Prep talk: Southland natives selected for USA national softball team
Southern California is a hotbed for softball talent, so it comes as no surprise that the USA national team's 15-person roster for the World Games in Chengdu, China, is loaded with local products.
Players either went to high school locally or played for UCLA.
They include Oaks Christian and UCLA standout Maya Brady and St. Anthony and Oklahoma star Tiare Jennings. There's Rachel Garcia from Highland and UCLA. Amanda Lorenz was a star at Moorpark and Florida.
Kinzie Hansen went to Norco and Oklahoma. It's a who's who of players who have been great in youth softball and college softball. …
The Southern Section released its boys'volleyball and lacrosse playoff pairings. Here's the link for volleyball. Here's boys' lacrosse. Here's girls' lacrosse.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
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Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Q&A: How are college sports changing in the wake of House settlement?
USC players prepare to take the field before a win over UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Nov. 23. A federal judge approved a landmark revenue-sharing settlement last week that will change college sports moving forward. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) College sports leaders and athletes were in limbo for months while waiting for a House settlement to be approved. An agreement would create clarity, better supporting college conferences and their respective universities that had been blindly preparing for the next academic year — unsure which name, image and likeness (NIL) rules they'd be playing by. Late Friday, structure and stability arrived as the House settlement became approved and official. Advertisement 'The decision on Friday is a significant step forward toward building long-term stability for college sports while protecting the system from bad actors seeking to exploit confusion and uncertainty,' Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said during a news conference Monday morning that included commissioners of the Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast and the Pac 12 conferences. Read more: Landmark NCAA settlement decision clears way for schools to directly pay athletes The House settlement has set the stage for revenue-sharing between universities and their athletes. Claudia Wilken, the presiding judge of California's Northern District, accepted the final proposal Friday between the NCAA and the plaintiffs, current and former athletes seeking financial compensation for NIL-related backpay. The NCAA will pay close to $2.8 billion to former athletes — as many as 389,700 athletes who played between June 15, 2016, to Sept. 15, 2024 — across a 10-year period and will also implement a 10-year revenue sharing model that will allow universities to pay current athletes up to $20.5 million per year. Advertisement According to the settlement, the total is '22% of the Power Five schools' average athletic revenues each year' and the revenue-sharing cap will incrementally increase every year. What is the College Sports Commission and who is leading it? The newly-founded College Sports Commission, led by former MLB executive Bryan Seeley, was created to make sure all NIL deals comply with NCAA rules shaped by the settlement terms. The commission 'will investigate potential rules violations, make factual determinations, issue penalties where appropriate, and participate in the neutral arbitration process set forth in the settlement as necessary,' according to a news release naming Sealey as the inaugural chief executive. Advertisement Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said it was a unanimous decision among the commissioners that Seeley was the right person for the role. Tony Petitti, Big Ten commissioner, said that although he didn't work directly with Seeley during his previous stint at MLB, he saw Commissioner Rob Manfred rely on Seeley's expertise. What is 'NIL Go' and what role does it play? UCLA coach DeShaun Foster leads his players onto the field at the Rose Bowl before a loss to USC in November. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) The College Sports Commission will work alongside a clearinghouse called "NIL Go," created by accounting firm Deloitte, to approve or deny any third-party NIL agreements that exceed $600. "NIL Go" is the technology platform athletes and schools will use to report NIL agreements. Advertisement All new third-party NIL deals must now be reported to the clearinghouse starting June 7 — the day after the settlement was approved — although the platform won't launch online until June 11. How will the rules be enforced? The commission is still in the process of determining what punishment schools and athletes might face for violating NIL rules. 'We're in the process of developing some of those rules and structure,' ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. 'Now that we have Brian [Seeley] on board, I think we'll be able to move a little bit quicker, but we want to get this right. … Nothing to date right now that we're ready to come forward with.' How will the money paid to current athletes be allocated? The ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC were the original parties targeted in lawsuits finally settled Friday's ruling. Advertisement The expectation is that about 90% of financial resources at their schools will go to revenue sports — football and men's basketball — with the other 10% being scattered between traditional Olympic sports. 'The decision was made fairly early on that we'd be in a local decision-making [process] about how rev share would work, and then all the decisions that come off of that,' Petitti said of conversations with leaders of Big Ten's schools. 'So that's where we are, giving our institutions the discretion [on how to allocate revenue-sharing funds] and they want that discretion.' What happens to NIL collectives now? Most NIL collectives — such as USC's House of Victory or UCLA's Men of Westwood — are expected to focus on marketing and connecting athletes to NIL opportunities rather than brokering agreements and directly paying them. The new revenue-sharing model makes it much easier for schools to directly pay athletes, replacing a role collectives took on in the past when schools were banned from paying athletes. How will current NIL deals be influenced by new salary cap? Contracts may need to be restructured because many — but not all — NIL deals were completed through collectives, a process that would now need to receive approval from the Deloitte clearinghouse. Advertisement When determining the proper range for NIL deals, "NIL Go" references 'market reach' and the 'local market' — two factors among many that could work in favor of UCLA and USC because Los Angeles is the second largest media market in the country and would naturally index high on market reach. What are the new roster and scholarship rules? USC men's basketball players stand during the playing of the national anthem before a game against Oregon at Galen Center on Dec. 4. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) Roster limits will influence all sports. Football teams can now feature up to 105 players, up from 85. Men's basketball rosters can feature 15 players instead of 13. Some Olympic sports, such as baseball, will see a roster-sizes decrease. In all sports, schools can offer as many scholarships as their roster limit instead of the previous NCAA scholarship limits. Whereas teams could only offer 11.7 scholarships in baseball, now universities can offer a full scholarship to all 34 players. Softball teams can now offer 25 scholarships rather than 12 in previous seasons. Women's gymnastics can offer a full 20. Advertisement This is not to say all teams will offer full rides to fill every roster spot. In all likelihood, for most Power 4 programs, there will still be walk-on players filling spots on the team. At UCLA, athletic director Martin Jarmond said he plans on keeping UCLA's scholarship limits at where it was before the settlement — 85 for football and 13 for men's basketball. The rationale, Jarmond said, is to allow UCLA to provide larger revenue-sharing totals to their athletes instead of splitting funds across full scholarship totals. USC has yet to publicly share its plans for athletic scholarships. Read more: 'A huge moment': Martin Jarmond discusses UCLA's plans after House settlement 'We have to be bold and innovative in this new world,' Jarmond told The Times on Saturday . 'UCLA has always been on the forefront and been a leader and that's not going to change. We will embrace this new era and we will continue to support our student-athletes at a championship level.' SEC schools also plan to stick with 85 football roster spots during the 2025 season, a conference spokesman told CBS Sports during the conference's recent spring meetings. How would schools outside the Power 4 be influenced by the settlement? Whereas the Power 4 conferences — and the Pac-12 — automatically opted into the House settlement to end litigation, universities outside the Power 4 will have to opt-in to the revenue-sharing agreement by a June 15 deadline. The list of schools that opt in will become public after the deadline, according to the commission's website . The commission claims that even if universities decide not to opt in to the revenue-sharing agreements, they'll still have to report NIL agreements that go beyond the $600 threshold. It's unclear how much money these schools will share with their athletes. Advertisement Schools such as Long Beach State — should it opt-in to revenue-sharing — could provide further resources to its athletes in sports where Power 4 schools may not. Men's volleyball, for example, is a perennial national championship contender for Long Beach, winning a championship in 2025. Compared to Power 4 schools that may invest most of its funds into football and men's basketball, Olympic sports could become crown jewels for smaller athletic departments. Why do some athletes oppose the settlement? UCLA's Cooper Robinson (11) and Ethan Champlin (20) celebrate during a win over Long Beach State in the 2023 NCAA men's volleyball tournament. (Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press) With likely 90% of revenue-sharing funds headed toward football and men's basketball, some athletes see the House settlement as the beginning of athletic department restructuring — with Olympic sports being placed on the sidelines in favor of spending more money on high-revenue sports. Advertisement Cooper Robinson, who won a men's volleyball national championship with UCLA in 2024, commented on UCLA Athletics' Instagram post about the settlement, asking, 'So like is this only for Football and Basketball?' This past year, Grand Canyon University announced the dismantling of its men's volleyball program. The fear for athletes, especially for a university such as UCLA that had generated $219.5 million in debt over the last six fiscal years (an amount that has been covered by the university) is that smaller-revenue programs such as men's and women's volleyball could be cut to move finances elsewhere. Jarmond has committed to preserving Olympic sports at UCLA. Does the House settlement violate Title IX federal statutes requiring equal opportunities for male and female athletes? In the years ahead, with most financial resources likely headed to football and men's basketball rather than its women's sports programs, universities may have to defend their rationale in Title IX lawsuits. The settlement does not include any language providing directive to universities for how to deal with Title IX — explicitly stating 'the Court cannot conclude that violations of Title IX will necessarily occur if and when schools choose to provide compensation and benefits to student-athletes pursuant to the Injunctive Relief Settlement.' Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Former UCLA AD expects Elliott to thrive at UH
The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents will meet on Monday, June 16, to vote on the approval of Matt Elliott as the next athletics director for the Rainbow Warriors. Elliott, most recently with the Hawai'i Community Foundation, spent 13 years in athletic administration at UCLA, including as chief strategy officer. He played a key role in leading the Bruins into the Big Ten Conference. According to former UCLA athletics director Dan Guerrero, Elliott is well prepared to thrive in his new role at UH. 'Well, it became very obvious the first time I met Matt that he had something special,' Guerrero said. 'Over the course of 10 years that he was with me, he proved that he was one of the finest administrators that I've had the ability to work with.' Guerrero, who was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) 2021 Hall of Fame class, noted that Elliott's path into athletics administration was unconventional. 'When I first met him, he was a very successful attorney working for Ropes & Gray out of Boston in their sports practice,' Guerrero said. 'He was working with agents, writing contracts, doing compliance and infractions issues, all those kinds of things. But he wanted to work on a campus, to be involved with student-athletes. For him to leave a prestigious law firm and a great salary to essentially walk into an entry-level compliance role at a major university took a huge leap of faith. We sort of bet on each other, and it all turned out exactly as I thought it would. He'll be special for Hawai'i.' Guerrero believes Elliott's nontraditional background is a particular strength in today's rapidly evolving college athletics landscape. 'For him to bring experiences from outside the traditional world of college athletics adds value,' Guerrero said. 'In the 10 years he was at UCLA, he was among the very best. He knows how to win. He's been around it, working with national championship coaches and student-athletes. But he also knows the other parts of the business, the parts that can make or break you. 'I put him in charge of all our risk management. It was a natural fit with his background, and the policies and protocols he implemented saved us many times. He brings that perspective while also managing budgets, working with coaches and student-athletes, and building relationships both internally and externally.' Looking ahead to Elliott's transition to Hawai'i, Guerrero acknowledged the unique challenges of running a Division I program in the islands. 'Obviously, the geographic situation creates an innate challenge for any athletics program there,' Guerrero said. 'It takes a village, no one does this in a vacuum. You have to build authentic relationships to get the support you need. That requires hard work, really busting your tail to make inroads with the right people. 'One of Matt's strengths is in governmental relations. At UCLA, he was my point person on that. He often testified to the state legislature on my behalf. He understands that politics play a big part in being successful on any campus, but especially in Hawai'i, where everyone is invested in the welfare of the university and the athletics department. Matt can navigate those waters successfully.' Elliott was selected by UH president Wendy Hensel to be the next athletics director. If approved by the Board of Regents on Monday, he will officially take over the role. Stay with KHON2 Sports, on-air and online, for continuing coverage. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Miami Herald
16 hours ago
- Miami Herald
UCLA, Penn State deny reports of private equity funding from Elevate
UCLA and Penn State have denied a report Monday by Sportico that they have partnered with consulting firm Elevate to receive funding from its $500 million College Investment Initiative. Elevate formally announced the initiative earlier Monday and told news outlets that two schools had signed up with the project. However, UCLA and Penn State officials each denied Sportico's reporting that they have engaged with the new fund. Both schools said they're partnered with Elevate for ticketing operations but not for private equity. The College Investment Initiative is backed by Velocity Capital Management and the Texas Permanent School Fund. The idea behind the initiative is to offer capital to schools for revenue-generating projects -- like NIL platforms or athletic venue upgrades. Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey told Front Office Sports that his university is 'actively considering' private equity and hopes to have a deal set within the next six months. Field Level Media 2025 - All Rights Reserved
