(STATS) -- Innovative thinking continues to be an integral part of FCS football
as it tries to remain strong across the ever-changing landscape of college
athletics.
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relevancy in the subdivision, the Big South Conference has turned to a
conference that doesnt sponsor football to establish a unique member
partnership.Under the arrangement, announced Tuesday, current or future Atlantic
Sun Conference scholarship-football members within the geographic footprint of
the Big South will automatically be admitted to the conference as associate
football members.With Coastal Carolina leaving this year for the Sun Belt on the
FBS level, the Big South has dropped to six football programs -- the FCS low and
the NCAA minimum for a conference to have its champion automatically qualify for
the 24-team national playoffs. There are four full-time members in Charleston
Southern, Gardner-Webb, Liberty and Presbyterian, and two associate members in
Kennesaw State and Monmouth.But the two-conference partnership provides a
guaranteed home for Kennesaw State, an Atlantic Sun member in other sports, and
a potential guaranteed home for other football programs, including Atlantic Sun
members Jacksonville and Stetson and Big South member Campbell. Those three play
on the FCS level in the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League, and each
program would join Big South football should it move to the scholarship
level.Were excited about it for a couple of reasons, Big South commissioner Kyle
Kallander said. Number one, it can certainly enhance Big South football from a
membership perspective. Weve had an awful lot of success in the Big South and
the 15 years weve been playing FCS football. Entering into a creative
partnership like this can really continue that success and growth of the Big
South. Certainly it helps the Atlantic Sun in what theyre trying to do with
their membership.The other reason Im excited about it is I really think
collaboration is important, especially in this day and age in Division I. All
the challenges that we have, whether its conference realignment or financial
challenges, scheduling, travel, all those kinds of things, I think its going to
be very really important moving forward that everybody takes a look at how can
we work together rather than just working on our own.The agreement doesnt change
the conference name as the football teams will play under the banner of the Big
South. The conference, which spans the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, was
formed in 1983, but didnt sponsor football until 2002. Liberty is the
conferences long-time remaining power and Charleston Southern is the defending
champion. Pro Bowlers Justin Bethel, Josh Norman and Mike Tolbert are among 12
former Big South players on NFL rosters to begin the 2016 season.We have really
good football teams in our league and weve started to get a little bit of a
national footprint, Presbyterian coach Harold Nichols said, so I would think
that would be pretty inviting to teams to be able to come and be a part of
that.Schools in the 10-member Big South that dont sponsor football are High
Point, Longwood, Radford, North Carolina-Asheville and Winthrop.Two ASUN
members, North Florida and Florida Gulf Coast, have conducted feasibility
studies for the addition of football, but have no immediate plans for starting
programs. ASUN members Lipscomb, New Jersey Institute of Technology and South
Carolina Upstate also dont sponsor football.The Big South has received multiple
postseason berths, earned multiple postseason wins and had many postseason
hosting opportunities for its football members, ASUN commissioner Ted Gumbart
said. We plan to contribute strongly and significantly to the continued growth
of our joint football league and look forward to enhancing the winning tradition
of Big South football.I think there will be (change), Kallander said, but Im not
suggesting any is going to be imminent.
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being paraded around St James Park to the passionate Newcastle fans.
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was first reported on Gonzalezs Twitter account and confirmed by the Rockies.
Gonzalez has a six-week window before position players have their first workout
at spring training in Arizona. A scathing report outlining a state-sanctioned
doping system in Russia prompted immediate calls for the nations entire team to
be sidelined from the Summer Games, raising the possibility that the Olympics
could go on without a sports superpower for the first time since the 1980s.The
investigation released Monday confirmed a scheme run out of the anti-doping lab
in Moscow that ensnared 28 summer and winter sports, from track to snowboarding
to table tennis. It lasted at least four years and involved at least 312
positive tests that went unreported at the behest of higher-ups in the countrys
sports ministry.A mind-blowing level of corruption within both Russian sport and
government, said Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.The World
Anti-Doping Agency swiftly called for the International Olympic Committee to
consider a full ban of the Russian team from the Summer Olympics, which start
Aug. 5 in Rio de Janiero. IOC president Thomas Bach said the committee wouldnt
hesitate to apply the toughest sanctions available.The IOC executive board will
meet Tuesday to begin sorting through options.Its no sure thing the Russians
will receive a blanket ban. Its a decision filled with political ramifications
that involve a key Olympic country. It puts the IOC in the position of ruling
against against one of its biggest supporters, a nation that spent more than $50
billion hosting the Winter Games in Sochi just two years ago. Not since the
back-to-back boycotts by the United States in 1980, then the Soviet Union in
1984, have the Olympics been contested without one of its biggest players.Bach
has frequently spoken about the fine line between collective responsibility and
individual justice. And for every anti-doping agency and athlete group calling
for a full ban, theres seemingly another sports organization or leader urging
restraint.The right to participate at the games cannot be stolen from an
athlete, who has duly qualified and has not been found guilty of doping, said
Bruno Grandi, president of gymnastics international federation. Blanket bans
have never been and will never be just.Gymnastics was not among the sports
listed in the report. Wrestling, meanwhile, accounted for 28 of the 312
unreported positives. The head of that international federation, Nenad Lalovic
of Serbia, told The Associated Press we will absolutely follow the decisions of
the IOC.But in making decisions about Russias team as a whole, the IOC could put
onus on the international sports federations to determine the penalties.In the
ongoing case involving Russias track team, it was that sports federation, the
IAAF, that ultimately banned the team from the Olympics. But 68 Russian
track-and-field athletes are appealing this week to the Court of Arbitration for
Sport to compete in Rio, with a decision due Thursday. In a move that
accentuates how complicated the matter can become, the IOC has said there is no
contingency for a large group of Russians competing under a neutral flag -- that
Russians should compete for the Russian team if theyre allowed in.Mondays
report, commissioned by WADA and written by arbitrator Richard McLaren, said
allegations made by Moscows former anti-doping lab director about sample
switching at the Sochi Olympics went much as described in a New York Times story
in May. That program involved dark-of-night bottle tampering in order to switch
dirty samples with clean ones; it prevented Russian athletes, including more
than a dozen medal winners, from testing positive.
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Cheap Real. But McLaren said the bottle tampering in Sochi was a
one-shot deal. Meanwhile, he described tactics he labeled disappearing positive
methodology that began in 2011, shortly after Russias disappointing performance
at the Vancouver Olympics. It included the 2013 track world championships in
Moscow and was in place as recently as the 2015 swimming world championships in
Kazan -- when everyone in Russian sports knew they were under the doping
microscope.Russias deputy minister of sports, Yuri Nagornykh, who was also part
of Russias Olympic Committee, would direct workers at the Moscow lab of which
positive samples to send through to be reported to WADA and which to hold back.
Assisting the plan was Russias national security service -- the FSB, the current
version of the Soviet Unions KGB.The Moscow laboratory was effectively caught up
in the jaws of a vice, the report said. It was a key player in the successful
operation of a state imposed and rigorously controlled program, which was
overall managed and dictated by the (Ministry of Sport).Yes, McLaren wrote, it
could be made to seem as though workers at the laboratory were acting alone. But
his investigation undercut that theory.The Moscow Laboratory personnel acted as
they did because, as (one) witness expressed, if they did not, they would no
longer be employed there, he concluded.On Monday, Russian President Vladimir
Putin said officials named as directly responsible in the doping scheme would be
suspended. He asked for more information from WADA so Russia could conduct its
own investigation.McLaren said out of 577 positive sample screenings he had
access to, 312 positive results were held back -- or labeled Save by the lab
workers. More than 250 of the 312 Saves came from track and field and
weightlifting, but other sports involved included swimming, rowing, snowboarding
-- even table tennis.McLaren suggested the numbers could have been higher, but
he had only 57 days for his investigation.Time is crucial because the Olympics
begin Aug. 5, and decisions about Russias participation in Rio must be made.WADA
president Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC member, said WADA is working to
establish guidelines that will help the IOC and international sports federations
identify exceptions to a potential Russian ban -- notably, athletes who trained
in other countries that had robust, clean anti-doping systems. Those athletes,
WADA said, should be allowed to compete in Rio under a neutral flag.McLaren said
he was unwaveringly confident in his report, and insisted there was no leak, as
several sports leaders suggested over the weekend, when draft letters calling
for Russias ban were leaked to the media.One of the letters co-signers was Paul
Melia, who heads Canadas anti-doping organization and was in Toronto for
McLarens presentation.Im shocked and devastated by whats been going on, Melia
said. And I can only imagine how betrayed the clean athletes of the world are
feeling today in the face of this evidence.---AP Sports Writers Luke Meredith,
Will Graves and Graham Dunbar and correspondent Charmaine Noronha contributed to
this report. ' ' '