(NEW YORK) — Two of golf’s biggest names — Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy — are stepping up to lead a new virtual golf tournament.
Called the TGL, the new virtual golf league, launched in partnership with the PGA, will have pros compete in a series of primetime stadium-style team showdowns.
The announcement comes amid the ongoing battle between the PGA and LIV, the Saudi-backed golf league.
ABC News’ Will Reeve appeared on Good Morning America Thursday to explain more about the new virtual league:
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Detroit 6, San Francisco 1
Oakland 3, Miami 2
Texas 16, Colorado 4
Washington 3, Seattle 1
Cleveland 7, San Diego 0
Kansas City 5, Arizona 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Toronto 3, Boston 2
Chi White Sox 5, Baltimore 3
Houston 5, Minnesota 3
Tampa Bay 4, LA Angels 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Atlanta 14, Pittsburgh 2
Philadelphia 7, Cincinnati 5
Chi Cubs 7, St. Louis 1
LA Dodgers 12, Milwaukee 6
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Connecticut 73, Dallas 58
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
San Francisco 3, Detroit 1
NY Yankees 4, NY Mets 2
Colorado 7, Texas 6
Arizona 7, Kansas City 3
Cleveland 3, San Diego 1
Miami 5, Oakland 3
Seattle 4 Washington 2
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 11, LA Angels 1
Baltimore 5, Chi White Sox 3
Houston 4, Minnesota 2
Toronto 9, Boston 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Chi Cubs 2, St. Louis 0
Atlanta 6, Pittsburgh 1
Philadelphia 7, Cincinnati 6
St. Louis 13, Chi Cubs 3
LA Dodgers 10, Milwaukee 1
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Chicago 90, New York 72
(NEW YORK) — For generations, Black Americans have grappled with a troubling reality when it comes to swimming.
Black Americans drown at a rate 50 percent higher than their white counterparts, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s a grim statistic rooted in systemic racism that’s led to a persistent lack of access to pools and swim classes for Black children, according to experts.
Anthony Patterson, the president of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Nile Swim Club, said the lingering problem is a civil rights issue.
“I think that it’s a lack of access,” Anthony Patterson, the president of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Nile Swim Club, told ABC’s “Nightline.”
Nile Swim Club has been providing free swim lessons to kids for the past four years, part of its “No Child Will Drown In Our Town” campaign, and he said that it is imperative that more Black kids learn these life-saving skills.
“It’s up to us,” he said. “It appears that counting on other folks to teach our children how to swim is not happening in our community.”
Achieving this goal means that the country will have to confront and undo the systemic racism that led to it, according to Patterson.
Nearly 64% of Black children in the country have little or no swimming ability, compared to 40% of white children, according to USA Swimming, the national governing body for the American sport of swimming.
The swimming deficit in the Black community can be traced back to slavery. During which, enslaved Africans were forbidden from swimming. Over time, Black Americans were historically denied access to pools and beaches.
During the Jim Crow era, pools were segregated and there were far fewer affordable swim classes for Black families, according to historians.
The Nile Swim Club, located in Yeadon, was created in 1958 in response to that segregated environment after two Black families found out they were deliberately being denied access to a whites-only swim club, according to Patterson.
“Our founders decided instead of fighting and protesting and forcing them to have us join their club, they decided, ‘You know what? We’ll go back to our community [and] raise the money we need,’ and pretty much purchased these four and a half acres of land and put the Nile Swim Club here,” he said.
Patterson said this segregation is still going on in swim clubs across the country.
In 2012, the Justice Department found the historically white Valley Club in Pennsylvania discriminated against Black children during a camp pool trip in 2009. The club is now defunct.
Imani Kingcade sent her two sons, James and Cairo, to the Nile’s free swim program and told “Nightline” it made a huge difference.
“Cairo just had a big fear of water, period,” she told “Nightline.” “He didn’t want the water coming down on him.”
The boys graduated from the program this summer.
The Nile Swim Club isn’t the only organization helping Black kids improve their swim skills.
Jim Ellis, 74, created the Philadelphia Department of Recreation Swim Team in 1971, and became the first all-Black swim team in the country. He still coaches young swimmers and told “Nightline” that he’s heard too many misconceptions about Black swimmers over the years.
“African-Americans can’t swim. Their bones are too heavy. They’re not built right. Well, I’m African American, I’ve been swimming all my life. So this is a stereotype,” he told “Nightline.”
Ellis said many Black swimmers have proven their worth in the competitive field.
Cullen Jones is one of them.
Jones has won four Olympic medals, two gold and two silver, as well as several gold medals at other international swim competitions. He made history when he won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle relay in the 2008 Olympics and became the first Black American swimmer to do so.
Jones told “Nightline” that there is still a way to go before Black American competitive swimmers are given more chances.
“Access is a very easy way for a lot of people to be like, oh, this is the reason why Black people don’t swim. That [swimming] is something that has been pushed out of our culture. There are [Black] swimmers in other countries. Black people swim. It’s a U.S. problem that we believe that this is something we don’t do,” he said,” he said.
Jones, a New Jersey native, said he learned how to swim after nearly drowning while visiting a water park with his family when he was young.
That incident prompted his mother to insist he learn to swim. Now retired from competitive swimming, Jones is determined to make swim lessons more accessible to all. He works as a water safety advocate with USA Swimming’s “Make a Splash” campaign.
“Anyone can drown. I can drown, Michael Phelps can drown. What we like to do is say that we are becoming safer around the water,” he said.
“We’re seeing progress,” Jones added, “And for any person that is interested, fearful, I won’t tell you my mom’s age, but she’s learning to swim. So it’s never too late to get out there and learn to swim.”
(TAMPA, Fla.) — Superstar quarterback Tom Brady returned to training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Monday. Brady had spent nearly two weeks away for what the team called “personal reasons.”
Watch the full report from ABC’s Good Morning America:
(ALEXANDRIA, Va.) — The former head trainer for the Washington Commanders entered a deferred prosecution agreement after the Justice Department alleged he illegally gave players oxycodone and other narcotics when they were not prescribed the pills.
A deferred prosecution agreement is when a defendant admits wrongdoing but if they adhere to the terms of the agreement they will not get charged by the Justice Department.
The former trainer, Ryan Vermillion, acknowledged in federal court documents on Friday that he carried around a prescription pad belonging to a team physician and a black bag filled with narcotics.
The bag contained “pill envelopes,” according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia said that Vermillion would backfill oxycodone prescriptions and dole out pills that were not intended for specific players. The NFL has a process in place in which away teams are able to legally obtain prescription pills if one player on a visiting team needs them. The Justice Department said Vermillion discouraged players from using that program and instead take medications from the black bag.
In several instances described in court documents, Vermillion would give players oxycodone immediately after they were injured in the locker room to relieve some pain, but the DOJ says that prescription was not intended for that player.
“I have pain meds in bag if he needs something,” Vermillion texted a trainer, according to the documents, after a player was taken off the field and into the locker room.
The Justice Department says the trainer texted Vermillion about giving the player oxycodone.
“Vermillion told some Commanders physicians to write prescriptions for oxycodone for players who, in Vermillion’s judgement, he believed should receive additional oxycodone,” the DOJ said in a statement of facts.
The Justice Department says Vermillion kept a “stockpile” of oxycodone at the team facility in Ashburn, Virginia. When agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) searched the team facility, they found prescription medication in a locked cabinet and players with no record of ever having been prescribed drugs for a specific injury.
Prosecutors say this amounted to Vermillion breaking the law in distributing pills that weren’t prescribed to specific players.
Part of the agreement says that Vermillion may not do any athletic training activities, may not leave the Western District of North Carolina and must submit to a drug test and check in with his probation officer regularly.
Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera said in a statement the team has released Vermillion and that prosecutors had made clear that the team was a witness to a crime, and not the target itself.
“I was recently made aware that Ryan Vermillion has entered into an agreement, pursuant to which he has admitted to wrongdoing, but will not be charged with any crime so long as he satisfies certain conditions over the next 12 months. The situation is unfortunate and although it resulted in no criminal charges, it was necessary to move forward in a different direction. Ryan’s employment has been terminated,” the statement read.
He added, “I want to emphasize that the U.S. Government confirmed from the outset that it viewed the organization as a witness, and not as a subject or target of the investigation. We cooperated fully with federal investigators, and we will continue to cooperate with any supplemental League and NFLPA inquiry.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Houston 5, Atlanta 4
AMERICAN LEAGUE
NY Yankees 4, Toronto 2
Detroit 4, LA Angels 0
Tampa Bay 3, Kansas City 2
Texas 7, Minnesota 0
Oakland 5, Seattle 3
Baltimore 5, Boston 3
Chi White Sox at Cleveland (Postponed)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 9, Pittsburgh 5
Milwaukee 5, Chi Cubs 2
NY Mets 10, Philadelphia 9
San Diego 2, Washington 1
San Francisco 9, Colorado 8
LA Dodgers 10, Miami 3
St. Louis 6, Arizona 4
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE PRESEASON
Philadelphia 21, Cleveland 20
NY Giants 25, Cincinnati 22
Baltimore 24, Arizona 17
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Dallas 89, Connecticut 79
Seattle 97, Washington 84
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
New York City FC 2, Chicago 0
Atlanta 2, Columbus 2 (Tie)
Orlando City 2, Charlotte FC 1
Sporting Kansas City 4, Portland 1
Nashville 4, FC Dallas 0
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Boston 8, Pittsburgh 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Minnesota 4, Kansas City 0
Toronto 6, Baltimore 1
Seattle 11, LA Angels 7
Cleveland 8, Detroit 4
Oakland 7, Texas 2
Houston 3, Chi White Sox 2
NY Yankees 8, Tampa Bay 7 (10)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 1, Philadelphia 0
Chi Cubs 3, Washington 2
San Diego 10 Miami 3
NY. Mets 9 Atlanta 7
St. Louis 5 Colorado 1
L.A. Dodgers 2 Milwaukee 1
Arizona 3, San Francisco 2
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
New York 98, Chicago 91
Las Vegas 79, Phoenix 63
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
New York 2, Atlanta 1
New England 2 Toronto FC 2 (Tie)
Ended Charlotte FC 3, New York City FC 1
Dallas 1, Philadelphia FC 0
Vancouver 2, Colorado 1
