Bugaluu :: Sports

Chris Balas and former Michigan All-Big Ten offensive lineman Doug Skene talk Signing Day and more …

Kyle Kuzma has been consistent throughout the preseason but his role with the Lakers is still a question mark.

Tiger Woods and his 11-year-old son Charlie are teaming up for the first time at the PNC Championship.

With the College Football Playoff rankings set to be revealed on Sunday, all that’s left to do is play some of most pivotal games of the 2020 season.

Without the Las Vegas Summer League and extended preseason we’re used to, Knicks fans only get a few glimpses at Obi Toppin, New York’s eighth overall selection in this year’s draft, before he takes the court for his first official NBA contest.

The truth finally hit home five years ago for former Dragons and Exeter Chiefs centre, Adam Hughes, when he found himself sitting in the stands at Franklin’s Gardens in Northampton where the final of the LV Cup against Saracens had just taken place. Hughes had no idea how he had got there, what had happened that afternoon and why he was sitting alone with a big coat wrapped around him. Hughes was then 25-years-old and in the prime of his career as he competed for a regular place in the Chiefs’ starting team. Hughes is the youngest of the nine players to join the legal action against the governing bodies over their failure to protect them from the risks caused by concussions. He was knocked out cold eight times and had numerous concussive episodes. Although Hughes does not yet have the same diagnosis of early onset dementia as Steve Thompson, Alix Popham and Michael Lipman, he is on the same medical trajectory and does have two major trauma scars on his brain. As for that cup final against Saracens, he has had to rely on the testimony of others. “I can only remember a tiny fraction of the first half, no more than that,” said Hughes who went into premature retirement in 2018 after yet another concussive blow to the head several months earlier. “I don’t remember anything else about the game. The only thing I can really recall is sitting in the stands after the game and it was like waking up in a morning. I had to figure out for myself why I was there. I couldn’t work it out at all. “It was like an out-of-body experience. I had to ask my teammates. They were like ‘Welcome back.’ They told me I’d been standing in the wrong places on the pitch, messed up the calls, been all over the place. (Chiefs director of rugby) Rob Baxter told me that I had come into the changing-room at half-time and broken down in front of him. He told me that he couldn’t send me back out. None of this I can remember. It’s frightening to have such gaps in your memory. “I have no recollection. I don’t even know what caused it, a clash of heads, a tackle, I’ve no idea. I didn’t need treatment. That’s the worrying thing. There are huge patches of memory missing. It is the weirdest thing to feel as if you are waking up from a dream. Or maybe feel as if you are still in a dream. Why am I here? How did I get here? “I loved those two years at Exeter, even though I had my darkest days there. You put yourself under so much pressure, so desperate to make an impression and get into a successful team yet every time you go on the pitch all you’re worried about is getting knocked out.” Adams has nothing but praise for the support he got from Baxter at that time, the club helping with neurosurgeon and psychologist referrals. The same was true when he moved back to the Dragons in his native Wales. Adams’s last game came in October 2017 against Ulster when he took a knock and walked off with stars in front of his eyes. Months later the inevitable happened and he called it a day. “I was getting really bad symptoms from straightforward tackles,” said Adams. “The dark cloud kept descending and my confidence was shot to pieces. I was frightened about stepping back out on a rugby field again. I was extremely low.

No. 10 Tennessee looks to remain unbeaten Friday night when it hosts winless Tennessee Tech in Knoxville. The Volunteers (3-0) showed few weaknesses in Tuesday’s lopsided 79-38 win against Appalachian State. Led by Victor Bailey’s 13 points, Tennessee had four players in double figures and 11 players with points.