Drake Davis is a sudden celebrity within the soccer Twittersphere. The high school junior and four-star football recruit with scholarship offers from major programs like Alabama and Florida State apparently wants to play soccer instead.
So is this the Day of Much Rejoicing, in which the USA gets a big-time soccer player to give up a football career for soccer stardom? Top Drawer Soccer’s J.R. Eskilson has the reality check:
Davis is a mystery in college soccer recruiting. There is hardly any mention of him from the prep scene.
I’m glad TDS couldn’t find much on him, because I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me.
And now that Davis has left his Louisiana home and transferred to Fork Union Military Academy in rural Virginia, what sort of club soccer can he play?
So in the era of Development Academy and other ultraserious clubs accounting for the bulk of college prospects, can a great athlete (I think we can assume that from his football credentials) make it in soccer without such developmental advantages? Will he get a full scholarship offer from the limited money college soccer programs can spread out among recruits?
It’s hard to see this as any sort of tipping point for U.S. national programs. If you’re nowhere to be seen in the national scene as a junior, the odds of being the next Oguchi Onyewu (Deadspin says Altidore, but he’s listed as a “striker/sweeper,” and there’s more demand for players on the backline) are quite small.
Jordan Burroughs is pushing for the title of best U.S. wrestler of all time. He’s 92-2 in his international career, with two world championships and Olympic gold. (Hence the Twitter handle: @allIseeisgold)
To give credit where it’s due: Russia’s Denis Tsargush, who beat Burroughs, is a former world champion himself and the man who has given Burroughs a couple of tough matches in major events.
But seeing Burroughs lose on a hobbled leg raises a question: Are wrestling and other combat sports better off in the current format of running through an entire weight class in one day?
The format is still relatively new in wrestling. (It’s older in judo.) In 2000 and 2004, wrestlers had two or three days of competition, starting with small round-robin pools before advancing to a knockout bracket. By 2008, they switched to one day per weight class.
Maybe a different format couldn’t have helped Burroughs recover from his injury in time to have another classic match with Tsargush. But what are the advantages to making wrestlers do everything in a day? It doesn’t add any drama. Broadcasters, let alone reporters, have no time to build the story of a wrestler, particularly an underdog, moving through a tournament to the final.
When wrestling was placed on the Olympic chopping block last year, FILA reconsidered its rules but left the one-day format intact. Bloody Elbow’s Mike Riordan sees a better way:
The NCAA Division I wrestling championships stand alone as the true gold standard when it comes to well-attended television-friendly amateur wrestling tournaments. At the NCAAs, all weights compete simultaneously in six sessions spread over a three day period. The semifinals, which determine the match ups for the finals, take place at the end of day two, and the finals take place at the end of the third day. This creates a situation where all of the event’s most anticipated matches fall on a Saturday night, with a whole day left before them to ensure proper coverage, allow for decent marketing, and maximize fan anticipation.
If FILA seeks to eventually optimize the product of its World Championships and Olympics, then it needs to eventually abandon the one-day model, and continue to progress into a format which resembles the NCAA championships.
The NCAA doing something right while the international organizer gets it wrong? Go figure.
Siri Mullinix is a distinguished women’s soccer alum — starting goalkeeper for the national team while Briana Scurry struggled, terrific player in the WUSA. Eddie Radwanski has a lower profile, but he’s fondly remembered by those of us who saw him play professionally. He had the misfortune of having his peak years fall in between the NASL’s demise and MLS’s launch, so he carved out a career playing indoor and in the USISL/A-League.
And so the natural first reaction upon seeing that Radwanski, Mullinix and many others at Clemson are being sued for a 2011 hazing incident is along the lines of “Say it ain’t so.”
The lawsuit was filed last month but had not yet hit the local news organizations until today, when a colorful site called FITSNews offered up the lawsuit document itself in PDF form. The Greenville News has now published an early story that doesn’t add many details, but they are trying to reach attorneys.
The first few pages aren’t particularly damning. Plaintiff Haley Hunt claims Radwanski, who took over as Clemson coach after she signed with the program, tried to dissuade her from coming to Clemson and made fun of her for being a good student and a member of the Christian group Young Life.
Then comes the hazing incident, which sounds pretty typical at first: The upperclassmen (all named as defendants) dragged freshman players out of their dorm rooms and tossed them into cars. The freshmen are told to perform “humiliating and demeaning acts” that aren’t further described, then taken to the Tigers’ stadium to run blindfolded and do other “demeaning acts and calisthenics.”
Nothing ridiculous so far, right? But then we get to paragraph 51:
Ms. Hunt complied with the orders to run faster. Unaware of where she was running because of the blindfold, Ms. Hunt veered away from the field and sprinted directly – face first – into a brick wall. The momentum of Ms. Hunt’s collision with the brick wall threw her body backwards, causing her to smash into a nearby table and fall to the ground. The players heard Ms. Hunt scream and observed her clench her bloody face. One player described the sound of Ms. Hunt hitting the brick wall as “metal hitting metal.” The impact with the brick wall caused Ms. Hunt to sustain serious injuries to her brain, head, face, and hands. Ms. Hunt was knocked unconscious and had to be physically assisted by the other players.
Horrifying. And now it gets worse:
A few players took Ms. Hunt to the locker room, where they called the Clemson Coach Defendants. Mullinix arrived on the scene and called Michelle Bensmen, an athletic trainer for the Team. Some of the players expressed their opinions that an ambulance was necessary; however, Mullinix instructed them not to tell anyone what had happened. Ms. Hunt was not taken to a hospital. Instead, she was examined by Bensman, who applied a butterfly bandage to her face and sent her to her dorm room without medical attention or any supervision from the Team staff
Bensmen/Bensman (lawyers can’t spell — “Radwanski” is misspelled on at least one occasion) is not a defendant. According to the suit timeline, Hunt later calls her parents, thinking she needs immediate medical attention. (This all takes place in August, so Hunt may not have had a lot of dormmates and friends at this point.) Her parents call “one or more” or the coaches, and Mullinix goes to check on her and eventually stay with her that night. Then Hunt gets treatment from the team doctors, a neurologist and a plastic surgeon.
At this point, we’re talking about a delay in medical treatment that deserves some follow-up questions. But nothing worse.
Until paragraph 62:
Immediately following the Incident and prior to any investigation into the Incident, the Clemson Coach Defendants called a Team meeting and implored the Team that they must not tell anyone about what happened. Specifically, Radwanski told the players: “if you care about our jobs and our Team, then you will not tell anyone about this. We cannot have anybody finding out about this.”
Now comes a curious part — the team doctors cleared Hunt to play, though she was still in pain and having difficulty reading. Again, doctors and trainers are not named as defendants. If the coaches were following medical advice by letting her play, would the burden here fall on the doctors?
But the focus shifts back to Radwanski.
Following the Incident, Radwanski ignored Ms. Hunt’s serious injuries and continued to belittle Ms. Hunt for her academic achievements and involvement with Young Life. In fact, Radwanski was so reckless with Ms. Hunt’s safety that on one occasion he ordered her to climb a soccer goal to untangle the net, which resulted in the goal tipping over and nearly crushing Ms. Hunt under its weight. Radwanski made jokes about this and the other occasions in which he forced Ms. Hunt to perform dangerous, demeaning tasks.
Hunt’s family contacted the Clemson athletic department, which investigated but decided not to penalize anyone.
Enter the Clemson Office of Community and Ethical Standards for a separate investigation. This all happened quickly: The incident was the evening of Aug. 18; the OCES took a statement Aug. 31. The OCES found that the team had violated several university regulations on “harm to person, hazing, and violations of student organizational conduct.” (Wouldn’t the first one trump the next two?) Players had to go through a workshop and give a PowerPoint presentation on what they had learned.
For a couple of years, Hunt remained with the program. She redshirted in 2011, then played 15 games in 2012, racking up academic honors. She played a couple of games in 2013, but according to the suit, her symptoms got worse, and a neurologist told her to stop playing. She was honored in April 2014 with the Bill D’Andrea Tiger Paw Award for “outstanding commitment and selflessness within the team culture,” sharing that award with Hailey Karg. At the same banquet, Vanessa Laxgang won MVP honors and Morgan Hert took the team leadership award.
Laxgang, Karg and Hert are now co-defendants.
The suit, filed Aug. 15, does not mention a specific dollar amount of compensation. “Plaintiff prays for Judgment against the Defendants individually, jointly, and severally for all actual damages, for an appropriate amount in punitive damages in an amount to be determined by the jury at the trial of this action, those attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by this action, and for such other further relief as the court deems just and proper.”
Could the case be resolved out of court? In the Pickens County court records, the case includes an action for “ADR/Alternative Dispute Resolution (Workflow)” with a start date of March 13, 2015.
(Will update if new info arises in the next couple of days)
A major accomplishment that shouldn’t be lost in the NFL’s opening frenzy: Mike and Bob Bryan won their 100th doubles title, 16th Grand Slam and fifth U.S. Open. We can forgive them for botching the chest bump and accidentally scaring a toddler.
Of all the curious decisions the IOC has made in recent years, the vote to add the land-hungry sport of golf just in time for Rio 2016 is one of the most curious. Too late to switch it to a putting contest?
My hand is out of a splint after three weeks, though my typing speed is still diminished by a bit of tape on my two still-aching fingers. I may need to put my goalkeeping career on hold for a while.
I’m also relatively not sick. I have no idea how I’ve had waves of sinus and throat problems through the most mild summer of my lifetime, but a doctor has assured me she’ll figure it out. I got back from vacation to find Northern Virginia had become a sauna to start September, and after leading a couple of youth soccer practices in Venusian conditions last night and walking a couple of miles this morning, I actually feel better. Go figure.
Enough complaining. I’m back, and it’s time to give a quick update on the blog, my writing priorities over the next few months, and what happened in the sports world while I was healing.
The blog: Expect more links and fewer 1,000-word pieces. I want to keep sharing Olympic sports news, but I’m going to do that more efficiently. No more Monday Myriad (in part because my youth soccer practices are on Mondays), so this will be the last “roundup” post for a while. My analysis will more commonly be on …
The podcast: Hoping to do another one this week, depending on my guest’s schedule.
Medal projections: By next year, I hope Olympic sports news will be in the context of my medal projections. I’ll be working on that, along with …
Enduring Spirit epilogue: The tentative plan is to re-release the book (electronically only) with the epilogue added. I’ll also release the epilogue separately at a low, low price, so if you already bought the book, you won’t be shelling out another six bucks. I’m going to do a few postseason interviews, so don’t expect this right away.
Single-Digit Soccer:This project keeps gathering momentum. I’m planning to speak and gather input at the NSCAA convention in January, and I hope to finish it by next summer.
Other than that, I’ll still be writing at OZY, a site you should check out even if you never read anything I write. And you may still see an MMA book I finished a while back.
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So what happened while I was out? In no particular order:
Badminton World Championships: South Korea wins men’s doubles, China won three other events, and the women’s singles went to … Spain? First time for everything, and this is a terrific photo:
Judo World Championships: Olympic champion Kayla Harrison was the only U.S. medalist, taking bronze.
Rowing World Championships: Britain won 10 medals, New Zealand won nine, Australia and Germany eight each, and the USA won seven. The World Championships include a lot of non-Olympic events, so don’t use this for medal projections. These championships included some para-rowing events, which accounted for one U.S. medal. The sole U.S. gold went to, as always, the mighty women’s eight.
World Equestrian Games: The sole U.S. medals so far are in the non-Olympic discipline of reining. Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are cleaning up. Olympic quota spots (earned by the country, not the athlete) are available in dressage, eventing and show jumping.
Also, Ollie Williams (the man behind Frontier Sports) looks at the Olympic prospects of horseball. Yes, horseball. They compare it to a mix of rugby and basketball, but I think it’s a mix of polo and quidditch.
Triathlon, World Series grand final: Gwen Jorgensen didn’t need a great finish to clinch the world championship. She did it anyway. Too early to declare her athlete of the year?
Swimming, Pan-Pacific Games: Phelps, Ledecky and company have it easy compared to Haley Anderson, who won open-water gold after a jellyfish sting, a race postponement and a race relocation.
Track and field, Diamond League finals: Half of the events wrapped for the season at the Weltklasse Zurich over the weekend; the rest finish up Friday in Brussels. Check the Monday Morning Run for a recap that includes fellow Dukie Shannon Rowbury diving along with U.S. teammate Jenny Simpson as the latter took the women’s 1,500 title in style.
Today’s Frontier Sports wrap has a couple of track and field links (along with helpful links on badminton and much more), including “the often-told, never-dull tale of how (Brianne Theisen-Eaton) almost impaled (Ashton Eaton) with a javelin.”
Overall Diamond League winners include Simpson, Michael Tinsley (USA, 400 hurdles), Christian Taylor (USA, triple jump, took title away from teammate Will Claye at final), Lashawn Merritt (USA, 400 meters, Kirani James wasn’t at the final), Reese Hoffa (USA, shot put), Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica, 100), Dawn Harper-Nelson (USA, 100 hurdles — Americans won every Diamond League race), Tiana Bartoletta (USA, long jump) and Valerie Evans (New Zealand, shot put, swept).
Women’s soccer, NWSL final: I got back from vacation to see this, and I’m glad I did. It was a compelling final, and while Seattle would’ve been a worthy champion in every sense, Kansas City deserved it. The Lauren Holiday-to-Amy Rodriguez combo is as potent as anything you’ll see in soccer.
Kansas City now holds the top-division U.S./Canada titles in men’s soccer (Sporting KC, MLS), women’s soccer (FCKC), and men’s indoor soccer (Missouri Comets, coached by FCKC’s Vlatko Andonovski). The latter won the last MISL title before most of that league leapt to the MASL.
The league also announced it would play a full schedule next summer with a break for the World Cup, which means international players will miss a considerable number of games. The big worry: The season will spill into September, bad news for those counting on international loans or fall coaching jobs to supplement the league’s small paychecks. But the league didn’t have a lot of good options, and now they’re poised to ride a World Cup wave if one materializes again.
Basketball World Cup: Senegal over Croatia is the big upset so far, while France, Brazil and Serbia have created a logjam for second behind Spain in Group A. The USA is cruising through an easy group.
Men’s volleyball World Championships: Many people are watching.
The USA won a thrilling five-setter and lost an epic to Iran in early group play.
Modern pentathlon World Championships: Underway with relays.
MMA: The UFC 177 pay-per-view card had already been hit by a rash of injuries. Then one of the UFC’s most heralded recent signings, Olympic wrestling gold medalist Henry Cejudo, had a “medical issue” while trying to make weight. Then former bantamweight champion Renan Barao, set for a rematch against new champ T.J. Dillashaw, also couldn’t make weight. Joe Soto got the Seth Petruzelli-style bump from the undercard to the main event. Unlike Petruzelli against Kimbo Slice, Soto couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.
So the most noteworthy things about the card, apart from Cejudo and Barao’s weight-cutting issues, were:
2. Dana White launching an unholy rip of the media. Some days, I miss covering this sport — this would’ve been fun.
Overseas in ONE FC — I’m absolutely biased toward Kamal Shalorus, who works in our wonderful local dojo and is as nice as he could be. Glad to see him get a title shot, but Shinya Aoki was always going to be a tough matchup, and Aoki indeed kept the belt.
Chess: World champ Magnus Carlsen and top U.S. player Hikaru Nakamura are at the Sinquefield Cup, but Italy’s Fabiano Caruana has left them in the dust, beating Carlsen, Nakamura and the other three to go a perfect 5-for-5 halfway through the double round-robin.
And we’re a month away from Millionaire Chess. Ignore the monetary losses and enjoy.
Cycling: Vuelta a Espana in brief — Nairo Quintana fell, Alberto Contador took the lead.
Video games: A terrific glitch in Madden ’15 — a 14-inch-tall linebacker:
Duresport.com 