Month: January 2014

olympic sports, winter sports

SportsMyriad’s Sochi plans

Posted on by Beau Dure

Overwhelmed by Olympic coverage? Looking for one place that will give you the basic who, what and how (where and when are pretty much assumed — February in Sochi) of the 2014 Winter Games?

That’s what we’re going to do here. And I do mean “we” for real this time. I’ve got a handful of people joining me to give short, sweet recaps of every Olympic medal event and many of the preliminary events.

I still have a couple of openings in the schedule. If you’re a journalism student looking for a little bit of experience writing the concise copy that your future employers will demand, or if you’re an Olympic geek who needs an excuse to take the household TV at 3 a.m., this is an ideal opportunity.

So be sure to add the SportsMyriad feed to Feedly or your favorite reader in the post-Google Reader era, or just check out the duresport Twitter feed, where all new posts will be tweeted. And if you’re interested in writing, please get in touch.

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college sports, sports culture

College sports 2020: A plausible fantasy

Posted on by Beau Dure

Jan. 6, 2020 …

Alabama defeated Montana 35-34 tonight to win its third straight NCAA football championship.

The Crimson Tide’s experience in big games proved to be the difference against Montana, which made the NCAA playoffs for the first time after winning the Western Football League championship.

But the Grizzlies earned plenty of respect for the second-year WFL with their performance. The WFL was founded in 2017 after the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences stopped organizing football competition.

The championship pairing showed how much has changed since Northwestern University football players won the right to organize as a labor group in 2014. The cost of football became too much for many colleges. Alabama and the SEC continued, with some programs taking direct help from state legislatures willing to do whatever it took to keep beloved traditions alive.

Football and basketball, though, are the only men’s sports the SEC schools play in the wake of a court ruling that all money spent meeting new labor regulations for football players would be considered in all future Title IX proceedings. Georgia now has 22 women’s sports programs, adding teams in synchronized swimming, team handball and roller hockey in an effort to balance the ledger between men’s and women’s teams in proportion to the student body.

At other schools, many of whom were already losing money on football before the Northwestern ruling, the former nonrevenue sports have struggled to take center stage. Notre Dame’s soccer teams moved into the otherwise vacant Notre Dame stadium, never managing to fill more than half of the cavernous structure.

Fearful of other labor movements and a possible downswing in alumni interest, many athletic departments continued wholesale cuts in their sports programs. Only 14 schools competed in Division I wrestling last season.

Many schools attempted to continue in other Division I sports while fielding a Division III football team. The NCAA refused to allow this move for reasons that are still unclear.

Meanwhile, Montana and a handful of other colleges saw an opportunity to make a name for themselves as the rest of the college football structure collapsed. They invested heavily in football, cutting all other men’s sports, even basketball.

The NCAA’s response to the crisis was hindered by its inability to find a new president. The job was offered to Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, but he was critically injured laughing at the news.

0
soccer

MLS history books: The next generation

Posted on by Beau Dure

When I wrote Long-Range Goals, I said the following: “If this is the only MLS book on a bookstore shelf in 2011, that’s disappointing.”

Not sure about your local bookstore, but mine doesn’t even stock Long-Range Goals. The “soccer” section is usually a collection of dubious books on European stars, a few how-to-coach books ranging from mildly helpful to dangerously flimsy, and possibly something on Mia Hamm. Of course, I don’t venture into bookstores that often because (A) I’ve embraced my Kindle and (B) the front displays are always best-selling political punditry written with neither any discernible effort or concern for anyone outside a narrow agenda. But I digress …

Thankfully, we do have some more entries in the MLS history genre. The new effort is Sounders FC: AUTHENTIC MASTERPIECE: The Inside Story Of The Best Franchise Launch In American Sports History by Seattle broadcaster Mike Gastineau. When I saw the press releases for that one, I figured I should finally get around to checking out an older entry in the genre, Steve Sirk’s A Massive Season, the chronicle of the Columbus Crew’s 2008 championship season.

And I owe Sirk several apologies. He’s one of the good guys in soccer media, and I should’ve gotten to this book much sooner. Also, I somehow created exactly the same book cover for Enduring Spirit that he used for A Massive Season. Same template, same modifications to the template. Different photo, of course, and different primary color. Everything else was the same.

I was intimidated away from reading A Massive Season by its massive size. It’s more than 450 pages. If you took two copies on a plane, you’d probably be charged for an overweight bag.

But it’s an easy, fun read — or skim, if you prefer to read a few sections of the season. It’s a collection of Sirk’s witty and informative notebooks on the team, supplemented and annotated after the season. One of the entries written after the fact is compelling — it’s the story of the Crew’s plane encountering powerful turbulence and aborting a landing, leaving even the hardened travelers on the plane in a quivering mix of nerves and nausea.

(Eerie coincidence: The one time I’ve ever been on a plane that aborted a landing, it was a small plane similar to the one the Crew was on, and I was traveling back from Columbus after covering the USA-Mexico game in 2009. Winds were extreme all over the East Coast, and a Colgan Air plane crashed that night near Buffalo (though the investigation attributed the causes to pilot error and ice). I was on that plane with the ESPN commentary crew of JP Dellacamera and John Harkes. JP was astoundingly calm. John and I were both a bit more rattled. John did mention that he had seen worse when the USA’s plane landed in Central America despite a warning to divert elsewhere. We bumped into each other again while waiting for parking lot shuttles. He mentioned what a rough ride it had been. I quipped: “Really? I didn’t notice.” He was stunned for a moment before I said I was kidding — I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified.)

Sirk gets terrific details from those who were on the plane. Before the situation got too serious, players joked with devout Christian Eddie Gaven to put in a good word for everyone else when they all ventured to the pearly gates in a few minutes. The Trillium Cup (Columbus-Toronto rivalry) wasn’t on the plane — players joked later that the lack of such a heavy trophy may have saved their lives.

Throughout Sirk’s notebooks, he benefits from being inside the locker room (an option we women’s soccer writers don’t have) to catch the teasing and bonding within the squad. Frankie Hejduk is every bit the colorful character you’d expect him to be. Danny O’Rourke is like a hockey enforcer — snarling pit bull on the field, good-hearted fun-loving guy off it.

The whole of the book will appeal more to a hard-core Crew fan than it will to a casual MLS fan. Nothing wrong with that. Every championship season deserves its retrospectives and celebratory words. Maybe we could collect edited versions to celebrate the league’s first 20 champions … hmmm … new book idea …

Gastineau has no MLS champion to celebrate just yet. And the hyperbolic title does the book no favors. Given the reputation of Seattle fans (some, of course, not all) to pull attitudes in online discussions with people who’ve been supporting MLS through some dark years, it’s easy to imagine people outside the Northwest scoffing at the title and studiously avoiding any mention of it.

And that’s a shame, because the book is better than its title. Sure, it’s very friendly to the Sounders. But it rarely makes its point at the expense of other teams. This isn’t the ranting of some Internet braggart who doesn’t realize MLS teams have had supporters groups and tifo all along.

A better title might have been Sounders FC: The Perfect Storm — except that the “Seattle Storm” name is already in use elsewhere. The Sounders didn’t create the atmosphere they have through some innate superiority of Seattle fans. It came about through having the right people in the right place at the right time.

– A USL owner and soccer fanatic who had taught himself how to run a team effectively
and efficiently. (Adrian Hanauer)

– A movie mogul who really wanted to own a soccer team. (Joe Roth)

– An entertainer whose idea of a good time was to drop him to a soccer bar and pick up
the tab. (Drew Carey)

– An NFL team (Seahawks) with a civic-minded owner (Paul Allen) and some soccer fans
(Gary Wright) lurking in the administration.

– A convoluted history of stadium deals that left Seattle with a stadium that had been
built with the promise (and field dimensions) of soccer as well as football.

The book’s chapters aren’t linear. They tell stories of different aspects of the team’s construction. The reader also meets Sigi Schmid and Kasey Keller.

And we learn a few fun behind-the-scenes stories. Why didn’t the Sounders release doves at their first game as they had originally planned? Because they wisely did a dress rehearsal the week before. That’s when they discovered that the hawks around the stadium were rather aggressive. And so the first home game in Sounders MLS history was not spoiled by dead birds.

These are the fun stories that should be part of MLS lore. Without these books, we’d lose all that. So even if you’re not a fan of Seattle or Columbus, raise a glass to Sirk and Gastineau for the work they’ve done.

1
soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Dissension in the ranks

Posted on by Beau Dure

A few sessions at the NSCAA convention made a couple of things clear to me:

1. Not everyone’s buying into the U.S. Soccer curriculum.

2. Not everyone’s buying into the Development Academy.

Tackling the second point first: A session on the Development Academy and high school soccer, which have been separated for all eternity by the U.S. Soccer powers that be, turned into a gripe session about the Academy.

One of the gripers is Steve Nichols (no, not Steve Nicol), a Baltimore coach who ditched the successful Baltimore Bays to form a new club called Baltimore Celtic, which is heavily populated by ex-Bays. He’s also a high school coach at McDonogh, one of several strong Baltimore teams, and he didn’t see the point in barring his players from high school play, particularly when the Academy only gave his Bays 4-5 challenging games. He’d rather take his Celtic teams to big tournaments all over the place (sponsorship helps).

Nichols may come across as outlandish, but the standings back up his claim that his Bays cruised through their Academy divisions. (They’re a little less dominant now that so many players have gone to Celtic.) And he’s not alone — Alecko Eskandarian, the MLS veteran and former Philadelphia Union youth technical director now working with the New York Cosmos, said he “cringes at the thought” of some of the lesser clubs being called “academies.”

Nichols also didn’t like top-down approach from administrators who weren’t distinguished players or coaches: “Why should (they) tell Alecko Eskandarian and Jeff Cook (Union coach, another panelist) what to do?”

No one on the panel was much of a fan of denying Academy kids the high school experience. Eskandarian said he needed to play high school and have responsibility. Colorado coach Theresa Echtermeyer said she’s going to her 20-year high school reunion, not her 20-year soccer club reunion.  (That said, Eskandarian also liked what the Union was doing in setting up a high school along with its Academy program.)

How does all this affect the single-digit years? Indirectly, sure. But Academy programs continue to trickle down into “pre-Academy” years as well, as do rivals such as Baltimore Celtic, which has tryouts all the way down to U8.

And the resistance against the top-down approach to youth soccer is clear elsewhere as well. In some cases, no one ever tried to push it seriously — for all the talk of trying to hold off on competitive soccer at young ages, those of us at a recreational soccer session agree that our tryout-based soccer is starting at U10, U9 … U6? “Times are changing,” muttered the man who settled at the back of the room and said his club was selecting players at U6.

Then there’s the curriculum.

It’s not that people were voicing specific criticisms of the work Claudio Reyna unveiled a couple of years ago. But neither are they taking it as something every club should follow.

A session in the NSCAA Club Standards series — surprisingly crowded given the dry title “Implementing a Curriculum for Player Development” — was based on the assumption that one size does not fit all. Clubs should feel free to pick and choose from the U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, Canadian or any other curriculum.

Another session raised a tough question: “Coalescing the USSF, USYS, and NSCAA Curricula for U8-U10: Can it be done?” (I had to leave early for the NWSL Draft, so I don’t know the answer.)

The differences aren’t vast. It’s not as if one group is striving for a possession game while another urges kids to boot it upfield to a lumbering forward. But the disagreements jump out of the charts. U.S. Soccer rates “passing” as one of the top skills a U6 should learn; another curriculum doesn’t even check off passing until U8. (I know of some coaches who insist kids can’t grasp the concept until U9.) U.S. Youth Soccer suggests several tactical teachings at U6 and U8 — USSF has nothing.

Massachusetts coach Mike Singleton had the tough task of leading this session, but he brought an open mind. In Spain, Singleton said, a club can lose its charter if it doesn’t follow the federation’s dogma. That’s not the U.S. way.

So whether it’s diversity or chaos, U.S. youth soccer isn’t going to a “one size fits all” approach any time soon. Is that a good thing?

2
medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Can USA break record?

Posted on by Beau Dure

In 2010, U.S. athletes won a record 37 medals. And with so many new events on the agenda, including red, white and blue-bred action sports, the USA should be primed to do even better in Sochi, right?

And yet the SportsMyriad medal projections have the USA coming up just short with 36 medals, while Norway breaks the record with 38. Infostrada holds Norway to 36 but drops the USA down to 30.

That’s not exactly a down year for the USA, but what’s going on? Take a look, and we’ll see if there’s any way to reach the high 30s …

LIKELY LOSSES

Alpine skiing
2010 medals: 8
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 4

Explains a lot, doesn’t it? In 2010, the big guns came through for seven medals — Bode Miller three, Julia Mancuso two, Lindsey Vonn two. Then Andrew Weibrecht came out of nowhere to make it eight. This time, Vonn followed up World Cup dominance with a series of injuries that will keep her out. Miller and Mancuso are trying to peak for one more good run at the medals, but they won’t repeat their five-medal haul. The upside: Mikaela Shiffrin and Ted Ligety are the world’s best in their best events.

Worst case: Shiffrin or Ligety misses a gate, no one comes through in the combined. 1 medal

Best case: Shiffrin medals in giant slalom as well as slalom, Ligety and Miller both nail the combined, Ligety also sails through the GS, Mancuso pulls out one more good race, and someone (perhaps Stacey Cook) surprises. 7 medals

Nordic combined
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

You don’t want to completely count out Bill Demong, a major part of the U.S. breakthrough in 2010, but this is not the powerhouse team with three legit contenders that romped through Whistler.

Worst case: Demong can’t quite turn back time, and consistent World Cup performer Bryan Fletcher can’t lift the team in the relay. 0 medals

Best case: Still hard to see an individual medal, but Demong, Fletcher, Taylor Fletcher and six-time Olympian Todd Lodwick can’t be ruled out in the relay. 1 medal

Short-track speedskating
2010 medals: 6
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 0

Anything can happen in short-track, but without Apolo Ohno, Katherine Reutter and a qualified women’s relay team, it probably won’t. It’s likely all up to J.R. Celski.

Worst case: Celski gets boxed out in all three individual events, and the men’s relay can’t hang with the favorites. 0 medals

Best case: Celski gets a couple of good runs. 2 medals

LITTLE CHANGE LIKELY

Biathlon
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

It’ll happen one of these years, as U.S. athletes keep getting better. Tim Burke got his sixth World Cup podium earlier this season. Susan Dunklee just missed her first podium in a weakened World Cup field.

Worst case: Anything other than the best case. 0 medals

Best case: Burke puts it all together in the sprint and holds on in the pursuit. 2 medals

Bobsled
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 2
Infostrada projection: 3

The projections might be underselling the USA here. Steven Holcomb won everything in North America, struggled when the World Cup moved to Europe, then rebounded. The women’s team may be taking over from Germany as the world’s best.

Worst case: Holcomb just misses in each event. Only one U.S. women’s sled runs well. 1 medal

Best case: Holcomb doubles up, and the U.S. women get two. 4 medals

Curling
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

The experienced women’s team is a contender but not a favorite.

Worst case: Missed shots, particularly among the skips, and lost confidence. 0 medals

Best case: Erika Brown is dialed in. 1 medal

Figure skating
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 2

For all the moaning over the dearth of talent in the singles events, the U.S. still has a deep team and should therefore thrive in the team event. In ice dancing, Meryl Davis and Charlie White are looking at either gold or silver.

Worst case: Gracie Gold doesn’t repeat her U.S. Championship performance, Ashley Wagner does, and the men and pairs don’t come through in the team event. 1 medal

Best case: Wagner or Gold has a near-flawless performance to reach the podium, and the men and pairs do just enough to get the team going. 3 medals

Freestyle skiing (moguls, aerials, skicross)
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 3

The U.S. strength is moguls. Olympic champion Hannah Kearney is still the best. Heather McPhie, Patrick Deneen and Bradley Wilson are contenders. The aerials squad has longer odds. Skicross is a free-for-all, but the USA is only sending one man and no women.

Worst case: Hard to imagine a complete wipeout in moguls. 1 medal

Best case: All four moguls contenders break through. Maybe we hold out hope for Emily Cook in aerials or John Teller in ski cross? 4 medals

Ice hockey
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

The women’s competition is still pretty much the USA and Canada. The men’s competition is wide open.

Worst case: The men get the Russian, Slovenian and Slovakian flags confused, thereby ruining their group-stage games. Or they just struggle in that group and get a low seed for the playoff bracket, likely winning their first game but then falling to one of the group winners in the quarterfinals. The women only get silver. 1 medal

Best case: The women beat Canada in the final. The men beat a tense Russian team in the group stage, cruise through the quarterfinals and win one more. 2 medals

Luge
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

The USA has never medaled in men’s or women’s singles despite a couple of close calls, and they won’t be favored this time. The doubles teams have fallen off since collecting silver and bronze in 1998 and 2002. But it’s not a bad team, so the new relay event gives them a shot. At least Germany can only win one medal in that event.

Worst case: The U.S. sliders don’t figure out the weird Sochi track with its uphill sections. 0 medals

Best case: Erin Hamlin, the surprise world champion in 2009, repeats her feat of moving up from top five to top three. Chris Mazdzer, Hamlin and the top doubles team are in top form in the relay. 2 medals

Snowboarding
2010 medals: 5
2014 projection: 7
Infostrada projection: 5

The new slopestyle event should help the USA’s medal count. The new parallel slalom won’t. Jamie Anderson is a strong favorite in the women’s slopestyle, Lindsey Jacobellis is still as consistent as anyone can get in snowboardcross, and the USA has no shortage of capable halfpipe athletes.

Worst case: Jacobellis wipes out, Shaun White can’t pull off the halfpipe-slopestyle double, and a few other halfpipe competitors have an off night. 3 medals

Best case: Two medals for White, one each for Jacobellis and Anderson, one more in men’s halfpipe, two in women’s halfpipe. That’s actually what I’ve projected. 7 medals

Speedskating
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 7
Infostrada projection: 4

Not sure Infostrada has caught up to take Brittany Bowe’s big season into account. Shani Davis and Heather Richardson are reliable contenders.

Worst case: Bowe gets Olympic jitters, and Davis and Richardson only get one each. 2 medals

Best case: Two for Bowe, two for Davis, two for Richardson, one for men’s team pursuit. 7 medals

LIKELY GAINS

Freestyle skiing (new events: slopestyle, halfpipe)
2010 medals: 0 – events didn’t exist
2014 projection: 6
Infostrada projection: 5

Yes, the new events should be very, very good to the USA. They’ve honed their craft in the X Games, and they’re ready to roll.

Worst case: Torin Yater-Wallace doesn’t regain his form after coming back from injury, wiping out the good 1-2 punch with David Wise in halfpipe. The U.S. slopestyle men don’t follow through on the form from the tough qualifying competition that knocked out current world champion Tom Wallisch. 2 medals

Best case: Wise and Yater-Wallace soar to medals. The slopestyle men sweep. Keri Herman and Devin Logan double up in slopestyle, and Maddie Bowman emerges from a crowded halfpipe competition. 8 medals

Cross-county skiing
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

Kikkan Randall has been on a roll in freestyle sprints for a few years now. In the Olympic rotation, this year’s sprint is freestyle.

Worst case: Randall gets caught in traffic in the one of the sprint heats, and no one else emerges. 0 medals

Best case: Randall wins, and the U.S. women also medal in the team sprint or maybe the relay. 2 medals 

Skeleton
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

Noelle Pikus-Pace just needs to make sure Britain can’t challenge the legality of her sled.

Worst case: Pikus-Pace crashes. Not likely. 0 medals

Best case: Pikus-Pace wins her duel with Britain’s Libby Yarnold, and Matt Antoine follows through on a solid World Cup season. 2 medals

Ski jumping
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

The men would be thrilled with the top 20. Lindsey Van won the first women’s world championship in 2009 but hasn’t been in good form recently. That leaves Sarah Hendrickson, the current world champion who was easily one of the two best in the world before her knee injury. Hendrickson made it back in time to make the team, but what sort of form can she recapture?

Worst case: Hendrickson isn’t all the way back. 0 medals

Best case: She is. 1 medal

OVERALL

Take the worst cases, best cases, the “reasonable worst” (not utter catastrophe but a run of bad luck), the “reasonable best” (people with a pretty good chance of medaling), the Infostrada projection and the SportsMyriad projection.

Table 35 – Sheet1

So if everything goes reasonably well — or if the number of surprise medalists matches the number of surprise non-medalists — the USA can match its record of 37 medals. But it won’t take much to slide to 30. Bad form in Alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and speedskating could see that number drop into the 20s.

The most likely scenario is this: The USA’s gains in freestyle skiing and maybe Nordic events aren’t quite enough to overcome the losses of Lindsey Vonn and Apolo Ohno, along with the decline of the Nordic combined golden generation and the USA’s elder Alpine skiers. But they’ll give it a good run.

3
soccer

NWSL notebook: Time for German efficiency?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Apologies for writing about last week’s NWSL panel at the NSCAA convention nearly a week after it happened, but it’s tough to get any work done when the local schools decline to open and give your kids some place to go during the day.

In any case — the big issues have been covered. First: The coaches say it’s difficult for them to compete salary-wise with Champions League teams. That doesn’t apply to the players in the allocation pool, but it would apply to anyone on the outside. Players who pass up higher pay to come over here are doing so for the competition — tough games each week instead of 10-0 routs over the Sindelfingens and Toulouses of the world.

The other big issue is the schedule. Everyone’s dreading a five-month stretch with 24 games. The basic problem is international loans. The season can’t start too much earlier — the Algarve and Cyprus Cups already take away international players during preseason. And it can’t go later because teams would have to return their international loanees by early September. So as long as women’s soccer players are doing the WNBA thing and playing year-round in two different countries to make ends meet, this is reality.

But the discussion turned up another thread worth following: Is the league’s style of play too athletic, too frenetic, too fast?

Chicago’s Rory Dames was the one raising the question. “We need to slow the game down, make it about technique as well as athleticism,” Dames said.

Dames saw the clash in international styles first-hand through the German players on the Red Stars last season. They saw a lot of “pointless running” on the field in NWSL play, he said. That echoes a few comments Washington’s Conny Pohlers made in her too-brief time in the league.

Over the course of a 24-game, five-month season, teams would be well advised to work smarter, not harder. But how do you teach that to players who come out of college soccer, where they run hard and then get breaks to catch their breath?

One of many things to watch in the next season. Can’t wait.

Other quick notes from the NWSL panel:

– Washington coach Mark Parsons had a curious comment about challenges in coaching. He said a team might have an accomplished player who’ll do anything it takes in practice along side a player who has done nothing at this level but “demands the world.” Read into that what you will.

– Boston’s Tom Durkin said the Breakers are looking toward an ECNL (elite youth) presence as part of a full-fledged club with a consistent curriculum. Could be interesting.

– Yes, at least one other coach teased Seattle’s Laura Harvey about her active wheeling and dealing in the offseason. She smiled like the Cheshire cat.

2
medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Weekend update

Posted on by Beau Dure

No major changes to the medal projections this week, but we still have some news that’ll shake up the lists of contenders. Changes are in italic.

Alpine skiing: Good news for the U.S. men’s combined hopes — Ted Ligety won a supercombined, and Bode Miller added a few slalom points (his first World Cup points in slalom since 2011) to a fifth-place downhill run. Ligety is projected for silver; add Miller to consideration.

France’s Alexis Pinturault won the men’s slalom and was second to Ligety in supercombined, also boosting his status as combined favorite. Switzerland’s Patrick Keung won the downhill — the 30-year-old is having a career year in the speed events and might need to be considered in both.

The weekend women’s races were wiped out, but Mikaela Shiffrin handily won a slalom last week.

The U.S. team will be announced Jan. 26, but the only people on the bubble aren’t likely to be medal threats.

Biathlon: The USA’s Susan Dunklee finished fourth in a World Cup sprint, just 0.6 seconds off the podium. Unreal. Not too many conclusions to draw from other results, though it’s time to add Sweden’s men to the relay contenders.

Bobsled: Yes, Lolo Jones and Lauryn Williams made the Olympic team. More importantly, all three U.S. sleds are running well, with Williams teaming with Jamie Greubel to win a World Cup race. Also, Steve Holcomb broke his European slump with a two-man win.

Figure skating: The European championships saw a few contenders in action. The women’s competition was the most interesting — Russia’s Yulia Lipnitskaya, all of 15 years old, tool gold ahead of teammate Adelina Sotnikova and Italy’s Carolina Kostner. Russia swept the pairs; German contenders Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy withdrew with illness.

In ice dancing, add new European champions Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (Italy) to the contenders.

Spain’s Javier Fernandez predictably won the men’s event ahead of Russia’s Sergei Voronov and Konstantin Menshov, both of whom will apparently sit out in Sochi while ageless contender Evgeni Plushenko will indeed get that berth.

Freestyle skiing: The U.S. team announcement is out and injured halfpipe contender Torin Yater-Wallace made the cut. Slopestyle champion Tom Wallisch did not. That actually won’t affect the projected medal count — just move Nick Goepper up to gold and Gus Kenworthy up to silver. The USA is ridiculously deep in this event.

Two-event contender Devin Logan has clinched a spot in women’s slopestyle but is not going in halfpipe.

Moguls contenders Patrick Deneen and Bradley Wilson have clinched their spots.

John Teller made a case to be considered in skicross with a World Cup win, while favorite Alex Fiva (Switzerland) is faltering.

Ski jumping: Sarah Hendrickson is back on the ramp. That team will be named Wednesday. Meanwhile, Japan’s Sara Takanashi has won eight of the last nine World Cups.

Nordic combined: Still not sold on the USA in Nordic combined, but Bryan Fletcher had a promising fifth-place finish.

Cross-country skiing: Still sold on Kikkan Randall, who won another freestyle sprint.

Short-track speedskating: Chinese favorite Wang Meng collided with a teammate in training and broke her ankle. She’ll bump out of the gold-medal spot in the 500, bumping up Fan Kexin (CHN), Seung-Hi Park (KOR), Arianna Fontana (ITA).

We’ve all seen what happened at the European Championships, right? That won’t change the medal projections.

Speedskating: No big surprises at the World Sprint Championships men’s competition. Dutch two-event contender Michael Mulder won the overall ahead of the USA’s Shani Davis, who isn’t great at 500 but traded wins in the two 1,000-meter races with Kazakhstan’s Denis Kuzin.

China’s Jing Yu won the women’s overall and will bump into contention in 500. The USA’s Heather Richardson took overall bronze and won one of the 1,000s.

Based on the Euro Championships, bump Yvonne Nauta (NED) ahead of Claudia Pechstein (GER) in the women’s 5,000.

Snowboarding: Two-time medalist (gold, silver) Hannah Teter got that last U.S. halfpipe berth ahead of Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight. The others: Kelly Clark, Arielle Gold and Kaitlyn Farrington. They’re all contenders.

The men’s halfpipe squad also has four legit contenders: Shaun White, Taylor Gold, Greg Bretz and Danny Davis.

Starting to worry about parallel events contender Roland Fischnaller (Italy).

OVERALL

The only medal projection changes are in speedskating (women’s 5,000) and short-track speedskating (women’s 500). The next changes: +1 bronze to Italy, +1 bronze to Netherlands, -1 bronze to Germany, -1 silver to China. (Also, South Korea bumps one bronze up to silver.)

Germany is officially down to fifth in the medal count, which still seems strange and will require a bit more investigation. Farther down the table, Italy and China swap places.

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soccer

Soccer Hall of Fame 2014 vote: Perfect 10

Posted on by Beau Dure

One bit of news from the NSCAA convention: Those of us who care about U.S. soccer history are gaining momentum.

The Society for American Soccer History might kick itself into gear in the coming months. Academics such as David Kilpatrick, who works with the Cosmos, are working to get serious papers published. And we’re still looking for creative ways to get the Soccer Hall of Fame out of storage, so fans can learn and enjoy this country’s colorful relationship with the world’s game.

Now we’ll have our annual vigil to see how many people will be unjustly snubbed in the Hall of Fame vote this year.

I typically vote for five, six, maybe eight people. And so do most voters with whom I’ve spoken, though it’s a small sample.

And yet, last year, NONE of the players on the ballot got the required 66.7% of the vote for induction. As set out in the Hall’s rules, they took the five top vote-getters for a second round, and Joe-Max Moore made it.

This year, we shouldn’t have that problem. Kristine Lilly and Brian McBride are on the ballot, and if you don’t vote for them, just pull a Dan LeBatard and hand your ballot to Deadspin.

Some idiot won’t vote for Lilly, but in general, the biggest women’s stars have been nearly unanimous. The highest vote percentages in Kenn Tomasch’s archive: Mia Hamm 97.16, Claudio Reyna 96.08, Michelle Akers 95.89, Eric Wynalda 93.15. I’ll guess Lilly is somewhere in the 93-95 range, and McBride will be in the low 90s.

Could we get a rare three-person class? The rest of the newcomers (in alpha order): Chris Klein, Eddie Lewis, Lilly, Kristin Luckenbill, Kate Markgraf, Clint Mathis, McBride, Jaime Moreno, Steve Ralston and Briana Scurry.

If Briana Scurry could be voted the best U.S. women’s goalkeeper of all time (with some debate, sure), she’d have to be a Hall of Famer as well. Right?

Kate Markgraf didn’t make the all-time Best XI back line, but that’s only because she was behind current Hall of Famers Carla Overbeck and Joy Fawcett, along with future Hall of Famers Brandi Chastain (eligible in 2016) and Christie Rampone (eligible when she has been retired for three years, so … 2049?).

Then you have Jaime Moreno. Third in MLS history with 133 goals (one behind co-leaders Landon Donovan and Jeff Cunningham). Fifth in MLS history with 102 assists. The common thread in all four of D.C. United’s MLS Cup wins.

The NASL has plenty of foreign players in the U.S. Hall. MLS is long overdue to get one.

But I’ve been beating this drum for years for Moreno’s teammate, Marco Etcheverry. The Bolivian playmaker was the cornerstone of D.C. United’s dominance in the early year, and even after fading in his latter years, he finished his MLS days with 101 assists in 191 games.

That’s six players who should be in the Hall. No question. And I’ll add one more — women’s soccer super-scorer Shannon MacMillan.

(Yes, 99er-bashers, I will be voting for your favorites when the time comes. Hope Solo is absolutely a Hall of Famer. And Abby Wambach, obviously. I’ll vote for Heather O’Reilly and Carli Lloyd. As long as Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe stay anywhere close to their current form for a couple more years, I’ll vote for them as well. The defender with the most HOF potential to me is Becky Sauerbrunn, who has considerable pro accomplishments along with her WNT play.)

Last year, I had three more names on the ballot — Jason Kreis, Robin Fraser and Cindy Parlow. I’ll add them again. I don’t feel as strongly about them as I do about the other seven, but they certainly wouldn’t be out of place in the Hall. At the very least, they deserve to have their names carry over on the ballot for another year and remain in the discussion.

That’s my maximum — 10 players. And I’m still passing up all-time MLS assist leader Steve Ralston, 100-goal scorer Taylor Twellman, midfielder monster Chris Armas, reliable midfield leader Ben Olsen, and 2002 World Cup contributors Clint Mathis and Eddie Lewis. Based on the old criteria for the Hall of Fame (pre-2000), all of those players would be in. So would John O’Brien and Tony Sanneh. We’ve raised the bar, but we’ve overcorrected.

One of these years, we’re going to have to induct a huge class and clear the logjam. Will it be this year?

Probably not. I’m predicting a three-person class, with these percentages:

– Lilly 95
– McBride 92
– Scurry 72
– Markgraf 63
– Etcheverry 55
– Moreno 52
– MacMillan 47
– Parlow 35
– Ralston 35
– Armas 23
– Kreis 20
– Mathis 18
– Fraser 15
– Twellman 15
– Olsen 13
– Lewis 13

Or maybe this will be the year my fellow voters prove me wrong. I’m not expecting 10 people to make it. But can we aim for four or five?

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basketball, soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: The lessons of basketball

Posted on by Beau Dure

The general consensus says playing multiple sports is a good thing for kids. They get a broader range of physical activity, they avoid overuse injuries, and they may find some skills in a secondary sport that transfer to their primary.

Also … they’re kids. The overwhelming majority of them are just looking for fun things to do with their friends. And later in life, they may have more social options if they’re comfortable playing pickup basketball as readily as they play soccer.

So as I spend parts of my winter sitting on a gym floor watching 7- and 8-year-olds heave a ball up toward a basket on which I can actually dunk, I sometimes try to shut off the coach/philosopher part of my brain and just enjoy the spectacle.

But not always. And I’m finding a couple of interesting philosophical differences between the USSF youth soccer mandates (which not everyone follows) and the approach I see in basketball.

1. Tactics. The basic advice for youth coaches in the single-digit years is simple: Get out of the way. Let them play. Let the game be the teacher. At the earliest ages, kids can’t even understand positions. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t yell at them during the game, or we’ll call you a “joystick coach.”

No such concern in second-grade basketball. Our team spent the first practice session of the season learning how to set screens for the point guard. Every time we bring the ball down the court (excluding fast breaks), our coach yells out “2!” or “3!” — and now “4!” and “5!” These are plays designating which player is supposed to set a screen. A couple of other players are supposed to move accordingly.

I think if my soccer club’s technical director saw me doing that, I’d be in for the lecture of a lifetime. But is it more necessary in basketball than it is in soccer?

And why do we think kids are better able to grasp these concepts in basketball? Are basketball players smarter? Or is it just because basketball has a clearer distinction between who has the ball and who doesn’t?

2. Passing. Yeah, they don’t get that in basketball any more than they get it in soccer. U8 soccer players are probably better at passing than second-grade basketball players, at least in our town. Also, the refs tend not to call dribbling infractions, and holding onto the ball until shooting is just a higher-percentage play than trying to fling it to a kid who can’t really catch it.

3. Individual skills. In soccer, we’re supposed to make sure players are getting plenty of touches on the ball at every practice, especially at the earliest ages. It’s not so much that we aren’t teaching how to pass as much as we are supposed to let kids get comfortable with the unnatural state of having soccer balls at their feet.

Our basketball practices? Usually no more than two balls in use, often just one. Players take turns learning plays or a particular skill such as boxing out for a rebound.

Is this typical? I don’t know. When I went to USA Basketball’s site, I just saw a bunch of things about teaching a 2-3 zone and so forth. Basketball is, at its heart, much more of a chalkboard sport than soccer is. But I do see a bit of hand-wringing over how we’re teaching kids, particularly when it comes to “the fundamentals.”

My hunch is that kids who play basketball in the winter will return to the soccer fields in spring with better spatial awareness. Maybe they’ll see that what they do away from the ball can affect the game.

So soccer players can learn from basketball. Can soccer coaches learn anything as well?

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Jan. 14 update

Posted on by Beau Dure

Time for a few tweaks given the results (and untimely injuries) of late — and when you add it all up, we have a new leader:

Alpine skiing: Lindsey Vonn’s absence shakes things up a bit and pretty well insures the USA won’t come near its total of eight medals in 2010. Ted Ligety (third overall) and Mikaela Shiffrin are still favorites, and Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal (second overall; downhill and super-G leader) is still as dominant as ever.

Changes:

  • Men’s downhill: Erik Guay (CAN) up to silver, Klaus Kröll (AUT) down to considered, Adrien Theaux (FRA) up to considered
  • Men’s giant slalom: Alexis Pinturault (FRA) up to bronze, Manfred Moelgg (ITA) down to considered
  • Men’s slalom: Mario Matt (AUT) up to silver, Ivica Kostelic (CRO) down to considered
  • Men’s combined: Pinturault up to gold, Ligety up to silver, Svindal up to bronze, Kostelic down to considered
  • Women’s downhill: Vonn out, Maria Hoefl-Riesch (GER) up to gold, Tina Maze (SLO) up to silver, Tina Weirather (LIE) up to bronze, Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden (SUI) up to considered
  • Women’s super-G: Vonn out, Anna Fenninger (AUT) up to gold, Tina Maze (SLO) down to silver, Lara Gut (SUI) up to bronze, Julia Mancuso (USA) down to considered
  • Women’s giant slalom: Jessica Lindell-Vikarby (SWE) up to considered
  • Women’s slalom: My medal picks are currently 1-2-4 in the World Cup standings. They’ll stay put.

Biathlon: Andreas Birnbacher (Germany) has been sick, so we won’t knock him out of the projections just yet. Not too many surprises on the men’s side, though France’s relay team needs to improve. The surprise in the women’s competition is the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Soukalova, who’s leading the World Cup standings. France’s Marie Dorin Habert has a ruptured tendon in her ankle, so we’ll remove her from consideration.

Changes:

  • Women’s sprint: Soukalova (CZE) up to bronze, Olena Pidrushna (UKR) down to considered
  • Women’s pursuit: Soukalova up to silver, Valj Semerenko (UKR) up to bronze, Andrea Henkel (GER) and Pidrushna down to considered

Bobsled: The early-season races in North America have skewed the current standings toward the U.S. and Canadian teams. The men haven’t done as well in Europe. Manuel Machata isn’t getting many opportunities for Germany, and Latvia’s Oskars Melbardis isn’t in great form.

Changes:

  • Men’s two-man and four-man: Drop Machata from considered
  • Women’s: Elana Meyers (USA) up to silver, Sandra Kiriasis (GER) down to bronze, Cathleen Martini (GER) down to considered, Jamie Greubel (USA) up to considered

Cross-country skiing: Dario Cologna (SUI) is trying to come back from ankle surgery. We’ll leave him in for now. A couple of other skiers have skipped the odd World Cup event or the entire Tour de Ski, so the World Cup standings from this season aren’t that meaningful. One surprise: American Simi Hamilton won a freestyle sprint.

Changes: 

  • Women’s sprint: Denise Herrman (GER) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (NOR) up to considered

Figure skating: Most of the pre-Sochi competition is complete aside from the European Championships this week, so the projections won’t change much. The Four Continents will only have a couple of Olympians in action. But qualification and national championships have made things interesting. Ashley Wagner placed fourth, and her inclusion is mildly controversial. Evgeni Plushenko on the fringe of Russia’s plans, Japan’s Miki Ando retired after missing out an Olympic berth, and projected gold medalist Mao Asada was third in Japan’s championships. At least defending gold medalist Yuna Kim won handily in South Korea after skipping the Grand Prix season. Gracie Gold’s score from U.S. Championships would be the highest in the world this year, but would international judges be as generous?

Changes:

  • Women’s: Gracie Gold (USA) considered. Miki Ando (Japan) out. Considered list now specifying the likely Russian skaters: Adelina Sotnikova and Julia Lipnitskaia

Freestyle skiing: The X Games and World Cup events may still shake things up.

Changes in aerials

  • Men: 2010 World Cup champion Anton Kusnhir (BLR) missed the 2012-13 season and has come back with a win in Deer Valley and another podium. Countryman Alexei Grishin, the 2010 gold medalist, is making a comeback and was third in Deer Valley. They’re up to considered.
  • Women: We’ll see who makes China and Australia teams. USA’s Ashley Caldwell and Emily Cook up to considered.

Changes in moguls

  • Men: Medal contenders are 1-2-3 in World Cup. No change.
  • Women: No change, though Miki Ito (JPN) is trying to come back from a knee injury.

Changes in skicross

  • Men: Dave Duncan (CAN) up to silver, Andreas Matt (AUT) up to bronze, Chris Del Bosco (CAN) down to considered, Filip Flisar (SLO) down to considered
  • Women: Katrin Mueller (SUI) up to considered

Changes in slopestyle

  • Men: Waiting for U.S. team announcement to shake things up.
  • Women: Kaya Turski (CAN) is fighting a knee injury. Devin Logan (USA) up to considered

Changes in halfpipe

  • Men: Watching health of Torin Yater-Wallace (USA). Justin Dorey (CAN) up to considered.
  • Women: Roz Groenewoud (CAN) had — you guessed it — knee surgery. We’ll see how she recovers. Devin Logan (USA) up to considered — yes, in two events

Luge: They’ve run seven of nine World Cup events this season, so that should be enough to give us a clearer picture. Still a whole lot of Germany.

Changes

  • Men: David Möller (GER) up to silver, Dominik Fischnaller (ITA) up to bronze, Andi Langenhan (GER) down to considered, Chris Mazdzer (USA) up to considered
  • Women, doubles, relay: No change

Nordic combined: Most medal contenders are having solid seasons, particularly World Cup leader Eric Frenzel (GER) and Jason Lamy-Chappuis (FRA).

Changes

  • Normal hill: Mikko Kokslien (NOR) up to bronze, Bernhard Gruber (AUT) down to considered

Short-track speedskating: No change. We’ll keep an eye on the Euro championships and make sure all the picks are healthy, but the major pre-Sochi competitions are long complete.

Skeleton: Feeling a little more bullish on Matt Antoine (USA) but not quite moving him up into the medals.

Changes

  • Men: Tomass Dukurs (LAT) up to bronze, Frank Rommel (GER) down to considered
  • Women: Shelley Rudman (GBR) up to bronze, Marion Thees (GER) down to considered

Ski jumping: He used to look like Harry Potter. Then he looked like Trevor Horn. Now he’s back — Salt Lake/Vancouver champion Simon Ammann (SUI) was third in the Four Hills. And 40something Japanese jumper Noriaki Kasai is fourth in the World Cup. In women’s, we’re still holding out hope for the rehabbing Sarah Hendrickson (USA).

Changes

  • Men’s large hill: Simon Ammann (SUI) up to bronze, Noriaki Kasai (JPN) up to considered, Anders Jacobsen (NOR) down to considered
  • Women’s: Irina Avvakumova (RUS) up to bronze, Carina Vogt (GER) up to considered, Coline Mattel (FRA) down to considered

Snowboarding: Just did the picks 14 days ago; no point in changing anything until after the X Games.

Speedskating: These picks were also recent, and the European Allround Championships didn’t give us any reason to change.

No changes in curling or ice hockey, and no changes are likely unless we have a sudden wave of injuries or other changes.

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