Sports

"I think it’s really important for me to talk about it"

NBA player Ryan Anderson has revealed his struggle to come to terms with the suicide of his girlfriend, “Bachelor” contestant Gia Allemand, in a new interview with Sports Illustrated.

The New Orleans Pelicans forward found Allemand, 29, hanging from a vacuum-cleaner cord “so tight around her neck that at first he couldn’t loosen it” in August 2013. She died a short while later.

Anderson, 26, fell into despair after she was taken off life support. He returned to basketball in September.

Anderson took to Twitter after an outpouring of support from readers.

Read the article at SI.com.

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You won’t see LeBron James’ sons scoring touchdowns anytime soon. The Cleveland Cavaliers all-star said in a new interview that he neither lets them play football, nor hockey.

“We don’t want them to play in our household right now until they understand how physical and how demanding the game is. Then they can have their choice in high school, we’ll talk over it,” James reasoned to ESPN. “But right now there’s no need for it. There’s enough sports they can play. They play basketball, they play soccer, they play everything else but football and hockey.”

James explained that health concerns led to the ban. “It’s a safety thing,” he said. “As a parent you protect your kids as much as possible.” Football aside, both of his sons still play several sports: LeBron Jr., 10, concentrates mainly on basketball while Bryce Maximus, 7, favors soccer.

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He’s far from the first big name to speak out against youth football. President Barack Obama said last January that if he had a son, “I’d have to think long and hard” before letting him play. And Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg took an even firmer stand in a TIME op-ed this fall, saying he had forbidden his son from playing. But New Yorker columnist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell holds perhaps the most controversial position of all — that all college football should be banned.

James’ stance may come as a surprise to some fans. The two-time NBA champion has called football “his first love.” Along with being one of the most sought-after high school basketball recruits ever, he was also an all-state wide receiver at his high school in Ohio. But he dropped football in his junior year after breaking a wrist during the offseason.

FIFA's announcement clearing the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding processes scores a series of spectacular own goals to clinch the title

Fans know football as “the beautiful game,” not just a sport but a metaphor in which—given a level playing field, clear rules (well, and this one) and an impartial referee—the best team wins. Ugly scenes sometimes mar the romantic vision, but players who commit fouls are duly punished.

It can often be hard to square this ideal with the off-pitch maneuvers of the bodies responsible for the sport but a Nov.13 statement by the ethics committee of FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the Zurich-based governing body of world soccer, took the World Cup for chutzpah. The statement purported to summarize the investigation commissioned by FIFA into numerous allegations of irregularities behind bid processes that decided Russia would host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar—where daytime temperatures during the summer months of the competition routinely exceed 40°C (104°F)—would stage the tournament in 2022. The announcement trumpeted findings that put Russia, Qatar—and FIFA—in the clear. England’s Football Association (FA), by coincidence one of the organizations to raise concerns about the bid processes, came in for criticism. The FA had tried to “curry favor” with a key official as part of its doomed efforts to win the 2018 competition for London, said the ethics committee statement.

FIFA welcomed “a degree of closure.” The FA rejected FIFA’s criticism. Social media erupted with a mixture of bemusement and contempt. “Is there any grouping of 3 words more certain to induce tears of laughter than FIFA Ethics Committee?” tweeted British journalist @BryanAppleyard. Gary Lineker, a former top soccer player-turned-NBC pundit, also took to Twitter to launch a series of well placed kicks against FIFA and its autocratic President Sepp Blatter.

Lineker may have captained the England team in an earlier life, but some of the angriest responses to Fifa came from people without a dog—or country—in this particular fight. The most startling emanated from Michael Garcia, the former New York district attorney mentioned in one of Lineker’s tweets, who conducted the two-year investigation on FIFA’s behalf. FIFA’s interpretation of his report “contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions,” Garcia complained in a statement of his own. He plans to appeal—as Lineker wrote—to FIFA.

Meanwhile Russia greeted news that its bid had been cleared with equanimity. It had failed to provided much documentation to the investigation because, said FIFA, “computers used at the time by the Russia Bid Committee had been leased and then returned to their owner after the bidding process,” without preserving the email correspondence on them. “We were always sure that they would not find anything unlawful,” Alexei Sorokin, head of Russia’s World Cup bid, told R-SPort news agency.

It's alleged that Griffin battered the victim, Daniel Schuman, by "squeezing his hand and shoulder and/or slapping him on the face".

Officials confirmed Wednesday that Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin has been charged with one count of misdemeanor battery stemming from an incident at a Las Vegas nightclub, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. TMZ first reportedthe news.

Las Vegas authorities were investigating Griffin last month for the alleged altercation but no arrests were made or charges filed at that time. The Clippers were in Las Vegas to play the Denver Nuggets in a preseason game at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

According to Bolch, it’s alleged that Griffin battered the victim, Daniel Schuman, by “squeezing his hand and shoulder and/or slapping him on the face.”

Griffin’s first court date is scheduled for Dec. 8 at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. The Clippers play a home game against the Phoenix Suns that day.

Griffin is averaging 24.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game on 47.1 percent shooting this season.

This article originally appeared on SI.com

No proof was found of long-standing allegations of bribes and voting pacts

(GENEVA) — A FIFA judge has cleared Russia and Qatar of corruption in their winning bids for the next two World Cups.

German judge Joachim Eckert formally closed FIFA’s probe into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests on Thursday, almost four years after the vote by the governing body’s scandal-tainted executive committee.

Eckert noted wrongdoing among the 11 bidding nations in a 42-page summary of FIFA prosecutor Michael Garcia’s investigations.

However, Eckert ruled that the integrity of the December 2010 voting results was not affected.

No proof was found of longstanding allegations of bribes and voting pacts. Eckert concluded that any rule-breaking behavior was “far from reaching any threshold” to require re-running the contests.

Eckert wants Garcia to prosecute cases against individual FIFA voters and bid staffers.

Bryant currently ranks fourth on the NBA's all-time scoring list

Kobe Bryant has missed more shots in the regular season than any other player in NBA history.

The Los Angeles Lakers star passed Celtics legend Jon Havlicek’s record (13,147) during Tuesday night’s game against the Grizzlies. Bryant eclipsed passed Havlicek’s mark in 18 fewer games.

The record-breaking miss came on a mid-range jump shot in the fourth quarter.

Bryant, 36, has hoisted at least 1,500 shots in 10 of his 19 seasons. His 2,173​ attempts in 2005-06 were a career high. Bryant has shot 45.3 percent from the field and averaged 25.5 points per game during his career.

Over six games this season entering Tuesday, Bryant has scored 26.5 points per game while posting a 39.4 field goal percentage — which would be a career-low if maintained over the entire season.

Bryant currently ranks fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

This article originally appeared on SI.com

Wayne Ellington Jr. has taken an indefinite leave of absence from his team

The father of Los Angeles Lakers guard Wayne Ellington Jr. was shot dead in Philadelphia on Sunday.

Police received a call about an traffic collision in nearby Germantown and found 57-year-old Wayne Ellington Sr. in the front seat of his Oldsmobile with a bullet in his head, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Ellington was immediately taken to the nearby Albert Einstein Medical Center for surgery, but was pronounced dead about three hours later.

A motive for his murder is not yet clear, and the city has offered a $20,000 reward for any further information.

Ellington Jr., who grew up in Philadelphia and joined the Lakers as a free agent in September, took an indefinite leave of absence from the team before traveling home earlier this week.

“I encourage anyone with any information to come forward to help authorities solve this case,” he said in a statement.

Former North Carolina football player Michael McAdoo is suing the school over sham classes. Does the case have a shot?

When the University of North Carolina was recruiting Michael McAdoo, Tar Heels head coach Butch Davis made a pledge that helped lure the high school football star to Chapel Hill. “I can’t guarantee that Michael will play in the NFL,” Davis told McAdoo’s mother, grandmother, and grandfather while at their home in Antioch, Tenn. “But one thing I can guarantee is that he will get a good education at the University of North Carolina.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. After enrolling at UNC and playing defensive end during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, the NCAA ruled McAdoo ineligible because he received improper help from a tutor in writing an African-American studies paper. That sort of extra assistance was all too common for top athletes at the highly-regarded public university. According to a devastating report released in October, former federal attorney Kenneth Wainstein found that between 1993 and 2011, over 3,100 UNC students took “paper” classes in the school’s Department of African and Afro-American Studies. These courses required no classroom time, little work, and produced inflated grades that were often assigned by a department administrator, not a faculty member. Of the 1,871 paper classes taken by athletes between 1999 and 2011, 63.5% of the enrolled students were football or men’s basketball players.

McAdoo says he was put in such sham classes against his will. So he’s added another headache for the beleaguered school. On Nov. 6, McAdoo filed a class action suit in federal court against the University of North Carolina, on behalf of himself and other football players on scholarship between 1993 and 2011. The suit accuses North Carolina of fraud, deceptive trade practices, and breach of contract: the school promised a legitimate education in exchange for athletic services, but allegedly failed to deliver. “Legal action was in the ether when I first met Michael earlier this year,” says Jeremi Duru, one of McAdoo’s attorneys (McAdoo declined to comment directly). “But the Wainstein report put the engines in motion.”

The complaint says that “almost immediately after arriving at UNC to begin his freshman year, Mr. McAdoo realized that the promises Head Coach Davis and his assistants made about the football’s program’s commitment to academics were false.” McAdoo says he expressed interest in becoming a criminal justice major, but football players were steered into three options for a major: Exercise Sport Science, Communications, or African-American Studies. Per the complaint: “When Mr. McAdoo asked why he should not pursue other majors, he was told these were the only majors that would accommodate his football practice and playing schedule, and that the football program had ‘relationships’ with professors in those departments.” McAdoo, who majored in Exercise Sport Science and African-American Studies, says that an academic counselor gave him and his teammates pre-assigned course schedules that included paper classes. “Mr. McAdoo had no role in selecting the courses,” says the complaint. “The same thing happened every semester Mr. McAdoo attended the University of North Carolina.”

UNC said in a statement that “the University will reserve further comment until we’ve had the opportunity to fully review the claims.”

Davis, who coached UNC from 2007-2010 after being the head coach at the University of Miami and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, tells TIME that he wasn’t aware of the sham classes when he promised McAdoo a good education. (Davis was fired after the 2010 season, in part because the turmoil surrounding the program after some of the academic impropriety came to light). “After we recruit the athletes, then everything about their academics was handled outside the athletic department,” says Davis, who is now an analyst for ESPN. “Their classes, their degree programs, their teachers, their mentors, their tutors, and everything fell completely under the supervision of the university academic advisement or career counseling program. The only role that I or my assistant coaches had is they would ask us from an academic standpoint ‘what days would you like to practice and what times would you like to have your athletes?’ … Our coaching staff didn’t know that there was anything corrupt, fraudulent, or cheating going on in those classes. We didn’t know.”

At least one former player doesn’t absolve Davis. A man who identified himself as former North Carolina defensive tackle Tydreke Powell told a Greensboro, N.C. radio station that Davis “came into a meeting one day and he said, ‘If y’all came here for an education, you should have went to Harvard.”

Davis acknowledges the remark, but insists that Powell misunderstood the point. “I said that, OK, in the context that I made that statement one time, and it was a poorly phrased context, but I said it half comical and half in the form of ‘stop complaining,’ Davis says. “Your days are long. It’s a long, hard day. You’ve got to practice, you’ve got to study, you’ve got to go to class, you’ve got to take notes, you’ve got to do extra work. If you wanted to just get an education period, and you didn’t want to play in a high profile football program, and you didn’t want to chance to go to the NFL, you should have gone to Harvard. It was totally kind of halfway joking and halfway whimsical, comical, and halfway saying ‘hey guys, I hear you. I know being a student-athlete in a Division I major college program in any sport is harder than just being a student.’ If you just wanted to be a student, you should have gone to Harvard, you know?”

The Legal Odds

McAdoo’s suit will keep the glare on North Carolina, but will it hold up in court? “I think it’s an absolutely brilliant strategy,” says Marc Edelman, a sports law expert at Baruch College in New York City. “The thrust of what the NCAA purports to be based on is education in exchange for athletic services. That’s supposed to be the quid pro quo. The implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is a basic tenant of contract law. There’s a very strong argument that North Carolina violated the quid pro quo.”

But McAdoo isn’t the first college athlete to make this argument, and the existing case law could throw a wrench into his suit. In 1992, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit largely upheld a lower court decision to dismiss a case involving Kevin Ross, a former basketball player at Creighton University who sued the school for negligence and breach of contract for failing to educate him. “We agree — indeed we emphasize — that courts should not ‘take on the job of supervising the relationship between colleges and student-athletes or creating in effect a new relationship between them,’” the judges wrote. Courts are reluctant to judge the quality of a student’s education, because “theories of educations are not uniform.” How can you objectively measure the quality of a student’s academic experience? It may be a ‘practical impossibility to prove that the alleged malpractice of the teacher proximately caused the learning deficiency of the plaintiff student.’”

“Courts have consistently been very reluctant to get into the quality of education,” says Phillip Closius, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “This is not binding precedent. But it seems highly unlikely for a court to ignore it.”

The judges were also concerned about the potential “flood of litigation against the schools.” If McAdoo wins damages because his education is deemed insufficient, what’s to stop other dissatisfied students from bringing their own claims?

But the appellate ruling in Ross’s case did leave a small opening for McAdoo’s suit. In order to avoid the murky matter of judging the quality of Ross’ education, the lower court was ordered to answer a very narrow question. “To adjudicate such a claim, the court would not be required to determine whether Creighton had breached its contract with Mr. Ross by providing deficient academic services. Rather, its inquiry would be limited to whether the University had provided any real access to its academic curriculum at all.”

Under this precedent, McAdoo would have to show that North Carolina offered him no education. That’s tough to prove. (Ross, who left Creighton with seventh grade reading skills, reached a $30,000 settlement with the school, which admitted no liability). And it begs the question of why McAdoo didn’t fight harder to enroll in a major of his choosing. “He’s not a minor,” says Closius. “If you know classes have no content, why don’t you do something about it?”

Duru, McAdoo’s lawyer, argues that for young athletes who’ve trained their whole lives to play college football, taking such a stand isn’t so easy. “Think about the expanse of the academic impropriety, and channeling into these courses, going on at North Carolina,” he says. “It was almost part and parcel of being part of the football team. It was just systematic and normative that an 18-year-old kid drop into it.”

McAdoo declared for the NFL’s supplemental draft after he was ruled ineligible and spent two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens on injured reserve. His suit isn’t just seeking money. He wants the court to appoint someone to review the curriculum and course selection for all North Carolina football players for the next five years, and for the school to guarantee athletic scholarships for four years.

“He’s not trying to vilify North Carolina,” says Duru. “He’s trying to right a wrong.”

Read next: North Carolina Has a Real College Sports Scandal on its Hands