Sports

No Image

Sports January 20, 2018

Saturday Sports: Gymnasts Testify On Larry Nassar's Abuse

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with ESPN journalist Howard Bryant about the emotional testimonies against the former doctor of the USA Gymnastics team. How did the abuse remain hidden for decades?

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This week, women and girls have been standing up in court to denounce the man who sexually abused them. Dr. Larry Nassar, the longtime national team doctor for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. Their testimony’s has been heart-wrenching and outrageous. It’s left many reeling and wondering how such blatant abuse could go on for 20 years, how the USA Gymnastics Federation (ph) failed to protect young athletes and if Michigan State University covered up the complaints against Larry Nassar. We turn now to Howard Bryant of ESPN and ESPN the Magazine.

Howard, thanks very much for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott.

SIMON: I know we’ve both been watching the court proceedings. What did these women say? What did it mean for them to be able to confront this man?

BRYANT: Well, I think it’s very important for them to be able to confront Larry Nassar, especially in a public forum because this is their life. As we always talk about with sports, this is our entertainment. But this is something so heinous that they’ve had to deal with – and not just Aly Raisman or Simone Biles or some of the other women that have come forward – or Gabby Douglas – that have said that they’ve been victims of Larry Nassar but also all of the athletes that have come before because this has been going on for 20 years…

SIMON: Twenty years, yeah.

BRYANT: …I think. And so I think Aly Raisman – her testimony yesterday was incredibly powerful, where she looked at him and told him he was nothing and that they were a collective and that this was finished for him. But to me, Scott, one of the big things that bothers me about this is, why was this their responsibility? There’s no question that you give them credit for their courage in stepping forward. But how did this happen? And how, when you look at this, how did it go on for so long? And the – and we’re still even asking the question as to if there were problems with the structure. Of course there were problems with the structure.

SIMON: You mean the structure of the…

BRYANT: Of USA Gymnastics and with Michigan State and Karolyi Ranch and all of the particulars where the adults are supposed to take care of these athletes, are supposed to protect them.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: And it’s no different than any other scandal. When you’re thinking about – whether it’s church or concussions or the rest of it, you cannot allow – and you and I spoke about this a couple of months ago – that you allow the bad guy to go to jail and you leave the structure intact.

SIMON: Michigan State University announced – the board of trustees said they’re – I guess an investigation is going to begin about what might have been a cover-up lasting for 20 years. My question would be, why did they wait so long? Not only why did they wait for 20 years but why did they – Larry Nassar has been under scrutiny for some time now.

BRYANT: Yeah. Well, I think that one of the reasons is for that thing. This is a very American thing that we do. We find the bad guy. We take the bad guy. And we punish the bad guy. And then we leave every mechanism that allowed the bad guy to exist and that enabled the bad guy – we leave those things alone. And Lou Anna Simon, the president of Michigan State, there are calls for her to resign right now. Clearly over some length of time of an investigation, you’re going to have to find some impropriety with somebody other than Larry Nassar. He couldn’t have done this all by himself.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: And so this is one of the things that we have to deal with as a culture because we don’t deal with it very well and especially when you’re dealing with young people. Joan Ryan, years ago in San Francisco, wrote a fantastic book about a lot of the abusiveness, you know – “Little Girls In Pretty Boxes” back in 1995. And there are plenty of books on this subject.

But it’s simply that we look at gymnastics in similar ways that we look at football and some of these other sports – is that it’s our entertainment and we don’t want to pay attention to what they go through to become elite athletes and all of the possible improprieties that can go on that ended up becoming reality.

SIMON: Howard Bryant of ESPN, thanks so much for being with us.

BRYANT: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF IKEBE SHAKEDOWN’S “THE WAY HOME”)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 19, 2018

Sexual Assault Survivor Speaks Out Against Former USA Gymnastics Doctor

Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander was the first woman to file a criminal complaint against Larry Nassar, the former doctor for USA Gymnastics. Nassar has admitted to sexually assaulting minors.

Chris Carlson/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Chris Carlson/AP

Rachael Denhollander was 15 the first time she went to see Larry Nassar, then the doctor for USA Gymnastics. Denhollander didn’t tell anyone of authority about how he sexually assaulted her until years later, in 2004, when she was working as a gymnastics coach.

Nassar has admitted to sexually assaulting minors. He has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for charges related to child pornography, but has not yet been sentenced in a state case for sexually assaulting the athletes.

The sentencing hearing for the Ingham County, Mich., case started on Tuesday. As NPR previously reported, before issuing Nassar’s sentence, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina is giving all of those assaulted by Nassar a chance to speak. Olympic gold medalists Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber spoke on Friday and condemned the abuse and actions of Nassar, as well as what they see as the inaction and inability to protect athletes from USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Olympians Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas also have said they are survivors of sexual abuse by Nassar.

Denhollander was the first person to file a criminal complaint against Nassar in 2016. That led to more than 100 women coming forward saying they also had been victims of his abuse. Denhollander contacted The Indianapolis Star after the paper published an investigation about sexual abuse within USA Gymnastics.

Denhollander testified for nearly three hours during the preliminary examination for the child pornography case against Nassar, and she will be the last of at least 120 women to speak during the sentencing hearing, which continues next week.

She says while she’s not sure of exactly what she will say, she will address Nassar and those watching.

“This is the greatest sexual assault scandal in sports history,” Denhollander says. “Larry is arguably the most prolific pedophile in history. And it is imperative that we learn some very serious lessons from what has happened here.”

Denhollander spoke with All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly about the abuse she experienced, the trial and her feelings toward gymnastics today.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

On women speaking at the sentencing hearing

It really is an empowering thing. It is an incredibly difficult thing to face your abuser, but to see all of these survivors able to stand up and to look Larry in the eye, and to speak the truth about what he did, and to put the shame and the blame and the guilt exactly where it belongs — on Larry and on Larry alone — is an incredible thing to witness.

On when she first told someone about the abuse

I first spoke up to an authority figure in 2004. I was coaching gymnastics at that point and one of the young gymnasts that I coached was going to be sent to him for treatment for hip pain. She was only 7 or 8, and I thought I couldn’t let that happen. So I did disclose parts of the abuse — not all of it, but parts of the abuse — and told the coach at the gym that he had sexually assaulted me under the guise of treatment, and that no gymnast should be seeing him.

On what happened when she spoke out

The response to that was not malicious in any way shape or form — I consider that coach a good friend still to this day — but she didn’t know what to do with it. And so she did continue to send gymnasts to Larry up until the point that she stopped coaching at that gym.

On if Nassar’s behavior was an open secret

Absolutely … many of the dancers, the gymnasts, the people who saw him would talk about the treatments. And the conclusion was, “Well this must be medical treatment, because he’d never be allowed near us if it wasn’t.” And as a 15-year-old that was my thought process.

As I lay on that exam table, it was very clear to me that this was something Larry did regularly. I knew if it was something Larry did regularly — that he was seeing girls every day, including our elite gymnasts — that there was no way someone had not described before what Larry was doing.

And so the only conclusion that I could come to was that it had to be a legitimate medical treatment, because surely the adults that heard the description of what he was doing would have done something if it wasn’t, and he would have never been near me. And that thought process caused me to lay still.

On how she views gymnastics now

The sexual assault itself does not color my view of gymnastics — I think it is an incredible, beautiful sport, that there is so much good that can come from it. But the way USA [Gymnastics] has created a culture in gymnastics absolutely has colored my view. Because the reality is that Larry is not the problem, Larry is the symptom of the problem. The reason Larry was able to have access to so many children for so long is because you had two major institutions who looked the other way.

NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf produced the audio for this story. NPR’s Wynne Davis adapted it for Web.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 18, 2018

USA Gymnastics Severs Ties To Karoyli Ranch Where Olympians Say They Were Abused

Larry Nassar wipes a tear as he listens to a young woman deliver a victim impact statement at his sentencing hearing on Wednesday. Nassar has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting seven girls but the judge is allowing more than 100 of his accusers to speak.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Editor’s note: This report includes disturbing descriptions of abuse.

Amid a national sexual abuse scandal, USA Gymnastics severed its relationship on Thursday with Karolyi Ranch, the world-renowned training facility where some gymnasts say they were assaulted by the team’s doctor.

“It will no longer serve as the USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center,” USA Gymnastics president and CEO Kerry Perry said in a statement. She added that next week’s training camp for the U.S. National Women’s Team had been canceled.

“Our most important priority is our athletes, and their training environment must reflect this,” Perry said.

Perry’s announcement follows a confession by multi-gold medalist Simone Biles over social media in which she said she is one of several Olympic gymnasts abused by Larry Nassar, who was the team’s doctor for nearly two decades. Former Olympic champions Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas have also accused Nassar of molestation.

In the post, Biles said was dreading returning to the training facility in Huntsville, Tex.

“It breaks my heart even more to think that as I work toward my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused,” Biles wrote on Monday.

More than a 100 women are telling horrific stories of abuse by Nassar, as part of a criminal sentencing hearing that started Tuesday and The Associated Press reports will likely end next week.

Nassar has only pleaded guilty to seven first-degree sexual assault charges in Ingham County, Mich., but Judge Rosemarie Aquilina is allowing all of his accusers to speak if they want to before issuing Nassar’s sentence. He has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography in a federal case.

On Thursday Michigan Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis read a statement prepared by Maroney, who could not attend the hearing.

She described the doctor as “a monster of a human being.”

[embedded content]
MLiveYouTube

“I had a dream to go to the Olympics and the things I had to endure to get there were unnecessary and disgusting,” Maroney wrote, adding that the abuse started when she was 13 or 14 and ended only when she left the sport.

“He abused my trust. He abused my body and he left scars on my psyche that will never go away,” she said.

Maroney also blamed USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic Committee and Michigan State University for failing to stop Nassar’s behavior. “A simple fact is this: If MSU, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic committee had paid attention to any of the red flags in Larry Nassar’s behavior, I would have never met him. I wouldn’t have been abused by him,” she wrote.

Jaime Dantzscher, a bronze medalist in the 2000 Olympics, delivered her impact statement in person on Thursday. MLivereports she was one of the first women to publicly accuse the doctor of sexually assaulting athletes, passing off the abuse as specialized medical treatment.

The video below contains audio of Dantzscher’s full statement. Warning: The video contains explicit content.

[embedded content]
MLiveYouTube

She said Nassar massaged her genitals, laid on top of her, rubbing his penis against her and penetrated her with his fingers. The first assault happened when she was 12, she said. She described years of physical and psychological problems, stemming from the abuse, including bulimia and depression. Both led to hospitalization and one suicide attempt.

On Thursday Nassar, who has been sitting in the witness stand since Tuesday, submitted a six-page letter to the judge complaining that it was too hard for him to listen to his accusers while they described how he abused them. He claimed Aquilina had turned proceedings into a “media circus.”

She berated him for criticizing the process. In an MLive video, Aquilina can be heard saying:

“You may find it harsh that you are here, listening, but nothing is as harsh as what your victims endured for thousands of hours at your hands collectively. You spent thousands of hours perpetrating criminal sexual conduct on minors. Spending four or five days listening to them is significantly minor considering the hours of pleasure you’ve had at their expense and ruining their lives. None of this should come as a surprise to you.”

More women are expected to speak on Friday.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 17, 2018

Even Dale Earnhardt Jr. Skids And Rams Tree In Snowstorm

Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed into a tree minutes after helping another driver out of a snow-filled ditch.

Ross D. Franklin/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Ross D. Franklin/AP

Former NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. found out even the best drivers may have to stay off the roads in a snowstorm.

Wednesday morning after he helped pull another car out of a ditch, his pickup skidded off the road and rammed into a tree.

On Twitter Earnhardt said he lost control of his truck on a snow-covered road and warned other North Carolina drivers to avoid his fate. “[North Carolina] stay off the roads today/tonight. 5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree,” he wrote.

NC stay off the roads today/tonight. 5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree. All good. Probably just needs a new alignment. pic.twitter.com/OfA5Q28jew

— Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) January 17, 2018

But fans need not worry about the Hall of Famer. “All good,” he said. “Probably just needs new alignment.”

A storm left a blanket of snow over North and South Carolina and Georgia. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency in advance of the storm. AccuWeather reported the snowstorm caused over 500 collisions in the state.

Earnhardt’s accident came a day after the former NASCAR star announced he will be covering the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang on NBC.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 16, 2018

Banana Drama Gets Much Attention At Australian Open

CoCo Vandeweghe was fined by a referee for refusing to take to the court before she had a chance to eat her banana. Denis Shapovalov could not seem to peel a banana right during a break in his match.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Good morning. I’m Rachel Martin. Now to the drama of this year’s Australian Open over bananas – there was CoCo Vandeweghe, who was fined by a referee for refusing to take to the court before she had a chance to eat her banana. The best, though, is Denis Shapovalov. For whatever reason, he could not seem to peel a banana right during a break in his match. A video shows him getting exasperated, even throwing one of the bananas on the ground. Finally, one more go at it – and, yes, he gets the banana open, complete with an arm pump of victory. It’s MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 15, 2018

For Once, The Minnesota Vikings Could Be A Team Of Destiny

The NFL team that could never catch a playoff break finally got one. In their NFC Divisional Round matchup, the Minnesota Vikings pulled off a miracle win against the New Orleans Saints. NPR’s Kelly McEvers speaks with Ben Goessling, who covers the team for the Star Tribune.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

There’s sad, and then there’s the playoff history of the Minnesota Vikings. Despite having some of the greatest teams in NFL history, the Vikings have never won a title. In fact, they were the first team to lose four Super Bowls. You’ve heard of the Hail Mary pass, right? Well, you can think the Vikings for that. The phrase Hail Mary pass was first used in 1975 after the Dallas Cowboys’ last-second miracle touchdown pass beat the Vikings. So last night, with the Vikings trailing the New Orleans Saints going down to the final play, most fans thought it was going to be yet another awful moment until it wasn’t.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PAUL ALLEN: Case on a deep throw, steps up in the pocket. He’ll fire to the right side, caught by Diggs.

UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) Oh, my God, oh, my God, no way.

ALLEN: (Screaming) At the 30, 10 – touchdown.

UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) What a miracle finish.

ALLEN: (Screaming) Are you kidding me? It’s a Minneapolis miracle.

UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) No way.

MCEVERS: Could that Minneapolis miracle lead to the first Vikings Super Bowl title? To talk about that, we turn to Ben Goessling, who covers the Vikings for the Star Tribune. Hey, Ben.

BEN GOESSLING: Hi. How are you?

MCEVERS: Good. So you are a native Minnesotan. Can you explain how bad things have actually been over the years?

GOESSLING: I guess I always put it this way. It’s appropriate in some ways that Charles Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts,” is from Minnesota because obviously everybody knows the skit in “Peanuts” where Charlie Brown thinks he’s going to get to kick the football. And every time he gets his hopes up and then Lucy pulls the ball out, he ends up sitting on the ground, you know, sort of wondering what just happened. And that really epitomizes the Vikings’ experience in the playoffs. I mean, every time they get close, something happens. So I mean, really that’s what made yesterday so remarkable.

MCEVERS: What’s it like in Minnesota right now?

GOESSLING: People are on cloud 9 right now. To be in that stadium yesterday when they scored that touchdown, it was just kind of this mixture of shock and exultation in a lot of ways. And you see that kind of spilling forward into today. People are, you know, all over social media, raving about the game as people posted videos of where they were, you know, what they were doing when they when the game ended, you know, what their reaction to the play was. There were people out doing snow angels.

MCEVERS: (Laughter).

GOESSLING: And it was no small feat given the fact it was sub-zero temperatures for most of the day and we got a bunch of snow. So it’s the kind of win, as a couple of players said yesterday, you almost have to go forward now and make it to the Super Bowl and win it. You don’t want to waste something like that and what it meant for fans. And it’s quite a remarkable thing for people around here that are used to (laughter) suffering for a long time.

MCEVERS: We should say that the Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis this year.

GOESSLING: It will.

MCEVERS: So if the Vikings win next weekend, they’ll be the first host team to actually play in the Super Bowl. I mean, does it feel like with that plus last night, things are finally coming together? Or do you not want to say anything and jinx it?

GOESSLING: Well, I mean, players certainly have been asked that question. Does this feel like a team of destiny? And you know, the number of things they’ve had go wrong in the past – a lot of those could’ve happened this year. They lose their starting quarterback, Sam Bradford, after week one. Dalvin Cook, their first pick in the draft, the running back, goes down in week four. I mean, a lot of these injuries that you think, OK, this is going to be what derails them really haven’t.

So you know, it’s going to be very interesting to see what the Super Bowl is like because, you know, the NFL tries to do everything they can to make it as neutral an environment as possible. But the Vikings are going to have some built-in advantages if they’re in that game. It really would be a one-of-a-kind environment for a Super Bowl if they make it. And you know, at this point, you know, obviously we root for stories as much as anything, and it would be a fantastic story if they make it.

MCEVERS: Ben Goessling covers the Vikings for the Star Tribune. Thanks so much.

GOESSLING: Thank you – enjoyed it.

(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES MCLEOD’S “SKOL, VIKINGS”)

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 11, 2018

With One Billboard Inside Tuscaloosa, Ala., UCF Fans Drum Up A Little Drama

The University of Central Florida’s Dredrick Snelson gets a lift after a touchdown against Auburn in the Peach Bowl earlier this month. Not pictured: the Alabama Crimson Tide, targets of a trolling campaign by some very determined UCF fans.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

As you may have heard, the Alabama Crimson Tide just won the national college football championship. Again. In a feat of near-Groundhog Day repetition, the program has now taken home a whopping five of the past nine titles.

As you may not have heard, the University of Central Florida Knights also won the national championship … according to UCF fans, at least.

The team finished its season with a perfect record, unlike Alabama, but because its opponents were deemed too weak, the school missed the playoff to decide the official national champion. So instead, UCF went to the Peach Bowl and beat Auburn, the one team that beat Alabama all year.

By the little-known transitive property of college football, that means UCF won the title. Or something.

alabama is ‘national champs’
but they lost a game

UCF is ‘national champs’
but they didn’t lose all season

alabama lost to auburn
UCF beat auburn

UCF is the National Champion

— UCF probz ? (@ucf_problems) January 9, 2018

Anyway, that was enough for Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who declared them national champions by official proclamation. It was enough for UCF’s athletic director, too: Danny White confirmed that the school was paying the team’s assistant coaches bonuses for winning the title. (Head coach Scott Frost had already gotten all the bonuses he was contractually allowed, apparently.)

Some UCF fans, however, want more: They want to see their squad actually play the Crimson Tide. And they laid down cash in order to lay down their gauntlet.

Here’s the billboard now perched in Tuscaloosa, Ala., proud home of the Crimson Tide:

UCF with a message for @AlabamaFTBL on McFarland Blvd. in Tuscaloosa. @BamaOnLine247@Tide1029fmpic.twitter.com/J1ijRMywWq

— Travis Reier (@travisreier) January 10, 2018

“Congratulations!” it reads. “How about a home & home series with UCF?”

Now, it should be noted: The chances this will happen — this year or any year — teeter somewhere between slim and none. But that didn’t stop 37 UCF fans from pooling $1,665 on GoFundMe for the billboard, according to ESPN.

“We felt like this year’s team could run with anyone in the country, and the Peach Bowl win [over Auburn] proved that,” said Sean Barakett, who says he contributed $100, told the network. “All we needed was a chance to play harder opponents.”

They may be waiting a while before they get their response.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 10, 2018

How Instant Replay Sucks The Fun From Football

Commentator Mike Pesca says watching football is no longer just glorious enjoyment of fantastic plays. With the NFL’s frequent use of instant replay, it’s become an exercise in scrutiny and doubt.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The Super Bowl is just weekends away – four of them. Commentator Mike Pesca is already anxious – not about which team will make the Super Bowl or which team will win but the referees will rule.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: To me, the word catch means the act of grasping and holding a projectile, but the NFL has expanded the definition. According to the official rulebook, if a player is thought to have caught the ball, he, quote, “must maintain control of the ball until after his initial contact with the ground. And if the ball touches the ground before he regains control, it is not a catch.” Jargony definitions of a simple act are not actually the problem here. The problem is this definition leaves open the possibility that a catch – regarded as a catch since the pioneer and coach Newt Rockne conceived of the forward pass – could actually become an un-catch (ph) when subjected to withering scrutiny.

In today’s NFL, we have the technology. We can scrutinize every play. We can observe, dissect, replay and debate every squirt and wiggle of the spheroid in the receiver’s hands. And what should be the most glorious moments of a football game are second-guessed before they’re even first experienced. Here’s Tony Romo, CBS announcer, analyzing the only touchdown of last weekend’s playoff game between Jacksonville and Buffalo.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JIM NANTZ: He’s got his man for the touchdown.

TONY ROMO: It was good defense, and it was a great throw. I got to make sure he caught this, though. That ball looked like it may have moved in his hands.

PESCA: It didn’t move. It was a touchdown, and it was met by doubt when it should have been met by rapture. It’s not just catches, all plays in a sport that should be dictated by sinew and fast-twitch muscles are now mere excuses for cautious forensic videography. Here is Sean McDonough’s call on ESPN in what should have been the most interesting play of the game between the Titans and Chiefs.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SEAN MCDONOUGH: It deflects back to him for a touchdown for the moment. But was he across the line of scrimmage?

PESCA: He wasn’t. That call should have gone – Mariota, pass deflected. He caught it. Mariota caught it himself, of all the crazy backwards inverted abaft plays. But no, instead of celebrating, we had to dwell on it. We had to stew in our own doubt. Baseball announcer Jack Buck, in one of the most famous home run calls ever, yelled, I don’t believe what I just saw. Now, announcers sheepishly dampen the marvel. Now, we don’t believe what we just saw. And this could be an explanation for the NFL’s modest decline in popularity, along with politics and head trauma.

We no longer know what we’ve just seen. We have to stop and debate what was once evident. We’re not an audience. We’re land surveyors or jewelers squinting through a loop. As with so many aspects of life, technology has promised clarity, but, in fact, it has muddied our experience. Referees were once the gatekeepers. They were sometimes wrong, but their word was final. And now that these arbiters have given way to ambiguity, we are finding ourselves unpleasantly awash in uncertainty.

INSKEEP: I don’t believe what I just heard. Mike Pesca, the author of the forthcoming book “Upon Further Review: The Great What-Ifs In Sports History’ and also the host of the Slate podcast “The Gist.”

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports January 9, 2018

Kayaker Admits To Setting Up A Rival Who Was Banned For Doping

Yasuhiro Suzuki of Japan reacts after competing in the Canoe Sprint Men’s Kayak Single 1000m during the Guangzhou Asian Games on Nov. 25, 2010, in Guangzhou, China. Suzuki is now banned for eight years for spiking a fellow Japanese racer’s drink with an anabolic steroid.

The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

Japanese kayaker Yasuhiro Suzuki says his desperation to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics led him to lace a fellow countryman’s drink with an anabolic steroid — and now he’s been banned for eight years. Before Suzuki admitted the plot, his rival Seiji Komatsu had been banned.

Komatsu’s ban was overturned on Tuesday, after the Japan Anti-Doping Agency found that Suzuki had laced Komatsu’s water bottle with a banned substance at the 2017 Canoe Sprint Japan Championships last fall. Komatsu failed a doping test at the event, part of the Olympics qualifying process.

The Japan Canoe Federation, which oversees kayaking, called the case unprecedented as it announced the results of JADA’s inquiry on Tuesday.

The canoeing federation says that in addition to spiking Komatsu’s drink, Suzuki, 32, was found to have repeatedly resorted to trickery at competitions, such as stealing other kayak racers’ tools or gear.

Suzuki confessed to officials after he felt guilty about Komatsu’s ban, Japanese media report.

“We apologize for causing trouble, not only to canoe athletes but also to those of all other sports,” JCF Director Osahiro Haruzono said, according to The Asahi Shimbun.

Suzuki’s doping set-up came after he and Komatsu had competed together as part of Japan’s delegation to the 2017 World Championships in the Czech Republic. Both athletes had been seen as strong contenders for Japan’s Olympic team.

To prevent a similar scheme from playing out, the canoeing federation said it will designate a spot to store athletes’ drinks at competitions.

The canoeing body also said it will invite lecturers to create a speaking program based around the ideas of justice in sports and the spirit of fair play in competitions.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)