Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 11-29-16 Online Edition

Sports
The Buccaneers have surged to 6-5, thanks in part to an offense that features quarterback Jameis Win- ston throwing the ball to re- ceiver Mike Evans.
“I always throw Mike the ball and I always talk about he’s my superstar,” Winston told reporters after the 14-5 win over Seattle. “Y’all always ask me why do you throw Mike the ball so much? I never understand those ques- tions. He just played an amaz- ing game today. That’s just the type of guy that he is and that’s the type of player he is.”
Bucs Jameis Winston Praises ‘Superstar’ Mike Evans
Browns Coach Hue Jackson: Being Winless Hardest Thing Ever
JAMEIS WINSTON AND MIKE EVANS
fourth player in league history to begin his career with three straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons. Evans joins John Jefferson, Randy Moss, and A. J. Green with that distinction.
really don't
need my butt kicked anymore."
The Browns are every bit of their record. Opponents have not scored less than 24 points in a game. The Browns have started three quarterbacks and had seven different players throw a pass. The last four games, the offense has scored 10, 7, 9 and 13 points.
Jackson would not second- guess his decision to gut the roster -- he called it a "reboot" - - and load it with rookies. When Sunday's game started, 18 of the team's 53 players were rookies.
"I'm not going to get into all that," Jackson said. "None of that matters right now. We have the team we have, and I'm just going to keep coaching the heck out of them."
Evans became only the
Bucs Cornerback Verner Says All Late
Father Wanted 'Was For Me To Play Hard'
Tampa Bay Buccaneers cor- nerback Alterraun Verner crouched down on the field for several seconds, holding tightly the ball he had just in- tercepted, as teammates gath- ered around him. As he made his way to the bench, and the magnitude of the moment set in, tears began to flow.
Just 48 hours prior to kick- off, Verner's father, Robert, had died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 61. Robert had flown to Tampa from California to be with his son and his young family on Thanksgiving. Alterraun was not with the team Friday, but vowed to play, saying before
two pass breakups in the Bucs' 14-5 win over the Seattle Sea- hawks. "He made so many sacrifices for me to get where I am today, and I just know that he wouldn't want to be the cause for me not to play, so that's why I decided to play. I wanted to honor him knowing allthathedidtotrytogetme to where I am today."
Verner and several of his teammates huddled up before taking the field and broke with "Alterraun!" He also wore a shirt underneath his uniform that had a picture of him and his father on it from when he was at UCLA. His wife, Sina'e, made it for him.
"One thing that I won't ever forget about him was his smile, and that was one of my favorite smiles of his," Verner said. "It's just to show that he's always with me and he's always going to be with me every game. Every step of the way, off the field or on the field, because of the type of man he was, is what made me into the man I am today."
Verner described his dad as "the most caring, loving person that you [would] ever know" -- one who "was willing to take his shirt off and give it to a person that he never knew."
Verner, 27, said all his fa- ther ever asked of him every game was "just to play my hardest."
"I could give up three touchdowns or I could get three interceptions, and he would still love me the same," said Verner. "So it's a bless- ing on how it happened for us to get the win and everything, but all he ever wanted was for me to play hard, and that's what I did for him."
"I don't like losing," Jack-
Colin Kaepernick: Fidel Castro
“Mike Evans is elite,” Winston said. “I say that every week. He is a superstar. It’s just a testament that hard work pays off. We worked real hard this offseason. He in particular worked very hard this offseason. It’s really pay- ing off. You just see how great he really is.”
Evans, who had eight catches for 104 yards and the only two touchdowns scored by either team, shrugged at his feat.
“That’s an all right accom- plishment,” he told reporters. “I’m more about team accom- plishments though.”
Hue Jackson tapped his right hand on the side of the podium as he tried to find a way to describe being 0-12 in his first season as the Cleveland Browns coach. As he spoke, his eyes started to well up and his voice broke ever so slightly.
"Being 0-12 is probably ... the hardest thing ever," Jack- son said after the team's 12th loss in 12 games, 27-13 to the New York Giants.
Jackson quickly composed himself, but this was the first real sign of emotion that the coach has shown in a long sea- son. The more he spoke, the more it was evident that every loss is taking a piece out of him.
"It's been a long 12 weeks," Jackson said. Sunday's press conference started about 20 to 30 minutes late.
Jackson said he simply had a regular postgame assessment with management that went long, and he said he is not wor- ried about his job.
"I'm going to be here," he said. But he also said he's going through something he's never experienced.
son said. "I
never have
and never
will. I've had
my butt
kicked up
enough over
my shoulders
enough this HUE season that I
JACKSON
ALTERRAUN VERNER
the game that he was dedicat- ing the performance to his fa- ther.
"My dad was my biggest fan," said Verner, who fin- ished with an interception and
San Francisco 49ers quarter- back Colin Kaepernick said Sunday he believes his com- ments to South Florida media last week about former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro were taken out of context.
"What I said was I agree with the investment in education," Kaepernick said. "I also agree with the investment in free uni- versal healthcare as well as the involvement in him helping end apartheid in South Africa. I would hope that everybody agrees those things are good things. And trying to push the false narrative that I was a sup- porter of the oppressive things that he did is just not true."
On a conference call with Miami media last week before Castro's death, Kaepernick was asked about a T-shirt he wore early in his protest of racial oppression and inequal- ity that showed Castro and Malcolm X together in 1960 with the phrase "like minds think alike."
Miami Herald reporter Ar- mando Salguero, a Cuban exile, and Kaepernick went back and forth on the subject. Kaepernick pointed to Cas- tro's investment in education, leading to a high literacy rate in Cuba, as a positive outcome of his time in power. Kaeper- nick also said he was wearing the shirt in support of Mal- colm X more than as a com- mentary on how he feels about
COLIN KAEPERNICK
Castro.
All of that happened before
Kaepernick and the Niners played the Dolphins on Sunday in South Florida, which has the largest Cuban population in the United States. Dolphins fans loudly booed Kaepernick as he and the 49ers offense ran onto the field for their first drive.
After the Niners' 10th straight loss, Kaepernick said he could understand why this community would have objec- tions over any support of Cas- tro, but he again said the goal of the shirt was not to show support for Castro's oppres- sion.
"I can understand the con- cern, but for me, what I said was that was a historic moment for Malcolm," Kaepernick said. "I'm not going to cut out pieces of Malcolm's life. In 1960, when they met in Harlem, that was a historic mo- ment -- and that's something I will always be true to what Malcolm was, what he repre- sented, because I'm not going to cut out history."
Remarks Taken Out Of Context
PAGE 14 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016