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• JR Smith Goes Back to College - and Wants to Play Golf?

  Aug 12, 2021 SportZ 0 Comments

  Source: Two-time NBA champion JR Smith heads to college with eyes set on playing golf (link)

   

  JR Smith may be 35 years old, but that doesn't mean his athletic dreams are extinguished.

  Smith, a 16-year NBA veteran, has enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University with the intention of joining the university's golf team. He is primarily pursuing a degree in liberal studies -- his classes start on August 18 -- but he is waiting for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to work out his eligibility before he applies for the team of one of the nation's top historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

  Smith skipped going to college and went straight from high school to the NBA in 2004 but said he began thinking about going to college during a trip to the Dominican Republic with Hall of Famer Ray Allen. Additionally, Smith can often be seen among the gallery at PGA Tour events -- and he says he plays to a five handicap.

  He has petitioned the NCAA to be eligible to play but it is not clear on how long that process will take. According to NCAA rules: "An individual shall not be eligible for intercollegiate athletics in a sport if the individual ever competed on a professional team in that sport."

  It does not ban a former professional athlete from competing in a different sport.

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• Messi Signs 2-Year Contract with PSG Club

  Aug 10, 2021 SportZ 0 Comments

  Source: Lionel Messi, PSG Agree to 2-Year, $104M Contract After Barcelona Exit (link)

   

  Lionel Messi has reportedly agreed to a two-year contract with Paris Saint-Germain and will soon make his move to the French capital official following a shocking exit from Barcelona. According to Sky Sports, Messi plans to sign a two-year deal with a net salary of £25 million per season ($34.6 million). The contract also includes a £25 million fee at signing and a third-year option at £25 million.

  Back in July, Sam Marsden and Moises Llorens of ESPN initially reported that Messi had agreed to a five-year extension to remain at Barcelona while taking a significant wage reduction. However, since then the club wasn't able to fit his contract into its wage limit for 2021-22, and it announced on Aug. 5 that Messi would leave after 17 years.

  Despite obvious interest from top clubs in Europe, Paris Saint-Germain landed Messi to continue an impressive transfer window that also included the additions of Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum, Achraf Hakimi and Gianluigi Donnarumma. With Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and fellow Argentine Mauro Icardi among others already on the roster, PSG is the likely favorite for both Ligue 1 and the Champions League.

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• Carl Lewis Calls US 4x100 Performance a "total embarrassment"

  Aug 5, 2021 SportZ 0 Comments

  

  Source: 'A total embarrassment': Carl Lewis slams U.S. track leadership after 4x100 relay failure (link)

   

  Trayvon Bromell called it “BS.” Carl Lewis called it “a total embarrassment.” Whatever you want to call it, the U.S. still can’t find four men who can pass the baton to one another while running as fast as they can. For the fourth straight Olympics, U.S. men failed to win a medal in an event they once owned. The favored Americans finished sixth in their 4x100-meter relay heat Thursday and didn't qualify for the final largely because Fred Kerley and Ronnie Baker botched the baton pass between the relay's second and third leg. What started off as a scant margin turned out to be the difference between a lifeline and misery. China, Canada, Italy, Germany and Ghana all qualified for the final from the U.S.’s heat. The Americans once again were left to stare at the video board in dismay and figure out what went wrong.

  The U.S. couldn't recover despite deploying its three fastest men in the prelims. Bromell owns the top time in the world this year in the 100. Kerley and Baker finished second and fifth, respectively, in the Olympic final. Even Cravon Gillespie, who placed sixth in the 100 at the U.S. Olympic Trials, is the fastest remaining American who didn't run in the men's 200 final less than 24 hours earlier. 

  There's no doubt the relay was a complete disappointment. Even Carl Lewis, nine-time Olympic gold medalist, joined in on the criticism. He tweeted that the U.S. relay passed the baton worse than AAU teams, calling it a "total embarrassment". Lewis also took issue with which Americans ran which legs. It's unclear exactly what Lewis meant, but the decision to put Gillespie on the anchor leg was a head scratcher. So was using Baker to run the curve on the third leg. Why not leave that to someone with a background in the 200 and let Baker showcase his 60-meter speed on the opening leg?

  Regardless, speed is never the issue for the U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay. Inevitably, it's preparation - and essentially everything else - that plagues the Americans. 

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• Jamaica's Elaine Thompson-Herah Wins 200m Gold - Pulls Off Double Double

  Aug 3, 2021 SportZ 0 Comments

  

  Source: Jamaica's Elaine Thompson-Herah wins 200m gold to complete second straight Olympic sweep (link)

   

  Elaine Thompson-Herah won the gold medal in the women's 200-meter race in 21.53 seconds on Tuesday in Tokyo, the second-fastest time in history behind only Florence Griffith-Joyner's 21.34. With this gold, the 29-year-old Jamaican completes a sweep of the 100 and 200 for the second straight Olympics, the first woman to ever do it twice. In the 100, she also set the Olympic record with her time of 10.61, beating Florence Griffith-Joyner's time of 10.62, set in 1988, by 0.01 seconds. Flo-Jo is now the only woman in history to run faster than Elaine Thompson.

  Meanwhile, Namibia's Christine Mboma took the silver medal in 21.81, while the United States' Gabby Thomas earned bronze at 21.87. Thomas in particular edged out Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce at the line to medal. The Harvard graduate was another gold medal favorite, who grabbed the attention of the world when she ran a 21.61 at the US Trials back in June, which at the time was second-fastest time in women's 200 history. Of course, that mark would soon be surpassed by Thompson-Herah's performance in this gold medal race, which surpassed the Thomas's PB by almost a tenth of a second. 

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• Blitz Sports Magazine - The Players Change but Same Game

  Jul 30, 2021 CWN Publisher 0 Comments

  Malik Spann is back after a 6-month hiatus talking about everything from Olympic athlete to the black athlete in America, Giannis, Sixers vs Ben Simmons, new NIL, NCAA rules, Anti-Vaxers and Keviin Samuels.  Topics include:

  • The US Soccer Team vs Shikari Richardson
  • Simone Biles vs Dominic Dawes
  • USA Men's Basketball  
  • 1968 vs 2020 Olympics
  • 1960 politics vs now. 

  No excuses.  Taking no prisoners. 

   

  This is not the regular dry talk sports podcast.  It's the fly talk sports podcast.  Multimedia. Indie tracks. Hot music.

  Click on the image above to Listen to the podcast.

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