The Washington Post - USA (2020-12-02)

KLMNO

SPORTS

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

BY RICK MAESE

When the coronavirus began
racing around the globe this
spring, Katie Ledecky couldn’t
find a swimming pool for training
and saw her competition schedule
wiped clean through the summer
and beyond. To focus on the Olym-
pics, she was in the midst of an
extended break from her studies
at Stanford, but when the Tokyo
Games were postponed, the
2 3-year-old suddenly had some
time on her hands.
So Ledecky re-enrolled in class-
es as a way to keep busy as the
world around her shut down. She
took a full load of classes in the
spring, summer and fall, and in
November she completed all of the
coursework for an undergraduate
degree in psychology. It was a sil-
ver lining of sorts to the pandemic
that seemed to upend just about
everything else.
“It was busy, and it was chal-
lenging,” Ledecky said in a phone
interview last week. “But it also
gave me something to do and
something to focus on. There was
definitely the side benefit of keep-
ing my mind occupied during this
time.”
Even with a 12-month break
from classes, Ledecky wrapped up
her bachelor of arts degree in a
little over four years. Ledecky said
that if the Tokyo Games had taken
place as scheduled this summer,
she wouldn’t have finished her
studies before the end of 2021 —
and probably later.
“Once most of the classes went
online and the Olympics were
postponed, I figured it was a great
opportunity to get going,” she said.
Ledecky took a gap year after
graduating from Bethesda’s Stone
Ridge School in 2015 to prepare for
the Rio de Janeiro Games. She
arrived on Stanford’s campus just
a few weeks after winning four
Olympic titles and competed for
the swimming team for two years
before turning professional in
March 2019.
She continued training along-
side her former teammates at
Stanford with Coach Greg Meehan
and knew she would complete her
degree.
“Ever since I took that gap year,
I think I’ve believed in the benefit
of kind of going at your own pace
and really being all-in on learning
when you’re in the classroom and
not trying to rush through,”
Ledecky said.
As she worked to complete her
degree, she took a class this spring
called “Global Change and Emerg-
ing Infectious Disease,” just as the
coronavirus came to dominate
and dictate most every aspect of
daily life. “What better time to
take that class?” she said.
As the presidential election
SEE LEDECKY ON D2

Ledecky

uses her

down time

wisely

Swimmer earns degree

as she awaits Olympics

PRO FOOTBALL

John Clayton analyzes eight NFL coaching vacancies —

actual and possible — from a coach’s perspective. D3

SOCCER

The Washington Spirit swings a trade with Utah to

acquire U.S. national team player Kelley O’Hara. D4

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Georgetown suffers its first loss of the season as

Navy storms McDonough Arena for a 78-71 victory. D5

It started with the billboard.

On Feb. 21, 2019, commuters on

Interstate 95 heading south into downtown

Richmond were treated to the charming

sight of a billboard that read “Save

Richmond Basketball” across the top.

Beneath that were the words

“#FireMooney.” The hashtag symbol and

“Fire” were in red.

At that moment, Richmond men’s basketball coach

Chris Mooney was in his 14th season and the Spiders were

headed for a second straight losing season — after a decade

in which they never finished below .500 and won at least 19

games seven times. There had been two NCAA tournament

berths — including a trip to the Sweet 16 in 2011 — and

seven postseason bids.

Not good enough, according to the fans who took out the

billboard.

“It really upset all of us,” said Grant Golden, then a

sophomore, who is now playing as a graduate student. “I

don’t care if he’d never won a single game; no one deserves

to be treated like that, especially when you understand the

way he’s represented the university and what he does for all

of us who play for him. It was terrible.”

Mooney, 48, has two sons — Danny and Ryan — who are

now 11 and 8 and are basketball junkies. He had to explain

the billboard to them. “It really wasn’t all bad,” he said.

“Naturally, it upset them. But understanding that adversity

is sometimes a part of life wasn’t a terrible lesson for them

to learn.”

Fast-forward a little more than 21 months to Sunday,

when Richmond went into Rupp Arena and handily beat

No. 10 Kentucky, 76-64. The Spiders trailed by four at

halftime but outscored the Wildcats 48-32 in the second

half, leading by as much as 16 before cruising to their first

SEE FEINSTEIN ON D5

Richmond answers its billboard hit

Angry fans wanted Chris Mooney fired. Two seasons later, his Spiders upset Kentucky.

John

Feinstein

on their colleagues and

neighbors. They lurch clumsily

into the midst of crowded rooms

with their masks either missing

or dragging around their chins,

spreading their odorless danger

mercilessly as they shout. Steve

Saunders, strength coach of the

Ravens? Clearly a zombie.

Denver Broncos quarterbacks

Drew Lock, Blake Bortles, Brett

Rypien and Jeff Driskel are a

whole cohort of zombies, mobile

in body but empty-skulled, lax

and evidently less than

cooperative about their contacts.

See, one thing about zombies is

that they are not just

unthinking. They are

aggressively unthinking.

The thing to do when you see

a zombie is scream — scream

SEE JENKINS ON D4

Here we are, still
living through
this damn zombie
movie. Only the
zombies aren’t the
living dead;
they’re the
incompetent
braindead in
living bodies, jerkily animated by
their own impervious wants,
sightless and hollowed out,
incapable of self-preservation yet
wreakers of havoc and
destruction on others. It took
just one zombie on the Baltimore
Ravens who neglected to cover
his nose and mouth with a mask
to thereby wreck his own team,
and with a ripple effect of
infection plunge the NFL into
organizational chaos.
They’re easy to spot, zombies:
They’re the un-sentient,
disconnected husks who walk
around breathing potential hell

With the NFL season in chaos,

blame the t houghtless husks

Sally
Jenkins

ANDY LYONS/GETTY IMAGES

The I-95 billboard attack drew no response from Richmond Coach Chris Mooney, but it sure angered his players.

BY AVA WALLACE

When the interim tag was final-

ly popped off and Tommy Shep-

pard was named the Washington

Wizards’ general manager in J uly

2019, the franchise’s new top bas-

ketball executive and its coach,

Scott Brooks, made at least one

determination straight away.

They both wanted to revamp the

roster.

Nearly 17 months later, Brooks

and Sheppard can say mission

accomplished, at least for that

item on the to-do list. When the

Wizards’ training camp opened

for individual workouts Tuesday,

the group Brooks had to work

with bore strikingly little resem-

blance to the squad he had in

Ernie Grunfeld’s final season as

general manager.

These Wizards are still relative-

ly new to Washington. Only two

players have more than two sea-

sons of experience with the fran-

chise: Bradley Beal and John

Wall.

These Wizards are also young.

On the 16-man roster, only six

players have at least four years of

NBA experience, which means

Brooks has dubbed players such

as 23-year-old Thomas Bryant

“young veterans.”

But one thing hasn’t changed:

These Wizards, no matter when

they got to Washington or their

age, still revolve around Beal and

Wall, who themselves are at dis-

parate points in their careers.

Beal is coming off a career year,

while Wall is making his careful

reentry into NBA life after foot

surgery and an Achilles’ injury

sidelined him for two years. Only

three players on the current ros-

ter have ever actually played with

Wall: Beal, Bryant and Troy

Brown Jr.

All Brooks has to do is knit

everyone together — in the final

season of his five-year contract in

Washington, at that.

“You have to have the talent

and skill set, which we have, but

there’s a lot of new pieces,” Brooks

said in the first of two virtual

news conferences from the Wiz-

ards on Tuesday. Second-year for-

ward Rui Hachimura followed

shortly after.

“I think for team chemistry, it’s

going to take time,” said

Hachimura, who predicted that

by the end of the season, the

Wizards would be in the playoffs.

“I think our first game, I don’t

know, might be a struggle, but I

think we’re going to be fine. We’re

going to play together, we’re going

to have good chemistry outside

the court, so I think once we start

SEE WIZARDS ON D6

Wizards

must make

pieces fit

with stars

Brooks has three weeks

of camp to mold r ebuilt

squad around Beal, Wall

Ravens at Steelers

Today, 3:40 p.m., NBC

PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/REUTERS

The U.S. Soccer Federation has agreed to various changes that

would place the U.S. women’s team on level terms with the men.

BY STEVEN GOFF

The U.S. women’s national soc-

cer team on Tuesday reached a

settlement with the sport’s na-

tional governing body over work-

ing conditions, a significant de-

velopment for the World Cup

champions following a major

legal defeat in May in their equal

pay dispute.

The sides filed court docu-

ments in which the U.S. Soccer

Federation agreed to implement

“various policies related to hotel

accommodations, staffing,

[game] venues and travel” that

place the women’s team on level

terms with the men, the organi-

zation said.

No details were announced. A

judge still must approve the

proposal. The deal was reached

about a month before the issue

was set to go to trial.

“We are pleased that the play-

ers have fought for — and

achieved — long-overdue equal

working conditions,” said Molly

Levinson, spokeswoman for the

players.

USSF President Cindy Parlow

Cone, a former star player, called

the settlement “just a first step.

The goal for both sides in this

was really to define a more

structured way to provide both

teams — the men and the women

— with equitable support while

still allowing for flexibility.”

The settlement is unrelated to

SEE SOCCER ON D4

U.S. women settle key

dispute with federation

Deal reached on working

conditions, but players

still pursue equal pay