Sports Shorts

The write idea, Mississippi mistakes, and women’s b-ball falls short

By Natalie Serafini, Editor-in-Chief

Sometimes sports news requires tidbits and brief bytes, rather than lengthy in-depth articles. For those times, we suit up in our Sports Shorts and delve into the curious occurrences of athletics.

Sports (pen)manship

Derek Jeter has started going into journalism—no really, I’m being serious. The baseball player has founded a website, titled the Players’ Tribune, dedicated to “[presenting] the unfiltered voices of professional athletes, bringing fans closer to the games they love than ever before.” The premise of the site is that it’s created, not by the usual sportswriters and sportscasters, but by the players themselves. One of the site’s first articles, titled “Let’s talk about domestic violence,” is penned by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson—now senior editor for the Players’ Tribune. In an interview on The Tonight Show, Jeter denied that this new media outlet was a way to get the sportswriting monopoly out of hands of journalists; he stated, “This is not trying to eliminate sportswriters. Sportswriters are what make sports great and fun to watch. This is just another avenue for the athletes to use and express themselves.” Regardless of motives, it’ll be interesting to see what the players’ of the tribune bring outside of the brawny medium.

Miss-step

The NCAA is taking a closer look at several of the University of Mississippi’s athletic program’s sports. The sports being investigated include football and women’s basketball, although the allegations of rule violations have not yet been released. The hearing date also hasn’t been set yet, but Ross Bjork, athletic director of Ole Miss, is cooperating with the NCAA for the investigation. The allegations will remain unknown until the notice is released, and questions remain as to whether the violations date back to previous employees: former Ole Miss women’s basketball coach, Adrian Wiggins, was fired along with two of his assistants two years ago.

Women’s b-ball falls short

The Canadian women’s basketball team fell short against Australia in the world championship’s quarter-finals, with a score of 63–52. This comes as a surprise, as thee team had been showing promise after destroying the Czech Republic team in a score of 91–71. Canadian head coach Lisa Thomaidis stated that their advantage against the experienced Czech team came from the Canadian’s speed: “Our speed negates their size.” Although the team is out of medal contention, they remain in the top eight, and will compete in classification games to determine their final standing. After winning against the Czech team, Thomaidis said, “We’re ecstatic to get to the top eight, the last time we got there was 1994.” Indeed, in the last women’s basketball world championships in 2010, the Canadian team came in 12th. While top three is out of reach for them now, the drastic improvement they’ve shown could hold if they continue to use their speed to their advantage.