Feeling is Not an overall huge cause for concern but it does change Washington’s week. No in-person meetings; masks at all times on field except when drinking water; limited player access to building. https://t.co/ZJEBVUWGgp
The Washington Football Team is going into intensive protocols after a player on the team texted positive for COVID-19, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
The player who was a confirmed positive for the virus did not travel with the team to Detroit for their game against the Lions this weekend, but it is assumed that he likely had some contact with players and staff over the past week. Going forward, we will wait to hear more about who the player is, and which people he was in close contact with, which could lead to more players being placed on the COVID-19/Reserve list.
This is the first positive COVID-19 test result for Washington since the season began, and they were just one of four total teams who had yet to have a positive case thus far.
With the second phase of the pandemic starting to hit, the NCAA is already starting to take precautions for the basketball tournament.
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With the second phase of the pandemic starting to hit, the NCAA is already taking precautions for this year’s basketball tournament. The NCAA lost out on the 2020 NCAA Tournament because of COVID-19, so they will look to have it in a singular place in 2021.
The NCAA already announced that they are in preliminary discussions with the state of Indiana and the city of Indianapolis to host the 68-team tournament. They are still looking to have it in the March and April time frame.
Detroit was scheduled to host first and second round games in this year’s tournament. Hopefully this will work and Tom Izzo and the Spartans can make it back to the NCAA tournament.
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has spent the better part of this year trying to mobilize the Black vote in American cities.
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Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has had plenty to celebrate over the last 30 days and this weekend’s news that Joe Biden has won the United States Presidential election over Donald Trump, that celebration continued over the past few days, as the jubilation of a Lakers championship, a Dodgers World Series and the defeat of Trump, who had LeBron had crashed with before, has gotten LeBron’s posting juices flowing.
LeBron was active on social media once Pennsylvania and Georgia were called for Biden, including using a couple of photoshopped memes involving James, such as his iconic block on Andre Iguodala in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. But James also wanted to share a creative post from someone else on social media, using a scene from ‘Bad Boys 2,’ in which the characters played by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, go undercover at a KKK rally. James used it to make sure that Black people, in particular, were shouted out for the work they did to win the election for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Let’s go!!!!! Black voters came through…again. Be proud as hell but do not stop! We must stay organized and keep working. We just tipping off. I promise you I’m here for y’all throughout! ✊🏾💪🏾🖤 @Morethanavotepic.twitter.com/Zi1NInJeOd
In Oakland County, part of metropolitan Detroit, there is $2.6-million retreat built atop remnants of a 100-year-old golf course.
This appealing, cottagey house sits on a hill at Lake Angelus that tapers down to a lakeside retreat. Lawn, landscape and old stone stairs lead down to the lakeshore. They end at 105 feet of frontage that has brick patios, a dock and a beach house.
The owners designed this house with architect Dominick Tringali to mix as many cottagey points as made sense. So the front face shows stacked gray stone, painted cedar siding, Victorian insets, carved corbels, porthole windows and a roof with many gables.
The mahogany doors of two two-car garages are set back under a porte-cochere. It’s embellished with 12 short white pillars — three to a corner — that stand on gray stone piers.
The owners brought the same enthusiasm to planning the house interior. “We just designed every inch of it,” the wife said.
That includes unusual teak floors through the kitchen and dining area — a light wood that glows with tones from pale to deep.
A striking teak floor blends this kitchen with its hearth room, its butler’s pantry, the breakfast nook and the formal dining room. (Stylish Detroit)
The main floor rooms lie in a circle around a large foyer. Curving through this open space are a sinuous three-point staircase and catwalk. “Our builder soaked that wood in the lake to get it to make that curve,” the wife said.
The staircase takes a clever turn the husband designed. Halfway down, a landing starts a second set of stairs that curve back toward the kitchen. No need for a second staircase.
Past the living room is the large marble foyer with its sinuous stairs and upstairs catwalk. The owner said to get those curves the builders soaked the banisters in the lake. (Stylish Detroit)
The kitchen and dining areas use a good part of the main level, marked out by the teak floor. It takes in the cooking area, a long breakfast bar, a hearth room with a fireplace and bay window and a butler’s pantry.
There’s also a breakfast room in a circle of windows and the formal dining room.
The final key room on the main level is an office off the foyer. It has built-in cabinets and bookshelves of maple.
The large laundry room is on the main floor and includes a dog shower.
A doggie shower in the laundry room can double as a place to hang drip-dry clothing. (Stylish Detroit)
The second floor has the owners’ suite, with an entrance that’s raised three steps, three more bedrooms and two more baths. The suite’s large main room includes a fireplace and a sitting room, tucked into a large bay.
French doors lead to a small outside sitting room — a stone floor and cedar siding walls with three tall windows that can be closed against cold weather.
There’s a large walk-in closet here and a cedar closet. The large owners’ bath has his and her vanities and sinks, also a large shower and a big jetted tub.
The finished lower level includes a big games area, a theater, a wide bar, a gym, a wine cellar and a full bath. At the rear of the house, this level walks out onto the sloping lawn. (Stylish Detroit)
The walkout lower level is finished with a family room and recreation space, a bar, a full bath, a gym and a stone wine cellar.
The site itself is a prime asset here. When these owners bought it the 1½ acres were remains of a 100-year-old overgrown golf course. Digging through soil, their shovels hit stone. Then they hit more stone seven inches lower, they said, then seven inches lower again.
Eureka! Stone stairs. These are now part of the landscape.
Near the edge of Lake Angelus that landscape has two brick patios, a fire pit and a long dock that goes out to two boat slips. There’s a one-room beach house lined with knotty pine, with a living room and a partial kitchen.
At 477 acres, Lake Angelus is one of Oakland County’s largest lakes. It is an all-sports lake with only private access by its property owners. This side of the lake is sandy for a few hundred feet out.
These owners say they love the lake and this community. Where will they go when this house sells?
They’ve bought another lot on the lake and will design another house there. “It’s what we like to do,” the husband said.
Where: 550 Gallogly Road, Lake Angelus
How much: $2.6 million
Bedrooms: 4
Baths: 4 full, 2 half
Square feet: 5,218 in the main floors, plus about 2,500 finished in the walkout lower level.
Key features: Large, attractive cottagey house, built in 2002, is full of architectural details on a large site that goes down to the Lake Angelus shore. Fine landscape, shore-side patios, dock and boat slips, beach house.
Promoter Dmitry Salita discusses plans to stage fight cards at the famous Kronk Gym in Detroit.
Promoters and other players in boxing have had to be creative when selecting sites for their cards during the coronavirus pandemic.
Eddie Hearn suggested he might set up a ring in the garden adjacent to his office outside London. UFC’s Dana White plans to use an island. An amphitheater in Croatia has been thrown out. And Bob Arum already is using a tightly controlled ball room in Las Vegas.
Promoter Dmitry Salita came up with a new potential site: the famous Kronk Gym in Detroit.
In this episode of The Ak & Barak Show, courtesy of DAZN, hosts Akin Reyes and Barak Bess speak with Salita about his plans to use one of boxing’s shrines for boxing cards.
The Ak & Barak Show is available on DAZN and Sirius XM Fight Nation, Channel 156.
In addition to preparing for the 2020 NFL Draft, former Florida Gators linebacker David Reese II has been playing videos games, spending time with his parents and biking. He shares how he’s making up for his pro day being canceled and what it’s like taking part in a virtual NFL Draft interview.
In addition to preparing for the 2020 NFL Draft, former Florida Gators linebacker David Reese II has been playing videos games, spending time with his parents and biking. He shares how he’s making up for his pro day being canceled and what it’s like taking part in a virtual NFL Draft interview.
Claressa Shields hopes to fight Laila Ali someday, but hopes Ali comes back down to earth with her exorbitant financial demands…
Claressa Shields thinks Laila Ali needs a reality check.
The current women’s three division titleholder is up for fighting Ali, the former face of women’s boxing. She’s just not convinced that Ali’s financial terms are realistic.
On Monday, the Flint, Michigan native posted a tweet laying down her concern.
“Lol I’ll do whatever to get a fight made with me and Laila Ali,” Shields wrote. “She is the one asking for 5 million and also wants to be the A-side if we fight knowing damn well she is not relevant in today’s time! I’m the current reigning world champion.”
Lol I’ll do whatever to get a fight made with me and Laila Ali. She is the one asking for 5, million and also wants to be the A-side if we fight knowing damn well she is not relevant in today’s time! I’m the current reigning world champion. So if she really wanted to fight, be
— ClaressaT-rexShields (@Claressashields) March 23, 2020
The two have exchanged jabs through the media since the beginning of the year. In an interview with ESPN, Ali said she was interested in the fight “especially [because of Shields’] mouth. When it’s personal that starts a fire, right? And when the money’s right and it makes sense, then why not?”
Shields-Ali (or is it Ali-Shields?) would be big. Shields just isn’t convinced it’s $5 million big.
“When I hear a[n] official ‘I’m out of retirement’ talk then I’ll believe it,” Shields wrote in another tweet. “Also when her team starts talking “REAL NUMBERS” and splits. Not saying that me and her can’t generate 15 million or 5 million. Just saying that it hasn’t been proven in our sport yet.”
If Ali, the daughter of heavyweight great Muhammad Ali, is serious, Shields says, she can make a formal announcement ending her retirement.
“Stop asking for insane split,” Shields wrote in another follow-up tweet. “It’s ridiculous. Also come out of retirement. Make an official announcement and say you are not retired. No one believes the talk coming from her. I’m fighting and taking all challenges! Not hard to make a fight with me.”
Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza believes the fight could actually happen despite the exorbitant financial demands. Showtime has been the broadcasting home for the majority of Shields’ professional career.
“The Ali thing seems very real,” Espinoza said on the Showtime Boxing Podcast. “There’s a lot of talk about the financial requirements, and that’s always an important part of every deal.
“But I think it’s real. Certainly I know from Claressa she would love the opportunity, and everything that I’ve heard and read it’s a realistic possibility from Laila’s side. I think that’s certainly the biggest fight that can be made.”
After waiver claim, Jordan McRae scores 15 for Pistons.
DETROIT — When former University of Tennessee basketball player Jordan McRae was dealt to the Denver Nuggets at the NBA trade deadline, he was supposed to provide the Nuggets with depth and another shooter.
McRae, who was having a solid season with the Washington Wizards at the time of the trade, didn’t find much joy with the Nuggets, who are in a battle with the Los Angeles Lakers for the top playoff seed in the Western Conference.
He played just four games for the Nuggets and was placed on waivers.
But it didn’t take McRae long to find a new home as the Detroit Pistons claimed him off the waiver wire.
Like the Wizards, the Pistons are not in a playoff chase in the Eastern Conference, but McRae was impressive in his debut in the Motor City.
During warm-ups Wednesday night, his jersey was still being prepared and he was familiarizing himself with Little Caesars Arena.
But when he took the floor, he scored 15 points, dished out three assists and grabbed two rebounds in Detroit’s 114-107 loss to Oklahoma City.
The Impact Network is the latest broadcaster to enter boxing, with a card taking place in New Mexico featuring Austin Trout.
What do Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Joel Osteen and Paula White have to do with boxing? Not much. But that will soon change.
On Feb. 1, pugilism and evangelism will become unlikely bedfellows when the Impact Network, an African American-owned, urban Christian cable channel whose core programming consists of ministries by popular pastors, televises a boxing card in Ruidoso, New Mexico headlined by former junior middleweight titleholder Austin Trout. And that, alas, is only the beginning.
For the next two years, Impact, which claims to be available in over 85 million homes, plans to air 52 live fight cards. It will also produce 60 episodes of a new reality television series devoted to chronicling the lives of its pugilists called “Champions and Stars“. The first episode airs on Jan. 31.
In other words, boxing, a violent pursuit often associated with a certain moral low ground, will play alongside programming featuring noted televangelists sermonizing on topics like the Beatitudes and gospel singers like Bobby Jones.
It’s not exactly what one would call a match made in heaven. But why pigeonhole one’s audience?
Austin Trout (pictured at right fighting Jermall Charlo) brings some star power to new boxing programing on the Impact Network. AP Photo / John Locher
“Just because the person may say that he’s African-American or I like a certain kind of food or that I’m a Christian and I don’t like sports – no,” Royal Jackson, Impact’s creative director, told Boxing Junkie. “Many believers are sports fans, whether it’s football, basketball and certainly boxing. It’s very narrow minded to stereotype people that way.
“We’re looking to cast a wider net. We don’t just want to preach to the choir. We want to open the borders up a bit to invite people to come to Impact who otherwise are not inclined. It’s not so much about retention, it’s about expansion.”
Indeed, there may be more similarity between boxing and the Bible than meets the eye.
“There is a redemptive aspect to Impact as well,” Jackson said. “We want to take the people that society has forgotten about and support them and be able to give them chances as well. Boxing is another way. A lot of boxers have checkered pasts and they’re fighting their way through it. If you open up your arms to embrace them and help them become something better and give them a new vision of themselves, it’s an opportunity versus closing another door on their face.”
From a pragmatic standpoint, boxing also offers fresh content for a channel looking to expand and diversify its programming horizons. Impact was founded by Jackson’s father, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, Impact’s CEO and a prominent pastor of the Detroit mega church Great Faith Ministries, and his wife and fellow pastor, Beverly Jackson. The couple created Impact in 2010 out of a desire to establish a platform for ministers who could promote faith-based values.
Initially distributed through a local power station, where it grew to 200,000 homes, Impact was added to the Charter Communications family in 2017. (Impact is available when you sign up for the Spectrum Silver package.) Now, they are ready to expand on that initial vision.
“Impact is a lifestyle company and a lifestyle brand when it comes to creating enriching and empowering entertainment,” Bishop Jackson said. “Just like MTV first started with music videos and that was their core programming, but later you saw reality TV shows, movies, award shows. If people can go to Impact and see boxing … why have it where someone has to change the channel to get that programming? Why not keep them locked on Impact?”
Of course, the fights on Impact will reflect the greater spiritual ethos of the network. That means any swearing during the broadcast will be bleeped out and ring card girls won’t be scantily clad.
“We want Impact to impact you not just spiritually, but also with good wholesome, family programming,” Bishop Jackson said.
Bishop Jackson also notes that sport has abounded with men of faith, including heavyweights Evander Holyfield and George Foreman, and current welterweight titleholder Manny Pacquiao.
“One of our strategies is that we would love to give former champions and current champions an ability to have a platform to represent their message,” Bishop said. “So I don’t think it’s a strange vehicle, having boxing on Impact.
Added Royal Jackson: “We’re not in the business of shoving the gospel down anybody’s throat. We’re really in the business of highlighting the life of these people who have integrity and letting their life shine. We’re taking a new approach to faith-based media.”
While boxing marks Impact’s first foray into the sports realm, its executives are careful to note that it is merely one of a number of items on their menu.
“We’re not a sports channel, just want to make that clear,” Bishop Jackson said. “Boxing is added programming.”
Boxing, depending on whom you ask, is also undergoing a renaissance of sorts. Impact will join a space that has become relatively crowded in recent years. Established linear networks like Fox, ESPN and Showtime have a hand in the sport, as well as over-the-top streaming platforms like DAZN. For some, the competition is a sign of the sport’s renewed health; for others, it might be spreading the sport too thin.
Steven Marcano, the architect behind Impact’s entry into the sport, is clearly of the former opinion. A longtime showrunner who has worked with the likes of Don King and Mike Tyson, Marcano is perhaps best known for conceiving the boxing reality television series “Knockout,” which ran for three seasons and featured Roy Jones Jr. and Shane Mosley. The sport’s current best fighters and top stars are already been spoken for, but that doesn’t concern Marcano, whose ambitions lie with showcasing boxers who don’t quite have a home, including budding prospects and contenders who have been written off by other promoters.
In addition to Trout, the Feb. 1 card will feature El Paso featherweight Abel Mendoza and heavyweight Alonzo Butler, who has served as chief sparring partner for Deontay Wilder in the past. For Marcano, activity is key.
“We will put on seven fights a month from a roster of 20 fighters,” said Marcano, who plans to announce the full stable soon. “I’m fighting guys six times a year. Austin Trout fought two times in the last three or four years. Austin is fighting Feb. 1, he’s fighting again in May, then September, and he may even fight in November. And it’s all scheduled already.
“Inactivity is what hurts fighters.”
Marcano is also cognizant of the constant infighting that takes place between rival promoters and network entities. He stresses that Impact will welcome collaboration with other promoters.
“We don’t have a wall over here,” Marcano said. “This helps Bob Arum, Al Haymon, Oscar De La Hoya. Then you have all these guys that don’t get mentioned because they don’t have TV spots, like (Lou) DiBella and (Kathy) Duva. They’re great promoters, and if we can do a dealthat makes sense, then we would be open to working with every last one of them.
“It’s not about us changing the landscape of boxing, it’s what does boxing need. Boxing needs somebody like Impact that can fill the void.”
But where Marcano believes Impact will make the biggest difference in the sport is the way it will introduce fighters to new revenue streams and possibly new career paths after they finish boxing.
“If you look at reality television stars, most of the people aren’t making astronomical numbers off the shows,” Marcano said. “They make them off endorsements, appearances and sponsorships. Fighters don’t have any ancillary income. If you’re the best promoter in the world, you should be able to get ancillary income for your fighters so they have a life after the sport when they’re not in the ring.
“What we’re trying to work on is becoming a multimedia group for boxing because there is no reason why boxers shouldn’t have commercials and endorsements. Boxers have never had that. Outside from a few, the majority are doing the cookie cutter stuff.”
Working with Marcano on the promotional side is Teresa Tapia, the wife of the late three-division titleholder Johnny Tapia, and Sterling McPherson, who will be oversee the nuts and bolts of the actual boxing cards. Together, Marcano believes they will make an imprint on the sport sooner rather than later.
“In 2021, we’re going to make (Impact) the biggest outlet for boxing in the country,” he said. “The only way we can do that is to work with other promoters. We want our fighters to fight three times a year and get them in shape and make them into stars in a short period of time.”
