Carson Williams sat on the Western Kentucky bench on March 13, his immediate fate in the hands of his college basketball teammates. They faced North Texas in the Conference USA tournament final, with an NCAA tournament berth on the line. Odds were that the loser wouldn’t make the Big Dance as an at-large bid.
The Hilltoppers, led by possible NBA first-round draft pick Charles Bassey, were tied in the final seconds. Williams, one of WKU’s best role players, found himself at one of the biggest crossroads in his life.
Win and the senior would move on with his teammates for WKU’s first March Madness appearance since 2013. Lose and … Williams would immediately start his journey on what some thought was a hare-brained plan: to try out for the NFL.
“To make it even crazier,” Williams told Yahoo Sports, “the last time I played football was in the eighth grade.”
It was summertime, Zach Aston-Reese was back in his Pittsburgh-area condo living the bachelor life again and he was staring at significant shoulder surgery.
Expected to be idle for about six weeks and with Chipotle, Greek food and other temptations just one easy DoorDash order away, Aston-Reese was afraid of packing on pounds. That would make his road to recovery an even steeper climb.
So he turned to Ben Roethlisberger’s personal trainer for guidance.
Seven months later, the 26-year-old is arguably playing the best hockey of his NHL career and with 24 games left is just two goals shy of his single-season high.
SportRxiv Preprints; Alejandro Javaloyes, Daniel Sanabria, Manuel Moya-Ramón, Jose R. Lillo-Bevia, Manuel March from
PURPOSE: The COVID-19 crisis also affected elite sport severely, as elite athletes either stopped or drastically reduced their training regimen due to the lack of competitions and the mandatory lockdown. The aim of this study was to test whether heart rate variability was a reliable index of training load, which was dramatically altered due to the mandatory lockdown that occurred as a consequence of the COVID-19. METHODS: Training (volume and intensity) and heart rate variability of sixteen professional male (n = 8; body mass index = 22.2 ± 2.0) and female cyclists (n = 8; body mass index = 20.3 ± 1.1) before (4 weeks), during (7 weeks), and after (4 weeks) the mandatory lockdown were monitored. RESULTS: Individual analyses showed that the mandatory lockdown caused reliable reductions in training volume in 13 subjects (-96 to -7 % reductions in minutes), that were followed by an increase after the lockdown in all subjects (5 to 270%). In contrast, changes in training intensity were not homogenous across individuals. Crucially, changes in heart rate variability neither follow training load nor intensity at the individual level. CONCLUSIONS: Heart rate variability did not seem to be a reliable proxy of training load and/or intensity as many previous reports have suggested, even if training conditions changed dramatically overnight.
Engineering & Technology magazine, Jonathan Wilson from
Athletic shoe company inov-8 has unveiled the world’s first running shoes to utilise a graphene-enhanced foam, bucking the carbon plate trend and doubling the industry standard for longevity.
Collaborating with graphene experts at the University of Manchester, the UK brand is poised to launch what it is calling the biggest sports footwear innovation of 2021.
The graphene-enhanced cushioned foam, called ‘G-Fly’ is a key part of inov-8’s new trail shoe, the Trailfly Ultra G 300 Max, which is designed for ultra-marathon and long-distance runners.
Scientific tests prove that the foam infused with graphene – billed as the world’s strongest material – delivers 25 per cent greater energy return and is far more resistant to compressive wear. It therefore maintains optimum levels of underfoot bounce and comfort for much longer.
Sportico, Eben Novy-Williams and Scott Soshnick from
… Synergy Sports is the combination of three companies—Atrium Sports, Synergy Sports Technology and Keemotion. The latter two were acquired by Atrium in 2019, and the three were combined last September. Outside of Eldridge, Synergy backers include Elysian Park Ventures, a private investment firm created by Dodgers owners, including Boehly, Mark Walter, Magic Johnson and Peter Guber.
The combined company offers a range of tech solutions, from video capture and data feeds, through platforms to produce, distribute and monetize content. Synergy has league-wide deals with the NBA, MLB and all of the NCAA’s Division I men’s and women’s basketball, in addition to a presence in dozens of countries around the world.
… Simply put it’s well…a patch — think like the thing smokers use to quit — that adheres to you inner left forearm. As you workout, swirling colorful lines fill up, which means the Gatorade Gx Sweat Patch is collecting your sweat and data. When you’ve finished your workout, you scan the patch into an app, which then gives you a readout on your sweat data.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, competitive athletes have expressed substantial grief and frustration attributed to alterations in routine, limited or modified training, and the postponement of international competitions, such as the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and international championship events [1,2]. The additional strain from the removal of team support networks, which are often crucial components for stress management [1], can result in significant mental and physical health consequences including low mood, sleep disruption, worsening diet, and deconditioning [2].
The lack of attention and research on the unique mental health needs of student-athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a limited response from sporting organizations and academic institutions in addressing athlete-specific concerns.
Just days after Borussia Mönchengladbach’s under-23 coach was reportedly ordered to train the women’s team as a punishment, Germany’s top female players have demanded more clarity from the sport’s governing body.
In an open letter shared on Instagram, players from the country’s top two divisions asked for clarification.
“This verdict discriminates [against] all women in sport, especially in football,” the letter read. Heiko Vogel’s behavior was “far more than just unsportsmanlike, it was offensive and discriminatory.”
The players called on the German Football Association (DFB) to be active. “We ask you, as the highest institution in German football, to take a stand and be active. We feel insulted, discriminated and ridiculed.”
… The men’s DI tournament is literally a billion-dollar business. Turner and CBS currently pay the NCAA about $770 million per year for rights to the men’s tournament. That average will jump to $1.1 billion annually starting in 2025, thanks to an extension signed in 2016.
While it doesn’t generate anything close to the men’s tournament, the women’s tournament does bring in revenue, mainly through its own TV rights. The NCAA has a 14-year, $500 million deal with ESPN that covers a wide-ranging series of championships, including the men’s basketball National Invitational Tournament, the College World Series and the women’s basketball tournament. Though it’s not broken out by event, the contract will pay the NCAA $41.8 million this year.
West Ham manager David Moyes says his side’s renaissance has been built on becoming more “robust and energetic” – and that the next stage of their development will be to follow a “Red Bull model” of recruitment.
World Athletics is launching an innovative plan asking for everyone connected to and interested in the sport to play a part in moulding its long-term future via a massive worldwide survey.
Termed the “Global Conversation” the sport’s world governing body wants to consult with federations, athletes, coaches, officials, fans, meeting directors, partners and media to plan a roadmap for how the sport will look from 2022-2030.
… Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger had long lasting success. They worked with different coaches, doctors, analysts and adapted to ensure they moved with the times and latest thinking.
However, the average time spent by a manager at a club is 18 months. Even the managers regarded as great at one club, have struggled at others. If the manager does well other clubs want him, if he doesn’t do well clubs will sack him.
Premier League clubs paid out over £150m in compensation to sacked managers from 2016-2020. Getting the choice wrong is a bad move.
If the manager gets sacked, or hired by another club, you aren’t replacing one key person. You are replacing the entire non-playing football side of the club.
The Conversation, Paul Widdop and Simon Chadwick from
… This is football like we have never seen it before. Transnational investors – driven by financial returns in a sport fast converging with the entertainment and digital sectors – are transforming the game into a big bucks global industry. Television helped make top football clubs rich, but streaming could bring them untold riches.
COVID-19 didn’t cause football’s private equity boom, but it helped by accelerating and amplifying existing or emerging trends. As football clubs have struggled financially, investors have moved in to pick up some bargains. And as people have stayed at home, so the consumption of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have become entertainment and lifestyle staples, enhancing the relevance of such platforms for sport.
The WSF is dismayed and disappointed by the obvious disparities in treatment of the student-athletes at their respective men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments. What has already been publicly displayed includes significant differences between strength and conditioning facilities and swag bags for Division I schools, and game facilities and ticket availability for Division II schools. We call for the NCAA to review the critical decisions and organizational priorities which allowed for such visible disparities to occur, as well as to examine whether other unseen and unspoken inequities exist both within the current basketball championships and across other championships governed by the NCAA.
