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SG Taylor Mikesell (All-B1G)


NEW BEGINNINGS. Former Ohio State women's basketball standout Taylor Mikesell will continue her professional career in Munich, Germany, this summer after she signed a one-year contract with Gernika Bizkaia.

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The Indiana Fever selected Mikesell with a second-round pick (No. 12 overall) in the 2023 WNBA draft, but the team waived her that summer. Three weeks into the regular season, Mikesell signed with the Atlanta Dream and appeared in nine games. This past offseason, Mikesell earned a camp invite with the Los Angeles Sparks but did not make the final roster.
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2023 tOSU Defense

Why the defensive tackles are the key to the Ohio State football team's defense​

The Ohio State football team is going to have one of the best defenses in the country this season. The defensive tackles are the key to it.

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The Ohio State football team is supposed to have one of the best defenses in the country this season. Last year, they were elite as well. Not only did they have the second-best scoring defense in the country, but they also had the best pass defense in the country.

The only part of the defense that wasn't as good was the run defense. They allowed 112.5 yards per game on the ground, which was the 23rd-best mark in the country. That's not bad, but it's not elite like the other numbers they put up. They also allowed the third-fewest total yards.

That's why the defensive tackles are going to be the key to the defense this season. Tyleik Williams and Ty Hamilton are back up front. They combined for five sacks last season and Williams in particular showed some burst up the middle on passing downs.

Those two defensive tackles will be tasked with plugging up the middle on run plays. If they can do that better than the Ohio State football team did last year, those rush yards per game totals will go down. Teams are already going to be afraid to throw the ball against them because of how good the secondary is.

Ohio State knows that they will be a defensive team again this season. Defense is how they won most of their games a year ago because the offense didn't have a consistently explosive pass game. They won't again this season, but it will be a little bit better in that regard.

Jim Knowles has transformed this defense into a powerhouse unit. Before he took over, big plays were given up at an alarming clip. That was an issue in his first season as defensive coordinator too. Since then, they've been very good at that. This team's defense is going to be brutally tough to beat.
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Learfield Directors' Cup (Formerly Sears Directors' Cup)

Yeah, I don't know what the report I read that said 7th was thinking. No excuse for this, not even an off year in a few important sports should push us this far down. Given our history of top 5 finishes, AD budget and number of sports, anything outside the top 5 is a complete failure.

I think any finish out of the Top 10 is unacceptable.

The "Tier" level of support for certain sports (the financial plan going forward) probably won't help our finishes (in the Directors' Cup).
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2026 CA QB Troy Huhn (Penn State Verbal)

It’s going to be very VERY difficult to convince a 2026 QB come into the class when he may not see the field for 3- 4yrs with Sayin AND TSC in front of him. You can have all the confidence in the world, but common sense sets in, and TSC has arguably been the hottest ‘25 prospect in the country for the past few months. They may be better off just getting a transfer for ‘26
Exactly. Plus its the '26 class and there is a lot of time. Sayin/Noland/TSC...I would find another home, that is a crowded QB room but a situation you want as an OSU fan. No reason to worry about QB recruiting at all right now.
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San Diego Padres (Official Thread)

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Just sayin': Aside from Brutus, the San Diego Chicken may have been the greatest mascot of all time. For those that don't remember....

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The Chicken entertained fans for the first time 50 years ago at San Diego Stadium

A San Diego State student named Ted Giannoulas dressed up in a chicken suit, bought a ticket to the Padres game and forever changed the fan experience at sporting events

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Ray Kroc had seen enough by the eighth inning of the team’s 1974 home opener.

The new Padres owner already had endured a three-game sweep by the Dodgers (getting outscored 25-2) in Los Angeles to open the season.

The home opener was more of the same. The Padres trailed the Houston Astros 6-0 after two innings and 9-2 in the eighth when Kroc cleared his throat and spoke into the PA microphone about the most “stupid ballplaying” he had seen in his life.

“I have some good news and some bad news,” the McDonald’s magnate said. “The good news is you loyal fans have outstripped Los Angeles. They had 31,000 on opening night. We have nearly 40,000.”

Just then the owner was interrupted when a streaker ran across the field at San Diego Stadium.

“Get him out of here,” Kroc yelled. “Take him to jail.”

And with that, Ted Giannoulas, a San Diego State student walking around the field-level concourse behind home plate, got out of there as well.

Giannoulas was concerned about angering Kroc for his appearance as well.

See, he was dressed in a chicken suit.

“This guy is going to look at me and say, ‘Get that chicken. We’re hamburger people around here,’” Giannoulas thought.

That was the scene on April 9, 1974 — 50 years ago Tuesday — when Giannoulas debuted at San Diego Stadium as the KGB Chicken.

No one had any idea that night, but they were witnesses to a transformative moment in sports history.

The play on the field was the only entertainment then at pro sports events, outside of organ music played during breaks in the action.

“There were no mascots in professional sports,” Giannoulas said last week. “Fans still showed up at the games in shirts and ties. They didn’t go in costumes or face paint or wild hair or anything of that.”

Certainly, no one entertained the crowd — often more than those they had paid to see — throughout the game. Game after game. The ballpark became the KGB Chicken’s regular roost.

A year after that first appearance, a stadium usher approached Giannoulas and said, “They want you up in the owner’s box.”

Giannoulas thought he was going to be dressed down for something he did, but Kroc just wanted to meet him and shake his hand.

“He told me,” Giannoulas said, “ ‘It’s amazing. We’re losing and our customers are going home happy every night because of you, young man. Thank you.’

“He wanted to win a pennant and a championship, of course. But goal No. 2 was, ‘Are my customers going home happy? And they were.”

Giannoulas was a game changer.

By 1979, he had become so popular that, after winning a lawsuit against KGB over rights to the character he created, 47,000 people showed up at the stadium to see his “Grand Hatching” as The Famous San Diego Chicken.

In 2005, The Chicken was part of the inaugural induction class for the Mascot Hall of Fame.

Jack Murphy, the San Diego Union sports editor when Giannoulas stepped on the stage, once said: “The Chicken has the soul of a poet. He is an embryonic Charles Chaplin in chicken feathers.”

Giannoulas, who grew up in Ontario, Canada, before his family moved to San Diego when he was a teenager, was influenced more by The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and stand-up comedy routines.

The Sporting News placed him among The Top 100 Most Powerful People in Sports of the 20th Century.

An idea hatches​

It is a most unlikely origin story.

In 1974, Giannoulas was a journalism major at San Diego State, intent on becoming a sportswriter — go figure — or maybe a broadcaster.

He was sitting in the office of KCR, the campus radio station, chatting with half a dozen others when a man from San Diego radio station KGB walked in looking to hire someone for a promotion.

The one-week assignment paid $2 an hour to give out candy Easter eggs to children at the San Diego Zoo.

There was one catch — the person had to wear a chicken suit.

“Everybody pauses a second, but then everybody volunteers,” Giannoulas said. “He scans the room and he sees me in the back corner and he says, ‘You, the short dude. You’ll fit the chicken suit best of all.’ ”

It wasn’t the first time the 5-foot-3 1/2 Giannoulas was presented with such an opportunity.

“When I was a kid at Hoover (High School), they had an open tryout for the Cardinal mascot,” Giannoulas said. “Nobody wanted to do it. My friends said, ‘Ted, you should do that.’ I turned and said, ‘I’m way too hip to be doing anything like that. You guys really think I’m that stupid? To be a goof like that?’ “

Giannoulas didn’t bawk this time.

He was eager to extend his employment beyond one week when the idea of wearing the chicken suit to a Padres game came to him.

He bought a ticket to the home opener, got suited up in the parking lot and walked up to the entrance gates.

“It created a little consternation,” Giannoulas said. “You don’t see somebody coming up to the turnstiles in 1974 wearing a chicken suit expecting to get in.

“They had to radio people in the front office to ask if I could be allowed in.”

Padres President Buzzie Bavasi had just one question: “Does he have a ticket?”

“Yes,” he was told.

“It created a lot of amusement around the sections,” Giannoulas said, “but I figured I better get a little more attention — I had the KGB call letters on my chest — got up and just started walking around the aisles, waving to fans. I would do a little soft shoe in the aisles when the organ music played.

“People were laughing. Those who brought cameras wanted pictures. It was completely off the wall. As irreverent as you can get.”

The radio station got more publicity that one night than it did the entire week at the zoo. And Giannoulas enjoyed the attention.

He returned the next game. And the next game. And the next.
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Philadelphia Phillies (2x World Series Champions)

Phillies turn rare 1-3-5 triple play, MLB's first since 1929​

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The Philadelphia Phillies turned a rare triple play to snuff out a possible Detroit Tigers rally in the third inning Monday night.

Trailing 4-0, the Tigers had a chance to get something going when Zach McKinstry and Carson Kelly hit back-to-back singles, putting runners on the corners.

Matt Vierling hit a broken-bat liner back to Aaron Nola, who tossed to Bryce Harper to double Kelly off first.

Catcher Garrett Stubbs, noticing McKinstry had never stopped running from third, signaled to Harper to throw to third, where Alec Bohm stepped on the bag to finish the triple play.
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Ohio State Rowing Team (6 Straight B1G Champs, 2013-2014-2015 National Champs)

OHIO STATE ROWING PROMOTES VETERAN ASSISTANT COACH EMILY GACKOWSKI TO HEAD COACH​

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Ohio State rowing didn't need to look far for its next head coach.

On Tuesday, Ohio State senior deputy athletic director Janine Oman announced veteran assistant Emily Gackowski will be the program's newest leader. Gackowski agreed to a five-year contract with the Buckeyes that will continue through the 2029 season.

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“We’re thrilled to promote Emily Gackowski to lead our rowing program,” Oman said in a statement. “She’s earned this opportunity, not only through the good work she’s done as assistant coach and the personal connections she’s made with our student-athletes and staff, but also because of her long-range vision for the program.”
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Butch Reynolds (400M Olympian, former OSU coach)

ESPN’S BUTCH REYNOLDS DOCUMENTARY DEBUTS THIS WEEK​

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU...? Former Ohio State sprinter and world record holder Butch Reynolds is the subject of ESPN’s newest 30 for 30 documentary, “False Positive,” which details the events prior to Reynolds testing positive for steroids in 1990 and the fallout from that result.

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Reynolds and documentary director Ismail Al-Amin will appear at the Central Ohio premiere of the film at the Southern Theatre on Wednesday. The film is part of the Columbus Association of Performing Arts (CAPA) Columbus Film Festival.

Here is how CAPA describes the film:

This looks and sounds like another banger for ESPN Films and 30 for 30.
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Watched this tonight, very angering
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2025 CA OL Jackson Lloyd (Alabama Signee)

I think the new coaches allowed for that. Without Kelly and Locklyn I doubt you see so many offers going out to west coast and Deep South kids.
Absolutely correct, we are taking some swings at the fences with new staff that knows those areas better. If we miss, so be it. Make the inroads for now and it should pay off. This specific recruitment was over before it began, but Lock and Kelly are going to pay off in the West prospects as time progresses.
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