It is hard to find a family that lives and breathes football as much as that of Carlos Álvarez and his wife, Renae Cuéllar. Both play professionally: Álvarez with Landon Donovan’s newly formed San Diego Loyal, in the United Soccer League, the tier below MLS, and Cuéllar for Tijuana in the thriving Mexican top flight and for Mexico.
But the football roots run deeper. Álvarez’s father, who played in the Mexican second division, made sure there was always a football at the feet of Carlos and his five other children. By the age of four Álvarez was “playing-playing, like 11 v 11”. He became the first member of his family to graduate from university, then was selected as the second overall pick in the SuperDraft, by Chivas USA, in 2013.
His elder brother is a top coach and one of his three younger brothers, the 17-year-old Efraín, was described last year by his former LA Galaxy teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic as “by far the biggest talent in the MLS”.
… “I think that’s a big question and it’s a question everybody has asked since he came into the league,” said Jeff Reinebold on Inside the Huddle.
“He’s fought injuries his whole career. Obviously there have been flashes of him looking like a top 10 quarterback and there have been times, too many times, where he’s been carted off the field or limped off the field.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why they went out and got Jalen Hurts in the draft.
“This is an Eagles team that has got to stay healthy. If they stay healthy this can be a very good football team.”
During nearly three months away from the Penn State campus and his teammates, quarterback Sean Clifford had worked on ways to help the Nittany Lions improve on last year’s 11-win season.
It was all about “trying to find that inch,” Clifford said. It was about looking for any advantage he can to move the Lions ahead of their Big Ten rivals, Ohio State and Michigan, as well as the nation’s best, being the most effective team training and studying from home.
“This is the key for the best teams. I’m very demanding, the same as Pep. I want them to be at 100% in every training session & sometimes, there’s players who in the end don’t like this intensity. It’s not physical but psychological — giving 100% all the time.” [thread]
LaMar “Soup” Campbell has been a valuable member of the Bears organization since he was hired as director of player engagement in 2017.
But with COVID-19 and widespread civil unrest following George Floyd’s death creating stress, tumult and uncertainty, Campbell’s work with Bears players has never been more crucial—or appreciated.
“I do think it’s very important that his name is recognized because this is life,” said coach Matt Nagy. “This isn’t football. That is why he’s our director of player engagement. He does a really, really good job of understanding what these players are going through on a daily basis, not even just in 2020 but in prior years. He builds unbelievably great relationships with them. They trust. They understand.
Sports Illustrated, Packer Central blog, Bill Huber from
In scouting lingo, new Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love can really spin the football.
Thanks to Zebra Technologies, that phrase can be quantified.
Zebra will be entering its seventh season as the official player tracking technology partner of the NFL. With its radio frequency identification chips – more widely known as RFID chips – embedded in the shoulder pads and footballs, Zebra is leading a data-driven revolution of the game.
Dallas Morning News, Callie Caplan and Greg Riddle from
Recent interviews with a dozen local football coaches — representing different areas, districts and classifications — provided a glimpse into the unprecedented planning and obstacles that loom.
University of Connecticut, Korey Stringer Institute from
“Return to Sports and Exercise during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Guidance for High School and Collegiate Athletic Programs” was created to serve as a resource for sport organizations, high schools, and college sport programs to return to sports safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
University of California-Davis, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kathey Keatley Garvey from
“Food for thought” shouldn’t just be a thought; it should be an integral part of any school curriculum,” says UC Davis agricultural entomologist Christian Nansen, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
In a newly published article on “The School of Food” in Futurum, Nansen advocates that all school curricula be “rooted in a single dominator: food.”
Biology, ecology and environmental science should be “taught based on subjects related to the growth of plants and animals,” Nansen writes. Literature, history, sociology and humanities should focus on “the importance of food concepts, like ‘breaking bread,’ feasts and banquets.”
… But why do we care so much about crowd noise, and why do many of us feel we need it?
It’s because it bonds us with members of our tribe, provides us a sense of connection, and acts as a psychological cue for when to pay particular attention to the action, like a goal opportunity. Without it, sport just doesn’t seem as exciting.
… In the absence of in-person organizational meetings, Braves scouts are having weekly three-hour Zoom calls. With crosscheckers and top decision makers unable to get a final look on prospects, Brown is relying more heavily on area scouts who may have seen players earlier this spring. Analysts are gathering whatever tracking data they can for a statistical perspective. Brown’s philosophy for choosing players is to “weigh all the evidence”—but there’s less information to consider with seasons having ended abruptly in March.
“You can piece it together and have some comfort with it,” Brown says. “I would think we have seen almost all of the prospects at least one or two times by different scouts, so it’s not a total train wreck.”
Transfer Room is being used by 13 clubs in the English top flight, as well as others from around the world, to conduct business in a coronavirus-affected environment
With discussions ongoing over whether the U.S. Open or the French Open can even take place later this year, a new digitally friendly tennis tournament starts Saturday in southern France with four Top 10-ranked players involved.
Co-founder Patrick Mouratoglou hopes the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) — whose first edition features ATP Finals winner Stefanos Tsitsipas and U.S. Open semifinalist Matteo Berrettini — can change the way tennis is viewed by allowing a younger audience to access the raw feelings of players.