Season’s greetings from Wayne Rooney and team.
LINK: Mesut Özil Rocked A Kurta As Arsenal Wished Its Fans A Happy Diwali
Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton went out of his way to make a kid’s day.
NFL
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Oakland Raiders linebacker Ray-Ray Armstrong is being investigated for “taunting a police animal” — a third-degree felony in Pennsylvania.
Ray-Ray Armstrong
Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
Banditt
Facebook: AlleghenyCountySheriffK9
Oakland Raiders linebacker Ray-Ray Armstrong is being investigated for barking at a police dog before Sunday's game between the Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Armstrong allegedly lifted his jersey, pounded his chest and barked at police K-9 Banditt before the kickoff, Penn Live reported.
Armstrong could be charged with taunting a police animal, which is a third degree felony in Pennsylvania. According to the law, "it is unlawful for any person to willfully or maliciously taunt, torment, tease, beat, kick or strike a police animal."
The crime carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a fine of $15,000.
Fique tranquilo, Brasil. The world still loves you.
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World soccer’s governing body on Thursday approved the candidacy of five men in next year’s election to replace suspended incumbent Sepp Blatter. Here’s what you need to know about them.
From left: Prince Ali bin al Hussein, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Tokyo Sexwale.
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FIFA — the scandal-plagued world governing body for soccer — on Thursday announced the five candidates it had approved to run for election to succeed suspended President Sepp Blatter in February 2016.
In a statement following an ad-hoc meeting of its electoral committee, FIFA said it had admitted and declared the candidacies of Jordan's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Bahrain's Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, France's Jérôme Champagne, Swiss-Italian Gianni Infantino, and South Africa's Tokyo Sexwale.
All candidates had to go through an "integrity check" before they were approved to run, FIFA said.
Another candidate — Liberian Musa Hassan Bility — was not included on the five-man list "in view of the content of the integrity check report relating to him." FIFA said it would not comment on the specifics of its decision.
As previously announced, the candidacy of UEFA President Michel Platini — who was suspended along with Blatter and FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke last month — will only be admitted if his suspension is lifted before the February election date.
Here's what you need to know about the five men in the running for the role:
Philipp Schmidli / Getty Images
Prince Ali — a member of Jordan's royal family — is president of his country's soccer association, and holds the vice-presidency of FIFA for Asia.
He has a close resemblance to his late father — King Hussein — and his mother, Queen Alia, died in a helicopter accident when he was young. He graduated from the U.K.'s prestigious Sandhurst military training academy, before moving onto Princeton, according to The Guardian.
He challenged Sepp Blatter in the 79-year-old Swiss's ultimately successful bid to be re-elected FIFA president in May, but withdrew from the running in the second round of voting with Blatter comfortably ahead.
He was one of the first to announce his candidacy to replace Blatter in September, and wrote a letter to FIFA member associations talking up his credentials as a soccer federation chief, and saying that individual associations should not be caught up in the scandal in FIFA's leadership. He has positioned himself as a reformist candidate.
At 1:29 p.m. on Oct. 19, skateboarder Ryan Sheckler uploaded a video to his Facebook page shot entirely on an LG phone. The video, paid for by LG, showed Sheckler and his buddies skating around his hometown of San Clemente, California, providing fans with the type of behind-the-scenes access that’s helped him attract over 3.3 million subscribers to his Facebook page. Sure enough, within 36 hours, the video hit 1.8 million views; today it’s sitting well above 7 million.
By any measure, the campaign was a wild success for LG -- particularly since it never aired on TV, eschewing what was once advertising’s most important channel in favor of social media.
For years, athletes like Sheckler built social followings as a way to connect with their fans. But now, some players’ audiences are so large they’re sometimes surpassing those of the broadcast networks that carry the games they play in (CSN Bay Area, for instance, set a record this week with a peak of 216,663 households watching a Warriors game. The Warriors' Stephen Curry is followed by over 3 million people on Twitter alone). This new dynamic is creating an environment where athletes can rival traditional media entities for attention and ad dollars. And it’s upending the traditional player sponsorship business, converting today’s athlete from commodity, someone who faces the camera to pitch a product, to a driver of the sponsorship process -- a director whose final cut must feel like natural, non-sponsored social media content and a distributor whose reach, at times, rivals that of billion-dollar media companies. And it’s making these athletes a bunch more money in the process.
“The following that I have on the internet allows me to do so many incredible things,” Sheckler told BuzzFeed News. “You’re in control of your own destiny with the content you create.”
We’re already seeing serious business activity gear up to take advantage of athletes' shift from pitchmen-for-hire to content creators and distribution channels. In April, for instance, Wasserman Media Group, an athlete representation and sports marketing company, acquired the New York–based social media agency Laundry Service, an outfit that helps the athletes it represents build their online presences and sell sponsored content through their accounts.
Wasserman isn’t wasting any time setting the plan into action. This week, Laundry Service is spinning off its social media talent representation arm, Cycle, into a new company and adding 1,600 athletes for whom it will negotiate sponsorship deals and produce both sponsored and non-sponsored content. Cycle is essentially a new version of a media network.
“People are now media entities,” Jason Stein, CEO of Laundry Service and Cycle, told BuzzFeed News. “The influencers we’ve worked with, and now athletes, have as much reach, if not more, than any of the biggest media entities. When you combine the fact that they are going to star in original content and deliver that to their large audiences, it’s the future of advertising.”
When LG did the video with Sheckler, for instance, Cycle was working behind the scenes, helping with negotiations, production, managing approvals, and guiding the creative process to fit LG’s needs and Sheckler’s social media voice. Laundry Service then helped distribute the ad further by promoting it with ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The agency’s plan is to connect its advertising clients with the athletes it represents to produce more such campaigns. And Wasserman’s representation arm will bring to it some of the most recognizable athletes in the world -- including A-listers Andrew Luck, Russell Westbrook, and Anthony Davis.
Though social media sponsorship is hardly unique to sports, there’s no more fitting lens through which to view the massive impact social platforms are having on traditional media. Sports broadcasts are widely considered one of the sole remaining revenue streams holding the traditional television model together. People tune in to sports broadcasts live and will sit through commercials during time-outs, making them attractive venues for advertisers who subsidize the costs. But if advertisers can find the same attentive audiences elsewhere -- as they are starting to do -- it could mean trouble.
"These are the most popular people on the most popular apps ... they are the media companies of the future."
“The new talent is becoming empowered and threatening the existing ecosystem,” said Rich Greenfield, managing director at the financial services firm BTIG, of social media influencers. “These online influencers hold more sway with millennials than a lot of traditional talent.”
And for serious athletes, the economics can be very compelling. Said Casey Wasserman, CEO of Wasserman Media Group, “The opportunities are much more meaningful and more frequent than they otherwise would have been for a much greater diversity of athletes."
The definition of television may also soon change, with apps, not traditionally programmed channels, dominating the viewing experience, as they do on the latest Apple TV. “If apps are the future of TV as so many have said, and these are the most popular people on the most popular apps, it would only make sense that they are the media companies of the future,” Stein said.
That may be the future, but the present isn’t so bad for athletes either. Currently they’re living through changes that are inserting them squarely in the driver’s seat, with more economic and creative leverage than they've ever had off the court. “It’s gotten significantly better,” said Sheckler of his earnings. “It’s a blessing.”
Basically, Sweden cannot lose.
That's a pretty cool coincidence, right?
OH MY GOD.
OMG!
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(AP Photo/Brandon Wade)
Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy — suspended last year over accusations that he assaulted his girlfriend — faced few tough questions at his NFL reinstatement hearing, according to documents obtained by Deadspin.
Hardy faced criminal assault charges last year in Charlotte, North Carolina, after his ex-girlfriend, Nicole Holder, accused the NFL player of violently assaulting her for 20 minutes and threatening to kill her in his apartment in March 2014.
Prosecutors dropped the charges in February 2014 because Holder "made herself completely unavailable" as a witness in the case. Hardy and Holder reached a civil settlement over the allegations last year.
The March 4 reinstatement hearing came just three months after the NFL teams endorsed a more rigorous personal conduct policy, which punishes domestic violence and sexual assault crimes with a six-game suspension.
But the transcript obtained by Deadspin, and reviewed by BuzzFeed News, shows the NFL attorneys tasked with scrutinizing Hardy's conduct rarely did so. Instead, the hearing was more focused on Holder's sexuality and mental health than with Hardy.
Several NFL attorneys and executives attended the hearing, including Hardy's NFL Players Association counsel, Heather McPhee. Lisa Friel, then a senior advisor to the NFL to help the league handle domestic violence, was also in attendance.
The entire hearing transcript is about 126 pages long. BuzzFeed News highlighted some of the hearing's key moments when it came to Hardy's defense:
Holder said she closed the door of the car with her foot during an argument in Charlotte's EpiCentre just days before the alleged assault. Hardy said at the hearing that he did not have photographs or any other evidence of the dents in the car.
Holder was also portrayed as a woman obsessed with Hardy, who in turn, can't seem to shake her off.
Maister told the panel that Holder would contact Hardy for "hook-ups," although it is unclear from the transcript how it is relevant to the night of the alleged assault.
Maister also challenged Holder's fear for her life as Hardy allegedly beat her by simply saying it wasn't true.
The attorneys and executives at the hearing did not interrupt Maister or ask for evidence.
Hardy's attorney twice said that it is his client's "absolute sincere belief" that Holder fell in the bathtub, although he acknowledged he can't prove how she got there.
Hardy also can't verify this version of events to NFL Executive Vice-President Jeffrey Pash when he asks if the fall was witnessed.
Maister then admitted leaving out evidence of Holder's injured left arm, which she said Hardy slammed under the toilet seat repeatedly during the assault.
The panel also appeared to be very sensitive to the time constraints facing Hardy, who was scheduled to become a free agent just days after the hearing.
After the hearing, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reinstated Hardy to the NFL with a 10-game ban. That suspension was later reduced to four games on appeal, with the league's arbitrator contending that a 10-game suspension was “simply too much.”
LINK: Domestic Violence Charges Dropped Against NFL Player
LINK: Panthers Remove Greg Hardy From Roster As Domestic Violence Scandals Continue To Rock NFL
Should he stay or should he go?
The problem:
The preparation during preseason may have gone to plan for Mourinho, but not for the players. Some came back looking overweight and out of practice.
I think Chelsea's poor start is mainly down to individual errors by a number of players due to a lack of concentration. Loyalty is rare in football but Mourinho has shown his trust in his players. However, a lack of competition outside the first XI doesn't give players a lot of extra incentive to "wake up".
The solution:
It is important that the club stick with Mourinho but Jose must start (and continue) to drop players out of form. We have some exciting young prospects who a lot of CFC fans would love to see given a run of games. This puts needed pressure on established players who have won so many honours in their careers. Now it is time to build hunger, just like in 2004.
(Follow Chelsea Chadder on Twitter)
The problem:
If we, as Chelsea fans, can take one positive from this dire run of form, it's that we now have an answer to the chant, "Where were you when you were shit?"
As one of those "rare" specimens that actually existed pre-Abramovich, I'm not going anywhere. More importantly neither are the other vocal contingent whose support of Chelsea and the manager during this tough time has been sensational.
I think the one key area many have overlooked when it comes to the failures this season is that Chelsea arguably regressed in the summer transfer market.
Remember when Mourinho identified the two key positions he required in 2014/15 and he signed Costa and Fabregas without too many issues? This summer, Chelsea signed Falcao, a striker so out of form one could argue we'd be better with 10, and to sum it all up, Papy Djilobodji, who apparently now only has two wishes left in his magic lamp.
The solution:
The way to fix it, for me, is upheaval from within:
Make these changes and we'll be top in no time. Simple, right? Where do I sign…?
Jordan Mansfield / Getty Images
The problem:
There is no doubt in my mind that last season's Premier League triumph took its toll. Chelsea laboured to the title, the warning signs weren't heeded.
We also really needed to strengthen the first team in the summer, to ensure that complacency didn't settle in. Willian has clearly prospered on the back of Pedro's addition, but players such as Terry, Ivanovic, Hazard, Matic, Fabregas, and Costa have appeared to rest on their laurels, with no obvious competition in sight.
Mourinho must also share in the blame, however. It is the manager's responsibility to identify and correct instances of poor form.
The solution:
It's a very easy and obvious solution to say that signing new players is the answer, but given that Mourinho relied so heavily on a select few last year and no competition for places has been added this year, it is clear that this would give the current squad that much needed impetus.
I also think that we have some fantastic youth products coming through and I firmly believe that the added confidence that they would bring would re-energise the first team.
Catherine Ivill - Ama / Getty Images
The problem:
It's a culmination of many factors.
From being unfit at the start of the season, Eva-gate, key players suffering a drawn-out hangover from last season resulting in a drop in form, confidence, mistakes that are punished in almost every single game, and a manager under fire with what seems like one situation after the next, Chelsea have literally unravelled in front of our eyes from the celebrated champions they were last season!
The solution:
How do you fix it? Well, of late our performances are getting better and that's because some of our key players are getting back to where they need to be (Hazard and Matic). The others now need to do the same.
However, in times such as these where we are looking to inject some inspiration into a side languishing in the Premier League, Jose Mourinho has to consider Ruben Loftus-Cheek now more than ever.
Chelsea are in trouble but have the quality to turn things around. The thing is, we've been saying that for a while now, haven't we!
(Follow ChelseaDaft on Twitter)
Ian Kington / AFP / Getty Images
Zachary Bennett-Brook paints traditional Indigenous art on surfboards.
"I had this old surfboard laying around and thought it would make a great canvas which would allow me to connect my surfing culture with my Indigenous culture, and the rest is history," Bennett-Brook told surfing magazine Surfd.
"I don’t know if I would call myself an artist, I guess I sort of am, haha. I have always been drawing, painting and have been creative for as long as I can remember so I guess it all started from a young age. As I have become older I have refined and changed my art style to what it is now"
How good is your memory when it comes to slightly obscure footballers?
Soon after Gary Pinkel arrived at the University of Missouri in late November 2000, Pinkel and his boss, Athletic Director Mike Alden, reached out to many of its former black players. Alden told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in August 2001 that he “didn’t realize the bitterness or the level of disengagement was as strong as it was.”
They came up with an idea: Missouri would enlist those former players as mentors for current black players, among them the first black football player in school history, Norris Stevenson. Pinkel and Alden also decided to honor Stevenson on campus, spelling out his contributions on the football complex alongside a large photograph and plaque, establishing a $25,000 scholarship in his name, and naming the then-new “Plaza of Champions” at the football stadium after him.
That was a promising start, said Don Johnson, a black player at Missouri in the early 1970s. But the ceremony to honor Stevenson turned into another disappointment for him and others when they learned about the details of the event. Instead of a home game on a Saturday, when the stands would be full of fans and alums, Missouri held the ceremony on a Friday afternoon under a small tent at nearly empty Faurot Field. Johnson said he planned to boycott the event until Stevenson eventually talked him out of it.
“A Friday at 3:30 p.m.?” Johnson recalled a few days ago, still incredulous at what he felt was disrespect for Stevenson’s legacy and contributions to the program. “No one was there. His wife couldn’t even come to it. Why the hell did it have to be a Friday?”
That sort of frustration with Missouri — known to alums and sports fans as “Mizzou” — has lingered with many black former players, who watched with great interest current players’ refusal to play an upcoming game as part of a campus-wide protest against racist incidents on campus. The players' protest struck a nerve — the school would have reportedly lost $1 million if they backed out of the November 14 game against BYU. Missouri’s president and chancellor were ultimately forced to resign as part of the student’s demands.
That dramatic step taken by the team — a refusal to participate in football-related activities until the embattled president was gone — turned a campus rift into a national controversy that invited a closer look into race relations on the autumnal campus of 35,000. Within the expansive community of students and alums, faculty and staff, are a disgruntled family of black football players who have barely been able to conceal their dissatisfaction with Missouri’s athletic department and administration. Although Mizzou has long sought to draw football talent from black players coming out of some of the poorest areas in Missouri, it has not always welcomed them, leaving a decades old rift that has not yet healed.
The rift dates back to the pioneering days of Stevenson through the 1980s and ‘90s when several St. Louis radio DJs openly discouraged top black athletes from going to Missouri, up to Friday when Pinkel announced his resignation because of health issues but still faced criticism for conflicting statements on his support of the players’ boycott. “That organization can do what they want to, no judgments on them at all, but that should not have come out,” Pinkel said in a radio interview Tuesday, referring to a post from his Twitter account expressing support for a student activist group.
Demitrious Johnson in 1982.
Anthony Suau / Getty Images
“He’s backpedaling faster than I did when I played,” said Demetrious Johnson, a former NFL and Missouri football player (1980-83) who works in sports medicine sales and also has a weekend talk radio show in St. Louis. “Now he doesn’t support the damn issue, just the kids. But you know what’s happening — he’s getting his ass whupped by the white alums.”
Like most major-college football programs, Mizzou has a much higher proportion of black student-athletes than it does black students. About half of the 124 players on the team’s roster are black, while 8% of the school’s 27,654 undergraduate students identify as black or African-American. It’s not clear how many black players participated in the strike, but more than 30 appeared in a picture posted Saturday night on Twitter linking arms with a graduate student who staged a hunger strike as part of the protest.
Missouri wants to assuage its valuable talent while doing little to address a campus atmosphere players say has long been hostile and dismissive to them and other black students.
It was a powerful image, because even in a season when the football team has underperformed — the Tigers are 4-5 and a half-game out of last place in their division — the players’ statement resonated far beyond Columbia. They gave voice to something echoed by nearly a dozen football alums who spoke to BuzzFeed News in recent days: Missouri wants to assuage its valuable black athletic talent while doing little to address a campus atmosphere players say has long been hostile and dismissive to them and other black students.
“We love the game, but (at) the end of the day, it is just that; a game,” read a statement posted to Twitter by Missouri player Ian Simon, a senior from Texas. “Though we don’t experience everything the general student body does and our struggles may different at times, we are all #ConcernedStudent1950.”
Campus protest, Nov. 9, 2015
Jeff Roberson / AP
#ConcernedStudent1950 refers to the year black students were first admitted to the University of Missouri. A group of activist students have organized under that name, issuing a list of eight demands stemming from a series of reports of racial antagonism on campus. The alleged incidents echoed of a different time on campus, a throwback to the days when Stevenson arrived in rural Columbia from inner-city St. Louis.
When Stevenson and another teammate, Mel West of nearby Jefferson City, broke the color barrier in 1957, they found a campus unwelcoming to blacks, a school where the band played "Dixie" and a fraternity waved a Confederate flag for Missouri touchdowns. Stevenson would later say he had no idea that he came to school as a pioneer. “I got there, and they said, 'Did you know you're the first?' And I'm going, 'What?’” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in August 2001.
“It’s a matter that Columbia had some growing up to do,” he said. "What we were experiencing was something ... you have to be black to know it. I was just out there, pretty much. Missouri was not ready for me at all. They brought me up there, and it was almost with just the hope that it would work out.”
Making matters even more difficult, Stevenson said his white teammates were slow to accept him and West. Eventually, he said, about five teammates warmed to him and became his friends. There wasn’t much other support to be found in Columbia for him and West. At the time, there were only a handful of black students on campus. One of them, however, turned out to be the woman who would eventually become his wife.
Delores Stevenson, who also grew up in St. Louis, said black students routinely had to deal with lowered expectations from professors in the classroom and aloofness from white students outside of it. That only heightened their resolve to persevere under those inhospitable conditions, she said. “We were constantly fighting that fight. We knew we had to prove ourselves.”
Norris Stevenson had a few standout moments as an athlete, particularly in one of the biggest football victories in school history. He rushed for 169 yards on 13 carries in the Tigers’ 41-19 win over Oklahoma in 1960 to help them earn their first No. 1 ranking in school history. He was also a standout in track and field, earning his way into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
“Some people made choices then that now they wish they hadn't made. I've never held it against them. I held it against the times.”
The good times didn’t last long. After Missouri’s win over Navy in the 1961 Orange Bowl, Stevenson and West were escorted out of Miami country club reception while the rest of their teammates stayed behind to finish their meals. The sting lasted for years.
“Really, some people made choices then that now they wish they hadn't made,” he told the Post-Dispatch, a quote that ran in his obituary in March 2012 after he died of colon cancer at the age of 72. “I've never really, really held it against them. I held it against the times.”
A decade later, Don Johnson, also a native of the St. Louis area, came to Columbia despite that story — and many others similar to it — that gave him and his family serious reservations about his choice of Missouri. But Johnson took note of the success stories, Stevenson’s among them. And by that time, there were more black people on the team and on campus. “Once you see one of us go up there and people were pretty successful, it made me think it was OK,” Johnson said.
Johnson finished a standout football career in 1972, earned his bachelor’s degree, and stayed at Missouri to get his master’s. To earn some extra money, Johnson worked as a co-director of the then-new Black Culture Center, which was in what he called a “two-story, dilapidated house.”
Johnson said he used his football connections and influence on campus to successfully get funding for improvements to the facility, but could never forget the substandard housing set aside for them by the school’s administration.
“It never would have passed any type of housing code,” he said. “I couldn’t believe that’s what they thought we were worthy of.”
By the mid-1970s, a pair of talk radio DJs in St. Louis had compiled a list of grievances by black former players — and added a few of their own — and started using their platform to punish the Tigers. At least five days a week, for at least a couple of hours during morning drivetime, Richard “Onion” Horton and Charlie “Tuna” Edwards would take their turns — on different stations — inveighing against the athletic program of the state’s flagship university.
“It was like a religion to listen to (Horton) on the way to school from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.,” said Andre Collins, a former Missouri linebacker from the late 1980s who’s now a football coach at Normandy High School in the St. Louis area.
“Everyone was tuned into Onion Horton. He had the voice and the information that, hey, ‘You don’t need to be going to Missouri.’ He had the juice, as the kids say,’” Collins said.
Horton, who’s now in his 80s and suffers from dementia according to friends, told the Riverfront Times of St. Louis in 2001 that “his public disdain for Mizzou dates back to the 1970s, when he urged high-school football players to boycott the university because blacks were being benched in favor of less talented white players.”
Charlie "Tuna" Edwards
Courtesy Charlie Edwards
Edwards, who still has a nightly show on a local AM radio station, admits that he and Horton sometimes went well beyond the airwaves to make their case to some of the area’s top black athletes: They’d even go to their homes and games to talk them out of considering Missouri.
“I couldn’t tell you where to send your kid,” Edwards said he would tell parents of local college recruits. “But I wouldn’t send them down there.” This had a powerful effect on many of the black families in St. Louis and East St. Louis, two especially important recruiting territories for Missouri. The pressure to go elsewhere could sometimes be overwhelming.
“A lot of guys you talk to will tell you that when they went to Mizzou, there would be some serious backlash from those two guys,” said Tim Holloway, a St. Louis native who’s now president and director of a local traveling youth basketball team, the St. Louis Eagles. The Eagles currently boast two of the nation’s best high school players in Jayson Tatum and Tyler Cook, who have committed to play in college for Duke and Iowa, respectively.
Holloway, who also played at the smaller University of Missouri-Rolla, said he eventually came to understand why Horton and Edwards were so adamant about steering players away from Mizzou. “In my view, they were looking out for the young black athlete,” he said. “And they just felt like the culture at the time didn’t value African-American athletes and didn’t recruit this area in a way that was fit.”
Chad Moller, a spokesperson for Missouri’s athletic department, declined comment other than to say, “In terms of recruiting, we certainly don’t get 100% of the kids we are interested in, but we also get a good share of them.”
Those daily warnings from Horton and Edwards weighed heavily on Collins, who played at the once nationally competitive East St. Louis High School just over the Missouri state border in Illinois. Not wanting to risk the wrath of disapproving fans in his neighborhood, he decided to go to Illinois instead of Missouri out of high school. “There was pressure from the black community not to go to Missouri,” Collins said.
But a coaching change at Illinois midway through his college career convinced him to transfer to Missouri. As it turned out, Collins said, Missouri was a good place to learn and play. It’s a common refrain among most of the homegrown black athletes who ended up choosing the Tigers.
“We met some good white folks, I ain’t gonna lie to you,” Collins said. “I had a relatively good experience. I’m 6-foot-1, 225 pounds — ain’t nobody going to just come up to me and say, ‘Hey, nigga.’ But I did see some of the suffering of the non-student athletes.”
Jeff Roberson / AP
Early in the 1990s, Missouri endured a few setbacks in its attempts to change its reputation among black students and athletes.
In 1991, basketball player Jamal Coleman was arrested for his role in a bookstore refund scam. Coleman was later convicted of a misdemeanor while two other women involved in the plan — one of them his girlfriend — pled guilty to felonies. However, the school’s student conduct committee suspended him for a semester and placed the women on disciplinary probation, meaning they could attend classes.
Coleman appealed his suspension to federal court, where a judge angrily criticized Mizzou’s disciplinary procedures as an "outrage," and suggested Coleman, who is black, didn't get fair treatment from an all-white disciplinary panel, according to a story from The Associated Press in January 1992.
“For an enlightened university not to have a black person on this committee, I think, is pretty sinful,'' the judge, who was white. "The university has suffered some irreparable damage as a result of this case.”
Though a federal appeals court later dismissed his case, Coleman returned to the team and finished his career. Coleman, who now lives in his hometown of Denver, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Several members of the black St. Louis media later complained to the athletic department about the school’s fight song, the “Missouri Waltz,” which originally hailed the idyllic days of “Dixie” and included lines like “seems like your Mammy was there once again, and the darkies were strummin' that same old refrain.”
“Up until about 10 years ago, that was part of their fight song, for football players to run out on the field,” Edwards said. Some of the more offensive lyrics in the song were officially changed decades ago, and it’s unclear if and when fans stopped singing it in the stands during home games.
Hopeful that he could broker a truce, former Tigers football star Demetrious Johnson hosted a breakfast in 1994 for black media members and high school coaches in St. Louis and Missouri’s athletic department. Attending the meeting were media members like Edwards and Horton and the Tigers athletic director, head football coach, and an assistant basketball coach. Conspicuous by his absence was longtime head basketball coach Norm Stewart, who said he was recovering from minor skin surgery.
"If Norm Stewart is telling the truth about having surgery,” Horton told the Post-Dispatch, “I'd have to see him on the operating table."
Norm Stewart: "Do you think this university is any different than any other university? What do you want, Utopia?"
Keith Kreeger / Associated Press
Holm’s victory during the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Title bout was a shocking upset.
#Ronalgoals
Home fans will join in with the French anthem during the friendly between England and France on Tuesday night.
Home fans have been encouraged to sing along with the French anthem in solidarity with France after terror attacks claimed the lives of at least 129 people in Paris on Friday night.
Franck Fife / AFP / Getty Images
Lassana Diarra
Michael Steele / Getty Images
Antoine Griezmann
Ian MacNicol / Getty Images
We’ve messed with each of the 32 teams’ primary logos a little bit, but can you pick out the real from the fake?
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers denounced a fan who yelled "Muslims suck!" during a moment of silence before Sunday's game, calling it a "kind of prejudicial ideology."
Ahead of Sunday's Lions–Packers game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Packers — along with teams league wide — held a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
One fan in Green Bay, however, shouted "Muslims suck!" during the moment of silence, and it echoed clearly through the stadium.
The moment was captured on the FOX broadcast, and can be heard again at 1:08 in the video above, uploaded by the NFL on their official YouTube account as part of a league-wide compilation of the moments of silence.
Following the Packers' 18–16 loss to the Lions, Rodgers addressed the fan's comments during his post-game presser.
"I must admit though, I was very disappointed with whoever the fan was who made a comment during the moment of silence that I thought was really inappropriate. It's that kind of prejudicial ideology that I think puts us in the position we're in today as a world."
Neither the Packers nor the NFL have released statements regarding the Packers fan's comment or Rodgers' response.
The prime minister was not scheduled to attend the match at Wembley, but changed his mind after Friday’s terror attacks in Paris.
Wpa Pool / Getty Images
The attacks included three suicide bombers detonating devices outside the Stade de France as France played Germany.
A spokesperson for the prime minister confirmed to BuzzFeed News that Cameron will sing the French national anthem, which, in a break from tradition, will be played after the English anthem at tonight's match.
"The decision was taken [to attend the match] and he's looking forward to it," said the spokesperson.
Clive Rose / Getty Images
Pool / Getty Images
Battle of the Bantamweight
