American Gold Sports Alliance

Archives for November 2023

Cricket stadium in Oswego? Developer proposes massive pitch and open air stadium complex

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By: John Garcia | ABC7 Chicago

OSWEGO, Ill. (WLS) — It may be relatively unknown in the United States, but cricket is actually the second most popular sport in the world after soccer. Now a developer wants to bring a pitch and stadium to a large plot of vacant land in Oswego.

Developer Paresh Patel has released drawings of the 24,000 seat, open-air stadium he has planned for the western suburb.

“It certainly was an impressive looking facility and one that would bring a lot of attention to Oswego,” said Village Administrator dan Di Santo.

Cricket is growing in America. Illinois State Rep. Jennifer Sanalitro has sponsored a resolution asking the Illinois High School Association to recognize the sport.

“I know there is a demand for it. They’ve got cores of people and it’s growing. It’s very popular,” she said.

The proposed stadium, however, is not popular with some Oswego residents, many of whom will speak at a zoning board meeting Thursday night. Some are also circulating a petition in opposition. They cite concerns including noise from the crowds, lights during evening events, a big increase in traffic on area roads and limited parking, as well as the possibility of an increase in crime near the facility.

“With a stadium of that magnitude coming here in our back yard, the quality of life will be impacted greatly,” said resident David Fisher.

“We share some of those concerns,” said Di Santo. “We’re very early in the process and how we address some of the issues and concerns.”

According to the city, the developer expects there to be a professional cricket league in this country and Oswego would be the Chicago area franchise.

After Thursday night’s meeting, it could still be several months before the full city council considers the proposal.

MoCo Native Dominique Dawes Becomes First Gymnast Inducted Into Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame

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The MOCOShow

The first gymnast in the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame (MDSAHOF), Montgomery County native Dominique Dawes, 46, won 15 U.S. Championships between 1991 and 1996.

Per the MDSAHOF: Born in Silver Spring, MD, she also broke ground as the first African-American gymnast to ever qualify for and compete in an Olympics and in 1996 became the first African-American to win an individual medal in Olympic gymnastics with a bronze medal in the floor exercises. A three-time Olympian, Dawes was a member of the “Magnificent Seven,” the first American team to win gold in women’s gymnastics at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. “Awesome Dawesome” retired after the Sydney Games in 2000 (team bronze) and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002, appeared on Broadway in a revival of “Grease” and became an advocate for young women in sports.

She served as president of the Women’s Sports Federation from 2004 to 2006, was appointed by President Obama to join football star Drew Brees as co-chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition in 2010 and in 2020 opened the Dominique Dawes Gymnastics & Ninja Academy in Montgomery County, MD, to create a healthy and nurturing environment for all children, including her four children, two of them twins. She has two locations- in Clarksburg and in Rockville.

Dawes is a member of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (2009) and USA Olympic Hall of Fame (with the Magnificent Seven in 2008). She became the first woman to be inducted into the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame this past week.

FIFA launches Football for Schools Program in Burundi

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 North Africa Post

World football governing body FIFA will roll out its “Football for Schools Program (F4S) in Burundi, making the African country the 100th worldwide to benefit from the initiative.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino inaugurated the program Saturday October 21 at the Urunani Stadium in Buganda, outside capital Bujumbura. The ceremony was attended by the Burundi Minister of Youth & Sports, Gervais Abayeho, and the President of the Football Federation of Burundi, Alexandre Muyenge, FIFA Inside reports. “Thanks to this wonderful Football for Schools project, FIFA and Burundi are uniting the world. We’re uniting the world with a football project, with an education project, with a project that gives chances and opportunities to the youth, to the boys and girls of this wonderful country, Burundi”, the FIFA Chief told the crowd.

F4S launched in mid-2019 in collaboration with UNESCO is considered an ambitious program, meant to contribute to the education, development, and empowerment of around 700 million children. FIFA also argues that it seeks to make football more accessible to both boys and girls around the world by incorporating football activities into the education system, in partnership with relevant authorities and stakeholders.

Around 1.5 million footballs have been distributed since the project’s inception and more than 23 million children are using the Football for Schools app. FIFA has trained 62 educators and master trainers from Burundi’s 18 regions and Bujumbura on the operational implementation of F4S program.

At Huntingdon College, the Gulf South’s 1st NCAA women’s wrestling team is ready to roll

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WWNO – New Orleans Public Radio | By Joseph King

On a Saturday evening in mid-October, a standing-room-only crowd packs the James W. Wilson Jr. Gymnasium at Huntingdon College to witness history.

The wrestling team at the liberal arts school in Montgomery, Alabama, is hosting its annual Scarlet and Gray intra-squad scrimmage to kick off the season with a new addition — a women’s team.

Across 17 matches, the 11 women split into two teams and held an “intense live practice,” as sophomore Shelby Fugate described it. Fugate used the scrimmage to work on perfecting her favorite move.

“A Granby is where you roll out, and you can either roll out while grabbing something on [the opponent] or just roll out to escape something,” Fugate, a native of Fort Mitchell, Alabama, said following her match. “In folk style, I use it a lot. To get a pin, I would roll out from bottom and get on top.”

For many on the team, like Fugate, the season kickoff was the start of a dream come true.

“I’ve wanted to wrestle since I was in kindergarten or first grade,” she said. “My sister wrestled, and after she started that, my entire family started wrestling.”

Wrestlers from the Huntingdon Hawks women's wrestling team get ready to kick off the season in an intra-squad scrimmage on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama.
Wrestlers from the Huntingdon Hawks women’s wrestling team get ready to kick off the season in an intra-squad scrimmage on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. The women’s team will be competing for the first time this year.

The Hawks’ fielding of the NCAA Division III team is a first for Alabama and the rest of the Gulf South, with no other programs operating in Louisiana, Mississippi or Florida. With over 150 women’s collegiate wrestling programs in North America, the National Wrestling Coaches Association says the sport is the fastest growing in the U.S. right now, but that number gets significantly smaller the deeper you go into the southern part of the country.

Huntingdon’s athletic director, Eric Levanda, said he was inspired to start the women’s wrestling program after seeing the growth of the sport at the high school level. He also said he knew that other schools would look at the women’s wrestling program at Huntingdon when thinking about starting a team of their own.

“If we are going to do it, we’re going to do it right,” he said. To be the first women’s collegiate program in the state, we want to be a magnet for girls that want to take the sport seriously.”

Freshman Myna Estrada cheers her team on during an intra-squad scrimmage to begin the 2023-2024 wrestling season for the Huntingdon Hawks women's wrestling team on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama.
Freshman Myna Estrada cheers her team on during an intra-squad scrimmage to begin the 2023-2024 wrestling season for the Huntingdon Hawks women’s wrestling team on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. The Hawks have the only collegiate-level women’s wrestling team in the Gulf South.

Hawks’ coach Lillian Humphries, who leads the women’s wrestling team, knows what it’s like to be part of a trailblazing team. Before coaching, she wrestled at Presbyterian College in South Carolina where she was a member of the first Division I women’s wrestling program in NCAA history.

During her time both as a player and a coach, Humphries has witnessed the disparities between men’s and women’s programs — issues such as women having to get dressed for matches in a restroom or being the only woman wrestler on her high school team — and is appreciative of the buy-in she’s seen from Huntingdon College’s athletic department.

“I got hired on June 1 of 2022, and by June 9, they started building our women’s locker room, which is a huge investment,” she said.

Humphries spent her first year on the job without an important part of the team — wrestlers. She used that time to recruit and build relationships with her athletes.

Freshman Shonticia Taft (left) wrestles during an intra-squad scrimmage to begin the wrestling season for the Huntingdon Hawks women's wrestling team on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama.
Freshman Shonticia Taft (left) wrestles during an intra-squad scrimmage to begin the wrestling season for the Huntingdon Hawks women’s wrestling team on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. The Hawks have the only collegiate-level women’s wrestling team in the Gulf South.

Shonticia Taft, a freshman from Marietta, Georgia, sees her time on the team as a chance to be a trailblazer, just like her coach.

As one of only two Black women on the team, she feels an added sense of pressure to prove herself more, but also to encourage other young Black women who are interested in getting on the mat but find themselves wrestling with the idea.

Humphries’ relationship-building also impressed eventual team members like Tristin Robinson.

“I had the chance to visit some other colleges, too, and seeing those colleges made me realize how much I really do love Huntingdon,” Robinson, a freshman from Dothan, Alabama, said. “I love how the staff really cares about you.”

Robinson is relatively new to the sport — she started wrestling in 10th grade when her high school’s women’s program formed — but loves the feeling of exhaustion and reward after a match or training session.

“I love competing, I love working hard, and I like feeling like I’m dying sometimes and then being able to — at the end of it — be like I just did that and I’m proud of myself for that,” Robinson said.

Robinson said her love for wrestling was cultivated by her father, Travis Robinson, who was present at the scrimmage. He is excited to cheer his daughter on and see how the Hawks stack up against the other teams they face, but he also wants to see the sport continue to grow regionally.

“I want everybody to get onboard just like they would for Alabama football,” he said.

The Huntingdon Hawks’ next time on the mat, and their first official match, will be on Nov. 11 in Georgia against the Life University Eagles.

McFadden, Pike, Scaroni, Romanchuk become first athletes named to Team USA for Paralympic Games Paris 2024

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Highland County Press | United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, Press Release

Four of Team USA’s top marathoners became the first athletes selected by name to the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 roster for the U.S. after earning their spots via results from the TCS New York City Marathon on Nov. 5. The iconic marathon served as the U.S. Paralympics Track & Field marathon team selection event for Paris 2024.

Paralympians Daniel Romanchuk (Mount Airy, Md.) and Susannah Scaroni (Tekoa, Wash.) won the silver and bronze, respectively, to qualify in the top overall spot for Team USA, while six-time Paralympian Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minn.) placed fourth and was the second American male finisher in the field behind Romanchuk. Rounding out the women’s marathon squad will be 20-time Paralympic medalist Tatyana McFadden (Baltimore, Md.), who earns the second women’s spot with a sixth-place finish.

Per the team’s selection procedures, the top two American men and top two American women finishers are named to the Paralympic Team, provided that they rank within the top-20 of the World Para Athletics World Rankings in the T54 marathon event.

“As a program, it’s extremely exciting to have our first athletes named to the Paris team, and especially to see these four leading the charge for Team USA as we approach the Games next summer,” Sherrice Fox, Director, U.S. Paralympics Track & Field, said. “All four of them have been constants on our Paralympic teams over the past decade and beyond, and we are looking forward to watching them continue that legacy in Paris.”

One of the most prolific wheelchair marathoners in recent years, Romanchuk is set for his third Paralympic Games after a breakout Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 in which he won the men’s 400-meter T54 race and also claimed bronze in the marathon. The 25-year-old is the youngest-ever winner of the New York Marathon’s wheelchair event, in which he claimed victory in 2018. In his marathon career, which began in 2014, he also has won the London, Chicago and Boston Marathons.

The silver medal finish came behind only Switzerland’s Marcel Hug. Romanchuk finished the race in 1:30.07 to punch his ticket to Paris.  

“I’m so thankful for these opportunities I’ve had,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to have a little more of a solid plan for the next year. It’s really great to finish on a note like this for the season. I’m hoping to get some solid training in and make some equipment adjustments this winter and look toward the next year.”

Joining Romanchuk in Paris will be the two-time Paralympic medalist Scaroni, who, since winning her first Paralympic title in Tokyo, has been on a tear, piling up the most marathon wins of any Team USA athlete in women’s wheelchair racing.

After a training accident in which the three-time Paralympian was hit by a car in late 2021, she bounced back to win the 2022 Chicago and New York City Marathons and earned her first career Boston Marathon title in 2023. She is also dominant in the 5-kilometer race, the event in which she won her Paralympic gold in Tokyo.

Scaroni held the second-place position for the majority of the New York City Marathon, trailing only Swiss athlete Catherine Debrunner. She was passed only in the last miles of the race by Manuela Schar, who claimed silver. Scaroni snagged a podium spot with bronze in 1:48.14.

Being one of the first four athletes to qualify for Team USA for Paris 2024 was an honor, Scaroni said.

“It’s never easy to make the Paralympic Team, so it’s such a privilege,” she said. “The Paralympic movement, especially in this country, I feel the energy, I feel recognized, and it’s largely because of how well we’ve done showcasing Para athletes. It makes me excited for the next generation of Paralympians.”

One of the greatest wheelchair racers the sport has ever seen, the 20-time Paralympic medalist McFadden has officially qualified for her seventh career Paralympic Games roster after placing sixth in the marathon with a time of 1:53.31. The result earns her the opportunity to compete alongside Scaroni for Team USA in the women’s marathon in Paris.

For the 23-time world championships medalist who also has 24 World Major Marathon titles, qualifying for Paris was her primary objective for the race.

“I’m so excited,” McFadden said. “To be on the 2024 Paris Paralympic marathon team was really the big goal for today’s race. I’ve had a really great season. To come home with three world championship events in sprinting events and then make the marathon team is a really great package to bring home this year. Hopefully I can put everything together next year and bring home some medals in Paris.”

Rounding out the first four athletes named to Team USA for the 2024 Paralympic Games is Pike, who is also earning his seventh Paralympic berth. A dual-sport athlete who also competes in Para Nordic skiing, Pike has now finished in the top-five in his past four New York Marathon competitions after a fourth-place finish in the men’s race.

In Tokyo, Pike finished sixth in the marathon, and earlier this year earned his first career world championships title in biathlon.

“It’s something you never take for granted,” Pike said. “It’s crazy to say it’s your seventh Games. I’m happy that the training is still inspiring. I’m pumped. It’s just really relieving to know that it’s done already and we can just focus on training.”

Pike has a quick turnaround before getting on snow to start his Para Nordic skiing season. He plans to head to Canmore, Canada, to join the national team in just a few days.

“As soon as I get on snow, it’s actually reenergizing for me,” he said. “I like having two sports, and I’m actually really excited to go jump on snow in a couple of days. Everyone thinks it’s crazy, but for me it’s refreshing. I always feel the same way in March when I get back in the chair. It just works for me.”

Other U.S. highlights in the competition included up-and-coming athlete Evan Correll (Waukee, Iowa), who placed sixth in the men’s event. Correll is set to make his international debut for Team USA later this month at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Paralympian Jenna Fesemyer (Ravenna, Ohio) was eighth in the women’s race, followed by Michelle Wheeler (Boalsburg, Pa.), Yen Hoang (Vancouver, Wash.) and Hannah Dederick (Mead, Wash.), who finished 11th, 13th and 14th, respectively.

Coming off his first two career world championships medals on the track, three-time Paralympian Brian Siemann (Champaign, Ill.) recorded a strong ninth-place finish for the men, and Herman Garic (Utica, N.Y.), Wyatt Willand (Northwood, Iowa) and Philip Croft (Spokane, Wash.) were 11th, 12th and 13th.

The remaining U.S. Paralympics Track & Field roster slots for the Paralympic Games will be filled at this summer’s U.S. Paralympics Track & Field Team Trials, set for July 18-21. The Paralympic Games Paris 2024 run Aug. 28-Sept. 8 and are expected to feature more than 4,400 athletes.

Record Setting 1.659 Million TV Viewers for Women’s Volleyball Match Continues Historic Season For Big Ten Women’s Sports

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BIG 10 Sports

ROSEMONT, Illinois – Big Ten women’s volleyball averaged 1.659 million viewers Sunday afternoon on FOX — the largest TV audience on record for a college volleyball match. The regionalized coverage of Wisconsin women’s volleyball hosting Minnesota, and Ohio State taking on Michigan, nearly tripled the previous record established just one week ago when #1 Nebraska defeated the #2 Badgers. 

“The profile of women’s athletics in the Big Ten Conference is at an all-time high, with some of the biggest names and brands anywhere in sports,” said Commissioner Tony Petitti. “The collaboration between our staff, our schools, and our broadcast partners has been critical in elevating the platform we provide. With the introduction of strategic scheduling principles overseen by Chief Operating Officer Kerry Kenny and Senior Director Television Administration Grace McNamara, the future of Big Ten women’s sports has never been brighter.”

Sunday’s historic viewership is the latest highlight in an exciting fall for Big Ten women’s sports. Earlier this month, 55,646 fans filled Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium for a women’s basketball exhibition between the Hawkeyes and DePaul Blue Demons, the largest crowd in the history of women’s basketball.

In August, Nebraska volleyball hosted the University of Nebraska-Omaha inside Memorial Stadium in front of the largest crowd to ever witness a women’s sporting event in the United States – 92,003 – breaking the previous record of 90,185 established at the 1999 World Cup soccer final between the U.S. and China at the Rose Bowl.

This undeniable momentum is expected to continue into the winter season when Big Ten women’s basketball tips off in November, with all 126 conference games to be nationally produced and distributed for the 10th consecutive season. The 2023-24 campaign marks the most coverage on nationally distributed platforms in Big Ten women’s basketball history, including six Big Ten regular-season games televised on a broadcast platform, the most in conference history. In addition, the 2024 Big Ten Women’s Basketball Championship Game will air on CBS, the event’s first appearance on broadcast television.

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