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SIERRA VISTA — For years, wrestling was always seen as a men’s sport. But that’s no longer the case. Girls across Cochise County are breaking that stereotype one half nelson at a time — and doing it well. Lyla Pacheco is a freshman at Buena High School and a junior varsity team member on the school’s wrestling squad. She is one of three girls on a team made up of more than 50 players. Though she’s a freshman, Pacheco is no newcomer to the sport. She started her wrestling career in junior high school because she said she wanted to...

The NFL protests were not really about injustice. Instead such protests are usually genuflections to today’s victim-focused black identity. Protest is the action arm of this identity. It is not seeking a new and better world; it merely wants documentation that the old racist world still exists. It wants an excuse. For any formerly oppressed group, there will be an expectation that the past will somehow be an excuse for difficulties in the present. This is the expectation behind the NFL protests and the many protests of groups like Black Lives Matter. The near-hysteria around the deaths of Trayvon Martin,...

Simone Biles, the golden girl of the 2016 Olympics, added her name Monday to the list of gymnasts who say they were molested by team doctor Larry Nassar. The revelation came in a long statement on her social media accounts — one day before a weeklong sentencing hearing where Nassar will hear from nearly 100 victims. "Most of you know me as a happy, giggly and energetic girl. But lately...I've felt a bit broken and the more I try to shut off the voice in my head the louder it screams," Biles wrote in a #metoo post. "I am not...

According to SportsBusiness Daily, the ratings for all four games fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade.

Keith Jackson, who was widely regarded as the voice of college football by several generations, died late Friday night, his family said. He was 89. Jackson, who retired in 2006, spent some 50 years calling the action in a folksy, down-to-earth manner that made him one of the most popular play-by-play personalities in the business. "For generations of fans, Keith Jackson was college football," said Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. "When you heard his voice, you knew it was a big game. Keith was a true gentleman and memorable presence. Our thoughts and prayers go...

Trump attends NCAA football championship game The president stands for national anthem at championship game between Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs.

Saturday's NFL Playoff games down over 10% Year over Year.

The obituary published in the Sandusky Register says Paul Stark, of Huron, died Wednesday at a hospice facility after a brief illness "exacerbated by the hopeless condition of the Cleveland Browns." The football team was 1-15 last season and 0-15 this year ahead of Sunday's finale at Pittsburgh. Even so, Stark's obituary included a nugget of the optimism voiced by some long-suffering fans. It says the 80-year-old Mansfield native "passed just before the Browns were prepared to turn the corner."

Capping a season of record-low Monday Night Football ratings, ESPN’s first Christmas NFL game in 11 years was a lump of coal. Raiders-Eagles scored a 5.9 rating and 11.7 million viewers on ESPN’s Monday Night Football Christmas night, down 42% in ratings and 38% in viewership from Week 16 last year (Cowboys-Lions: 10.1, 18.9M). ESPN’s Nielsen ratings now include streaming viewership on TV devices; comparisons are to last year’s TV+streaming numbers. The Eagles’ win, which peaked at a 6.7 and 13.4 million from 9:30-10 PM ET, was the lowest rated Week 16 MNF game since Broncos-Chargers on Christmas Eve 2007...

Forty-five years ago today, baseball fans woke up to the news that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ star outfielder Roberto Clemente had been killed in an airplane crash on December 31 on his way to Nicaragua to deliver disaster relief after an earthquake. A few months earlier, on September 30, 1972, Clemente had pulled a curveball from New York Met and Rookie of the Year Jon Matlack into the gap for a double. It was his 3,000th hit, and he had become only the 11th player in nearly a century of Major League Baseball to reach that milestone. It was also the...

How can the same problems repeatedly doom one team? How can mental mistakes so consistently outshine physical talent? This season didn’t get away from the Seahawks — the Seahawks pushed it away. This wasn’t about injuries. The Seahawks might have lost some premier players, but that’s not why their season ended before the New Year. It wasn’t about bad breaks, either. As far as favorable bounces go, the football gods weren’t particularly unjust to Seattle this season. No, the Seahawks missing their first postseason since 2011 is primarily due to this: underachievement. They aren’t going to the playoffs because, quite...

Americans have long since broken free of their Puritan past, but the Puritan impulse is not quite dead. Among the places it shows signs of life is the 1992 federal law that prohibits states from -- you are not going to believe this -- allowing betting on sports. If a Martian arrived today, of course, she would deduce that in this country, betting on sports is not forbidden but mandatory. In practice, it's as American as Dunkin' Donuts. March Madness costs businesses an estimated $4 billion a year in lost productivity, and it's not because employees waste time singing their...

The embattled National Football League announced its decision to cancel this week’s edition of ‘Sunday Night Football’ on Tuesday; hoping to avoid a ratings bloodbath as a less-than-stellar line-up and New Year’s Eve festivities would have caused the NFL to reach embarrassing new lows. The league opted to call-off the game before announcing which teams were scheduled to compete, adding the match-up wouldn’t have playoff implications and would likely cost the already troubled organization millions of dollars. “We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all...

SAN ANTONIO -- San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich offered a simple reason Tuesday before the team's tipoff against the Brooklyn Nets when asked why charitable endeavors are important to him. "Because we're rich as hell, and we don't need it all, and other people need it," Popovich said. "Then, you're an ass if you don't give it. Pretty simple." Having spent considerable time and money working with several charities and nonprofits such as the San Antonio Food Bank and Shoes That Fit, with which he partnered in October to deliver shoes to more than 200 students at Gates Elementary,...

“What’s stopping Colin Kaepernick from being in the league?” Owens said to TMZ Sports. “Owners, general managers, it’s all about an opportunity. Same thing with Colin. You trying to tell me that he can’t play in the league right now?

We’re quickly approaching New Years, which is traditionally a time for reflection on the events of the past year and plans for how to do better over the next twelve months. That’s particularly true for the NFL, which has seen both its television ratings and live attendance in many stadiums plunge precipitously in 2017. As the Washington Times reports this week, the leadership in the league is busy analyzing precisely what caused all of this and how they might address it in 2018.Your first guess might logically be that the National Anthem protests were a big driving factor. That was...

Papa Johns’ founder John Schnatter will step down as CEO following an intense backlash sparked by his criticism of NFL players protesting the National Anthem. The company’s president, Steve Ritchie, will take over as CEO. Business Insider reports: Schnatter sparked controversy in November when he slammed NFL leadership over the ongoing national anthem protests. “Leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership,” CEO John Schnatter said in a call with investors. […] Schnatter owns roughly 25% of Papa John’s, and will stay on as chairman after stepping down as CEO in January. According to a...

John Skipper resigned as president of ESPN and co-chairman of the Disney Media Networks on Monday. George Bodenheimer, ESPN's president from 1998-2011 and its executive chairman until May 2014, will take over as the acting chairman of the company for the next 90 days to help Disney chairman and chief executive officer Bob Iger find Skipper's replacement. [Snip] "I have struggled for many years with a substance addiction. I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is to take care of my problem. "I have disclosed that decision to the company, and we mutually agreed...

As the NFL copes with a ratings slump and ESPN slashes $80 million in salaries after losing 15,000 subscribers a day in October, another major issue facing the league continued to play out in week 15 – terrible attendance. Ravens vs. Browns, Start 2nd Qtr While many blame the kneeing epidemic of unpatriotic players refusing to stand for the National Anthem – which started in the summer 2016 pre-season by former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, others point to a boring season, cord cutters and broke millennials staying home. Either way, it’s ugly. Since most NFL attendance figures are...

Another food behemoth is blaming slumping sales on protests at National Football League games. Sanderson Farms, a poultry outfit headquartered in Laurel, Mississippi, is pointing to the protests, in which some NFL players kneel during the pre-game national anthem, as a possible reason for a recent decline, reports Fortune. “The only thing puzzling me right now is wings,” chief executive officer Joe F. Sanderson Jr. said in an earnings call on Thursday. “It’s just been reported to us that some of our customers think that their traffic is down because of the demonstrations by some of the NFL players.” Chicken...