Per ESPN, a former Army officer is planning to separate from another, much less formal, branch of U.S. service. Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN’s Andy Katz that next year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be his last as head coach of Team USA men’s basketball. The team is 75-1 under his guidance, including unbeaten runs to Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012, as well as a win in 2014’s FIBA World Cup. Prior to that last trophy, Krzyzewski brought his team to his alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy, for a daylong tour capped off by a nationally televised split-squad scrimmage. He…
Browsing: Team USA
Sgts. Glenn Eller and Vincent Hancock are officially gunning for more gold. Both soldiers qualified for the 2012 Olympics by taking top honors in double trap and skeet, respectively, at the Team USA trials in Tucson, Ariz., last week and will attempt to repeat as Olympic champions. Get the full write-up here and some more about Eller’s win here. It’s the fourth Olympic trip for Eller, whose double-trap teammate, Staff Sgt. Josh Richmond, earned his spot on Team USA last year. Hancock almost had a soldier at his side, too — Staff Sgt. Mark Weeks tied for second with two…
Wrestling’s rarely looked at as a team sport, especially at the elite level — one on one, no substitutions, no help beyond shouts from the sidelines. But Olympic qualifying for Team USA wrestling may be the ultimate team sport — still one on one, still no substitutions, but if a wrestler earns a qualifying bid in his weight class, it doesn’t go directly to that individual: Slap “USA” into the Olympic bracket for now, and whoever wins the U.S. qualifier in Iowa City next month gets the golden ticket. Need somebody to fight for their country, not just themselves? Find…
Wednesday night, NBC’s “Rock Center” will air a feature piece on Rulon Gardner, the 2000 Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist whose post-gold medal escapades have come straight out of the “News of the Weird” archives: A 2002 bout with frostbite that cost him a toe, a 2004 motorcycle wreck, a mixed-martial-arts bout in Japan against a 1992 Olympic judo gold medalist (Gardner won), a 2007 plane crash, and an appearance on the NBC weight-loss reality show “The Biggest Loser.” In its online teaser, NBC reports that as of February, Gardner needed to lose 45 pounds to make weight at the…
