NBA Lockout Update
In the past month the players and the owners have been negotiating the revenue split and what they are going to do so that the season would start by Christmas. They had a two day meeting on November 22-23. They finally came to an agreement on November 26th. The players will get 51.2 % instead of 57%. The owners will get 48.8 % instead of 43 %. According to the new revenue split the players gave up 3 billion dollars over the next ten years. They said that training camp is starting on December 9th and the season should be 66 games. The season starts on Christmas day with a tripleheader, Boston Celtics at New York Knicks, Miami Heat at Dallas Mavericks, and the Chicago Bulls at L.A. Lakers. Well to sum up this lockout was pretty much about greed and more money. So what we can all get out of this is, that it is all about money and how greed can control us. Greed is something that God says to not let it control us, yet in some way or form we do.
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The Presidents Cup
History: The Presidents Cup was established in 1994. This is four days of matches between the U.S. Team and the International Team. The International Team doesn’t include any player from countries in Europe. Europe plays the U.S. in a similar tournament which is called the Ryder Cup. Which is held in even years and the Presidents Cup is held every odd year. It used to be the opposite but when 9/11 happened they canceled the Ryder Cup. This is the 9th President Cup. Here are the previous winners: United States (1994, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011), International (1998). In 2003 they tied and it went to sudden death and the United States won.
Rules: Each match won gives their team a point. If you tie it is called halved, each team gets a half point. At the end of day four, if it is a tie the captains for each team will reveal who on their team will play in a sudden death match.
Day One: They play foursome, two players from each team U.S. and Int’l, where two golfers on one team use one ball, alternating shots until the ball is in the hole. Each hole is won by the team with the lowest score or the lowest number of shots.
Day Two: They play four balls, which is when four players, two from each team, and each player plays his own ball. Each hole is won by the team with the lowest number of shots. The team with most holes won per round or match wins the point for their team.
Day Three: Consists of two sessions and two players from each team sit out each session. The morning session is played foursome, and the afternoon session four balls.
Day Four: They play singles which is when one player from each team play each other. Again each hole is won by the person that has the lowest score and the player with the lowest overall score gets the point for their team.
2011 U.S. Team: U.S. Captain Fred Couples. Members: Matt Kuchar, Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Webb Simpson, Nick Watney, Phil Mickelson, Babba Watson, David Toms, Hunter Mahan, Jim Furyk, Tiger Woods, and Bill Haas.
2011 International Team: Captain Greg Norman. Members: Jason Day, Adam Scott, Charl Schwartzel, K.J. Choi, Kyung-tae Kim, Retief Goosen, Geoff Ogilvy, Ernie Els, Y.E. Yang, Ryo Ishikawa, Aaron Baddeley, and Robert Allenby.
2011 Results: At the end of round 1: four points U.S. and two points Int’l. At the end of round 2: seven points for the U.S. and five points for Int’l. At the end of both rounds on day three: twelve points for the U.S. and nine points for the Int’l. At the end of round four: U.S. with nineteen points and the Int’l with fifteen points. Congratulations to the U.S. on their win!
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Greg Halman
Greg Halman was born and raised in Haarlem, Netherlands. Greg started playing baseball at a very young age. Greg comes from a very athletic family. Greg, his father and brother all played baseball for the Dutch National team and his sister plays college basketball in the states. Greg’s first baseball debut was at the age of sixteen. He played for Corendon Kinheim. Greg came to the United States in 2005. Greg could speak four languages, Dutch, English, Spanish, and Papiamento (spoken in the Caribbean and Netherland). Greg was signed as a free-agent for the Seattle Marlins on June 26, 2004. For six years he played in the minors until September 23, 2010 was the day of his MLB debut. Greg hit his first homerun on June 15th in a 3-1 victory over the L.A. Angels. He only played one season and in that season he scored two homeruns had nine runs batted in, and a batting avg. of 207. Greg also has won a gold medal with Spain in the European Baseball Championship in 2007. On November 21, 2011 Greg was found in a house in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with a stab wound. When the police got there they tried to stop the bleeding but couldn’t save him. The police arrested his brother as the primary suspect, who is twenty- two years old. The police think that what caused Greg to go down stairs to his brother’s apartment was loud music playing. Greg was only twenty-four years old when he died. Greg’s funeral was on November 29th 2011 in his home town of Haarlem. I send all the best to his family, and will be praying for their happiness and closure.
Caela’s byline: I am the oldest of six children. I am a Christian. I love watching movies, playing on my computer, and I love watching sports. I want to go to Syracuse University, and eventually become a sports journalist. My favorite sports are hockey, football(soccer) ,and golf.