USA Today International - 22.08.2019

SPORTS USA TODAY ❚THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019 ❚ 1B

Football camp update

Helmeted Antonio Brown practices with Raiders

‘Can't be overly reactionary'

PGA Tour commissioner addresses slow play

Last go-round at home

Suggs winding down NFL journey with Cardinals

AT SPORTS.USATODAY.COM

SUGGS BY MARK J. REBILAS/USA TODAY SPORTS

FIRST WORD

I have been so blessed to have

her by my side each day for

the past 27 years. Thank you so

much to all who have walked,

prayed, cried, and loved her

through this brutal 2-year battle.”

Arkansas State football coach Blake

Anderson, about his wife, Wendy, who

died Monday after a long battle with

breast cancer. She was 49.

NOTABLE NUMBERS

2

No-hitters so far in the Little

League World Series for the team

from South Riding, Virginia. It next

plays Wednesday against the West at

7:30 p.m. ET. The winner advances to

the U.S. semifinals.

1946

The last time a true

freshman started a sea-

son opener for Auburn – until now. Bo

Nix, son of former Tigers QB Patrick

Nix, will start against No. 13 Oregon

on Aug. 31 in Arlington, Texas.

28

Major League Soccer teams by

2022 after the league an-

nounced Tuesday that St. Louis is the

latest expansion site as the sport

looks to grow to 30 teams in North

America.

LAST WORD

When we got the title spon-

sor in 1986, there were only

16 bowls. We were the first ones to

have a title sponsor. The rest of

the bowls shunned us, they said,

‘You sold out.' Well how do you like

us now?”

Bernie Olivas, executive director of

the newly renamed Tony the Tiger Sun

Bowl. In partnering with Kellogg’s

Frosted Flakes, the New Year’s Eve

game is the first bowl named after a

corporate mascot.

FANTASY FOOTBALL EXTRA

Annual issue of USA TODAY Sports

Weekly has player rankings, stat pro-

jections and cheat sheet for your

draft. Plus, MLB and NFL coverage.

Available on newsstands. Subscribe at

mysportsweekly.com. The digital edi-

tion is available in the Apple, Google

Play and Amazon Kindle stores.

ANDERSON BY QUENTIN WINSTINE/AP

SPORTSLINE

Money

1. Jin Young Ko ................$2,281,
   2. Jeongeun Lee6 .......... $1,844,
   3. Sung Hyun Park ......... $1,447,
   4. Lexi Thompson ........... $1,380,
   5. Minjee Lee .................... $1,183,

AP THROUGH AUG. 11

LPGA Money Leaders

USA TODAY SNAPSHOTS ©

Coach Kirby Smart’s newest slogan

befits a good college football program

eager to kick down the door to great-

ness: “Do more.”

During Smart’s tenure at the Uni-

versity of Georgia, those haven’t just

been words but a financial reality,

playing out in the school’s investment

in recruiting football players.

To that end, no public college has

done more than Georgia.

Annual recruiting costs are soaring

for Power Five college football programs

across the nation, a USA TODAY Net-

work investigation found, especially in

the “It Just Means More” world of the

Southeastern Conference.

And Georgia leads the way. From fis-

cal years 2016 through 2018, Georgia’s

football recruiting expenditures totaled

just over $1.5 million more than any oth-

er of the nation’s 52 public Power Five

universities, according to figures report-

ed to the NCAA and obtained by the

(Louisville) Courier Journal and USA

TODAY Network in partnership with

Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse

School of Public Communications.

At Georgia, such spending has

marked a dramatic upturn that has ac-

companied Smart’s arrival after the

2015 season. From 2016 to 2018, Georgia

exceeded its budgeted amounts for foot-

ball recruiting by millions to collectively

‘No limit’: College football

recruiting costs skyrocket

Gentry Estes

Louisville Courier Journal | USA TODAY Network

See RECRUITING, Page 3B

These have been terrible times

for the U.S. Olympic movement: days,

weeks, months and years marked

by horrifying acts of sexual assault,

dreadful leadership and remark-

able and completely understandable

athlete mistrust.

But in their midst, a ray of hope ap-

peared Tuesday. It came in the form of a

discerning and conciliatory decision

that just might become a template for

not only a new, better version of the U.S.

Olympic and Paralympic Committee,

but a signal for how leaders and organi-

zations should handle athlete protests

in the fraught era of Donald Trump.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland, who is

just completing her first year on the job,

could have thrown the book at the two

Pan American Games athletes who pro-

tested Trump, racism, gun violence and

the treatment of immigrants on the

medal stand during the playing of the

national anthem 1^1 ⁄ 2 weeks ago. Fencer

Race Imboden and hammer thrower

Gwen Berry were clearly in violation of

the agreement that they and every U.S.

athlete signs to refrain from demonstra-

Christine Brennan

Columnist

USA TODAY

See BRENNAN, Page 2B

Pan Am reprimand a conciliatory note

WALDORF, Md. – In its quest for a

more efficient, error-free and hopeful-

ly optimized game experience, MLB’s

transformation of the Atlantic League

from the game’s last-chance motel

into its test lab has largely been a rous-

ing success.

An automated strike zone that con-

verts the home-plate umpire from arbi-

ter to mere messenger is right far more

often than it is wrong. A ban on mound

visits and relief specialists undeniably

speeds the game’s pace.

And rules changes aimed to encour-

age balls in play and runners in motion –

The testing of the radar system went off without a hitch at the Atlantic League All-Star Game last month. The home-plate

umpire hears the call through an earpiece. CAMERON CLARK/YORK (PA.) DAILY RECORD

Robo-calls all the craze

MLB’s future plays out in Atlantic League

Gabe Lacques

USA TODAY

The TrackMan radar device is on the

roof behind home plate.

See ROBO-CALLS, Page 2B JULIO CORTEZ/AP