Wisconsin basketball player has an adorably embarrassing moment at a press conference

Team rallies behind cheerleader with Down syndrome

One of the cheerleaders at Lincoln Middle School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is Desiree Andrews, an eighth-grader who has Down syndrome.

Kenosha News

While performing with the Lady Knights’ Cheerleading Squad at a recent basketball game, Desiree was getting bullied from the stands. That’s when a few boys from the basketball team decided to do something about it, Kenosha News reported.


“The kids in the audience were picking on Dee, so we all stepped forward,” basketball player Chase Vazquez told TMJ4.

kenoshanews.com

The players called a timeout, walked off the court, and took action, telling the bully to stop.

“One of the kids stepped up and said, ‘Don’t mess with her,’” Brandon Morris, the boys’ seventh-grade coach the year before, told Kenosha News. “Then all of the guys got together to show her support.”

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“It’s not fair when other people get treated wrong because we’re all the same. We’re all created the same. God made us the same way,” said player Scooter Terrien.


Now Desiree, who they call Dee, never walks to class alone.


And the gym has been affectionately renamed in her honor: They’re calling it D’s House.

Athletic Director Timothy Nieman told TMJ4 that the nickname has stuck, and he’s erecting a banner with the title.

The last home game on March 9 was even played in Desiree’s honor, with the boys chanting, “Who’s house? Dee’s house!”

“The cheerleaders and the basketball players that I’ve been working with the last two years are some of the kindest and most supportive students that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with,” Nieman said.


The gesture wasn’t lost on Desiree. “It was sweet, kind, awesome, amazing,” she said.

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Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, and Jimmy Fallon photobomb Super Bowl fans

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Chris Pratt and Chris Evans make awesome Super Bowl bet

Marvel

Earlier this week, we told you about a little Twitter war between Marvel stars Chris Pratt and Chris Evans over the upcoming Super Bowl. Pratt's Seattle Seahawks will face off in the big game against Evans' New England Patriots, and it seemed a friendly wager over the game was imminent. Now we know what the stakes of that wager will be.

Pratt and Evans won't be betting money, or public humiliation, though. They'll be betting on some superhero kindness. On Tuesday, Pratt proposed that if the Seahawks win, Evans should visit Seattle Children's Hospital and drop in on kids as Steve Rogers himself.

Evans accepted and countered that if the Patriots win, Pratt should, as Star-Lord, show up at Christopher's Haven, a Boston-based nonprofit that provides housing to families with children receiving pediatric cancer treatments in the area.

So the bet is made, and one of two great charities will get a visit from a superhero later this year. We'll know who wins on Sunday, Feb. 1, and we'll definitely be on the lookout for the adorable photos likely to result from this wager.

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This year's NFL bad lip reading

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Boston selected by the U.S Olympics Committee for 2024 bid

Boston’s Olympic aspirations are going international.

The city was selected Thursday by the United States Olympic Committee to bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, beating out competing proposals from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

“We’re excited about our plans to submit a bid for the 2024 Games and feel we have an incredibly strong partner in Boston that will work with us to present a compelling bid,” USOC Chairman Larry Probst said in a statement.

The USOC first announced the decision on Twitter at around 6:30 p.m.

Boston’s bid was submitted to the USOC in December after previously being selected to a shortlist of U.S. candidate cities in June. The group pushing the idea, Boston2024, is backed by leaders from the region’s business, sports, and education sectors, among others.

“Boston is a global hub for education, health care, research and technology,” said Boston2024 chairman and Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish in a statement. “We are passionate about sports because we believe in the power of sport to transform our city and inspire the world’s youth. A Boston Games can be one of the most innovative, sustainable and exciting in history and will inspire the next generation of leaders here and around the world.”

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has also been involed in the bidding process.

“It is an exceptional honor for Boston to be chosen as the U.S. representative in the running for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Walsh said in a statement Thursday night. “This selection is in recognition of our city’s talent, diversity and global leadership. Our goal is to host an Olympic and Paralympic Games that are innovative, walkable and hospitable to all. Boston hopes to welcome the world’s greatest athletes to one of the world’s great cities.”

The USOC decided on Dec. 16 that it would bid for the 2024 Games, but held off on making a decision on which city to go with until Thursday’s meeting at Denver International Airport. “The decision followed a spirited discussion and more than one round of voting. Ultimately, the Boston bid received the unanimous endorsement of the USOC’s board of directors,” the USOC said.

The committee will now work with Boston2024 on the bid ahead of submitting it this fall to the International Olympic Committee. The IOC will decide on a 2024 host city in 2017. Other potential host cities for 2024 include Rome, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, and Istanbul. Melbourne, Australia, and other cities have also been said to be interested.

President Barack Obama offered his support for the Boston proposal in a statement from the White House:

The President and First Lady extend their congratulations to the City of Boston on its nomination by the United States Olympic Committee to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The city has taught all of us what it means to be Boston Strong. The President and First Lady couldn’t be prouder of this accomplishment and of all of our nation’s athletes, and strongly support the effort to bring the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games to the United States. We hope to welcome athletes from around the globe to compete in Boston in 2024.

Boston’s bid has generated debate in the city and the region. An opposition nonprofit, No Boston Olympics, is against the proposal. Its reasons: doubts that the Games can be held without using taxpayer money (Boston2024 says it can pull operational expenses off with private funding of $4.5 billion, and publicly-funded infrastructure improvements of $5 billion or so); the Olympics’ history of going overbudget; and the supposed “opportunity costs”—the idea that the city and state would be better served by focusing on other priorities than the Olympics.

But the aspect of the bid that has to this point been most controversial is what No Boston Olympics perceives as a lack of transparency. For several weeks, No Boston Olympics chair Chris Dempsey has called for the public release of the bidding documents that were submitted to the USOC. The group has also complained that no public meetings were held by Boston2024 or the city ahead of submitting the bid.

Dempsey doubled down in demanding the release of the bid Thursday night.

“The bid needs to be released immediately, and we need to have an open and honest and transparent conversation about what this means for taxpayers,” Dempsey said. “I think the people of the Commonwealth will demand it,” he added.

Dempsey told Boston.com the group also plans to hold a public meeting in the near future, perhaps as soon as next week, and said further details would be released later. In the past, Dempsey has said the group is considering a ballot question to try and oppose the Games if the bid advanced past the USOC selection phase.

For its part, Boston2024 has said it would begin holding public meetings in January if it got the USOC nod. “Going forward, Boston 2024 is committed to a thorough and extensive process to discuss the potential opportunity the Olympic and Paralympic Games present our community,” Fish’s Thursday night statement said.

Opposition like that seen in Boston was reportedly not evident in the other U.S. candidate cities. The USOC said in December that public support for the bid was an important element of the selection process, and that it was gauging the support in the four candidate cities.

The elements of the Boston bid that have been publicly discussed—and they could change over time—have focused on the use of existing stadiums (like TD Garden and college venues) as well as the construction of a “temporary” 60,000-seat Olympic stadium in South Boston. The bid has been pitched as efficient, and Walsh has pledged not to put the city into debt over the proposal. These principles are in alignment with the IOC’s recently-passed resolutions meant to make the Games (and bidding for them) less expensive, starting with the 2024 host city selection process. The Olympics have faced plenty of criticism in recent years for their expense to the public, and the IOC saw many potential hosts for the 2022 Winter Games drop out as a result. As a 2024 bidding city, Boston will be a test case for the effect of those resolutions.

New Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who was just inaugurated Thursday, celebrated the selection, but said the promises of low costs and private funding remained crucial.

“This is great news for Boston and the Commonwealth as it provides an exciting opportunity to promote Massachusetts on the world stage,” Baker said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Mayor Walsh and the Boston 2024 organization to address the multitude of issues that need to be discussed, including keeping costs down and continuing to press forward on pledges of a privately funded Olympics as the process moves forward before the IOC.”

The United States has not hosted a Summer Olympics since 1996, in Atlanta. Bids to host the Games in New York in 2012 (they were held in London) and Chicago in 2016 (scheduled for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) fell flat in front of the IOC.

The USOC is expected to to fly into town for media availability on Friday. Walsh has scheduled an 8:30 a.m. press conference.

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Eight surprising historical facts that will change your concept of time

You probably should know these things didn't happen anywhere near when you thought they did...

Not everyone can be a world history master, especially when we tend to learn about it in specifically segmented classes like "European History" or "American Revolutionary History." Maybe you have an exceptional grasp on the global historical timeline. But for those of us who don't, the list below, inspired by a recent Reddit thread called "What are two events that took place in the same time in history but don't seem like they would have?" puts key historical moments into some much-needed context.

1. Betty White is older than sliced bread.


Sliced bread was introduced in 1928 by inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Before this moment, bread was sold in whole loaves as bakers didn't trust sliced bread couldstay fresh. Betty White was born in 1922 and spent her early years not eating sliced bread. But White recently celebrated her 92nd birthday, which means she's been able to experience the first "greatest invention" much longer than most of us.

2. Harvard University was founded before calculus was invented.
Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the U.S. The "New College," as it was originally called, had no calculus classes because it didn't exist yet. The invention of calculus would come in the late 17th century with Gottfried Leibniz's 1684 publication of "Nova Methodus," and in part with Isaac Newton's"Principia" in 1687, followed by additional explanations and reformulations by subsequent mathematicians. Also, European physicist, mathematician and astronomer Galileo was still alive during Harvard's early years -- he died in 1642.

3. The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed.


The Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. This was back when there were still teams such as the Brooklyn Superbas and the Boston Doves. The Ottoman Empire, which was founded in the 13th century, also existed back then. Mehmed VIwas the last sultan of the empire and his reign ended in 1922 when the sultanate was abolished and the Turkish government took governing control over the new republic -- 14 years after the Cubs last won the World Series.

4. The Pyramids of Giza were built in the time of wooly mammoths.From what we can tell, the last of the wooly mammoth died out around 1700 B.C. on Russia’s Wrangel Island. In Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza were built around 4,000 years ago, although there have been claims that they're even older. This also means that Cleopatra's time on Earth is actually closer to us in history than to the construction of the pyramids.

5. The fax machine was invented the same year as the Oregon trail migration.
The first fax machine was invented in 1843 by a Scottish mechanic named Alexander Bain. This early model used a combination of synchronized pendulums, electric probes and electrochemically sensitive paper to scan documents, and then send the information over a series of wires to be reproduced. The "Great Migration" on the Oregon trail began the same year, when a wagon train of about 1,000 migrants attempted to travel west, but probably died of dysentery along the way.

6. The jewelry store Tiffany & Co. was founded before Italy was a country.While Rome was officially a holdout for a number of years after, in 1861 General Giuseppe Garibaldi led a successful campaign to gather the various city-states and bring them under one nation. Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young founded Tiffany & Young in 1837 and then became Tiffany & Co. in 1853. This means Audrey Hepburn could have gotten "breakfast at Tiffany's" before she could have had her Italian "Roman Holiday.

Similarly, Macy's was founded in 1858, also before Italy became the nation we know it as today.

7. France was still using the guillotine when "Star Wars" came out.
The last time the guillotine was used as a form of execution in France was in 1977. The guillotine lasted for about two centuries. The first "Star Wars" film was also released in 1977 a few months before the execution.

Another mind-blow French historical fact: The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, which is the same year Nintendo was founded and that Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night."

8. Two of President John Tyler's grandsons are still alive.


John Tyler was America's 10th President, serving from 1841 to 1845, but somehow two of his grandsons are still alive. Mental Floss first reported on this fact in 2012, but since then Snopes has verified their identities, while New York Magazine even interviewed one of the grandsons. As of last year, both Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. and Harrison Tyler were still only in their 80s.

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Philadelphia 76ers will sign a basketball player with Down Syndrome to a two-day contract

Feel-good stories are what make the NBA so special.

Highlight reels, superstars, record-breaking performances and championships, among other things, all make the association great. However, there are times when communal purpose and responsibility trumps everything.

This is one of those times.

At the team's practice facility, the Philadelphia 76ers announced they will sign Bensalem High School senior Kevin Grow, who has Down syndrome, on Monday to a "ceremonial two-day contract."

Philadelphia's official announcement offered the following additional details:

Grow has become an inspiration to the Sixers organization, as his story has swept the nation. Grow, who has Down syndrome, has served as his high school basketball team’s manager for four seasons. His coaches put him on the court for the team’s final two matches of the season, and his first varsity games, in which he scored 14 points, including three 3-pointers and a buzzer beater. 

After he signs his two-day contract, Grow will eat dinner in the players lounge, tour the practice facility and receive Sixers gear. He will join the team on the floor toward the end of practice, meet and shoot around with his new teammates, be greeted by his coaches.

This is just wonderful.

Grow, age 18, was featured in a Feb. 8 YouTube video in which he drained four three-pointers in less than two minutes for his high school's varsity basketball team, the Owls, on Senior Day, according to Philly.com's Matt Breen.

With every shot Grow made, the crowd and his teammates erupted in what was a quintessential display of unity. More importantly, it wasn't an anomaly or singular act for the Owls. This type of unification, this connection between Grow, his teammates and the game of basketball extends into traditionally menial activities, such as practice.

"Grow worked on his three-point shot during Bensalem’s practices this season," wrote Breen. "And the Owls do not end practice until Grow hits a free throw."

That's teamwork. That's community. That's what the Sixers are taking one step further.

As part of his two-day contract, the 76ers' Sam Hinkie, president of basketball operations and general manager, said Grow will participate in pregame activities before the Sixers host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, Feb. 18, complete with his own locker and a custom jersey. Grow also will "watch pregame warm-ups, take part in the high-five tunnel when players take the court for the game and stand with his team during the National Anthem."

Finally, Grow and his teammates will take the court during a timeout for a "special presentation."

The Memphis Grizzlies recently did something similar, when, per WMCTV.com's Ari Alexander, they ceremoniously "drafted" eight-year-old Charvis Brewer, a devoted Grizzlies fan who suffers from cerebral palsy.

Moments like these—when the sport of basketball promotes community and treats enthusiasts like extended family—are why the NBA is great.

Kindhearted acts most certainly take place off the basketball court and outside the association, and those same acts deserve no less recognition. The NBA has the means to deliver messages and to help lead by example, through unconventional, highly publicized practices that remind us of how precious and reassuring life can be and how meaningful and profound the game of basketball actually is.

"It’s tough to describe," Owls coach John Mullin told Breen.

Anything worth describing always is.

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Figure farting

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Lawmakers warn NFL about the Redskins

AP

The fight to change the Redskins' name won't die. And it's become an issue among the nation's lawmakers.

Two members of Congress will send a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday, telling him to publicly announce support for a name change -- and that the NFL can no longer ignore the issue.

The letter, obtained by multiple media outlets, was written by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). Cantwell is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, while Cole is a senior member of the appropriations committee -- and a member of the Chickasaw Nation.

"The National Football League can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur," the letter stated.

Cantwell told the newspaper the Indian Affairs Committee would "definitely" examine the NFL's tax-exempt status as a means to apply pressure.

"You're getting a tax break for educational purposes, but you're still embracing a name that people see as a slur and encouraging it," Cantwell told The New York Times.

The letter reiterated that stance, telling the NFL it's on the "wrong side of history." That's why, it stated, the NFL should "take a formal position in support of a name change."

The Redskins have received "more than 7,000 letters and emails" in favor of keeping the name, with "almost 200 from people who identified themselves as Native Americans or as family members of Native Americans," the team said in a statement released Monday.

The statement included three letter excerpts from fans of Native American descent, all either supporting the Redskins' name or saying it was not offensive to them.

The Redskins also cited a 2004 survey that said 90 percent of Native Americans were not bothered by the Redskins' name. The lawmakers' letter criticized the team for clinging to "decade-old public opinion polling."

Goodell has declined to take a formal stance on the debate in the past. Before the Super Bowl, he told reporters, "I've been spending the last year talking to many of the leaders in the Native American communities. We are trying to make sure we understand the issues. Let me remind you: This is the name of a football team, a football team that's had that name for 80 years and has presented the name in a way that it has honored Native Americans."

The lawmakers' letter rebutted Goodell's statement, calling the name "an insult to Native Americans."

Redskins owner Dan Snyder has been adamant that he won't change the name. But he has received steady pressure, and protests, over the past year. In May, 10 members of Congress sent letters to Snyder, Goodell, the 31 other owners and Redskins sponsor FedEx, urging the franchise to change the name. Cole was part of that group as well.

That group introduced a bill last March that would "cancel the federal registrations of trademarks using the word redskin in reference to Native Americans."

Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie said in a statement, "With all the important issues Congress has to deal with such as a war in Afghanistan to deficits to health care, don't they have more important issues to worry about than a football team's name? And given the fact that the name of Oklahoma means 'Red People' in Choctaw, this request is a little ironic."

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George Zimmerman to fight DMX in a boxing match

Let's get ready to ... mumble.

As in, what now, George Zimmerman?

Seems like the former neighborhood watchman has found yet another way to remain in the public limelight.

This time, he'll be stepping into a boxing ring to fight rapper DMX.

Zimmerman said the celebrity boxing match was his idea. Boxing was his hobby, he told Radar Online last month, even prior to the "incident."

The incident, of course, is the February 2012 encounter in which he shot dead an unarmed Trayvon Martin, 17. He stood trial for murder, but was acquitted.

"Prior to the incident, I was actually going to the gym for weight loss and doing boxing-type training for weight loss," he told Radar.

"A mutual friend put me in contact with Damon and provided me with an opportunity and motivation to get back in shape and continue with my weight loss goals and also be able to help a charity out."

Damon is Damon Feldman, owner of Celebrity Boxing and self-described opportunist, whose claim to fame is putting together bizarre matchups. Think Tonya Harding, Michael Lohan.

He said last week that he was accepting offers for someone to step into the ring for a three-round, pay-per-view fight with Zimmerman.

"The news has been out for an hour and my e-mail is overloaded with 8,000 people wanting to fight George," Feldman told CNN on Thursday.

Early Wednesday morning, he said he's picked the contender. Out of more than 15,000 e-mailed requests, he's going with DMX.

"The match will be one of the Biggest Celebrity Boxing matches of all time," his news release said (uppercase emphasis his).

But in order to find out where and when it will take place, we'll have to wait until next week.

DMX, as we know is a rapper, and braggadocio is his calling card.

He's out for blood, he told TMZ. Not only will he break every rule in boxing, he said, he'll "beat the living (expletive)" out of Zimmerman.

Ian Karmel, a writer for "Chelsea Lately," has a better idea.

"They should send Floyd Mayweather to the ring and tell George Zimmerman it's DMX," he tweeted. "He won't know the difference."

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