Latest news with #Baffoe
RTHK
3 days ago
- Sport
- RTHK
Eastern keeps FA Cup title on late Baffoe hat-trick
Eastern keeps FA Cup title on late Baffoe hat-trick Eastern forward Noah Baffoe scored three goals in five minutes to seal a comeback win for the club. Photo courtesy of Eastern FC's Facebook Eastern Football Club on Saturday held on to their Hong Kong FA Cup title, thanks to a brilliant hat-trick by forward Noah Baffoe late in the game. BC Rangers' Lau Chi-lok opened the scoring early in the final at Mong Kok Stadium, finding the net less than 10 minutes after the match began. But Baffoe, the 32-year-old Eastern striker who had just been crowned Hong Kong Footballer of the Year, netted three goals in five minutes from the 80th minute to secure a 3-1 comeback for Eastern. This is the club's seventh FA Cup win in its history.
Chicago Tribune
23-05-2025
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
Once a sport for the wealthy, competitive sailing attracts fresh crew at Mount Carmel
This year, Mount Carmel Catholic High School in Chicago marked its 125th anniversary. Located just blocks from Jackson Park Harbor and Lake Michigan, it wasn't until two years ago that the Caravan Sailing Club became part of the school's extracurricular activities in the fall of 2023. The club has yet to enter high-profile sailing competitions, but on a Saturday morning practice last month, seven of the club's nine members learned an important lesson. The boom of the Club 420 dinghy they had taken into Jackson Park Harbor bumped a crew member, causing the boat's mast and sail to lose tension. The student wasn't hurt, but the boat started drifting. Though not as serious as capsizing, the situation offered crew members the most important truth of sailing — they must depend on each other. 'The first thing we do is check on the sailor then work as a team to right whatever's wrong with the boat,' said the club's head coach, Tim Baffoe, a 2000 Mount Carmel alum who also teaches English. Wednesdays after school, club members receive dryland instruction in Mount Carmel's gymnasium. They learn knot tying, boat anatomy, signals, safety and lifesaving, Baffoe said. While both settings are essential for learning, the water is where skills and character are tested. To get the boat back on course, three crew members voluntarily entered the harbor to swim/push the boat back to shore. The sun peeked out, but brisk winds were blowing and temperatures only climbed to the high 40s near the lakefront. Fortunately, the swimmers wore life vests as well as dry suits over their clothing, preventing the frigid water from touching their skin and causing hypothermia within minutes. Freshman Matthew Smith, who joined the club last fall, did not let being in the water dampen his enthusiasm for sailing. 'I like sailing and boats,' he said. 'My grandpa had a sailboat and we fished on it in Mississippi.' Much like Caravan Club members, the program itself depends upon the cooperation and support of others, including highly skilled volunteers. Karen Harris, former commodore for Jackson Park Yacht Club and president of the Jackson Park Yacht Club Foundation, spent the morning working with the Mount Carmel students. So did Bob Szyman, a retired Chicago State University recreation professor who helped establish Mount Carmel's sailing program. The high school club also operates with the blessing of Marlon Harvey, a 1980 Mount Carmel alum who now is commodore of the Jackson Park Yacht Club. The Beverly resident and retired Chicago Police Department mounted patrolman also serves as community founder of the Chicago Police Sailing Association and organizer of the Gold Star Regatta, which benefits the families of fallen police officers and first responders. Harris, the former commodore, recently instructed the Mount Carmel Caravan sailors on how to set up and take down a sail. She also offered plenty of pointers, including how to safely step from boat to dock and back again 'We (the foundation) work with several organizations and schools, and hold sailing camps in the summer,' Harris said, adding that the foundation aims to diversify the sport dominated for centuries by white males. Harris and the Jackson Park Yacht Club Foundation also helped to establish a sailing club at Gwendolyn Brooks High School in Chicago. 'It's really about STEM, which is essential to careers that pay,' she said. 'Sailing involves geometry, so we're teaching them math and STEM and they're so focused on what they're doing they don't realize it.' Sailing demands undivided attention, which requires kids to give up screen time, which can help make focusing and learning easier down the line. 'There are no cell phones on the boat,' Harris said. But during lessons, motorized rescue boats are nearby. Sailing opens new worlds and can lead to scholarships to some of the nation's top universities, Baffoe said. Some 276 colleges and universities in the U.S. have sailing teams and clubs, according to College Sports America. Among them are Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts, Dartmouth, MIT and Cornell. High school students who have participated in sailing competitions at the high school level have the best chances for college-level sailing scholarships. They are also more likely to participate in college or university sailing clubs that enable them to form lasting friendships, Harris said. 'We joined MISSA (the Interscholastic Sailing Association's regional governing body for high school sailing in the Midwest) but we're not doing races just yet, maybe in the fall or at the end of the summer,' Baffoe said. 'We did have a scrimmage against Fenwick last October and Timmy's boat got the most points.' Baffoe was referring to Mount Carmel freshman Timmy Carter, of Alsip, who skippered Caravan Sailing's first dinghy regatta win in a friendly competition with its Chicago Catholic League partner at Burnham Harbor. The school has billed Carter as the youngest crew member to participate in the Race to Mackinac. Now 15, he serves as volunteer instructor for the Jackson Park Yacht Club Foundation. Carter enjoys sports and said the fact that Mount Carmel established a sailing club influenced his decision to attend the school. 'Mount Carmel offered sailing, hockey and baseball,' he said. 'That's kind of the trifecta for me.' Like others on track to participate in America's college sailing teams, Carter is a solid academic achiever. In February, Mount Carmel faculty named him Student of the Month for the Class of 2029. Carter took up sailing at age 8 after his mother signed him up for a Chicago Park District program. He started by sailing an Optimist, a type of small, square-bottomed sailboat. Before long, he was sailing an RS Feva, followed by a 13.5-foot Club 420. He went on to race keel boats in local shoreline competitions. 'Besides great skills and knowledge, sailing also teaches resilience,' Harris said. 'I tell parents, I'm teaching your kids life skills. With some of the younger kids we teach, we have parents who come by on the last day of class and they are amazed that kids can handle the boat, that they understand the main concepts of sailing.' That's why Grant Crowley, owner of Crowley's Yacht Club at 94th Street and the Calumet River, got behind Mount Carmel's Caravan Sailing Club by donating money. The school used his contribution to buy essential drysuits, he said. 'I'm hopeful for Chicago's future, due to the lake as a freshwater resource but also for its role in recreation,' he said. 'We try to give back. All nine yacht clubs try to give back to the community by supporting programs for youth.' Club members and supporters hope Mount Carmel will one day sail against other Chicago-area high schools that offer sailing programs, including Loyola Academy, Fenwick, St. Ignatius, DePaul College Prep, Jones, University of Chicago Lab School, New Trier, The Latin School, Walter Payton, Whitney Young, Evanston, Lake Forest Academy, and Culver Academies in Indiana.
Chicago Tribune
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Mount Carmel student named Chicago High School Journalist of the Year
Matt Malloy is a natural with the pen and at the keyboard. The Mount Carmel senior recently won the Scholastic Press Association of Chicago's High School Journalist of the Year Award as well as four other writing awards. He was recognized in March at SPAC's annual conference at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, winning awards for 'Superior Achievement' in the category of Opinion Piece or Column and for 'Excellent Achievement' in General Feature Story, Sports Feature Story and Sports News Story. All of his award-winning efforts were based on submissions he wrote for The Caravan, the online newspaper produced by Mount Carmel students. 'My favorite thing about the kind of writing and editing I've had to do in order to win the Journalist of the Year award is that it's all been centered around Mount Carmel,' he said. 'I love my high school. It's where my family has gone in the past, where my cousins, friends and I go now, and will probably be where a lot of future Malloys go. To be able to cover stories and events at a place that is very important to me is something I have never taken for granted. It's pretty much like writing for your favorite sports team. Who wouldn't want to be around and work with the organization you love all the time?' Malloy, a resident of Chicago's Beverly community, is still pinching himself about his accolades. 'Being recognized as the Chicago High School Journalist of the Year is something I don't even think has fully set in yet,' he said. 'All I can say is that I'm grateful that even one person looked at my work and thought it was worthy of being recognized. On the bus ride back to school after the awards ceremony, I thought a lot about how people like my parents, journalism teacher Mr. Tim Baffoe, judges of the awards, and everyone at Mount Carmel have now put me in a position where I can succeed. For that I'm grateful and want to say thank you to everyone that was involved.' Baffoe had Malloy in his sophomore English class a couple years ago and more recently he's been taking his 21st Century Media Class which is where the school newspaper is produced. 'Matt seems to have a natural talent for, and understanding for, the journalistic process,' Baffoe said. 'What separates journalistic writing and writing in English and history classes, he can flip that switch very easily. From the beginning of his junior year when he started with the media course he was clearly above his peers in understanding the journalistic voice being different. I don't know if it comes easy to him, but to me, on the outside looking in, he seems to be a natural. And, his inclination is more toward broadcasting.' When Malloy was younger he would have to motivate himself to work hard in classes such as math, but he never had to do that in English. 'Essays, reading, writing and storytelling have always come pretty naturally to me and I think the first time I noticed this was when I was in third grade,' he said. 'My teacher said we were going to try something new and then threw up a prompt on the board and said we had around a half hour to write a response to it. The prompt was something along the lines of 'write about a time you were brave or overcame a challenge' so I wrote about the first time I ever went on a roller coaster.' Malloy proceeded to get in front of his fellow 8 and 9-year-old classmates at St. John Fisher and read his essay. 'My teacher was so impressed with my work that she called the vice principal and a couple of other teachers into the room and told me to tell them the story again,' he said. 'It's pretty funny because at first I thought I was in trouble, I mean why else would the vice principal be called in? Looking back at that now though, I see it as one of the building blocks for my writing career.' He's a busy kid. He's playing volleyball now with the team at Mount Carmel this spring. He also has a leadership role in student council, plays the guitar and enjoys making videos for The Merchant, which is Mount Carmel's official satirical news publication. In addition, he's involved in the live broadcasts for many sports and school events at Mount Carmel with the Caravan Media Group and Caravan Broadcast Network. He also loves riding roller coasters. 'We're incredibly proud of Matt,' Baffoe said. 'To be honest, when we went to Northwestern I don't think any of us, even his classmates, were expecting this. Because this was our first time at the conference period, and because we produce newspapers in class and not in extracurriculars we might've been the smallest staff there. … For him to be writing for two years and to walk away with the biggest award was pretty shocking nonetheless.' Next fall Malloy will head to the University of Nebraska to pursue a degree in sports media and communication. 'Sports are a huge part of America's culture,' he said. 'And anyone that shows interest in or pays to watch and experience them has a right to be given correct information and well done reporting about the players, coaches and teams they love watching. I want to enter this field because of the excitement I receive when in the spot of being the messenger for people about a topic they are really interested in. Being a play-by-play broadcaster, in-studio host, radio host, or writer are just a few of the many things I would be very interested in going into as a career.' The phrase, 'There's no place like Nebraska,' has stuck with Malloy. 'Nebraska has the equipment, mindset and people to help me grow as a young journalist,' he said. 'They take rookies and mold them into superstars in pretty much any field of work or study you can think of. That's awesome and I can't wait to work hard and give things a whirl once I'm a student there.' There's also no place like Mount Carmel for Malloy, which is evident in the amount of time and effort he's shared at the school, whether in writing for the school paper, helping broadcast athletics and other school events and being a friend and classmate. 'We talk about Men of Carmel and if you are an ideal Man of Carmel,' Baffoe said. 'It would be great if we could have five hundred Matt Malloys in the world and community. It would be a better place, not just at the school.'
South China Morning Post
20-04-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
Eastern sink Tai Po in extra time to reach Hong Kong FA Cup final
Eastern stayed on course to retain the Hong Kong FA Cup as they overcame Tai Po 2-1 in a tight and tense semi-final at Mong Kok Stadium on Sunday. Advertisement As he is so often, Noah Baffoe was the Eastern hero. With the teams locked at 1-1 in the second half of extra time, Baffoe struck a penalty past Tse Ka-wing for his 27th goal of the season, after Kevin Moreno had been penalised for handling a low cross from Marcos Gondra. The prolific centre-forward had given Eastern a 29th-minute lead when he collected a pass from Leung Kwun-chung then outmuscled Gabriel Cividini to place a composed finish over the head of onrushing keeper Tse. Tai Po forward Michel Renner drew his side level in first-half stoppage time. Lee Ka-ho supplied the delivery from the right and, with Eastern No 1 Yapp Hung-fai glued to his line, Renner was free to sweep home from six yards. Baffoe would have the last word, however, to send Eastern into the May 31 final against BC Rangers. Advertisement More to follow …
