Fast Break
Adventuring
Ferris grad breaks South Pole mark
It’s official: A Spokane native has set a speed record for trekking solo and unaided through Antarctica to the South Pole.
On Sunday, Todd Carmichael, 44, completed the 700-mile ski and slog from Hercules Inlet to South Pole in 39 days, 7 hours, 49 minutes, according to a Tuesday satellite phone dispatch.
That mark nips by just 1 hour, 44 minutes the 2007 record by Hannah McKeand of the United Kingdom.
As the experts at Xplorersweb.com put it, “If the same difference were applied to the 100-meter dash, it would equal less than 0.02 seconds.”
Carmichael was known as Todd McLaughlin when he lived in Spokane, ran on the 1981 Ferris High School state championship cross country team and continued on to the University of Washington.
Carmichael is the first American to accomplish the feat and one of five in the world.
Women’s basketball
Sister showdown falls apart
In a case of bad timing, Jami Schaefer, Gonzaga’s lone senior, learned a week before facing off against her sister, Angie Bjorklund, and eighth-ranked Tennessee at McCarthey Athletic Center that she would miss at least six weeks with a knee injury.
Schaefer was injured in the first half of a blowout win over Wyoming Monday night, a play in which she was chasing a long rebound from her missed shot and slid into the media table near midcourt. She also suffered a hand injury that needed eight stitches.
“Of all the times, right now,” Bulldogs coach Kelly Graves said. “You don’t want it any time, but this week of all weeks. It makes you sick. And to do it on a hustle play …”
The injury is a partial tear of the posterior cruciate ligament in her right knee.
“We’ll make the best of it,” Graves said.
The sisters played against each other last December in Knoxville. The rematch is at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
College football
Alabama’s Saban coach of year
Alabama’s Nick Saban is the Associated Press coach of the year.
This is the second time Saban has won the award. He also was coach of the year with LSU in 2003.
Saban easily outdistanced Texas Tech’s Mike Leach, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson in balloting by an AP media panel that votes in the weekly poll.
He received 32 votes, while Leach was second with nine. Whittingham received six votes and Johnson five. Seven other coaches also got votes.
Saban led Alabama to a 12-1 season, the only loss coming to Florida in the SEC title game. The Crimson Tide face Utah in the Sugar Bowl for only their second Bowl Championship Series game.