Tag Archives: Associated Press

Ron Rivera Officially Named Washington Redskins Head Coach

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It’s official… Ron Riverais headed to The District.

The Washington Redskins have officially hired the 57-year-old Puerto Rican and Mexican American NFL coach as its head coach, the team officially announced on Wednesday.

Ron Rivera

Rivera had been dismissed in early December by the Carolina Panthers after eight and a half seasons. During his tenure with the Panthers, he took the team to four playoff appearances and finished as the franchise’s most successful head coach, with a 76-63-1 record. 

He arrived in town when quarterback Cam Newtonwas a rookie, and their fortunes rose and fell together. Their peak came in the 2015 season, when the Panthers were 15-1 and made their second Super Bowlappearance, losing to the Denver Broncos, 24-10, in Peyton Manning’s final game.

Rivera was named coach of the year by The Associated Pressin 2013 and 2015.

Despite those highs, the team has had a losing record in three of the last four years. This season, Newton played in only two games before leaving the lineup with a foot injury. There had been hopes that he would return, but he never did, a touchy topic that hung over the team.

The Panthers ran off four straight wins behind the backup Kyle Allen. The magic didn’t last. Rivera was fired after a loss to Washington, with the team’s record at 5-7. They lost their last eight games, limping to a 5-11 record to finish in last place in the N.F.C. South.

Rivera was one of four non-white head coaches in the NFLat the start of this season.

“After several meetings with Coach Rivera, it was clear he is the right person to bring winning football back to Washington D.C.,” said Dan Snyder, the team owner, in a statement. “He is widely respected around the league as a man of great integrity and has proven to be one of the finest coaches in the country.”

Rivera inherits a Redskins team that slumped to a 3-13 record this season after four years of finishing within a game of .500. Coach Jay Gruden was firedafter an 0-5 start, but things didn’t improve much under the interim coach, Bill Callahan.

The team turned to rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins as the starter halfway through the season, but if anything, he performed worse than his predecessor, Case Keenum, before injuring an ankle in Week 16.

The Associated Press Names Miranda Its Entertainer of the Year

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Lin-Manuel Miranda isn’t just the man of the hour… He’s the man of the last 8,000-plus hours.

The 36-year-old Puerto Rican actor, playwright, composer, rapper, and writer, bested Beyonce, Adele and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, among others, to earn the honor of The Associated Press Entertainer of the Year, voted by members of the news cooperative and AP entertainment reporters.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Best known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights. Miranda has had a banner year, winning a Pulitzer Prize and a pair of Tony Awards.

The Hamilton writer-composer also earned a Golden Globe nomination, won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, wrote music for a top movie, and inspired a best-selling book, a best-selling album of Hamilton covers and a popular PBS documentary.

“There’s been more than a little good luck in the year itself and the way it’s unfolded,” Miranda said after being told of the honor. “I continue to try to work on the things I’ve always wanted to work on and try to say yes to the opportunities that I’d kick myself forever if I didn’t jump at them.”

Miranda joins the list of previous AP Entertainer of the Year winners who in recent years have included Adele, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, Lady Gaga, Tina Fey and Betty White.

The animated Disney juggernaut Frozen captured the prize in 2014, and Star Wars won last year. (Miranda wrote one of the songs in The Force Awakens.)

When he hosted Saturday Night Live in October, he somewhat tongue-in-cheek acknowledged the rarity of having a theater composer as host, saying: “Most of you watching at home have no idea who I am.”

But that has definitely changed… Miranda was virtually everywhere in popular culture this year — stage, film, TV, music and politics — engaging on social media as he went. Like a lyric he wrote for Alexander Hamilton, it seemed at times that the non-stop Miranda was working as if he was “running out of time.”

Julio D. Diaz, of the Pensacola News Journal, said Miranda “made the whole world sing, dance and think. Coupled with using his prestige to become involved in important sociopolitical issues, there was no greater or more important presence in entertainment in 2016.”

Among the things Miranda did this year are asking the U.S. Congress to help dig Puerto Rico out of its debt crisis, getting an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, performing at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton on Broadway, lobbying to stop gun violence in America, and teaming up with Jennifer Lopez on the benefit single “Love Make the World Go Round.”

He and his musical Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards in June, but perhaps his deepest contribution that night was tearfully honoring those killed hours before at an Orlando nightclub with a beautiful sonnet: “Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside,” he said. “Now fill the world with music, love and pride.”

He started the year onstage in the Broadway hit Hamilton (which in 2015 had won a Grammy and earned Miranda a MacArthur genius grant) and ended it with a Golden Globe nomination for writing the song “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, which was on top of the box office for three weeks this month, earning $165 million.

“I’ve been jumping from thing to thing and what’s been thrilling is to see the projects that happen very quickly kind of exploding side-by-side with the projects I’ve been working on for years,” Miranda said.

Though theater fans have long cherished his fluency in both Stephen Sondheim and Tupac, Hamilton helped Miranda break into the mainstream in 2016. The groundbreaking, biographical hip-hop show tells the true story of an orphan immigrant from the Caribbean who rises to the highest ranks of American society, performed by a young African-American and Latino cast.

The cast went to the White House in March to perform songs from the show for the first family and to answer questions from school children. A version of the show opened in Chicago in October and a production is slated to land in California next year and in London soon.

Erin O’Neill of The Marietta Times said Miranda dominated entertainment news this year but, more importantly, “opened a dialogue about government, the founding of our country and the future of politics in America.”

There’s more Miranda to come in 2017, including filming Disney‘s Mary Poppins Returns with Emily Blunt (due out Christmas 2018) and an ambitious TV and film adaptation of the fantasy trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle.

“I’m back in a planting mode after a harvest,” Miranda said, laughing.

Lopez Agrees to Lucrative Contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks

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Diamond(back)s are Yoan Lopez’s new best friends…

The 21-year-old Cuban professional baseball pitcher and the Arizona Diamondbacks have agreed to a contract that includes an $8.27 million signing bonus, according to multiple reports.

Yoan Lopez

A hard-throwing right-hander, Lopez is expected to begin his Diamondbacks career in the minor leagues.

The Associated Press and MLB.com both reported that the $8.27 million bonus is the largest for a young player who resides outside the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico and subject to a team’s international signing pool under baseball’s collective bargaining agreement.

Lopez counts toward a club’s signing pool because he is under 23 and has played professionally less than five years in a Cuban professional league.

Because Arizona would exceed its pool of $2,316,600 by 15 percent or more for the one-year period ending July 1, the Diamondbacks would incur a 100 percent tax on the overage and be barred for the next two signing periods from adding an international player subject to the pool with a bonus over $300,000.

The Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels already have gone over their pools by 15 percent or more.

The Angels and 20-year-old Cuban infielder Roberto Baldoquin finalized an agreement on January 6 for an $8 million signing bonus.

Arizona agreed in December to a $68.5 million, six-year contact with 24-year-old Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas.

Chávez Jr. Wins a Unanimous Decision Over Bryan Vera

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Despite some rustiness after a yearlong absence, Julio César Chávez Jr. is back in winning form.

The 27-year-old Mexican professional boxer won a unanimous decision over Bryan Vera on Saturday night in his return to the ring after a yearlong absence.

Julio César Chávez Jr.

Chavez (47-1-1) overcame weight struggles and a lively challenge from the virtually unknown Vera to get the decision on all three judges’ scorecards, taking the bout 96-94, 97-93 and 98-92.

“I definitely won seven or eight rounds of the fight,” Chavez said. “I was very close to knocking him out like three times in the fight.”

Not many ringside observers agreed: The crowd at StubHub Center, largely pro-Chavez during the fight, booed the decision and Chavez as he left the ring. The Associated Press scored it 96-94 for Vera.

The win capped a rocky stretch for Chavez, who hadn’t fought since Sept. 15, 2012, when he received his first career defeat in a thrilling decision against middleweight king Sergio Martinez.

After serving a nine-month drug suspension, Chavez missed the original 168-pound contract limit for his comeback bout with Vera. The notorious boxing scion struggled just to get to the new 173-pound limit for Friday’s weigh-in.

Vera (23-7) and his camp were furious with the verdict, feeling he outpointed Chavez with superior activity and aggression in the 10-round bout. Vera landed 176 of his 734 punches — throwing more than twice as many as Chavez, who landed 125 of 328 — while also landing more power shots than Chavez, whose face was swollen and cut by the final bell.

“This is the best performance of my career,” Vera said. “The weight was never an issue. The game plan was exactly what we did. I was never hurt during the fight.”

Vera was the aggressor from the opening bell, chasing Chavez around the ring and throwing twice the volume of punches. Chavez, who wouldn’t step on HBO‘s scale before the fight, consistently backed up against his smaller opponent.

But Chavez also landed his left hook consistently, setting up short right hands that turned Vera’s head.

The sixth round was a corker, with both fighters trading big shots. Vera appeared to be winning the seventh round, cutting Chavez on the nose during a flurry against the ropes, but Chavez staggered him with a big left hook in the final seconds.

Chavez complained repeatedly about head butts and low blows by Vera, who finished the final round aggressively and thrust his arms skyward at the final bell.

No matter the decision, Chavez showed some rust and conditioning issues in his first bout since losing to Martinez. Chavez took a pounding in the first 11 rounds of that bout before staggering and nearly stopping Martinez in the 12th, possibly falling a few seconds shy of an upset victory.

But Chavez’s career hit the rocks shortly after that impressive moment. He tested positive for marijuana use, receiving a nine-month suspension and a hefty fine, and he split with respected trainer Freddie Roach and strength coach Alex Ariza.

Chavez was ostensibly trained for this fight by his famous father, although the Hall of Famer watched the evening’s opening bouts in a tuxedo while broadcasting for Mexican television’s Azteca Deportes.

Chavez had hoped to return with another middleweight fight, but realized early in negotiations with Vera that he couldn’t get down to 160 pounds any more. Chavez tried to make the super middleweight limit, but gave up several days ago — and reportedly paid a hefty penalty to Vera on top of Vera’s $275,000 purse.

Chavez, whose purse was $2.5 million, could afford it.

Vera is the son and brother of boxers from Austin, Texas. He competed on the reality show The Contender before upsetting Andy Lee in 2008, leading to a decent career as a second-tier opponent for numerous 160-pound contenders.

Vera revitalized his career in the past 18 months with victories in his last four bouts, including a surprise stoppage of Ukraine’s Sergiy Dzinziruk in January.

Santos Named to AP All-America Team…

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He may have been born in South America, but Cairo Santos is All-American…

The 21-year-old Tulane University kicker, who was born in Brazil and played high school football in Florida, has been named to the Associated Press All-America team.

Cairo Santos

Santos, who claimed the Lou Groza Collegiate Place Kicker Award this past weekend, was named the All-American kicker after making all 21 of his field goal attempts, including a 57-yarder against Rice University to tie a school record.

Santos is the first Green Wave football player to earn the honor since kicker Seth Marler made the first team in 2001, and he’s the 19th football player in Tulane history to make All-American.