Ionescu to make WNBA debut in season opener
The WNBA season is scheduled to tip off July 25 with all games that weekend dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The regular season will begin with No. 1 pick Sabrina Ionescu and the New York Liberty facing Breanna Stewart and the Seattle Storm in a nationally televised game. Stewart missed all of last season while recovering from a torn Achilles tendon.
All 12 franchises will play the opening weekend and honor victims of police brutality and racial violence. Team uniforms will display Breonna Taylor’s name. Players will each have the option to continue to wear Taylor’s name on their jersey for subsequent games.
Additionally, throughout the season, players will wear warm-up shirts that display “Black Lives Matter” on the front and “Say Her Name” on the back.
The league will have three games a day, playing on the two courts at the Feld Entertainment Center, which is near the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where the players are staying.
NFL
OAKLEY, NFL FIND FACE SHIELDS FOR HELMETS >> With NFL training camps set to start at the end of the month, the league believes it is closer to one answer when it comes to player safety amid the coronavirus pandemic: face shields for the players’ helmets.
The NFL and the players’ union agreed to several protocols in a 42page document last week, including team travel, media and treatment response. They have also updated the facilities protocol, specifically addressing training camp, using recommendations from a joint committee of doctors, trainers and strength coaches.
However, the two sides haven’t agreed on testing and screening protocols for the coronavirus.
One idea suggested by the union’s medical director, Dr. Thom Mayer, to help control the spread of the virus was to have players wear face masks. The league’s engineers and a sports equipment company tested prototypes for the masks, but players shot it down.
The face shield was designed by Oakley, which already provides visors for the players. The face shield has received a better response than the mask suggestion.
With training camps scheduled to start in a couple of weeks, there’s still no timeline for the helmets with face shields to make their debut.
NHL
LEAFS’ MATTHEWS RECOVERING FROM COVID-19 >> Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews acknowledged Monday that he tested positive for the coronavirus last month and is feeling well ahead of the team’s return to training camp.
“I was pretty much asymptomatic, felt for the most (part) pretty normal for two weeks (of isolating),” Matthews told reporters on a Zoom call. “I did my quarantine and I’m healthy now, so it’s all good.”
Matthews, who was in his home state of Arizona at the time of his diagnosis, was prevented from returning to Canada and participating in the entirety of Phase 2’s voluntary workouts.
PENGUINS VOLUNTARILY SIDELINE 9 PLAYERS >> The Pittsburgh Penguins opened training camp after voluntarily sidelining nine players who may have had secondary exposure to a person testing positive for COVID-19. The Penguins did not reveal which players were held out as a precautionary measure.
The NHL announced that 43 players tested positive for the coronavirus from June 8 through the end of the league’s optional workouts. The league said 4,934 COVID-19 tests were administered to more than 600 players. Of the 43, 30 tested positive at team facilities and the others tested positive outside the NHL’s Phase 2 protocols.
All players who tested positive self-isolated. The NHL is not sharing names of the players who test positive or the teams involved.
Golf
PGA TOUR EVENTS CONTINUE WITHOUT FANS REST OF SEASON >> The PGA Tour’s three playoff events will be played without spectators, closing the door on opportunities for fans to attend Tour events the rest of the season. The Northern Trust, BMW Championship and season-ending Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup will be awarded, announced that no fans will be allowed as the nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.
The Wyndham Championship, which concludes the regular season, also will not have fans on site when it is played Aug. 13-16 in Greensboro,
North Carolina. The remaining five events on the season calendar also will not have fans.
Motorsports
STEWART AND EVERNHAM TEAM TO RECREATE IROC SERIES >> Remember the old IROC Series, where the best drivers from various disciplines raced each other in equally prepared cars? It ran for 30 seasons before Tony Stewart won its final championship in 2006 and the series quietly went away.
Now Stewart, along with fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Ray Evernham, has teamed with a group of heavyweights to bring an all-star circuit back in 2021. The Superstar Racing Experience plans a six-race, short-track series to air in prime time on CBS in a Saturday night summer spectacular.
SRX envisions fields of 12 drivers competing on famed short tracks across the country in cars prepared by Evernham, the architect of Jeff Gordon’s early career and a noted car designer. Stewart plans to be one of the participants and already has a wish list of drivers he’ll pursue, and he’ll likely offer up Eldora Speedway, his short track in Ohio, as one of the venues.
Men’s college basketball
USF SIGNS DUBLIN HIGH’S ROY >> USF coach Todd Golden announced Dublin High star Anthony Roy signed a national letter of intent to join the Dons. Roy, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard, was named First Team All-Bay Area by this organization.
In 62 career games, Roy averaged 13.5 points per game, 2.0 assists per game, and 4.4 rebounds per game.
College athletics
PATRIOT LEAGUE PUSHES SPORTS TO SPRING >> The Patriot League said its 10 Division I schools will not compete in any fall sports, which include football, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and field hockey. The council of presidents said the league will consider making up those seasons in the winter and spring if possible.
Army and Navy are also Patriot League members, but not in football. TEXAS TO RENAME FIELD AFTER CAMPBELL, WILLIAMS >> The University of Texas is working to make the campus “more diverse and welcoming,” and one of its first moves will be to honor a pair of legendary Longhorns running backs.
Administrators intend to rename the field at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium after Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, the only Heisman Trophy winners in the football program’s storied history. The move was announced in a letter from interim campus president Jay Hartzell.
The university Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the proposal today, and approval is expected. SANDERS’ SON PICKS FAU >> Highly rated high school quarterback Shedeur Sanders, the son of former star player Deion Sanders, committed to Florida Atlantic.