How would this be for the ultimate irony? It wasn’t too long ago that the four California NFL teams — San Francisco 49ers, the then-Oakland Raiders, the then-San Diego Chargers and the St. Louis-back-to-L.A. Rams — were in various stages of moving and/or building new stadiums.
In a game of musical chairs, it was the Raiders who were left without a home when they were denied relocating back to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Rams and Chargers were working on sharing a stadium, while the 49ers said “No thanks” to splitting Levi’s Stadium with the Raiders.
As we all know, the state of Nevada sold its soul to bring the Raiders to Las Vegas and they’re poised (maybe) to open the 2020 season in brand-new digs.
Then, the coronavirus struck. The world essentially shut down and now there are rumblings of disgruntled Americans — and sports leagues — that want to get back to business.
In California, however, both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti have intimated that there will no pro sports played in the state until 2021, at the earliest.
But what if Nevada allows pro sports to resume this year? Maybe the 49ers, Chargers and Rams all move into the Raiders’ new digs for the NFL season? Two teams play home games every week and then the teams switch the following week.
The big question will be: are fans allowed? Sounds like that will be decided on a state-by-state basis. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, fans are allowed at games in Nevada. The NFL might have to stagger start times to clear the stadium of fans to bring in fans of the next two teams. Since everyone seems hell-bent on figuring out a way to bring sports back sooner rather than later, everybody is thinking outside the box — including myself.
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Speaking of hell-bent, it seems UFC president Dana White is on a personal crusade to hold his mixed martial arts fight cards.
His idea to put on a show on the reservation of the Tachi-Yokut Tribe in Central California was slapped down and he was forced to, in his words, “Stand down,” when partner ESPN balked at the possible bad publicity.
White still says his plan to have “Fight Island” — a private island somewhere in the world to host his cage fights — but until that is up and running, he announced Wednesday that he was planning for a May 9 card somewhere in Florida.
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Makes sense. He had an ally in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and both are President Donald Trump supporters, who is himself trying to get the nation back to “normal,” with sports being a big part of it. If DeSantis is going to call World Wrestling Entertainment an “essential” business, why not UFC? At least it’s real fighting.
UFC 249 is about three weeks away, however. There’s still plenty of time for this plan to go south as well.
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A pair of Carlmont tennis players were named the Peninsula Athletic League’s recipients of $500 Central Coast Section scholar-athlete scholarships.
The CCS takes a boys’ and girls’ senior athlete from every league that make up the section.
Annika Lin is a four-year varsity player for the Scots, playing at the No. 1 singles spot her entire high school career and serving as team captain the last two seasons. Carlmont has won the PAL team tournament title and a spot in the CCS playoffs the last three seasons with Lin leading the way as a three-time, first-team all-league player. Twice she qualified for the CCS singles tournament. She is still deciding between University of California, Berkeley, or Georgetown University, where she plans on majoring in economics.
Milad Shafaie is also a four-year varsity tennis player for the Scots’ boys’ team, three years as the No. 1 singles player. Like Lin, Shafaie is a three-time all-league, first-team selection and helped lead the Scots to the last three CCS team tournaments and was poised four a fourth before the season was canceled this spring.
Shafaie will attend University of California and plans on majoring in either applied mathematics or biophysics.
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Greg Barber, a longtime teacher at San Mateo High School assistant football coach to Buz Williams from the 1960s to the early 1990s, passed away last week at the age of 84.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
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