Ohio State football: Highly rated prospects will step foot in ’Shoe
Torrance Gibson got the attention of Ohio State football followers with two tweets this week. He said he’s coming to the Buckeyes’ third annual Friday Night Lights tonight.
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Royals 2, Indians 1 (14): Late-night letdown
John Sleezer | Kansas City Star
The Indians’ Corey Kluber had a perfect game until Omar Infante’s one-out single in the seventh inning.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Corey Kluber flirted with flawlessness before he was forced to the footnotes. For that, he has Ryan Raburn and an inept offensive backing to blame.
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Clippers: Top prospect Lindor will make home debut tonight
Curiosity followed shortstop Francisco Lindor to the Clippers this week as surely as a cat will a feather on a string.
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Blue Jackets: ‘Moneyball’ thinking on rise among NHL teams
The dawn of “advanced statistics” in hockey is thought to have occurred more than a decade ago, when progressive NHL front-office types and avid fans took baseball’s "Moneyball" approach and applied it to pucks. Jim Corsi’s approach has gained the most traction.
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Bengals: Contract not an issue, Dalton says
Associated Press
Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, right, and receiver A.J. Green share a laugh at training camp.
CINCINNATI — Training camp got underway for the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday with quarterback Andy Dalton’s future with the team still in limbo as he plays out the final season of his rookie contract. But Dalton said he’s focused solely on trying to lead the team to its first playoff win in his four seasons and first for the franchise since the 1990 season.
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Around the NFL: League suspends Ravens’ Rice for two games
Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice has been suspended for the first two games of the regular season by the NFL after his offseason arrest on an assault charge stemming from an incident with his fiancee.
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Bob Hunter commentary | Rumblings: Renovations nearly done at Ohio State football facility
While about half of the members of the Ohio State football team were going through a strenuous workout in the weight room yesterday, workers a couple of doors away were trying rapidly to complete the $2.5 million renovation of the training area and locker room.
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Sports roundup: Cavs sign top draft pick Wiggins; the wait begins
Andrew Wiggins has an NBA home, though it still could be a temporary one.
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Soccer | Crew 2, Crystal Palace 2: Reserves stretch their legs; no injuries vs. Berhalter’s former team
Adam Cairns | DISPATCH
Crew forward Adam Bedell, left, fights for the ball with Crystal Palace defender Damien Delaney during the first half.
The outcome wasn’t the key goal last night for Crew coach Gregg Berhalter. With English Premier League team Crystal Palace at Crew Stadium for an exhibition, both teams treated the unseasonably cool evening as a glorified practice.
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MAC football: Bobcats picked to finish third in division
DETROIT -- Josh Kristoff was wearing a tie, dress shirt and slacks and sitting high above Ford Field, but the Ohio University linebacker spoke as if he wanted the games to begin immediately so he could forget the past.
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Sports roundup: Wallace wins Trucks race at Eldora Speedway
Darrell Wallace Jr. won the Mudsummer Classic on the dirt at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, for his second Camping World Truck Series victory of the year.
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The Best Darn Band In The Land Needed To Do Better
The Ohio State marching band needed Super Man. What they got instead was Clark Kent.
Clark Kent, as anyone who read the university’s investigative report released this week can tell you, was Jon Waters nickname when he was a member of TBDBITL. He is also, as anyone allowed within ten miles of Comic Con can tell you, the kindly alter ego of a hero.
That hero was powered by the sun. However, there was little sunlight where the OSU band was concerned. It was a very insular culture. In their defense, that’s probably true of most marching bands. In high school, the band is more than an organization; it’s a clique. That continues in college, where even more time and effort is demanded of participants, drawing them even closer together. A band as successful and talented as Ohio State’s and thus with every right to be proud? Well, that pride sometimes is the mortar of a wall that keeps outside perspectives out.
Which brings us to the second lesson Waters could have learned from Super Man. He was able to juggle two perspectives. He lived as someone immersed in the American Way, and he was able to view things as a Kryptonian outsider. If Waters could have stepped outside his experience as a member of TBDBITL and seen how some of the group’s “traditions” would be viewed by someone less attached to the heritage, he might still be band’s director.
There will be some who point out that Waters did take steps in that direction. Not enough. Not for a school whose Title IX policies are under review by the Department of Education.
There will also be some who argue that the raunchy atmosphere was just a part of being a band member or being a college student. It shouldn’t have to be. If sex was intrinsic to playing an instrument, playing an instrument would be a prerequisite to joining a club of swingers.
There will also be those who claim none of the more modest band members were subjected to anything. However, what are the odds that every squeamish band member was bestowed an appropriately conservative nickname? It certainly wasn’t just the less prudish who witnessed the simulated sex act on a bus ride last year. And it wasn’t just the bawdy band members who were asked to “create and draw a sex position for fat people” as part of their rookie midterm. (If that was the case, investigators probably would not have ended up with a copy of that exam.)
The end result is a report that reads like “50 Shades of Scarlet and Grey.”
It’s a shame. Waters is, by most accounts, a very nice guy. He’s undoubtedly raised the profile of what was already a highly regarded marching band. He may be a super man.
But Ohio State needed a Super Man.
