"BIG TEN" Apache Sports!!

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Comment by Nick McNeal on July 30, 2011 at 2:09am

The year was 1954 and  a skinny 10 yr. old followed older boys from the neighborhood to a CIF Championship Football Game. Centennial HS vs. Glendale Hoover HS. I had never seen an organized game and never heard of Centennial. Fans in Purple and Silver outnumbered the Scarlet and White by 10 to 1.  The Hoover band had about 50 members the Apaches had about 8, but along with the song leaders and cheerleaders, rocked that small group solid, with sounds I had never heard before. The Apaches won it's first football CIF Championship, several player went on to college and some played Pro-football.  3 yrs. later I became a Apache Forever. 

Comment by Andrea Williams on June 29, 2011 at 2:09am

Thanks Phoebe, what a goodhearted story of the Baseball Player!

Love Andrea

 

Comment by Edmund Stevens on May 25, 2011 at 10:39pm

Wed May 25 10:11am EDT

Barry Bonds will pay college bills for Bryan Stow’s children

By 'Duk

Over the past 20 years, Barry Bonds has been met with large amounts of both praise and criticism for nearly every move he has made.

Well, here's a move that both sides should finally be able to agree on: Bonds has pledged to pay any future college bills for the two grade-school age children of Bryan Stow, the single father and San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten into a coma by two men after attending the opening night game at Dodger Stadium on March 31.

That little heartwarming nugget was revealed by Stow's attorney Thomas Girardi — and first reported by NBC Bay Area — as he announced a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday for allegedly providing inadequate security at the stadium that night.

Girardi said that donations already made by generous fans of the Giants, Dodgers and other teams will be passed onto other charities if their lawsuit is successful. But the hefty gift from Bonds? Well, that means so much to Stow's family that it's the one they definitely plan on keeping.

One of the coolest parts about this donation is that Bonds made it over a month ago when he visited Stow in a Southern California hospital on April 22. No mention was made to the media then and it looks like it would have still been a secret had Girardi not revealed it to the media. Even if you've always been a Bonds hater, there's no way you can say this wasn't done for all the right reasons.

Well played, sir.

Comment by Gordon Marble on January 2, 2011 at 9:16am

I played football for the Ten from 1968 to 1971. I was a lineman. Biggest memory when we Beat Compton 55 to 24!!!!!!!

Comment by Phoebe Macon on December 8, 2010 at 2:00am

A Great Gift: Paralyzed Athlete Given Handicap House Just In Time For The Holidays

(Written By Cameron Smith)

It's the season for giving, when heartwarming stories of personal and community sacrifice get the most attention. Yet one of those stories, focusing on a high school star who truly needs the help, has been more than a year in the making.


In early October 2009, 14-year-old Jared Williams was injured in a freak accident where another player's helmet hit him in the neck as he went in for a tackle. The Pinkston (Texas) High football player went down and had to be stretchered off the field, discovering only hours later that the accident had left him largely paralyzed.



The year since has been a long and arduous one for the teenager, who now gets around in a motorized wheelchair and is cared for by his mother, Arienna Williams. It's a difficult task, with the single parent trying to care for her son and provide funds to keep them housed and fed.


Yet that just got a bit easier, just in time for the holidays, with the gift of a new house for the Williamses, with the new dwelling built to be as handicap accessible as possible, unlike their current home.


According to the Dallas Morning News, fundraising for the new home began shortly after Williams was paralyzed last year, when Pinkston High and Dallas ISD started a fundraising campaign called Project 24, named for Williams' number. The campaign was so successful that, with the help of a few private donations, it raised enough money to pay for the Williams' entire new home.


Now the pair is waiting on the final touches to be completed, including a beautification project to help plant different shrubs and flowers around the property, with all landscaping support provided by Dallas ISD athletes.


It's a touching effort from a badly taxed public school system and any number of others who stepped forward when they didn't have to, to help a student who badly needed it. Williams isn't forgetting his own good fortune, either.


When a fellow Dallas-area athlete Diondre Preston, a quarterback for Molina (Texas) High, was paralyzed earlier this season, Williams and his mother were two of the first visitors to the player's hospital room the next morning.

Comment by Phoebe Macon on December 4, 2010 at 12:52am

Despite Success On The Field, Michael Vick Still Faces Massive Debt

Michael Vick paid his debt to society. Now he's trying to pay back his massive debt to creditors.

Despite earning $4.1 million since signing with the Philadelphia Eagles, Vick lives on a shoestring budget set for him by a court-appointed trustee. Most of his salary goes toward paying back creditors Vick owed before entering federal prison. Those creditors, which include banks, former business colleagues and former endorsement partners, were protected because of Vick's 2008 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A 112-page, court-approved document serves as Vick's "reorganization plan." It was uncovered by ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson.

Among the facts Munson discovered in the plan:

• Two-thirds of every dollar Vick earns goes to creditors and taxes.

• The rest of the money is strictly controlled. Think of it as an allowance.

• Vick can spend $4,250 per month on rent and utilities and $472 per month on a car. His mother, who was on Vick's payroll during his headier, pre-prison days, can receive $2,500 per month.

• Other obligations Vick owes include mortgages, child support, fees for his agent (who gets $800,000 through 2015) and for his tax lawyers (who will eventually receive a total of $2.6 million). The allowance does allow for Vick to pay $1,355 per month for private school for the two children he has with his fiancee, Kijafa Frink. (Munson calls it a "rare bit of extravagance.")

• His creditors stand to receive $12 million through 2015, provided Vick continues to receive a multi-million dollar salary.

Munson also writes that before Vick filed for bankruptcy, he frantically gave away $5 million to family and friends so that creditors couldn't get to it. The court-appointed trustee is trying to recover that money, which was given to Vick's friends, family and the mothers of Vick's children. This is being done via a lawsuit, meaning that the man in charge of Michael Vick's money is also suing Michael Vick's family. (Though Munson says a judge will likely rule in the trustee's favor, recovering the money will be a much more difficult matter.)

There have been countless reports about Vick's financial woes since he first got into legal trouble for running an illegal dogfighting ring, but Munson's story is the clearest picture yet of what Vick still has to go through. To watch a broadcast of Vick's games and hear announcers rave about his recovery, you'd think everything was behind him. This document says otherwise.

The more money Vick makes, the more money goes to creditors. A salary under $2.5 million would force Vick to pay 25 percent. That percentage jumps to 40 if Vick signs a deal worth $10 million or more per season.

This path to financial redemption follows the same road that led to Vick's personal reclamation. In both, he made stupid mistakes and then compounded them by being dishonest once authorities found out. After serving his time, though, he's dedicated himself to making up for his past misdeeds. It's not heroic, per se, but it's admirable. He could have run away like he does so often on the field. Instead, he appears to be trying to make it right.

It's ironic. Vick's success on the football field is what caused him to get in trouble in the first place. That same success is now helping him get out of it.

Comment by Phoebe Macon on December 3, 2010 at 3:12pm

School Coach Uses iPhone App To Help Save His Collapsed Team Player

La Verne Lutheran (Calif.) School basketball star Xavier Jones has two men to thank for still being alive: His coach and Steve Jobs.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, an iPhone -- a creation of Jobs' Apple Corporation -- helped teach La Verne basketball coach Eric Cooper how to perform CPR when he downloaded a life saving app called "Phone Aid" one night last week.

The very next day, Cooper had to put the skill to the test when Jones collapsed during a team practice. Cooper was able to keep his star pupil alive until paramedics arrived, at which point Jones had begun breathing again.

"When it happened, that was too much of a coincidence for me," Cooper told the Tribune.

It may have seemed like a huge coincidence, but given the holiday season, Cooper's timely intervention seemed almost a guided act of faith. Jones, who was set to play basketball at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point next year, has since been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart wall that previously killed Loyola Marymount basketball player Hank Gathers during the 1990 college basketball season.

"I'm just thankful and happy to be here," Jones told the Los Angeles Times. "Things could have been a lot worse.

"I'm just happy to be alive."

While Jones hasn't decided on his next course of action -- one group of doctors has already recommended Jones have a defibrillating device implanted that would re-start his heart if it stopped again -- he and his parents said they were sure he would find a way to success.

More importantly, they were just thankful that his coach was able to think so quickly on his feet, and that he had such a timely interest in boning up on his lifesaving skills.

"I can't thank him enough for being there for my son," Xavier Jones' mother, Linda Jones, told the Los Angeles Times.

Comment by Phoebe Macon on December 2, 2010 at 8:25pm

Michael Jordan's New Home Built in Jack Nicklaus's Development

This is the first look at Michael Jordan's swank digs in Jack Nicklaus' new "Bear's Club" development in Jupiter, Fla.

Analysis by Cary Lichtenstein of PGA National Real Estate indicates that Jordan paid $4.8 million for the land and $7.8 to build the mansion, and will likely have a total commitment of $20 million in the property when all is said and done. And while Woods' property comprises three lots with both ocean and Intracoastal Waterway access, Jordan's has neither, which could compromise its resale value. (See if you can bargain him down!)

The Jordan estate has 11 bedrooms, a two-story guard house and an athletic "wing" with a basketball court (of course). You'll note that the property isn't far from the golf course, but we're betting Jordan won't have to sneak onto the course at twilight to get in a few holes.

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Tiger Woods Newly Built $50 Million Bachelor Pad

If you happen to be a single dude in south Florida and you think you're going to impress the ladies with your car or your oceanfront condo, you might just want to pack it in now. Tiger Woods is in town, friends, and his place has room to store yours in a forgotten corner of the attic.

Behold Tiger Woods' personal Xanadu, the recently completed $50 million estate in Jupiter Island, Florida. In this aerial photograph, commissioned by Jeff Lichtenstein Realty, you can clearly see not only the $35 million original estate but much of the $15 million sunk into improvements. As FanHouse noted when Woods purchased the property in 2007, the original estate was 9,729-square feet on a 12-acre lot. The additions included a 6,400-square-foot gym/media room/bar, as well as an elevator, a reflecting pond, and a slim lap pool.

Comment by Phoebe Macon on August 28, 2010 at 2:54am

Pro Bowler, Troubled Dad Andre Rison Becomes Football Coach

Just over a year ago, Andre Rison, the former Falcons Pro Bowl wide receiver, was bizarrely anointing himself the greatest receiver of all-time. Now, he's trying to prove he can be a great leader of young men.

The veteran of six NFL teams during a turbulent 11-year career, Rison is back as the head football coach at his high school alma mater, Flint (Mich.) Northwestern, where he's emphasizing better grades and attendance over winning games, according to an interview he gave the Flint Journal.

"It's not just about football," Rison said. "It's about getting in the mindset of education comes first. Football, we'll deal with the X's and O's. But we've been working on character building, being on time and doing well in school more so than the X's and O's right now."

Those sound like the right things for a role model to say. The question is whether Rison can actually be a role model for high school athletes, starting with his team's season opener tonight. The onetime Michigan State star has been beset by near constant delinquency over child support payments in Atlanta (not to mention at least one prior count of public drunkenness within the past two years). SportsbyBrooks dug up a February report, also from the Flint Journal, that detailed the full extent of Rison's child support issues. The numbers aren't pretty:

• In 2004, Rison spent a month in a Georgia jail after failing to pay $107,000 in back child support.

• In 2007, Rison declared bankruptcy, which led to defaulting on more child support payments

• As of Feb. 2010, Rison still owed $30,000 to the mother of two of his children.

It took the lawyer representing the woman owed that back child support to say his client had no intentions of suing Rison to get that $30,000 outstanding balance for the former receiver to be cleared to coach at Flint.

[Video: The worst high school football play of all-time]

It seems a bit ironic that a man who couldn't serve as a suitable father for his own children is now deemed the right man to be a father figure for a whole team of impressionable teenagers. That's particulalry poignant in Flint, one of the nation's most depressed cities. If any athletes need truly uplifting leaders in their lives, it's kids in Flint.

Regardless of his past, Rison is the man charged with leading Flint Northwestern forward, starting with tonight's game against Beecher High School, which provides a fascinating mirror image for Rison: Beecher's coach is Courtney Hawkins, a former NFL and Michigan State wide receiver himself.

Comment by Bonita "Bonnie" Thompson on August 5, 2010 at 6:48pm

I Bonita was on the track team and I Play volley ball,

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