Page 17 - Florida Sentinel 12-25-20

Sports
Bucs Comeback
Deion Sanders Landed Another Big Transfer
DEION SANDERS Deion Sanders has al- ready made a massive impact
on recruiting at Jackson State. Sanders was hired on Sep. 21 as the new head coach for the Southwestern Athletic Con- ference HBCU. Since then, Sanders has already landed some huge recruits and trans-
fers for the Tigers’ program. The first significant recruit- ment news came when “Show- time’s” son, four-star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, committed to Jack- son State after flipping from
Florida Atlantic.
Tennessee linebacker
Nyles Gaddy announced his transfer to the program later that week. “Coach Prime” also landed another transfer in late September, adding Missis- sippi State freshman corner- back Javorrius Selmon.
ESPN Replaces Sage Steele With The Woman She Tried To Get Fired
SAGE STEELE AND ELLE DUNCAN
Karma always finds a way to win.
Sage Steele will no longer be anchoring the almighty daily 6 p.m. edition of SportsCenter. According to ESPN: “Steele will move to the noon ET edition of- SportsCenter as co-anchor after the College Football Playoff and will add a new periodic ESPN+ interview program to her slate.”
Steele is being replaced by Elle Duncan — the Black woman she recently tried to get fired, or at least demoted. Duncan will take over in Feb- ruary and co-host the show with Kevin Negandhi Mon- day through Friday. Despite how the press release reads, this is a demotion for Steele.
Hawks Announce Historic Agreement With Black-Owned Banks
From 17-0, To Beat
Falcons 31-27; Play
Lions Saturday
It started about as ugly as possible the Tampa Bay Buc- caneers against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, but they finished on the other ex- treme, overcoming a 17-0 halftime deficit on their way to a 31-27 victory.
Tom Brady threw for a season-high 390 yards and two touchdowns as the Bucs scored on five straight sec- ond-half possessions to earn their ninth win of the season, inching closer to their first playoff berth since 2007.
Leonard Fournette
rushed for a pair of touch- downs in Ronald Jones, II’s absence, while Mike Evans led the Bucs with 110 yards on six receptions.
Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin each caught touchdowns for the Bucs, with Brown’s being a 46- yard bomb in the fourth quar- ter that gave Tampa Bay their first and only lead of the game.
Devin White led the Tampa Bay defense with nine tackles and two sacks, help- ing to hold the Falcons to just 10 points in the second half.
The Falcons lost despite a strong day from their offense, with Matt Ryan throwing for 356 yards and three touchdowns with no inter- ceptions, and Calvin Ridley catching 10 passes for 163 yards and a touchdown.
Now at 9-5 on the season, the Bucs can clinch that spot in the postseason as early as Week 16 with a win over the Detroit Lions.
Bucs Benefit From Suspect Spot To Seal Win Over Falcons
Tom Brady once again orchestrated an improbable comeback win over the At- lanta Falcons on Sunday, and
TOM BRADY
his Tampa Bay Buccaneers may have gotten some help from the officiating crew at the end of the game.
The Bucs were leading 31- 27 late in the fourth quarter when they turned Atlanta over on downs deep in Fal- cons territory. Tampa Bay needed just one first down to deal the victory, and they picked it up with a very gen- erous spot on Leonard Fournette’s third-down run. Fournette appeared to reach his arm forward after being down well short of the line, but the official who spot- ted the ball gave him the ben- efit of the doubt.
One official actually slid the ball forward, presumably because he believed Four- nette reached out before his arm hit the turf.
A bad spot is one thing, but the measurement itself appeared to greatly benefit the Bucs. It looked like the ball was still short even after the generous spot, and the of- ficial tilted the stick in the Bucs’ favor.
The Falcons will almost certainly want a word with the NFL over that, though they have no one to blame for the loss but themselves. They were leading 24-7 at one point and blew yet another massive lead.
As you probably could have predicted, that led to some hilarious Super Bowl meltdown memes.
The Atlanta Hawks an- nounced that it has agreed to refinance the construction loan for the Emory Sports Medicine Complex with a syn- dicate of Black-owned banks. The $35M loan marks the first time a professional sports franchise has had a significant loan underwritten exclusively by Black banks.
The groundbreaking trans- action was facilitated with the support of the newly-formed National Black Bank Founda- tion, which organized a syndi- cation team to structure the deal. Georgia-based Carver State Bank served as the syn- dicate’s Lead Arranger. By partnering with the Black bank syndicate, the Hawks are both demonstrating that Black banks can compete with money center banks for com- mercial loans as well as using the Club’s strong credit rating
to bolster the capital cushion for Black banks so that they can better serve their tradi- tional customer base.
“Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to putting our values into action– by choosing to work with Black banks and drawing attention to the need for Black banks to thrive as they work toward ad- dressing the lack of access to capital in Black communities,” said Tony Ressler, Principal Owner of the Atlanta Hawks. “We always strive to ask our- selves how the Hawks can best help those in the community that are already helping oth- ers, and today’s announce- ment is another step in our commitment to use the Hawks as a positive agent of change. This is both good for the com- munity and good business to empower new and existing Black businesses.”
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