Dawgfan4life24

to h/t: 247 Sports
Georgia landed one of the top running back recruits in the nation on Friday, after American Heritage (Florida) High School star Sony Michel committed to the Bulldogs.
According to The Macon Telegraph reporter Seth Emerson, Michel now has a verbal commitment to Mark Richt and the Bulldogs, after he announced the move on Friday afternoon:

Sony Michel, a five-star tailback recruit, announces his commitment for Georgia.— Seth Emerson (@SethEmerson) April 26, 2013

Verbal commitments are non-binding, but that won't stop Georgia from getting excited about Michel today.
Michel (5'11", 205 pounds) is listed as a 5-star RB on 247 Sports, currently the No. 18 player on 247's 2014 rankings, the No. 3 running back in his class and the No. 2 Floridian on the board. If you move to 247 Sports' composite rankings, he slides up to No. 8 overall with a remarkable 0.9963 score.
After tearing his ACL in September 2011 and missing all of his sophomore season, questions started to arise about what kind of player he would be like after his return. He answered those concerns and more, cementing his status as a top prospect after rushing for 1,264 yards, adding another 232 receiving yards and compiling 18 total touchdowns.
Operating out of a multiple offense at American Heritage, Michel shows outstanding vision, one-cut ability to get up the field quickly and breakaway speed that is evidenced by his 4.5 speed in the 40-yard dash.


The high school senior will have a chance to further impress his new coaching staff at Georgia during his senior season, but it's not as if he hasn't had plenty of opportunities to do so already.
Michel made national headlines when he ran for over 1,800 yards as an eighth-grader, earning first-team All-Browner County honors over Ethan Grant (quite a bit of irony with regards to that name and this piece)—the former TCU RB recruit (via Kipp Adams of ESPN).
He followed that up with a solid freshman season, beforing missing his sophomore year with the ACL tear. Back in action in 2012, he proved why he was on the field as a middle schooler with an impressive campaign that put him firmly in 247's Top 20.
Michel also had offers from Notre Dame, Florida, Florida State and Miami, but chose Georgia over the lot. He'll bring a rare blend of speed and power to the Bulldogs' offense, and it should be exciting to see what he does to impress the nation during his final high school season.

The tweet was quickly deleted.
Based on the rest of his tweets, I could be convinced this was a #HACKED situation, as his agent claims. Fluker usually just tweets Bible verses and retweets others, though, as has been pointed out, stone-casting is a Bible thing. So our #HACKER at least referenced the right religious text.
I don't really care whether Fluker took money in college or not, nor do I care from whom he did or didn't take money. He was one of the best players in the country and gave some of his best years to college football, and if the market had seen fit to compensate him for that beyond a scholarship, then okay.
That said, I'd lean #HACKED until proved otherwise.

http://www.sbnation....r-money-college

Professional sports leagues across the country are preparing themselves for what seems to be inevitable: What happens when the country sees its first active, openly-gay athlete in a major sport?
Everything from desegregation, such as Jackie Robinson’s smashing of baseball’s color barrier, to centuries-old religious differences have found their way onto athletic fields throughout history. In one way or another, they have worked as proponents — or, in some instances, opponents — of change in society.
This generation’s conflict has taken shape in the form of equality for those who identify themselves as member’s of the LGBT community.
A football locker room has long been drenched in traditional masculine attitudes, making it a prime battleground for the same-sex equality movement.
“Football is supposed to be this violent sport — this aggressive sport that grown men are supposed to play,” said senior LSU running back Alfred Blue. “Ain’t no little boys out here between them lines. So if you gay, we look at you as a sissy. You know? Like, how you going to say you can do what we do and you want a man?”
A line has been drawn in the sand on the issue of openly gay athletes in football.
On one side stand those who see the sport through the same eyes as Blue — who could be expressing a common attitude among NCAA football players. The running back does not stand as the lone opponent to an era of change in football, as shown by San Francisco 49ers’ cornerback Chris Culliver, who made similar remarks only a few months back.
“I don’t do the gay guys, man. I don’t do that,” Culliver said during an interview at Super Bowl Media Day. “Ain’t got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can’t be with that sweet stuff.”
On the other side are those who say it wouldn’t affect them. The You Can Play project — an organization that’s mission is to ensure “equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation” — and its slogan, “If you can play, you can play,” have given the movement national attention. The NHL recently announced a partnership with You Can Play.
“College football is a business and you have to conduct yourself in a manner where you respect everyone you deal with,” said LSU sophomore offensive lineman Trai Turner. “I feel like if the person is gay, he must still conduct himself in the manner of a football player, and if a person isn’t gay, he must still look at the person who views himself as gay, or says he is gay, as his teammate.”
Turner acknowledged that there are people in college football who would be hesitant to accept an openly gay teammate. He said people are raised differently and hold varying beliefs, but added that personal beliefs should be left off the field, no matter what they are.
“Being gay won’t do nothing for you,” Turner said. “If I knew I was lining up in front of somebody that was gay, I’m going to pancake him and sit on him just like I would on anybody else.”
When asked how they would feel about having an openly gay teammate, most athletes continued to preach teamwork and brotherhood.
LSU sophomore quarterback Stephen Rivers summed up the attitude in just one sentence.
“If he can play for LSU, he will play for LSU,” Rivers said.
However, the notion of an openly gay football player brings with it a level of tension and anxiety among athletes — despite which side of the issue they are on.
The topic of openly gay athletes in football is so taboo, the LSU Athletic Department would not allow players to be asked questions on the topic before they were properly prepped for the interview.
LSU junior kicker James Hairston said the deeper issue is the respect people show to one another throughout their lives.
“I believe that this is an important issue, one that does need to come to the forefront, that does need to be talked about,” Hairston said. “But I think the main thing is people can learn as fans, as athletes, as just people in general, just respect one another and it ends at that.”
According to a Gallup poll done in 2012, approximately 3.4 percent of the American population identify themselves as members of the LGBT community.
Statistically, out of the 109 athletes currently on the LSU football roster, four of them could potentially be gay. However, the accuracy of that number can never be truly known due to the fear of a backlash or prejudice directed at their announcements.
Rivers said a major factor in why no active football player to date has come out may be the inevitable trash-talking and unwanted media attention he would receive by becoming what some are already calling the “Jackie Robinson of gay rights.”
“In today’s society, I think there would be something extra for the person lining up against that person,” Rivers said. “You get trash-talking whether you have those problems or not, and I could see that happening.”
Even if the number of openly gay athletes on the football team is zero at the moment — something Blue insisted was the case — the possibility still remains that a player may come out in the future and LSU coach Les Miles and his team will have to respond.
“I would handle it as what’s important and what’s best for the team,” Miles said. “I would treat him, and expect his teammates to treat him, in an appropriate and straightforward manner. ... It would have to be something that I took to an office and kind of describe how I saw locker rooms and how I saw travel and how I saw staying in hotel rooms and how I saw those things. If that’s not an issue, I think things could be resolved.”

Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of the two suspects in the Boston bombings, called on his 19-year-old son, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to give up peacefully.

SEE RELATED: Dzhohar Tsarnaev’s father warns ‘all hell will break loose’ if son killed

He also said, in an ABC report, that “all hell will break loose” in the United States if police kill him. He did not specify further in the ABC report.

The father made the statements from his home in the Russian city of Makhachkala. He told The Associated Press in an earlier telephone call that ended angrily: My sons “were set up. I saw it on television. They killed my son.”

Mr. Tsarnaev told ABC that he had spoken with his sons on the telephone earlier this week.

“We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them,” he said, adding that his sons reassured him. “[They told me], everything is good, Daddy. Everything is very good.”

— Cheryl K. Chumley

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An Arizona gun store owner says he will not sell Mark Kelly the AR-15 rifle that the vocal advocate for tighter gun control bought earlier this month.
The manager of the Tucson, Ariz., store where Kelly, husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, bought the firearm has said that he will not complete the March 5 transaction, according to a statement posted on Facebook.

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“While I support and respect Mark Kelly’s 2nd Amendment rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner, his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons other then [sic] for his personal use,” Douglas MacKinlay, owner of Diamondback Police Supply, said in the post.

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The store was required to hold the rifle purchased by Kelly for 20 days, MacKinlay told the Associated Press after Kelly purchased the firearm.
“He is a U.S. citizen, an Arizona citizen expressing his Second Amendment rights to purchase and own a firearm,” MacKinlay told the AP at the time.
The gun store owner said in his statement posted on Monday that he had reconsidered the sale. MacKinlay did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday morning.
“In light of this fact, I determined that it was in my company’s best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store to complete the Federal Form 4473 and NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] background check required of Mr. Kelly before he could take possession of this firearm,” MacKinlay said in the statement.
The store sent Kelly a refund last Thursday, according to the statement. Kelly, an astronaut, has promoted tighter gun control since his wife, Giffords, was shot in the head at point-blank range by Jared Loughner in 2011.
The couple launched a new national campaign in January to combat gun violence. Americans for Responsible Solutions was launched “to encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership.”
Kelly, who is a gun owner, has said his purchase was meant to demonstrate how easy it is to buy a semi-automatic rifle.