Chryst is Big Ten coach of the year
He praises players, staff for success
Madison — On the day he was introduced as the 30th head coach in the history of the Wisconsin football program, Paul Chryst was asked whether returning to his alma mater represented his dream job.
His response on Dec. 17, 2014: You have to earn that title.
Chryst is well on his way to accomplishing that in less than two seasons with a 20-5 overall mark and a berth in the 2016 Big Ten title game Saturday in Indianapolis.
And on Tuesday he was honored by his peers for his success, winning the Big Ten’s Hayes-Schembechler Coach of the Year award voted on by Badgers stay at No. 6 in playoff rankings.
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La Union, Colombia — Colombian authorities searched for answers Tuesday in the crash of a chartered airliner that slammed into the Andes mountains while transporting a Brazilian soccer team whose Cinderella story had won it a spot in the finals of one of South America’s most prestigious regional tournaments. All but six of the 77 people on board were killed.
The British Aerospace 146 short-haul plane declared an emergency and lost radar contact just before 10 p.m. Monday, according to Colombia’s aviation agency. It said the plane’s black boxes had been recovered and were being analyzed.
The aircraft, which departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil for Wednesday’s first leg of the twogame Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin. Twenty-one Brazilian journalists were also on board the flight.
Colombian officials initially said the plane suffered an electrical failure, but there was also heavy rainfall at the time of the crash. Authorities also said they were not ruling out the possibility, relayed to rescuers by a surviving flight attendant, that the plane ran out of fuel minutes before its scheduled landing at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin.
Whatever the cause, the emotional pain of Colombia’s deadliest air tragedy in two decades was felt across the soccer world.
Expressions of grief poured in as South America’s federation canceled all scheduled matches in a show of solidarity, Real Madrid’s squad interrupted its training for a minute of silence and Argentine legend Diego Maradona sent his condolences to the victims’ families over Facebook.
Brazil’s top teams offered to lend the small club players next season so they can rebuild following the sudden end to a fairy tale season that saw Chapecoense reach the tournament final just two years after making it into the first division for the first time since the 1970s. “It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach,” the teams said in a statement.
Rescuers working through the night were initially heartened after pulling three people alive from the wreckage. But as the hours passed, heavy fog and stormy weather grounded helicopters and slowed efforts to reach the crash site.
Black Hawk helicopters had to perform a tricky maneuver to land on the crest of the Andes mountains. The plane’s fuselage appeared to have broken into two, with the nose facing downward into a steep valley.
Three members of the soccer team survived the crash, along with a journalist and two Bolivian crew members.