Fast Break: Injured NFL coach back at practice
NFL
Injured coach back at practice
Dallas Cowboys special teams coach Joe DeCamillis was supposed to take six weeks off to recover from a broken neck. But two weeks was plenty.
Wearing a neck brace and shouting into a bullhorn, the Dallas Cowboys’ special teams coach was back on the practice field Tuesday. That’s only 15 days following surgery to repair broken vertebrae from the collapse of the team’s indoor practice facility.
“He is showing a lot of toughness and dedication,” tight ends coach John Garrett said. “I don’t know as a special teams player how you can sit in a meeting room and not feel 100 percent dedicated while you are out there.”
DeCamillis was injured when the tent-like structure fell apart during a storm May 2. Eleven others were hospitalized, including scouting assistant Rich Behm, who was paralyzed from the waist down.
College football
Giving the gift of UW football
The Washington Huskies are trying a novel way to stem declining attendance in a tough economy following a 0-12 season: ticket holders buying seats for those who no longer can.
The school this week announced the program to help longtime season-ticket holders who were unable to maintain their accounts this season. Donors will provide two season tickets each to approximately 100 account holders who cited financial reasons for not renewing their seats for 2009.
The UW’s Tyee Club is accepting donations through the “Dawgs Supporting Dawgs” campaign scheduled to end July 24. A $500 gift provides two season tickets. A $1,000 gift provides four.
Washington’s season-ticket base has eroded from more than 55,000 seven years ago to less than 40,000.
Broadcasting
O’Neal begins next career
Shaquille O’Neal is in training for his next career.
The 7-foot-1 center for the Phoenix Suns is taking a course at Syracuse University known as Sportscaster U, a crash course designed to teach athletes about the broadcasting industry. He arrived Sunday and started school Monday at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
“I’ve been an athlete that’s sort of in advance; always thinking,” O’Neal said Monday during a break in his studio work. “After basketball I’d love to have my own radio show, my own TV show.”
Sportscaster U is essentially a broadcasting boot camp started last year by Syracuse radio play-by-play announcer Matt Park and fellow Syracuse alum Dave Ryan, an ESPN announcer. They are adjunct professors at Newhouse.
“I’ve been the type of person (and) the type of athlete, I don’t like to be given anything,” O’Neal said. “I like to earn.”