NFL to review the Rooney Rule
In early December, the NFL’s 32 team owners made an announcement about strengthening rules that obligate teams to consider hiring minorities for coaching and executive staff. The league’s chief human resources officer said it was to “beef up” an already existing regulation (called the Rooney Rule), and not a response to criticism that teams have been receiving in recent years. On December 31, the number of minority coaches fired in 2018 went up to five, leaving only two coaches left in a league that 70 percent of the players are minorities. A requirement is each team that has a position to fill has to interview at least one minority candidate from a list by the NFL’s Career Development Advisory Panel or a minority candidate who doesn’t already have a position in the NFL.
Olympic swimmer retires at age 23
The female Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin announced on December 19 that she will be retiring. Her retirement decision was hastened by chronic shoulder pain. She is leaving the sport with five Olympic medals and the world record for the 200-meter backstroke. Franklin said, “I choose to look at this as a new beginning.”
She used her farewell address to talk about all of her positive experiences, from meeting her lifelong friends to the lessons she learned from the sport. Franklin was a legend in the sport of swimming: winning four gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, six gold medals at the 2013 World Championships, the 2015 NCAA team title with University of California at Berkeley. She capped it off when she won gold at the 2016 Olympics in the relay.
UCONN loses winning streak
The University of Connecticut or UCONN, women’s basketball team is one of the most well-known college basketball teams in the NCAA, racking up championship titles year after year. This season they had a regular-season winning streak of 126 games in a row. This streak started over four years ago and came to an unfortunate end against the number eight ranked Baylor. This was the first time that Baylor won against a number one ranked team. The UCONN Huskies last loss was an 88-86 game against Stanford in 2014. Head Coach Geno Auriemma stated that she is not disappointed in the loss, only disappointed that her offense had so much trouble during the game.
