Football

Minneapolis Mayor: "The clock is ticking on your name"

Thousands of demonstrators gathered Sunday in Minneapolis to protest the Washington Redskins name ahead of the football team’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, police said.

The team’s owner, Daniel Snyder, has steadfastly said he won’t change the team name despite criticism from figures including President Barack Obama, half of the U.S. Senate and Native-American activists.

Clyde Bellecourt, a civil rights activist and co-founder of the American Indian Movement, said at Sunday’s event that the team name is a reminder of the scalping and genocide Native American people endured throughout history, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges participated in chants of “Change the name!” before speaking to the crowd. “I have a message to the Washington team,” she said. “The clock is ticking on your name … it’s more than an insult, it’s hate.”

Police estimate that 3,200 people attended, while organizers say the turnout was closer to 5,000 people, making the event the area’s fourth-largest protest related to Native-American imagery in professional sports since the World Series in 1991, when the Atlanta Braves played the Minnesota Twins. Attendees reportedly traveled from states including Kentucky, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Indiana.

The Washington team’s visit to Minneapolis has not been without incident. Two buses carrying players and coaches got into an accident earlier Sunday morning; no serious injuries were reported.

[Star-Tribune]

Mayor Eric Garcetti says it’s “highly likely” that his city is going to get an NFL team for the first time in 20 years. Reaction: Time for D-Fence

Mayor Eric Garcetti says Los Angeles shouldn’t give taxpayer dollars to the National Football League. I disagree. L.A. would be wise to pay the NFL—to stay away.

Twenty years after the Raiders and Rams left, the very bad idea of luring the NFL back is gaining momentum. Los Angeles just extended a downtown stadium deal agreement. The NFL is surveying rich Angelenos to see if they’d buy season tickets. Garcetti says it’s “highly likely” a team will relocate here.

The arguments against bringing the NFL are so numerous that I can’t list them all in a short column, but here are a few:

1. An NFL team would only add to our deep bench of dubious celebrities.

The L.A. media already has enough celebrities to distract TV stations and newspapers from covering things that actually matter; we don’t need to introduce a team of rambunctious football players to our Kardashian culture.

2. An NFL team in L.A. would cannibalize existing businesses.

Studies show that adding a pro sports franchise doesn’t add to a city’s wealth. Instead, it takes existing dollars away from other entertainment options.

3. A new team would be wasteful.

The NFL requires cities to build a new football stadium in order to get a team, but the Rose Bowl just got a $181 million renovation, and USC is fixing up the Coliseum.

4. A new team would be bad for Los Angeles’ own football fans.

The absence of the NFL has allowed a delicate football ecology to flourish here. Our TV stations air the best pro games because there’s no local squad. On Sundays, Angelenos dress in their former hometown teams’ jerseys and gather together to watch games. And if you absolutely must see the NFL live, the Chargers are just a train ride away in San Diego.

Despite all this, many of our leaders insist that a city of our grandeur needs an NFL team and that a downtown stadium deal won’t cost us anything. Yet the current deal uses public land and requires the city to sell some $300 million in bonds to build new convention space. And, the NFL might draw big public subsidies by giving L.A. two teams instead of just one, or committing to hosting multiple Super Bowls here. Do you trust the L.A. leaders who just gave Hollywood a $1.6 billion tax break to hold the line against public support for a pro football team? Me neither.

Instead, L.A. should offer the NFL money to stay away. When you think of all the costs of having a team—potential stadium costs, additional traffic, the business that football would divert from other entertainment options, and time wasted on the NFL drama—paying off the NFL becomes a bargain.

So let’s offer the league $100 million in exchange for a guarantee never to put a team here. And if the league turns it down? That, at least, would make the reality undeniable: The NFL wants to take L.A. for all it’s worth.

Joe Mathews is California and Innovation editor for Zocalo Public Square, for which he writes the Connecting California column.

(DENVER) — Relatives of a Broncos fan who went missing during last week’s game are wondering how a man with no known health or personal problems could seem to vanish without a trace.

Family and friends of 53-year-old Paul Kitterman have been searching for him since Thursday night’s matchup with the San Diego Chargers at Sports Authority Field.

His stepson, Jarod Tonneson, said he has not been seen since he left his seat to meet friends during halftime. Tonneson filed a missing persons report with Denver police, scoured the sprawling stadium, called local hospitals and detox centers and taped fliers around the city.

“We just don’t know what else to do,” Tonneson told The Associated Press on Monday. “Paul is a simple guy, he doesn’t like technology, he doesn’t get into drama. He’s just an easygoing guy.”

The two went to the game with two of their friends after a day spent working and hunting at another friend’s ranch in Kremmling, a small town in the mountains of northern Colorado.

Kitterman and Tonneson, both construction workers, hurriedly made the 100 mile trip to the stadium after a friend offered tickets. It was Kitterman’s first time there. In their haste, Kitterman forgot his cellphone, took no credit cards and very little cash.

Still, Kitterman had memorized his friends’ phone numbers and would have found ways to reach out if he wanted to leave. He had four or five beers in the course of a four-hour span, not enough to become disoriented, Tonneson said.

Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said detectives don’t suspect foul play, but he would not elaborate. He said police were trying to support the family in their search.

“They just don’t seem too worried about it being that he is a grown man,” Tonneson said.

His parents live in Arizona and his siblings in Missouri, but Kitterman has few contacts in the Denver area, Tonneson said.

“He wouldn’t just take off, you know?” Tonneson said. “He wouldn’t leave me there.”

The school acknowledged underage drinking among team members and recruits and “other questionable behavior”

The Army football team lured high school recruits this year with alcohol, cash from boosters and a dinner date with woman cadets, according to a newspaper report. West Point acknowledged misconduct.

The Gazette of Colorado Springs reported that 20 cadets were disciplined and two officers and two coaches reprimanded, but the newspaper reported that punishment stopped short of dismissal or court-martial for the officers.

Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., the West Point superintendent, said in a statement that the academy reported infractions to the NCAA, which imposed no penalties beyond the school’s. The statement acknowledged underage drinking among team members…

Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC News

The accuser has since withdrawn her complaint

A University of Florida football player who was accused of raping a fellow student on Oct. 6 allegedly texted the accuser “don’t tell nobody bout nothing” after the encounter, according to full police reports released Wednesday.

Treon Harris, the freshman quarterback of the University of Florida team, reportedly sent the text message the morning after the accuser came to his room according to the police report. The female accuser told police that she had gone to Harris’s room to sleep but repeatedly made it clear she did not want to have sex. She said he held her down with his body weight and penetrated her against her will, but has since withdrawn her complaint, reserving the right to press charges in the future.

The alleged rape occurred early in the morning on Oct. 5, and the accuser went to the police on Oct. 6. In a police interview, Harris said he thought the sex was consensual, and that the text message was intended to keep the hookup a secret from another girl, according to the New York Times. Harris was suspended from the team on Oct. 6, but was reinstated after the accuser withdrew her complaint on Oct. 9.

The release of the police reports come after the New York Times published an extensive investigation of police dealings with Florida State football players that brought to light incidents in which it appeared that players are often treated differently by police because of their position on the team. Although Florida State University and University of Florida are not affiliated, the incident coincides with a period of heightened scrutiny about how universities deal with allegations of sexual assault among football players.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Sam "had a long way to go" as a player

The Dallas Cowboys have waived defensive end Michael Sam from their practice squad, the team announced Tuesday.

Sam, the first openly gay player in the NFL, was signed to the team’s practice squad Sept. 3. He never made it to the Cowboys’ active roster.

According to the team’s official website, Sam will be replaced on the practice squad with linebacker Troy Davis, who worked out for Dallas on Monday.

Sam said the following on Twitter after his release was made public:

I want to thank the Jones family and the entire Cowboys organization for this opportunity, as well as my friends, family, teammates and fans for their support. While this is disappointing, I will take the lessons I learned here in Dallas and continue to fight for an opportunity to prove that I can play every Sunday.

MORE: BURKE: Cowboys’ Big 3 among big winners of Week 7

Sam made history and received national attention in the spring when he announced he was gay several weeks before the NFL combine. As the reigning SEC co-defensive player of the year at Missouri, Sam became the highest-profile active gay football player and sought to become the first gay player to be selected in the NFL Draft.

The St. Louis Rams picked Sam in the seventh round of this year’s draft and kept him on their roster until the last round of cuts at the end of training camp. He was picked up by the Cowboys several days later.

At the time of Sam’s signing, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Sam “had a long way to go” as a player while dismissing concerns that the rookie could be a potential distraction in the locker room due to his sexuality, echoing the sentiments of Rams coach Jeff Fisher from when Sam was with St. Louis.

Jones said Sunday that Sam’s sexual orientation was “a dead issue.”

Sam is now free to sign with any other team or join any other team’s practice squad. The CFL could also be an option, as Sam reportedly received interest from the Montreal Alouettes before he joined the Cowboys’ practice squad.

This article originally appeared on SI.com

One said the backlash from reporting the incident “made me want to shoot myself”

Older players on a New Jersey high school football team that has drawn national headlines for a hazing scandal allegedly pinned younger players to the floor and punched, kicked and sexually groped their bodies, according to a new report.

The New York Times, citing interviews with victims and multiple witnesses, provides new detail to the scandal that has cost Sayreville War Memorial High School its football season and has led seven varsity football players to be arrested. One victim said he was penetrated from behind by a finger. But there are conflicting accounts and some said they didn’t consider the hazing abusive.

The victims told the Times that they continued to suffer from abuse and taunts on social media for reporting the attacks, and one said the backlash “made me want to shoot myself.”

The team’s season was cancelled this month.

Read more at the Times

He beat Brett Favre's record with No. 509