Former Cowboy RB Barber dies at age 38
Marion Barber III, the former Dallas Cowboys running back who scored plenty of touchdowns without recording a 1,000-yard season, has died, the team said Wednesday. He was 38.
Barber played a final season with Chicago in 2011 after spending his first six years with the Cowboys. He had issues with mental health after his career.
Police in the Dallas suburb of Frisco said Wednesday they made a welfare check at an apartment “believed to be leased” by Barber and were investigating an unattended death there.
The Cowboys, who have their headquarters in Frisco, said they were “heartbroken by the tragic death of Marion Barber III.”
“Marion was an old-school, hard-nosed football player who ran with the will to win every down,” the team said. “He had a passion for the game and love for his coaches and teammates.”
Barber’s father, Marion Barber Jr., played seven seasons with the New York Jets in the 1980s.
The younger Barber is fourth on Dallas’ career list for rushing touchdowns with 47 after getting passed in 2021 by two-time NFL rushing champion Ezekiel Elliott. He finished with 53 and never had fewer than four in any of his seven seasons.
The former Minnesota player, a fourthround draft pick by Dallas in 2005, had 24 touchdowns in 2006-07 despite starting just one game those two seasons. Barber’s career high was 14 TDs in 2006, when he rushed for just 654 yards.
Barber had a career-high 975 yards rushing and 10 TDs in 2007, when he made his only Pro Bowl. His role and production declined from there, and he had careers lows in carries, yards and touchdowns in his final year in Dallas in 2010.
TOP SEED ADVANCES
Iga Swiatek benefited from the chair umpire’s no-call on a double bounce that gave her a key first-set service break during a match-altering five-game run and the French Open’s No. 1 seed moved into the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jessica Pegula on Wednesday.
Swiatek extended her winning streak to 33 matches, the longest on tour since Serena Williams won 34 in a row in 2013.
Swiatek will face No. 20 Daria Kasatkina in one women’s semifinal Thursday, when the other will be No. 18 Coco Gauff, an 18-yearold American, against unseeded Martina Trevisan, a 28-year-old from Italy.
Only Swiatek has previously participated in the final four at a major tournament, losing in the semifinals at the Australian Open in January and taking the title at the 2020 French Open when she was ranked outside the top 50.
“This year it’s a little bit different, because I’m not an underdog,” she said, “and everything has changed, honestly.”
Kasatkina beat No. 29 Veronika Kudermetova 6-4, 7-6 (5) in a match between two Russian players who will not be allowed to compete at Wimbledon later this month because of that country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Theirs was a mistake-filled quarterfinal, with the players combining for 75 unforced errors, 50 by Kudermetova. That allowed Kasatkina to win despite coming up with just 16 winners over the course of 165 points.
In the men’s quarterfinals Wednesday, 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic got to the French Open semifinals for the first time by hitting 33 aces to defeat No. 7 Andrey Rublev 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (10-2) in 4 hours, 10 minutes.
The 20th-seeded Cilic, a 33-year-old from Croatia who compiled 88 total winners to Rublev’s 35, is one of five active men to have made it to at least the semifinals at each of the four major tournaments. He’ll face No. 8 Casper Ruud or 19-year-old Holger Rune on Friday for a berth in the final.
LIBERTY BEATS FEVER, SNAPS SLIDE
Sabrina Ionescu scored 23 points, Rebecca Allen added 17 and the Liberty beat the Indiana Fever 87-74 to snap a seven-game losing streak.
New York was outscored 33-17 in the second quarter, but used two big runs in the second half to take control. New York went on a 13-0 run in the third to take a 53-52 lead on Natasha Howard’s three-point play. The Liberty also went on a 12-0 run, capped by Allen’s 3-pointer, in the fourth to make it 77-68.
Indiana missed its first 14 shots of the fourth and went 1 for 16 in the final 10 minutes. The Fever played at home on Tuesday night.
Howard and Stefanie Dolson each scored 16 points for New York (2-7). Ionescu reached the 20-point plateau for the third time this season.
New York scored the first 11 points of the game as Indiana didn’t make its first field goal until Bria Hartley’s corner 3-pointer with 5:13 remaining in the frame. It was Hartley’s first action of the season as she was recovering from a hamstring injury.
The Fever started 1-for-15 shooting from the floor.