Hard und Software » After reaching the Final Four in 2013

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- In some ways, the Patriots last preseason game against the New York Giants on Thursday will serve as a sort of going away party for Tom Brady.Or at least a see you later.Bradys four-game suspension for his role in Deflategate begins Saturday as New England shifts to the regular season. Once it starts, Brady wont be eligible to rejoin the active roster until Oct. 3. His absence will mark the first regular-season games hes missed since 2008, when he suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in the season opener.The territory is so unfamiliar for the 39-year-old quarterback that hes not willing to share specifics about how he plans to spend his time away from the only team hes played for during his 16-year career.In case someone else is in this situation in the future, I dont want to give away all my tips, Brady said.During his suspension, Brady is not allowed to have contact with the Patriots or utilize team facilities.But NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that Brady will be allowed to work with his close friend, personal trainer and health guru Alex Guerrero.Well that was nice of them, Brady cracked, when asked about being allowed access to a guy he also calls a close friend.Brady and Guerrero are partners in the TB12 Sports Therapy Center, which is located on the adjoining complex to Gillette Stadium. According to the Boston Globe , the Patriots have paid the firm to provide nutritional advice to their players.McCarthy said team medical staff will be allowed to check on Bradys progress with his personal trainer, but cannot discuss or pass on football information.That rule is standard for other players whose discipline includes staying away from the team facility.Brady said he and Guerrero would work together similarly to the way they have the past 12 years.Well use all these days in the best way thats possible to stay prepared and stay sharp. I have ideas of what I need to do based on all the practices that weve had and the limited playing time that Ive had, Brady said. My goal is to come back and be the best that I can be, just like every other year, every other offseason.Its customary for starters to sit out the final preseason game, with players fighting for roster spots typically playing most.But Brady might benefit from the extra snaps. He missed New Englands first preseason game to attend memorial services for a family member. He then sat out the second after accidentally cutting his right thumb with a pair of scissors.I wish I could play every game, he said. I like to play in practice, I love playing in preseason games, regular-season games, postseason games. I love thinking about football. Its just the way it is. So, that part I think will be very challenging watching those games in September. But Ill find ways to preoccupy my mind.Bradys absence isnt surprising this time, like in 2008. Thats why Belichick said its nothing worth dwelling on.Its out of our control, he said. Were not worried it. Were moving forward. Control what we can control. Do what we can do. The most interesting dynamic may be how the Patriots adjust without Bradys vocal presence on offense.That task would seemingly fall to Jimmy Garoppolo, who will start in Bradys place.The last time Brady could recall being in a similar situation to Garoppolo was coming out of college in 2000. Brady tried to spend the time learning from starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe and other veterans. But he said its difficult to gauge how Garoppolo has dealt with it because they are totally on different ends of the spectrum.I love being with Jimmy, Brady said. Ive enjoyed every day that weve spent with him. I wish him the very best, obviously, for our team, for him personally. When you see people that it means a lot to, you always want them to succeed as well. Itll be tough to watch, but Ill be excited to watch and excited to learn, and then hopefully, when I come back in October Ill be a better player than I am today.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/AP-NFL---Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower Tanner Roark Jersey . 10 VCU 85-67 on Thursday night at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Seminoles (4-0) have scored at least 80 points in each of their games. Dennis Eckersley Jersey . Gerald Green and Miles Plumlee? Green had bounced around the NBA when he wasnt playing overseas. The Pacers gave up on Plumlee after just one season. Now Green and Plumlee are key cogs in the Suns surprising breakout season. https://www.cheapathleticsonline.com/ . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. Sheldon Neuse Jersey . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. Sal Bando Athletics Jersey .C. -- Rodney Hood connected from all over the court while freshman Jabari Parker was busy swatting shots and scoring in transition. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Oh, man. ... Can you believe this?It was Thursday night around midnight, barely eight hours after Coastal Carolina had won the College World Series, and head coach Gary Gilmore was being summoned to look out the window of the team airplane.Sure, I figured a few folks would show up to greet us when we got home, he recalled thinking. But Im not sure the Myrtle Beach airport has ever had that many people there all at one time. This was bigger than spring break.Way bigger. There were a few thousand fans, dressed in teal, waving homemade signs and chanting C-C-U! and Gar-eee Gil-more! The coach, eyes already puffy from a day of happy cries, instinctively climbed the fence to lead the cheers. He was so oblivious to what he was doing that he dang near grabbed the razor wire to pull himself up and over.There was a time when it would take us months to draw this many fans to our games, said Gilmore, who played at Coastal in 1979 and 80 and just completed his 21st season at the helm of his old team. I worked out of a pop-up trailer next to the ballpark that first year. Its a long ways from that to this. People have no idea how long.Well, most might not. But there are plenty who do.For students, alumni and fans of Coastal Carolina, Thursdays victory felt like the liberation of a small nation. This is a school that didnt even exist until 1954, founded as a community college and holding its classes at Conway High School. By the 1960s, it was under contract as an extension campus of the University of South Carolina and didnt become a four-year school until 1974. On July 1, the school marked just its 23rd year as an independent university. Gilmore was hired two years later.Thats a lot of years and a lot of history to foster an inferiority complex, living life as a so-called directional school in the very long shadows of Clemson and South Carolina. Their mascot is an extension of those feelings. When the school -- then Coastal Carolina College of the University of South Carolina -- decided to get into sports, they wanted a mascot that would honor their parent school, the Gamecocks, but was decidedly fancier. An English professor suggested the Chanticleer, a character from Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales described as such: For crowing there was not his equal in all the land ... his nails were whiter than the lily and his feathers were like burnished gold. Thats certainly no mere fighting rooster.So one can only imagine the pride Coastal Carolina fans felt when their Twitter timelines were filled with clips of Clemson football players cheering Coastals win on Thursday or well-wishes from the likes of Steve Spurrier.I can tell you this, Coastal athletic director Matt Hogue, a South Carolina alumnus, said earlier in the week. There werent many South Carolina fans rooting for Clemson to beat Alabama [in Januarys College Football Playoff title game], and when South Carolina was winning back-to-back College World Series, there might not have been any Clemson fans rooting for the Gamecocks. But I cant tell you how much support weve received from both schools during our time in Omaha.Yeah, outside of Conway and Myrtle Beach, it can be hard to find a lot of Coastal fans, explained pitcher Mike Morrison. Then he shrugged, recognizing that he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the crowd. Now it feels like they are everywhere!They were certainly all over Omaha. Many made a last-minute migration to see their beloved Chanticleers play Arizona for the championship, deciding to make the trip out for the third and deciding game. A huge percentage of those fans had to return home without having seen a single inning of baseball, unable to afford the airline change fees or to find a hotel room when Game 3 was pushed from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon because of inclement weather.Jim McIntosh of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, was one of those people. A former CCU student, he blew up a credit card to get out there but by Thursday morning was on a plane packed with teal-wearing fans, rightfully pouting and just hoping to make it home in time to watch the game on television.ddddddddddddScott Chadwick of Charlotte was one of those people ... almost. The father of CCU infielder Tyler Chadwick was one of a huge group of families who worked into the wee hours of Wednesday night, scrambling for a way to stay in town for the delayed game. Already out of money because of continually extending their trip, the potential of thousands of dollars in flight changes meant that most of the families from both Coastal and Arizona would have to go on home and miss the title game. Some still did, but well past midnight, their bags packed, Chadwick and his family found a sympathetic Delta agent who helped out by finding minimal fees.Michael Pruitt of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, was one those who was going to stay no matter what and was fortunate enough to have the means to make it happen. The CEO and president of an investment firm titled Chanticleer Holdings, he is one of the past heroes of Coastal Carolina baseball. He slugged a home run that clinched one of the teams four trips to the NAIA College World Series in the late 70s and early 80s. He and a group of his former teammates made the trip out and declared, Well stay here until damn July 4 if we have to!On Wednesday night, they were at their hotel bar ready to talk to anyone but at a bit of a loss for words when asked what a national championship would mean: Its the biggest thing to ever happen to our school, they said.Just how big might not be known for a while. Coastal is a school already experiencing rapid growth. There were a little over 7,500 CCU students a decade ago. Now that number is around 10,000, with a plan in place to reach 12,500. History suggests that the admissions office is about to become very busy. After reaching the Final Four in 2013, Wichita State saw an 81 percent jump in applications. In 2010, Butlers near-national title created a 41 percent increase. After Fresno State won the College World Series in 2008, it experienced a double-digit leap in out-of-state interest.According to Joyce Julius & Associates, which monitors sports media exposure, Coastal Carolina had already received nearly 12,000 national media mentions even prior to winning the championship. In Omaha, there was little doubt as to who was also the two-week champion of merchandise sales. It was the same team that ended up becoming the actual champion. There was a lot of teal seen around eastern Nebraska in late June.On Friday, as thousands of fans lined the streets of Conway and thousands more packed still-new Springs Brooks Stadium to celebrate with their team, they all wore that same teal. No matter how hard it was to come by.You cant find it anywhere. Everywhere is sold out, said Jimmy Shepard, a longtime Myrtle Beach resident who went to the celebration. I saw a lot of people out here today that I know I saw last week wearing South Carolina and Clemson stuff. Their Chants shirts and hats all look pretty damn new. I wore the oldest shirt I had just so theyd know Im no Johnny-Come-Lately. Now I hope these Johnnys that were here today will be back here next spring.Almost as if he was taking his cue from Shepard, Gilmore stepped to the microphone to address the crowd estimated at more than 8,000. He thought about that pop-up trailer office. He thought about the old aluminum bleacher stadium that was on this site just three years ago, the one he used to have to power wash the seagull droppings off of before homestands. He looked at the sparkling national championship trophy, displayed in, of all places, Conway. And then he allowed himself, just for a moment, to try and look into the future.I want to see all of you back here in 2017, the coach challenged, once again on the verge of bursting into tears. Lets get another one of these. ' ' '