The National Football League has hired experts to probe whether its players are flashing gang signals as part of their post-play celebrations.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the league would have the experts study game films to confirm or deny suspicions that players were using gestures connected to some of the most notorious criminal gangs in the US.
“There have been some suspected things we’ve seen,” Milt Ahlerich, the league’s vice president of security, told the Times. “When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist. Period.”
The report said that the NFL has warned players about the influence of gangs and other forms of organized crime, but their concerns have become more prevalent since former Denver Broncos corner-back Darrent Williams was killed last year in an incident involving known gang members.
The NFL’s actions come two months after Boston Celtics swing-man Paul Pierce was fined US$25,000 for what the league deemed “menacing gestures” toward the Atlanta Hawks’ bench.
Pierce, for his part, said that it was not a gang sign but a gesture of solidarity with his teammates — something that the reigning NBA champions had been doing all season. The NFL was not as sure.
“We were always suspicious that [gang-related hand signals] might be happening,” said Mike Pereira, the NFL’s vice president of officiating. “But the Paul Pierce thing is what brought it to light.”
As a result, the Times said the NFL has made gang signs a point of emphasis this season, but the league will not force its referees to determine what is gang-related.
That will be left up to local and national authorities, who will not only examine game tape but will be tapped as resources for education on the topic.
A native of a predominately black and drug-plagued south Los Angeles neighborhood, former NFL defensive end Marcellus Wiley made it clear why the NFL needs to make sure all menacing gestures stay out.
“Where I’m from, [an athlete is] not the one that wants to throw up a gang sign if you’re in that neighborhood,” Wiley said in the report. “Now, in front of millions of people on TV in the middle of the 50-yard line, who’s going to attack you? Who’s going to do something to you? But you do that on [Los Angeles streets] Slauson and Crenshaw and see what happens.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS