Category: Bleacher Report

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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STEPHEN CARR WON’T BE STOPPED SHORT

Carr isn’t cold. He hails from the sleepy city of Fontana, about 55 miles east, where the cutting wind threatens to knock you over. Cars shake. Trash cans fly. Street lights sway. This wind doesn’t bother Carr, though. He has withstood things much worse—things that could have swept him up as a child and then a teen. He chose to keep running. So fast that college coaches drooled at the way he flew downfield and then planted one foot and instantly zoomed the opposite direction. His motto was: “Slow feet don’t eat.”

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE IS HOLDING COURT

He plays the position of receiver like he’s playing basketball, not football. His explosion off the snap is deceptive, like he’s crafting a route to the hoop, not showing his highest gear of speed until he’s already past you. At 6’3″, 225 pounds, he fights for a catch like he’s boxing out, establishing position in the post before leaping in the air. And he attacks the open space like it has wronged him, like a rebound is suspended there and he cannot wait for the ball to sail into his palms. JJ Arcega-Whiteside is, as his quarterback at Stanford, K.J. Costello, calls him, “an outlier.” “The way he runs routes, the way he operates,” Costello says, “is just not normal.”

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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CHRISTIAN COLEMAN IS MORE THAN JUST THE MAN WHO BEAT BOLT

Coleman probably shouldn’t have competed in back-to-back races while rehabbing, but he doesn’t see limitations. Never has. That’s why one afternoon, the summer before heading off to college at the University of Tennessee, while hanging out with some friends at the house of his former high school coach, Mark Tolcher, Coleman declared that he was going to sprint down the driveway, past a downward slope and clear Tolcher’s 20-foot-wide pool. Coleman was a dominant long-jumper at the time. He was also out of his mind.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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No. 1 RECRUIT KAYVON THIBODEAUX LARGE AND IN CHARGE OF HIS DESTINY

Kayvon Thibodeaux couldn’t help that he sprouted to 6’2″ by age 13. He couldn’t help that he charged through kids in his Pop Warner All-Star Game that year like they were hollow figurines. An ambulance was called when one boy couldn’t get back up. “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He was just strong,” says his mother, Shawnta Loice. “They couldn’t stop him.” Until referees did. They were so concerned for the other team’s safety that they pulled Thibodeaux out and didn’t allow him to re-enter the game.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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UNASSUMING INDIANA BASKETBALL PHENOM ROMEO LANGFORD JUST WANTS TO PLAY BALL

Romeo Langford is clanking step-back after step-back at the elbow with his trainer, Dion Lee, here at Central High School in Louisville. Langford’s poker face doesn’t break. But Jonathan Jeanty, a family friend looking on, knows Langford is pissed. “He expects to make every shot,” Jeanty says. “He’s kind of a perfectionist.” He’s not flicking his wrist hard enough. It’s been sore since landing awkwardly in a January game. The follow through was one of the first things Tim taught his son. “Romeo, you got to feel it,” he’d say to his young son. “What do you mean, Dad?” “You got to feel it. You got to know it’s going in. It’s a feel thing.”

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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PUT SOME RESPECT ON CANDACE PARKER’S NAME

Up, down, up, down. It’s a rhythm all basketball players know and try to control. But the older you get, the more you realize how little control you have. You can do everything right and lose. You can do everything wrong and win. You train your body beyond its limits, but it fails you. “Why can’t I be healthy? Why can’t I catch a break?” Parker has questioned. She has felt disappointed about not yet capturing the six rings she set out to win to match Michael Jordan. But the black-and-white lens in which a young Parker once viewed success has grayed. She’s learned to live with outcomes, not as she wants them to be but exactly as they are, in all their glory and agony.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ASIA DURR

Asia Durr isn’t blinking. Her No. 9 Louisville Cardinals are facing No. 5 Ohio State. Durr’s brown eyes are frozen, teeth clenched. She doesn’t see anyone. Doesn’t hear anything. In this moment, on this hardwood at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, someone is going to suffer. Durr jabs hard to the left, then crosses to the right—too quick, too slick—and her defender inevitably bites. Durr pops a step-back three, leaning like she knows it’s good. Of course it is. It’s only the first quarter, but she’s got that look in her eye. Terry Durr, Asia’s father, who is seated directly across from the Louisville bench, recognizes that look immediately. “She’s ready to destroy someone,” Terry says of his daughter.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL’S BREAKOUT STAR: MIKAL BRIDGES, THE KAWHI LEONARD CLONE

They used to call him Noodles. Inspector Go Go Gadget. String Bean. Brittle (short for Brittle Bones). Praying Mantis. Mikal Bridges was so skinny and lanky and his arms were so long—”freakishly long,” Bridges tells me—that his Villanova teammates roasted him with a range of nicknames. The 6’7” swingman was an easy target then: a freshman. A young freshman (17 years old). About 185 pounds. Gangly shoulders, little head (they called him “Pea-head,” too).

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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TOP QB RECRUIT JUSTIN FIELDS CAN’T WAIT TO COMPETE WITH JAKE FROMM

Outside his home, outside Kennesaw, few can understand why the 6’3″, 225-pound quarterback with the size, athleticism, arm strength, lights-out quickness and razor-sharp IQ (he also has a 3.9 GPA) would choose Georgia. The program already has a true freshman in Jake Fromm, who led the Bulldogs to the SEC championship and national championship game. “It’s shocking,” says Barton Simmons, director of scouting for 247Sports. Maybe to outsiders. But to Fields? The decision was as natural as a trip to the Waffle House (he goes after every game and orders a chocolate-chip waffle). It just felt right.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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HOW MO’NE DAVIS MADE HER HOOP DREAMS COME TRUE: INSIDE LIFE AFTER LITTLE LEAGUE

Mo’ne Davis calls for the ball. She drains a three, holding her follow-through for a second longer as she and a teammate battle two others for most threes made during a drill. “BOOM!” the boys on the sideline shout. Davis, wearing white and chrome Nike Kobe A.D.s, scurries around the perimeter, releasing shot after shot. “They cheatin’!” Davis hollers, waving her arms and hip-checking one of her opponents. She pops three more in a row. “Oh yeaaaaahhhh,” she says, bouncing up and down, sensing victory. Davis has been knocking down shots at Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Recreation Center with these same boys—her teammates on the Anderson Monarchs, a youth recreational team—for the past eight years. The center’s gym, with its four rows of brown bleachers, its cream-colored wall tile and its green and white scoreboard, has long been home to the 15-year-old.