By Gregory Broome
Published: February 13, 2013
The DODDS-Europe basketball championships will take place Wednesday, Feb. 20 through Saturday, Feb. 23 at Wiesbaden, Germany.
Here’s a look at the teams to watch:
By Gregory Broome
Published: February 12, 2013
Bavarian Military Community took top team honors at Saturday’s military boxing event at Clay Kaserne in Wiesbaden, Germany, outlasting USAG-Wiesbaden, Team Wiesbaden, Spangdahlem and Stuttgart.
The next scheduled military boxing event is March 2 at USAG-Grafenwöhr.
By Gregory Broome
Published: January 14, 2013
The Kaiserslautern Kingfish enjoyed another stellar outing in the pool Saturday, hosting and winning a three-team European Forces Swim League meet. The KMC youths totaled 796 points, followed by Eifel with 116 and Hohenfels with 82.
The Kingfish compete in a final home meet Saturday before the division meet Jan. 26 at Berlin, and the league championships in February.
By Gregory Broome
Published: January 9, 2013
The DODDS-Europe winter sports season resumes this weekend with a full slate of Friday and Saturday basketball alongside Saturday marksmanship and wrestling meets.
Here’s a look back, and ahead, as the season enters its stretch run.
By Gregory Broome
Published: January 3, 2013
American sports fans in Europe are constantly thwarted by the clock. For most events, fans have two unpleasant options: schedule sleep around a 2 a.m. start time and deal with the personal and professional repercussions, or target the tape-delayed broadcast the next day and somehow dodge the many outlets seeking to sabotage the effort.
Long-suffering American sports fans in Europe are due a reward. And Jan. 6 offers just that. Here's the plan for a well-deserved day of football nirvana:
- Enjoy your Saturday. Hang out with friends and family, maybe spend some time outside.
- Stock up on food and drinks Saturday evening. Turn off the TV and go to bed around 11 p.m. CET Saturday.
- Wake up Sunday morning and avoid the radio, TV and Internet. Read the print edition of Stars and Stripes, for example.
- At 9 a.m., flip on AFN-Sports and settle in for consecutive tape-delayed broadcasts of Cincinnati-Houston and Minnesota-Green Bay. Stay away from your phone and computer and watch the games spoiler-free.
- Early Sunday evening offers a couple of free hours. You can re-engage with your computer and other devices, as the danger of spoilers has passed.
- Return to AFN-Sports at 7 p.m. for a live doubleheader of the other two wild-card games, Indianapolis-Baltimore and Seattle-Washington. The latter should wrap up by 2 a.m.
By Gregory Broome
Published: December 18, 2012
Patch High School will welcome seven DODDS-Europe rivals and four local German opponents Dec. 27-29 in the fourth annual Winter Boys Basketball Tournament.
Games start at 10 a.m. each day and are split between the Patch High School gym and fitness center. Admission is free.
By Gregory Broome
Published: December 11, 2012
This article has been corrected.
Host KMC claimed victory in the Kaiserslautern Kingfish Pentathalon swimming meet Saturday. The final team scores:
KMC 863, Stuttgart 702, Wiesbaden 533, Geilenkirchen 241, Heidelberg 214
Three swimmers – Wiesbaden’s Tyler Peng and Chantel Wynn and Stuttgart’s Edward Hale - won all five of their individual events. That feat is particularly impressive in that a regular meet requires swimmers to compete in three events of their choice, while a pentathalon compels each swimmer to compete in freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and an individual medley.
By Gregory Broome
Published: November 29, 2012
DODDS-Europe boys basketball teams from Aviano and Vicenza will spend the weekend learning valuable lessons in both basketball and statesmanship.
The two Italy based American schools will share a court with Croatian youth club team Rijeka in a series of three games Friday and Saturday at Aviano High School. Here’s the schedule:
- Friday, 1830: Rijeka vs. Aviano
- Saturday, 1000: Rijeka vs. Vicenza
- Saturday, 1500: Rijeka vs. Aviano
Aviano head coach Ken McNeely – known as Coach Mac to anyone associated with European youth basketball over the last three decades – made contact with Rijeka’s coaches while running youth clinics together in Croatia. The idea for a mutually beneficial set of games occurred to both of them, and they worked to make it a reality.
Basketball is not merely incidental to the event; McNeely is excited at the prospect of his Saints being tested by “a really great basketball team” ahead of its Dec. 14 DODDS opener against American Overseas School of Rome.
But sportsmanship and cultural understanding are the weekend’s guiding principles. Parents of Aviano students are hosting Rijeka players in their homes for the weekend, and the three teams will share a communal meal before the Croatian team departs Saturday evening.
“I want them to have an opportunity to meet other kids from other places,” McNeely said. “I think that’s what’s important.”
By Gregory Broome
Published: November 21, 2012
Baumholder quarterback Ben McDaniels is the Stars and Stripes football Athlete of the Year. See story here. He was neither an easy choice nor a unanimous one among the reporters, editors, coaches and other followers of the game with whom I discussed the decision.
The evidence in support of McDaniels is massive. First of all, he led his team to an undefeated season and a European championship from the quarterback position. That’s a great start. He contributed immensely in other areas, not just filling a spot on defense and special teams but altering games with his kicking, kick returning, tackling and pass coverage. He is a senior ending a remarkable prep career that began on a winless team.
He abandoned his comfort zone at wide receiver to assume the sport’s most intricate position. He is not Baumholder’s only difference-maker, but without McDaniels, Baumholder might be closer to that downtrodden 2009 outfit than today’s championship team.
The arguments against McDaniels are also compelling. Foremost is the fact that he plays nine-man football at the Division III level. Yes, he has fewer blockers, but eluding nine guys is not as difficult as eluding 11 guys on a field of the same size.
That difference is substantial and can’t be ignored. But there are formidable opponents at the D-III level, and McDaniels can’t control what division his school lands in. He can only play the game available to him, and he did it better than anyone. Besides, McDaniels was an All-Europe player at the Division II level a year ago, and he’d have played a huge role for Ramstein, Bitburg or any other upper-division power if he had been on those teams.
Finally, there is the issue of the other contenders for the honor. I would have liked to have more primary defensive players in the mix, and actively solicited nominations. I’m very sensitive to skill-position bias, but just couldn’t pin down a defender for inclusion. Here are the players my colleagues and I considered for the award:
1. QB Joseph Pitts, Naples. The best pure quarterback in DODDS-Europe, Pitts was central in every conversation I had over the course of choosing an Athlete of the Year. I won’t try to make a case against him; I think he’s a fantastic player and a real prospect to play collegiate ball. A Super Six upset of Bitburg might have changed things entirely, but McDaniels’ championship and contributions all over the field put him over the top.
2. OL/DL Colton Engelmeier and RB CJ Evans, Bitburg. Fairly or not, it’s difficult to tell which of these players made the other look better. Would Evans rack up the same yardage without Engelmeier clearing a wide swath of grass? Is Engelmeier’s effectiveness exaggerated by the gifted runner behind him? In the end, the relationship is too symbiotic to choose either.
3. QB Dylan LePage, Ramstein. A gifted runner who carried the Royals to a Division I title in the fourth quarter of the Super Six championship game. But the Ramstein system has too many working parts to single out one for individual glory.
4. RB David Vidovic, Hohenfels. An incredibly intriguing up-and-coming player, it’s a year too soon to seriously consider him. Stay tuned.
5. RB Carlton Campbell and RB Shawn Peebles, Vilseck. The impossibly speedy tandem can’t be separated for athlete of the year purposes.
6. RB Demar Flake, Ansbach. A remarkable athlete who would have figured larger in the discussion had the Cougars pushed deeper into the fall.
7. OL/DL Ian Hudak, Lakenheath. Like Flake, his team simply didn’t make enough noise to be heard over the likes of McDaniels and Pitts.
I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction to our selection. It’s not meant to be a contrarian or deliberately provocative choice.
By Greory Broome
Published: November 15, 2012
Bitburg head coach Mike Laue is the 2012 European American Football Coach of the Year. The coach of the Division II champion Barons was selected Thursday by his DODDS-Europe coaching peers, according to an email from one of them - Wiesbaden coach Steve Jewell.
Laue led the Barons to a third consecutive 8-0 season and fourth straight championship after a remarkable comeback victory over Naples at the Super Six in Baumholder. The program has won 30 games in a row and can break Ansbach's DODDS-Europe record winning streak with two victories to open 2013.
Laue joins Ansbach coach Marcus George as two-time recipients of the honor, according to Jewell.
