that ECG interpretation criteria need to be better refined to reflect normal structural changes that accompany intensive training in professional athletes.

“When we compare the ECG data with matched echocardiographic data, we see that their hearts are actually normal and these abnormal ECGs are false-positive ECGs,” senior author David Engel, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY), told TCTMD, noting that no cases of structural heart disease were found.

“It shows that the ECG in isolation is not necessarily a perfect test to be used for screening basketball players,” he added.

 

Physical Therapy Crucial to Regenerating Cartilage in Groundbreaking Andrews Institute Clinical Trial

Andrews Institute from

Orthopaedic surgeons will tell you that surgery is only half of the battle, and that physical therapy is as important or more important to the patient’s recovery. While this is true for any orthopaedic surgical procedure, the physical therapy, specifically staged weight bearing physical therapy, is paramount to the groundbreaking clinical trial evaluating the use of stem cells to regenerate knee cartilage at Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine.

The FDA observed clinical trial, led by Adam Anz, M.D., involves three crucial steps: the surgical procedure, multiple injections of the patient’s own stem cells, and the physical therapy.

“One recurring theme of orthopaedic surgery is that form follows function,” said Dr. Anz. “While we’ve known this for sometime regarding bone maintenance and healing, we’ve also found that with healing tissues such as cartilage you have to stimulate the cartilage with weight bearing so that it heals appropriately as it grows. We’ve found that loading the cartilage (with weight-bearing physical therapy) is the way to get good cartilage to heal (and grow), as we’ve been supplementing it with our body’s own stem cells.”

 

Performance Summit: Hamstring Return to Performance Markers

Kitman Labs from

Senior rehabilitation coach of Leinster Rugby, Diarmaid Brennan, discusses his approach to managing recovery from hamstring injuries during Kitman Labs’ 2017 European Summit. Using a strong science-led approach, Diarmaid shares his own experience of hamstring injuries within a professional Rugby environment and how this led him to create a robust return to play plan that includes key return to performance markers. Through his approach Diarmaid has strived not only to help the athlete recover but to make them stronger and more robust than before. [link to video, 34:33]

 

Implications of high ankle sprains in college athletes

Lower Extremity Review Magazine from

High ankle sprains in collegiate athletes differ from lateral or medial ankle sprains in multiple clinically relevant ways. These include loss of sports participation time, mechanism of injury, rates of injury during competition versus practices, and the possible long-term risk of osteoarthritis.

 

Rising pressure of high school sports carries long-term health risks

High School OT, UNC Media Hub from

… “(If an) athlete specializes in one particular sport, you’re doing the same movements over, and over and over again,” said Adam Wall, Clayton High School’s head athletic trainer. “So that definitely creates the mechanism for more catastrophic injuries to occur.”

But for most athletes, the chances of seeing specialization pay off are low. Only 2 percent of high school athletes receive a college scholarship, and only 2 percent of those athletes play professionally in the major league of their respective sport, according to the NCAA. The health risks are high for such a narrow chance of those dreams becoming a reality.

 

The Second Scoop on Protein: When, What and How Much?

NASM Blog, Fabio Comana from

Drinking a protein shake after resistance-training is a popular nutritional strategy adopted by many fitness enthusiasts and athletes to boost muscle protein synthesis (MPS), but does evidence support this practice, and if so, then what type of protein is best, how much should be ingested and when should it be consumed?

 

The misunderstood relationship between a nation’s league and its national team

Howler Magazine, Pardeep Cattry from

… The two have some goals in common, and together can make for a very strong soccer nation, but the two are genuinely separate entities.

One thing a nation’s team and a league can have in common is youth development. This is a priority for a national program, and it needs the clubs in the league structure to aid in the process with their academies. Leagues can focus on playing homegrown talent, and in Serie A, among other leagues, that has been the case.

Other than that, the ambitions of the national team and the country’s leagues do not really correspond.

 

U.S. Olympic Committee Collegiate Advisory Council Sets Course of Direction

United States Olympic Committee from

… “As we begin our work together, it is essential the student-athlete and coach voices are heard and at the heart of our planning,” said Kevin White, USOC board member and vice president and director of athletics at Duke University. “Their perspective, as well as others, will be invaluable as we work together to smoothen and strengthen the pathway to the podium.”

The CAC represents the latest high performance initiative taken by the USOC to increase collaboration with NCAA member institutions and conferences to elevate national engagement and support of Olympic sport opportunities. Chaired by White, the 10-member council is comprised of collegiate administrators who advocate for broad-based Olympic sport programming at the collegiate level and represent institutions that have historically contributed to Team USA’s success at the Olympic Games.

 

Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich leveraged big deals to build university into sports powerhouse only to watch it burn amid charges of excess

ESPN The Magazine, Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada from

ON THE MORNING of Sept. 26, more than two dozen Adidas employees gathered inside a gym at the University of Louisville. They had flown in from as far away as Europe — marketers and athletic performance specialists, top designers from Adidas’ secretive Brooklyn Creator Farm. They were participating in a weeklong workshop to imagine gear, products and advertising built around Louisville’s most valuable commodity: the men’s basketball team.

The exercise was meant to simulate the vision behind a $160 million partnership between Adidas and Louisville, which had been announced the previous month. One of the largest all-school sponsorship agreements in Adidas’ history, it was much more than a shoe deal. In internal strategy documents, Louisville vowed to “write the next chapter for college athletics, for streetwear and fashion.” Adidas, a $7.9 billion corporation, would have access not only to the university’s amateur athletes but also to the business, law and music schools to help create and market new products.

As the participants prepared for Day 2, Julianne Waldron, Louisville’s associate athletic director of marketing and an architect of the deal, received a call.

“Julianne, there’s a story that just broke. You need to read it,” said a public relations official. “It has to do with Adidas.”

 

In trading for Jahlil Okafor, the Brooklyn Nets follow a familiar path

The Washington Post, Tim Bontemps from

… [Sean] Marks has spent the past 18 months solely focused on accumulating as many assets as he can. That’s meant taking on bad contracts to add draft picks. That’s meant throwing big-money offer sheets to restricted free agents such as Tyler Johnson, Allen Crabbe, Donatas Motiejunas and Otto Porter. And that’s meant making trades such as Thursday’s, when Marks sent Trevor Booker — and his $9 million expiring contract — to the Philadelphia 76ers for Jahlil Okafor, Nik Stauskas and a 2019 second-round pick.

“It’s about having some patience, the need for patience” Marks said here Thursday, before his Nets beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 100-95, in front of a sellout crowd at Mexico City Arena. “We’re not trying to get this all back in one fell swoop or anything like that. We’ll see what opportunities arise over the next year or 18 months, two years, three years and so forth. [That is] the same thing we’ve done over the last 18 months.

 

The art of reinvention

Glory Magazine (UK) from

At its simplest, football is a gloriously rudimentary sport. You leave the big guys at the back, stick the guys that can run out wide, add a couple of tough tacklers in the middle and a speed merchant or two up front. It’s good, clean, brainless fun – and you can see similar tactical set-ups everywhere from the local park to the Parc des Princes.

But there’s a reason coaches like Cruyff, Bielsa and Guardiola are admired and revered the world over, and that players like Beckenbauer, Yashin and Gullit have left an indelible mark on the game. The very best minds in football don’t see the sport like you or I. They don’t see 11 players in 11 rigid roles – they see space to exploit, angles to attack, and positions to reinterpret. These visionaries glanced at the football rule book, and tore it up – inventing a host of new positions in the process.

 

Failure to complete – Numbers behind the rate of withdrawals and retirements on ATP Tour

ESPN Tennis, Amy Lundy from

… In London, gone were Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, the two top players in 2016. Gone too were Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori, also top-five players from a season ago. Djokovic and Murray, in particular, skipped a good part of the season to manage injuries and fatigue. But the more glaring stat revolved around lower-ranked players — those who don’t pull in the same kind of cash as the top stars. Retiring mid-match increased, as did walkovers, a number that has doubled in Grand Slams over the past 25 years.

When Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were beginning their ascent in 1992, withdrawals and retirements were rare. Just 13 players called it quits that season — or 2.56 percent of the field. This year, there were 28 withdrawals/retirements at majors (5.51 percent).

Why the increased trend? We take a deeper look at the numbers:

 

College football strength coaches flex more financial muscle

USA Today Sports, Tom Schad and Steve Berkowitz from

Coaching salaries are rising across college football — and those in the weight room are no exception.

According to USA TODAY Sports’ annual survey of strength coach pay, nine Football Bowl Subdivision strength and conditioning coaches are making $400,000 or more in 2017, nearly twice as many as last year (five). Iowa’s Chris Doyle again leads the group with an annual pay of $675,000, giving him a higher annual salary than 27 FBS head coaches.

Doyle, who is in his 19th season as the Hawkeyes’ head strength and conditioning coach, is also eligible to receive a $54,000 raise for 2018, according to his contract. Iowa’s nine full-time assistants, strength coach, top assistant strength coach and director of football operations each receive an automatic 8% raise if the team wins seven games, plays in a bowl game and achieves a graduation success rate of 67.5%.

 

Haley Alvarez becomes A’s first female talent evaluator

San Francisco Chronicle, Susan Slusser from

The A’s, a leader in front-office diversity, recently welcomed back a former front-office intern as the team’s new scouting coordinator.

Haley Alvarez, 24, is the second woman to work in the A’s scouting department and is the first tasked with talent evaluation; Kate Greenthal was an analytics assistant in 2012. Pam Pitts, who has spent 37 years with the team, was the first woman to be named a director in a baseball front office when she became director of baseball administration 26 years ago. Oakland also hired Justine Seigal as the first woman to coach with a major-league team when she worked with A’s minor-leaguers for two weeks during their instructional league in Arizona in 2015.

 

Case Keenum, Adam Thielen, and Undrafted Passing Games

Football Perspective, Chase Stuart from

The Minnesota Vikings have a pretty good passing game: through 14 weeks, the Vikings rank in the top 10 in both ANY/A and passer rating. What makes it really weird is that the top two members of the passing game — the quarterback and leading receiver — were both undrafted free agents. Case Keenum went undrafted in 2012 after a stellar career at the University of Houston. The Vikings leading receiver is Adam Thielen, who went undrafted in 2013 out of Minnesota State–Mankato. Together, they are the driving force behind the 2017 Vikings efficient passing attack.

 

On Toronto FC, MLS and the football analytics movement

Richard Whittall, Front Office Report blog from

… I’ve made the argument before, but it’s worth repeating now: though there are apparent competitive limitations to a league without relegation, one of the significant positives is that it provides an incentive for teams to experiment, to try to put into place a winning process and refine it over time comfortable in the knowledge the bottom won’t suddenly fall out from under them.

It was a personal thrill for me to see, albeit as an amateur viewing from very far away on the sidelines, that process slowly come into place at a club that was once as awful and useless as Toronto FC. I don’t think it would have been possible without the buy-in from TFC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko, who is as open to the advantages and drawbacks of analytics as any GM I’ve ever spoken to, nor without the open-mindedness of manager Greg Vanney.

 

Finding Marco

21st Club Limited, Ben Marlow from

We are beginning to appreciate the substantial impact that a good manager or head coach may have on our prospects over a season, and those that have had high-profile success are becoming increasingly desirable. Take Marco Silva for example, who was recently subject to a £10m offer to buy him out of his current obligations. His popularity is understandable in light of the impact that he has had on both of the teams that he has managed in the Premier League.

Silva’s performance, like Pochettino’s before him, is well known but the exciting thing is that there are many other managers who have had a similar or even bigger impact on their teams who are rarely, if ever, talked about. The main difference is that they have done this outside of the division that the boardrooms know best.

 

USA Cycling defines new national team with set criteria

Cyclingnews.com, Immediate Media, Ben Delaney from

… The US came away from the last Olympic Games in Rio with five Olympic medals and a couple of narrow podium misses. The goal for the next Olympics in Tokyo is seven medals, said Jim Miller, USA Cycling’s vice president of high performance.

“Our vision is to be the best in the world — in the field of play, but also in developing athletes through coaching and mentoring and resources,” Miller said.

The country’s best opportunities for Olympic medals are with the women’s track and road squads — the American women are the reigning team pursuit world champions — and with men’s and women’s BMX programs, said Bouchard-Hall, who allowed that the US men’s program isn’t a favorite for the Olympics.

 

The Future Of The WNBA Would Be Helped By Higher Pay Today

Forbes, David Berri from

A few months ago, I argued there is a significant gender-wage gap in professional basketball. While the NBA gives 50% of its revenue to its players, it appears the WNBA pays out only about 20% of its revenue.

Not surprisingly, several WNBA players responded to that story with calls for higher pay. Nneka Ogwumike noted specifically that the players should set a goal of receiving 50% of league revenue, telling ESPN: “Knowing how far we need to go, that’s a good marker. If you just think of it from a principle standpoint, it makes sense. Hopefully we can work toward that.”

Obviously the players want more money. But I think they are not the only people who should want the WNBA players to be paid better.

I think the WNBA should want to see its players paid better.

 

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