Free Republic

LAST MONDAY, Sean Fisher of Waldwick collapsed while running drills. It was reported he may have had an undetected heart condition. Fisher died that day. It was his 13th birthday. On Tuesday, Douglas Morales of Cliffside Park died of injuries sustained during a football practice the previous week. He ruptured a blood vessel to the brain. He was 17 years old. Communities are in mourning, young athletes are unsettled by the untimely deaths of teammates and parents are trying to figure out what happened and how to prevent it from recurring. While each case is different and it’s too early...

LONDON, August 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In 2004, U.K. Olympian Tasha Danvers-Smith sacrificed her spot at the Summer Olympics in Athens so she could bring her then-unborn baby to term.  Four years later, her little boy inspired her all the way to the podium in the women's 400-metre hurdle event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.After discovering she was pregnant in 2004, Danvers-Smith made a joint decision with her husband and coach, Darrell, to put her baby's life ahead of her dream of competing in the summer games in Athens. At the time some in the track and field community...

Every generation needs heroes. Young people especially need role models. How blessed we are that the role model of these Summer Olympics is Michael Phelps. Here is a young man who embodies self-discipline, hard work and goal orientation. It is not so much the world records he shattered. It is not only the number of medals he won. His whole outlook is to be celebrated. He has a commanding presence yet he is the boy next door. True, his endorsements will make him millions. Yet I dare say that is the furthest thing from his mind right now. As I...

Liu Xiang sent to Olympic death by China's £1 billion image-building exercise On the back of yesterday's China Daily, the English language newspaper in Beijing, the face of Liu Xiang filled a broadsheet page. But the tears had been airbrushed out, so to speak. By Kevin Garside Last Updated: 2:54PM BST 20 Aug 2008 Comments 29 | Comment on this article China's Olympic pin-up was selling the Nike brand and his country. He is the face of Nike in China, and of China across the globe. He didn't develop an ankle spur, injure his Achilles or damage his hamstring on...

Mark Spitz thinks there's only one man who Michael Phelps can't beat. His name is Mark Spitz. Spitz, the American swimmer whose record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics Games was shattered by Phelps, said Wednesday that if the two legends squared off in their primes, it'd be a draw. "I think that the relationship between people that are great is they have a common thread of knowing how to beat their competitors and they know how to constantly be in shape and in top form," Spitz told the Daily News. "If that's the case, I'd know everything...

He's the "eight" wonder of the world! Here is the iconic first photo of a bare-chested, medal-clad Michael Phelps doing his best Mark Spitz impression - sporting an Olympic-sized grin as his eight golds dangle from his neck. The photo - taken inside an ancient temple in Beijing on Sunday night - will grace the cover of Sports Illustrated, which hits newsstands tomorrow.

Jamaican Me Speedy - Why are Jamaicans so good at sprinting? By Nina Shen Rastogi Posted Monday, Aug. 18, 2008, at 6:57 PM ET Jamaicans dominated the Olympic 100-meter sprint this weekend, with Usain Bolt setting a world record and his teammates taking all three medals in the women's event. Jamaica is a poor, tiny nation about half the size of New Jersey. What makes its people such champion sprinters? A combination of nature and nurture. Runners of West African descent—which includes Jamaicans as well as most African-Americans—seem to be built for speed: In 2004, they held all but five...

Broadcaster Avi Lewis on Canada's Olympic team? A great idea, and not as bizarre as it seems. Let me explain. The government announced last week it would cut a grant scheme whereby various alleged artists and intellectuals were given the tax dollars of non-artists and non-intellectuals so as to go on expensive overseas trips and pretend to be, well, artists and intellectuals. That so many of the recipients of this largesse were left wing, anti-American and so on was a pure coincidence. Just as is the fact that so many magazines, authors and performers who receive other tax-dollar funding are...

And he is looked upon here as a great inspiration, a source of great American pride. The world is dazzled by this man. But that's not the Michael Phelps that truly exists. Michael Phelps is the epitome, ladies and gentlemen, of The Ugly American. I found out today what he eats on a daily basis. I know he swims five hours a day and needs a lot of energy. Big producers do. He's produced a lot of medals, a lot of records. Big producers do need a lot of energy. But according to Obama and many on the left, Michael...

In an August 13 blog post for the Baltimore Sun Olympics coverage blog "From Baltimore to Beijing," sports columnist Rick Maese posted a complaint by an Israeli doctor accusing gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps of doping. Phelps's drug of choice: rocking out on his iPod before a swim. Koudinov's argument in a nutshell: Did you notice that Michael Phelps wears earphones and is listening music just before his every Olympic start, at Beijing's Olympiad Water Cube pool deck, be it finals or semifinals? I first noticed that before his first gold swim on August 10: Phelps removed earphones 2...

BEIJING — Michael Phelps has become the winningest Olympic athlete ever, earning his fourth gold medal of the Beijing Games with a world record in the 200-meter butterfly. The American touched in 1 minute, 52.03 seconds, breaking his old mark of 1:52.09 set at last year's world championships in Australia.

Michael Phelps carved his name among the Olympic greats on Tuesday, smashing another world record in the pool to join Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis in an elite group on a record nine career golds. ...Phelps joined compatriots Lewis and Spitz, as well as "Flying Finn" distance runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina with a total of nine golds. He could overtake them all on Wednesday when he swims in two more finals. "To be tied for the most Olympic golds of all time, with those names in Olympic history ... it is a pretty amazing accomplishment," he...

The drug chief of the International Olympic Committee accused Russia of systematically doping its athletes on Tuesday, the same day that three of the country's race walkers, two of them Olympians, were nabbed for steroid use and less than a week after seven prominent female were caught in an elaborate doping and test-rigging scheme. In an interview with AFP, Arne Ljungqvist, who is also a vice-president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), expressed his disappointment and disbelief at what has transpired with the Russian team.

Thank you. Deacon Jones said I would cry. You bet your life I'm going to cry. You bet your life I'm going to cry. You bet your life, I will. That's my boy. That's my boy right there. It ain't this in that. It's that [son]. Thank God. What a great day. What a great day. I want to thank the committee, the selection committee, the ones who put me up here, some men and women that watched my career over those 20 seasons and said he should be here and he should be here now. Thank you, guys, and...

A late-game brawl Tuesday in the Los Angeles Sparks' 84-81 Women's National Basketball Association win over the Detroit Shock saw three players an assistant coach ejected. The incident began after a made free throw by Los Angeles, when Sparks rookie sensation Candace Parker got tangled with Shock's Plenette Pierson and both fell to the floor.

Sent to jail by a judge who said he didn’t believe she had owned up to her involvement in steroids and a check-cashing scheme, track star Marion Jones has now turned to a different kind of judge - President Bush.

President Bush met this morning with President Arroyo of the Philippines in the Oval Room Transcript President Bush met with Prime Minister Dung of Vietnam in the Oval Office Transcript President Bush welcomed the 2007 and 2008 NCAA Sports Champions to the White House Secretary of State attended a Middle East Conference in Berlin, Germany Enoy your visit to Sanity Island

The oldest living former Major League Baseball player, Billy Werber, celebrates his 100th birthday Friday, but you would never know it by his quick wit. As he is fond of saying about the leg he lost to .diabetes, "They cut off my leg but not my head." Werber is the sole surviving teammate of Babe Ruth, having played third base for the Yankees in 1930 and 1933. He also played with the New York Giants in his final season, 1942, and the Boston Red Sox (1933-1936), Philadelphia Athletics (1937-1938) and Cincinnati Reds (1939-1941), which won the World Series in 1940....

Statistics Phenomenon On The Pitch: Often Two Players With The Same Birthday At The World Cup ScienceDaily (Jun. 12, 2008) — The German defender Philipp Lahm and the Portuguese midfield star Maniche were both born on 11. November – and they were both playing in the game for the third place at the World Cup 2006. Anyway, in more than half of the games at the World Cup 2006 at least two persons on the field had the same birthday. That is what Yanina Lyesnyak found out within the scope of her bachelor thesis supervised by Prof. Walter Krämer. And...

Now recovered, hoops star says treatment affected his game - University of Tennessee men's basketball star Chris Lofton didn't want to make any excuses for his slump the first half of this past season. But cancer isn't an excuse - it's a reason. The senior All-American guard told the News Sentinel on Thursday that he underwent four weeks of radiation treatment after being diagnosed with testicular cancer last March. Tears came to his eyes when discussing his battle with cancer. Lofton said he has made a full recovery, but he acknowledged that last spring's treatment affected his offseason training regimen...

Denver Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, his business manager Marty Garafalo confirmed Thursday night. The 25-year-old Cutler found out about two weeks ago that he was diabetic and needed daily insulin injections, Garafalo told The Associated Press. He said Cutler was managing his disease and "in no way is his football career jeopardized." Some 21 million Americans have diabetes, meaning their bodies cannot properly turn blood sugar into energy. Either they don't produce enough insulin or don't use it correctly. With the Type 1 form, the body's immune system attacks insulin-producing pancreatic cells, so...

Did anyone else notice the lack of respect by the Stanford women who were playing for the Championship against Tennessee last night? Openly not holding hand over heart when the National Anthem was played. A bunch of losers. Reminds me of BHO.

SINGAPORE - Beijing's heavy pollution may hurt the performances of athletes in this summer's Olympic Games, although it will not endanger their health, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Saturday. The IOC in recent months has acknowledged the possibility that athletes' performances may be affected by China's pollution. But Chinese leaders have made repeated assurances that Beijing's notorious smog will be solved before the Olympic Games begin. "The health of the athletes is absolutely not in any danger," Rogge said Saturday. "It might be that some will have to have a slightly reduced performance, but nothing will harm the...

``The white man hated me all my life and I hate him. That's no secret. I'm not even an American, it just so happens I was born in America. People are prejudiced in tennis. I don't think Venus or Serena was ever accepted by tennis. They never will be. But if you get some little white no-good trasher in America like Tracy Austin or Chris Evert who cannot hit the ball, they will claim this is great.''

The Speedos that could be just a bit too speedyBy MARK FLEMING - More by this author » Last updated at 21:42pm on 29th March 2008  A revolutionary bodysuit that British swimmers hope will help them power to medals at the Beijing Olympics could be banned.  The skintight Speedo LZR Racer costume, which was developed with help from Nasa scientists, has been worn in 16 world record-breaking swims in just six weeks since its launch, and now swimmers are clamouring to try it. But the sport's governing body is worried that, because it apparently helps swimmers go faster, wearing...

BERLIN (AFP) - International Olympic Committee vice-president Thomas Bach said a number of top athletes were considering boycotting the games in China over the bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet. Bach told Bild am Sonntag newspaper he understood the athletes' concerns about the situation in Tibet but said he was advising them to participate. "They will realise when they assess the situation that it is better to make an appearance than to stay away. That is a symbol that will be noticed by the public," he said. Asked if human rights had been a concern when Beijing was selected to...

Ethiopia has ordered its world champion marathon runner to compete in this summer's Olympics in China. Haile Gebrselassie, who suffers from exercise-related asthma, announced that he will not run the 42.195-kilometer race because the air pollution in Beijing is a possible threat to his health. IOC president Jacques Rogge has said the long-distance events at the Games could be rescheduled if conditions are too bad. A BBC report quoted Gebrselassie as saying he would consider running the marathon if the venue were changed. Now his country's sports federation says he can't opt out of the marathon and must follow Ethiopian...

Seven members of Cuba's Under-23 soccer team defect in the United States, according to newspaper reports With one player already suspended following a red card, Cuba coach Raul Gonzalez had only ten players available to him and his team began the match against Honduras with a one-man disadvantage and no substitutes.

We asked NFL scout and draft partner Frank Coyle of draftinsiders.com to pick out some players who have helped - and hurt - themselves thus far at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Monday: Helping their causeDE Chris Long, Virginia This blue-chip defender ran excellent 4.71 and 4.77 times with a 34-inch vertical leap. His agility drill numbers were equal to any linebacker in an excellent showing. His overall effort was one of the best of the event. He did not lift, but will at the Virginia pro day. DE/LB Cliff Avril, Purdue Classic defensive "tweener" hopes to follow the...

COBB -Tyler Woodruff, a 17-year-old senior at Hillgrove High School, failed his honors calculus class last semester. However, the soccer star with a 3.4 grade-point average had no idea that failing one advanced elective - the first class he had ever failed - would end his high school athletic career. The state of Georgia has specific rules governing athletic eligibility. In general, students must pass classes to qualify to play sports, but there is some leeway. For example, a student taking four classes on a block schedule must pass three to be eligible for sports. A student taking eight classes...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2008 – Deployed troops have no doubt been in fights they’d rather have avoided, but thanks to a new program, they can now pick their battles, and have some fun doing it. “Pros vs. GI Joes” is a California-based troop-support group that’s offering servicemembers deployed throughout the Middle East the chance to challenge professional athletes on their favorite Electronic Arts game via Xbox Live. “(It’s) not your typical ‘support the troops’ nonprofit organization that packages up all the good stuff that our troops miss when they’re deployed,” said Greg Zinone, founder of Pros vs. GI Joes....

U.S. baseball home run king Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids in November 2000, months before his record 73rd home run season, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday. The allegation came in a legal filing in his steroid perjury case which referred to Bonds' long-time trainer, Greg Anderson. "At trial, the government's evidence will show that Bonds received steroids from Anderson in the period before the November 2000 positive drug test, and that evidence raises the inference that Anderson gave Bonds the steroids that caused him to test positive in November 2000," U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello wrote. Russoniello, acting for the...

British athletes will be banned from competing in this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing if they criticise China's totalitarian regime. The gagging order has been imposed by the British Olympic Association. Competitors who break the rule will not travel to the games or, if they are already in China, will be put on the next plane home. It means sportsmen and women will be unable to raise concerns about China's human rights record or its occupation of Tibet. Critics accused the BOA of bowing to political pressure and said that the move raised the spectre of the 1936 Berlin Olympics,...

WASHINGTON - A top NFL draftee went teary-eyed Tuesday when he told a crowded room that before he catches a single football as a professional athlete, he wanted to endorse the Christian charity that offers life-changing surgeries to the most needy and hopeless in Africa. “I wanted this to be the first thing I did to begin my career as a professional athlete. I’m not even in the league yet, but I know how important it is to do the right things in the right way,� said Malcolm Kelly, who is expected to be in the top 10 picks for...

Super Bowl Champ: "Give God All the Glory" By John Connolly GLENDALE, Arizona, February 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Plaxico Burress, a wide receiver for the newly-crowned champion team, the New York Giants, told reporters on Sunday that God deserves the glory for his game-winning touchdown catch. Burress, who only caught two passes during the whole of the Super Bowl, said he prayed hard when his number came up, with the game on the line and only 35 seconds left to go in the fourth quarter. The Giants had been waiting all game to get Burress into one-on-one coverage against Ellis...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- She went to her bedroom and cried that night, not because of what the man said but because she knew the whole world was wrong. One hundred and five faxes, 104 "no"s, and it was about to end there, on a harsh winter day, when Wes Welker sat at a long table at the University of Tulsa. All he wanted was a scholarship. If you sign Wes, his mama said, you won't be sorry. If you sign Wes, he'll change your program. The coach turned to Shelley Welker and sized up her 5-foot-9 son. "Well, my mother...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Dora Lee Holmes had a thing about Sherlock Holmes. She also had a sense of humor. As one of 23 children, maybe it was out of self-defense. When she delivered a son in 1964, she named him Baskerville, after the "The Hound of the Baskervilles." In doing so, she created one of the great names in sports history. "I just fell in love with that name," she says, sitting in her tidy home not far from Graceland. "I thought it was different." Baskerville Holmes was one of many the tragic stories that came out of the 1986...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The NCAA has adopted a new rule to help pregnant student athletes not have to choose between having an abortion or losing their scholarship or place on a team when they become pregnant. The new rule comes after exposes that students at Clemson University and University of Memphis had abortions rather than lose their sports standing.The Division I Management Council voted 46-5 to support a proposal that prevents schools from retracting scholarships to student athletes who become pregnant.According to a report in the Daily Aztec, the student newspaper at San Diego State University, San Diego...

• Lew Alcindor, UCLA, 1966-67 -- This was as dominant a season as you'll find. In a win over Washington State, Alcindor scored 61 points and made 26 baskets. He scored 870 points (29 per game) and made 346 field goals and 274 free throws that season, helping the Bruins to a 30-0 record. • Larry Bird, Indiana State, 1978-79 -- He led the Sycamores to an unprecedented 33-1 record and an epic title game against Michigan State that ultimately changed the sport. Bird was the national college player of the year and essentially carried ISU to the title...

Even if New England goes 19-0 and wins its fourth Super Bowl, being busted for cheating in Week 1 will always be a part of the conversation. Always.

He's played all but 20 snaps for a team competing for a national championship, but on the night he proved how much he truly means to his school, LSU's 317-pound left tackle wasn't on the football field. --snip-- I am the left tackle for the LSU Tigers football team. I'm also number 70 and I saw you wearing that jersey number, that's a great number by the way :). You know some people see us as heroes because of how we play but the truth is people like yourself are the real heroes. I see all the small problems I...

High school provides an opportunity to play and gain notice for athletes who seek to play in college. But for home-schooled athletes, it’s a different story. Only students who are enrolled in a public school can play on an athletic team, according to Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association rules, which leaves home-schooled students to fend for themselves. “The WIAA will not allow home schoolers to participate on high school teams because, as I am told by the hierarchy there, students must be enrolled full time in a public school and meet other requirements, such as grades and attendance, in order to...

The 2007 Heisman Trophy goes to Florida's Tim Tebow...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. FOOTBALL FACTS Thanks for joining us once again as we look at some football facts. This time we’ll look at "From a regional to a National sport. From 1930-1958" In the early 1930s, the college game continued to grow, particularly in the south, bolstered by fierce rivalries such as the "Third Saturday in October"—a rivalry between Alabama and Tennessee. While prior to the mid-1920s most national powers came from...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Top distance runner Ryan Shay died during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials Saturday after collapsing about 51/2 miles into the race. He was 28. New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said Shay was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital and was pronounced dead at 8:46 a.m. "It cuts a knife through everybody's hearts," Wittenberg said. Wittenberg said Shay received immediate medical attention. "There were several layers of medical response," she said. "It was very quick." Shay of Flagstaff, Ariz., hit the ground near the Central Park boathouse, a popular Manhattan tourist spot, during the 26.2-mile...

CANTON - Former NBA and Bradley basketball coach Dick Versace hopes to add another win to his record with a bid for Congress. "I'm all in," Versace, a Democrat, said Thursday. His confirmation ends several weeks of speculation about whether he would seek election for the 18th Congressional District seat held by Ray LaHood, who is not seeking re-election.

An accusation of spying, with cameras behind a two-way mirror, has stirred up intrigue at the women's World Cup. The day before their match with China, Denmark team officials found two men with video cameras sitting behind a two-way mirror in the hotel conference room where the team was about to hold a strategy meeting. “It's like a spy movie,” Danish team press officer Pia Schou Nielsen said Thursday. She said the men were Chinese, although Denmark coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller told reporters he did not know their nationalities.

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Magic Johnson is expected to join Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at a discussion in Watts on Friday, then host a fund-raiser for Clinton's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination at his home near Beverly Hills. Clinton, D-N.Y., is scheduled to speak about education, job creation, economic development, health care and public safety with about 300 area residents, community leaders, ministers, students, teachers and parents, according to Luis Vizcaino, her campaign's California communications director. Though Johnson contributed gave $2,300 Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill.'s campaign, the former basketball player turned entrepreneur said he is endorsing Clinton because of her...

Without speaking the words "human growth hormone," a subdued Rick Ankiel grudgingly admitted that he received the powerful drugs described in a Daily News story yesterday - but said he was only following a doctor's directions. The Daily News reported yesterday that Ankiel received a year's worth of human growth hormone shipments from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, the pharmacy at the center of a national prescription drug scandal. "All and any medications that I have received in my career has always been under a doctor's care, a licensed physician," the Cardinals outfielder told reporters in a dugout press gathering before...

PHOENIX (AP) -- Rick Ankiel says any drugs he received in 2004 were prescribed by a licensed physician to help him recover from reconstructive elbow surgery. Ankiel, whose comeback is one of the great stories of this season, initially acknowledged human growth hormone was among those medications during a brief session with reporters Friday, then refused to list his various prescriptions. "I'm not going to go into the list of what my doctors have prescribed for me," the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder said when asked specifically whether he had taken HGH as part of his recovery. "I've been through a...