In the world of sports, the word family is thrown out a lot. There’s the family you play with and the family you play for. In this week’s Sports Dump we look at families, both on the playing surface and at home.
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Sports Dump 1: When Duke’s Men’s Basketball Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski collected his 1,000th win against St. John’s, his wife Mickie went to Blue Devil Freshman Phenom Jahlil Okafor and thanked him. Okafor did not feel he deserved a thank you, “We all wanted to do this for a guy we love so much,” he said after the game.
Coach K would spend the moments after his post game media session with Mickie, two of his daughters, seven of their grandchildren, assistant coaches, current and former players, and a few others who wanted to relish this moment. A career intersection of his Duke family and the Krzyzewski family.
The last points scored in that career defining game were tallied by Rasheed Sulaimon. An unfortunate asterisk in an unprecedented tenure. Sulaimon is no longer on the team. Four days after Coach K’s 1,000th victory the 20-year-old was dismissed from the team for being “unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program,” according to Krzyzewski.
Duke’s student run paper, The Chronicle, published a story claiming two female students told peers at two separate retreats last year that they were sexually assaulted by Sulaimon. The Chronicle reported that high-ranking figures within the Duke athletic department, including men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, became aware of these allegations as early as March 2014, roughly 10 months before Sulaimon was dismissed.
So far, Krzyzewski has issued a “no comment.” An alleged 10-month gap between when members within the Duke athletic department were notified and Sulaimon’s dismissal demand a comment. If only to explain the reason for his dismissal and the coincidental release of news of alleged sexual assault.
If not for his own name and credibility, than for the Duke family name.
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When Dean Smith passed away, Coach K said Smith’s “greatest gift was his unique ability to teach what it takes to be a good man. That was easy to do because he was a great man himself. All of his players benefited greatly…from his ability to help mold men of integrity, honor and purpose.”
All the way on the other side of the country, Smith’s greatest talent is being mimicked by Oregon State University Head Coach Wayne Tinkle.
The last home game is usually reserved for senior night. An opportunity for students and fans to thank the collegiate athletes who have represented their university for four or five years. In Corvallis, the Beavers did not have a senior on its roster. Instead, Tinkle honored his walk-ons, giving the unheralded, seldom used players a rare start.
“I was thinking about having no seniors celebrate what would normally be Senior Night and I wanted to honor something for this team. It hit me right away, honor the walk-ons from Oregon that have been such a big part of our season…I’d do it all again.”
The walk-ons were replaced down 0-3 early in the first half. Unfortunately, Oregon State lost to its rival University of Oregon by three points.
With the result being that same three point margin, Tinkle made the message loud and clear, family trumps wins and losses.
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Sports Dump 2: Too many times we hear stories where institutions in charge create more problems then help solve. It seems this is the case in two separate events in two different states.
In Tuscon, Arizona, TJ McConnell is the senior point guard for the University of Arizona. Saturday is Senior Day at McKale Center and the Wildcats will be honoring four seniors making their last appearance on Lute and Bobbi Olson court. For the other three, their parents and loved ones will be there to witness the event. Unfortunately for McConnell his dad will not be there.
That’s because the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association denied Chartiers Valley’s request to move the date of it’s contest with Mt. Lebanon. TJ’s dad, Tim is the head coach for Chartiers Valley. Despite Mt. Lebanon agreeing to switch the date to accommodate Tim, the Pennsylvania high school sports governing board felt it gave an unfair advantage to the two schools.
The only thing unfair is when TJ is being honored before the Wildcats’ game against Stanford, dad Tim will be in Pittsburgh, unable to celebrate and share the moment with his family.
In California, Narbonne High School girls’ basketball team wore jerseys with pink letters and numbers to spread breast cancer awareness. The school did not notify the City Section ahead of time, and so they were, obviously banned from the rest of the postseason. The ban was short lived, but the organization still felt a message needed to be sent to those teenagers for trying to spread goodwill.
Coach Victoria Sanders has been suspended for the remainder of the season for allowing the girls’ basketball team to wear the jerseys.
“Breast cancer awareness is in October, and there’s a process for people to request color change,” City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said prior to the reinstatement. “The principal didn’t even know about these numbers. If they’re going to blatantly disregard these rules and regulations, they’re going to affect kids.”
In what way does Aguirre assume this usage of pink letters and numbers will affect kids?
“Like it or not, breast cancer is a team sport,” said Shirley Horn, communications director at the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif.
“The only way we are going to find the cause and learn how to prevent it is for women, like the Narbonne girls’ basketball team, to participate in understanding and tackling the breast cancer problem,” Horn said. “We hope that when these young women are older, they will participate in research through programs like our Army of Women® and Health of Women Study™.”
Maybe then, Aguirre will realize the affect this will really have on kids.
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Before the Super Bowl, Richard Sherman made headlines for something he said, but it had nothing to do with the game of football. Candidly, Sherman mentioned the dilemma he would have to face had his girlfriend gone into labor during or before the Super Bowl. It cast a light not only on the ongoing debate of paternity leave, but also on the seldom talked about point that these athletes are family members as well.
This was never more evident than in the NHL this past week when Minnesota Wild’s Jordan Leopold’s daughter Jordyn’s sent a letter to the Wild.
Before Monday Leopold was a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and according to Jordyn’s letter, the family “could not take it anymore.”
Minutes later, the Blue Jackets sent Leopold home to his family.
”I’ve always dreamed of it and knew it was possible, but the fact that it becomes reality is something special,” Leopold said.
Despite the fact that no one on either side of the deal was aware of the letter before, they were all touched by the sentiment.
It isn’t always just about business… pic.twitter.com/uVDV3K2Nky””
— Jarmo Kekalainen (@jkekalainen) March 2, 2015
”It comes with the territory, and we signed up for this. I chose to have kids at a young age,” Leopold said. ”My career is not going to last forever. There’s more important things than hockey, and the kids rank up there.”
For Leopold, his two families live in the same city; the one he works for, and the one he plays for.
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Photo Credit: Twitter/@cjzero
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