Sports

Being an Army football fan is a little like living in time capsule. Home games kickoff at noon at Michie Stadium. The Black Knights will be running an offense that was groundbreaking in 1970. They have no conference affiliation, and no matter what happens throughout the season, success or failure will be defined by the result of the rivalry game against Navy. “It’s just exactly like it was in 1972,” said Mark Beech, who is a West Point graduate, the son of a West Point graduate and author of “When Saturday Mattered Most: The Last Golden Season of Army Football.” The evolution of college football has gone into overdrive the past three decades, both on the field and off. What was once a regional sport has gone national. The powerhouse programs have nearly all consolidated in various confere...

NAPLES, Fla. — Golf loves a good rivalry, and right now there would seem to be something for everyone, depending on tastes. One is based on performance and admiration. “Honestly, it was the ‘Jin Young Ko Show’ today. It was really cool to witness,” Nelly Korda said Sunday after the South Korean star shot a tournament-best 63 from the final group on the last day of the season to beat her out for LPGA player of the year. The other is rooted in petty arguments and trash talk. “My first impression of him was he was always a little cocky, just a little like, ‘I’m too cool for this game.’ That was my first impression,” Bryson DeChambeau said when asked about Brooks Koepka. “And he‘s kind of held up those standards so far.” They will settle it Friday in Las Vegas in the latest iteration of “The ...

LeBron James is missing one game. Markieff Morris is missing his eighth, with no end in sight. Those two things are more connected than some might realize. By suspending James for Tuesday night’s game against New York — the Los Angeles Lakers’ lone visit to Madison Square Garden this season — over his role in an incident in Detroit on Sunday, the NBA sent a very loud, very clear message to anyone who might want to partake in future on-court dustups. Enough is enough. Sunday night’s mess in Detroit — the second significant on-court fracas in the NBA this season — earned James the first suspension of his 19-year career, plus got the Pistons’ Isaiah Stewart a two-game suspension on top of the eight stitches that were needed to close a gash in his head. “He felt like he got a cheap shot acros...

As November weekends go, this one was pretty good for Washington sports fans. In Saturday’s National Women’s Soccer League championship, the Washington Spirit won their first title with a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Red Stars. Later that night, the Washington Wizards, after losing to defending Eastern Conference champion Miami two days earlier, came back to beat the Heat 103-100 before a home crowd at Capital One Arena. Oh, and the Washington Football Team traveled to Charlotte to beat one of the best defensive teams in the NFL, the Carolina Panthers, 27-21, for their second straight win. Now, even with a 4-6 record, playoff scenarios are more realistic. Happy Thanksgiving. Typically, this is not the case. Most fans likely didn’t even know there was a Washington Spirit team to root for s...

Villanova Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright knew that Tommy Sheppard had a bright future in basketball when the two met while Wright was on Rollie Massimino’s staff at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in the early 1990s. After all, Sheppard wasn’t the typical sports information director. “He was always on top of our recruiting and went far beyond anything any sports information director would do. He did everything for us,” Wright said. “He was our media relations guy. He did our recruiting videos. He helped us in recruiting.” Sheppard was clearly destined for big things. The basketball gods decided that meant that Sheppard, after 24 years of moving up and getting noticed in NBA circles, would be the general manager of the Washington Wizards. Sheppard was named the Wizards’ interim general ma...

The last time the Washington Football Team beat Tom Brady was the first time they faced him — Sept 28, 2003. They beat the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots 20-17. Brady threw three interceptions. They reported 83,632 people in attendance that day. It wasn’t Ghost Town Field in those days. The coach was Steve Spurrier. His quarterback that day was Patrick Ramsey, who didn’t do much to win the game, completing 10 of 22 passes for 147 yards. But then again, he was Dan Snyder’s quarterback. On Sunday, the Washington Football Team defeated Brady and the defending Super Bowl champions — this time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — for the second time, and this time, the quarterback had a lot to do with it. Taylor Heinicke completed 26 of 32 passes for 256 yards and one beautiful, magni...

Sam Huff started small but became larger than life. He was born in 1934 in a small mining camp in Edna Gas, West Virginia. It’s a place that no longer exists. He grew up in another small mining camp called Consolidated Coal Company Number 9. This would be the coal mine where 78 miners died in a 1968 explosion. “We lived on an old dirt road in a small row house owned, of course, by the mine, which lacked even the smallest of luxuries, like running water,” he wrote in “Controlled Violence,” his autobiography. “Since we didn’t have a bathroom, there was a community pump outside for water and an outhouse located about 50 yards up the hill behind the house. Times were hard for everyone.” Huff would emerge from these forgotten surroundings to become a star not just in one, but two of the most im...

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Their $100 million coach is gone, his career destroyed by emails as vile as they were disturbing. The team president who spearheaded the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas is looking for a new job, too, after reportedly botching some tax payments. Their wide receiver of the future now has a future that likely includes prison after a woman died in a fiery crash he caused by driving drunk. The other first-round draft pick from last year was sent packing this week after a video surfaced of him, gun in hand, threatening someone’s life. The Raiders have always had issues, but nothing like this. Their first season before paying fans in Las Vegas has been overshadowed by a tsunami of off-field events that have shaken the franchise to the core. So far, at least, they’ve been able to compa...

It’s been a week since we’ve heard from Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera. He spoke on Nov. 1 and then kept a low profile during the bye week. He is scheduled to talk to reporters again Monday. Let me start by saying I think Rivera is great in his press conferences. He treats reporters with respect. He never seems to lose his cool. I believe he, at the very least, tries to give them something they can use. But Rivera loves asking himself some Ron Rivera questions — and then answering them. This is not a criticism of Rivera. Again, I think he tries to give thoughtful answers. But I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a coach ask so many questions in his answers to media questions in order to answer those questions. Got it? This is just from the Nov. 1 press conference. Rivera asked 17 questi...

Just a few hours after their National League East division rival, the Atlanta Braves, won the World Series, the 2019 champions, the Washington Nationals, kicked off their offseason to prepare for the 2022 season by announcing their coaching staff. Tim Bogar is back as Dave Martinez’s bench coach. Darnell Coles is replacing Kevin Long as hitting coach, with Pat Roessler as the assistant hitting coach. Eric Young will be the first base coach, and Gary DiSarcina the third base coach. Jim Hickey comes back as pitching coach. Henry Blanco as the catching and strategy coach and Ricky Bones as the bullpen coach. There will be other announcements, other transactions. But the one that should concern Nationals fans the most is this — the Washington metropolitan area gave up 8.5 million square feet o...