Sport

Phoebe Schecter: NFL broadcaster turned flag football player

Published

6 hours ago

September 21, 2024

Phoebe Schecter: NFL broadcaster turned flag football player

More than a decade after seeing that social media ad, Schecter is one of the UK’s biggest American football personalities.

But don’t let her accent fool you. Her love of American football blossomed in the UK.

“When I was in the States, I watched maybe two Super Bowls,” she says. “I hate to say it now, but I thought the sport was so boring. I didn’t understand it at all.

“So now, to think I was able to work my way up and go to the NFL, it’s kind of one of those pinch-me things, that you don’t believe is real.”

Soon after the trial in Manchester, Schecter became one of the founding members of the GB women’s tackle football team. She also started playing flag football – the non-contact version of the game, which will make its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028 – and with the Staffordshire Surge, a men’s tackle team.

She took an interest in coaching and in 2016 did the first of three internships at American universities. Then in 2017, she did the first of two internships with the Buffalo Bills, becoming Britain’s first female coach in the NFL.

Having not grown up with the game, Schecter says she “came into this whole experience knowing I was behind the eight ball – I had to fast-track my learning”.

She created her own glossary to help herself with the game’s terminology. She printed pictures of the Bills’ coaching staff so she’d know who was who. She joined as many meetings as possible and continually asked questions.

“It was a baptism of fire,” she says. “It was definitely a huge learning curve. But being curious has been really helpful for me. I was doing whatever I could to build my experience and absorb as much information as possible.

“I wanted to learn and was so passionate. I had consistent, positive energy – every single day, no matter what the result was at the weekend. It may seem like nothing, but it’s actually really important.

“Once you understand the value you bring to a team, it gives you that boost of confidence of ‘I know why I’m here, I know what I can do’.”

The NFL is a male-dominated environment but Schecter tried to ignore the fact she was one of the few women clocking in at the Bills’ training facility each day.

“If you go into that experience thinking ‘oh my gosh, I’m the only woman here’, you already have the wrong mindset, your focus is going to be on the wrong thing,” she says. “I was there to be the best educator and coach I can be, regardless of my background.

“Some of the guys were saying ‘hey, what can’t I say around you?’ But I said ‘in order to get the best version of you, I need you to be your authentic self, to speak freely’. If it’s not something you’d say in front of your mother or grandmother, perhaps it’s something you shouldn’t be saying in a professional environment anyway.

“But being a woman was also a super power in some ways. Having those inter-personal skills, a lot of my athletes felt more comfortable speaking to me because they grew up in single-mother homes, so to have a female around wasn’t a bad thing.

“They just weren’t used to it in a coaching capacity.”

Schecter remembers the moment she truly felt that she belonged.

The Bills’ offensive unit had a meeting each morning and everyone would sit in the same seat. When a new player came in mid-season and sat in Schecter’s seat he was told ‘you’ve got to get up, this is her seat’.

“That meant so much,” she says. “It was only a little thing but the feeling of belonging was huge. I was really a part of that team. They really saw me as one of them.”

Schecter has enjoyed a similar feeling in her broadcasting career, which also began by chance.

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Sport

Yankees vs Red Sox: Stats, head-to-head record & how to watch MLB on the BBC

Published

45 mins ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

Yankees vs Red Sox: Stats, head-to-head record & how to watch MLB on the BBC

Just 215 miles apart, New York and Boston are home to two of the most successful sides in Major League Baseball.

The Yankees have won the sport’s top prize – the World Series – more times than any other franchise (27), while the Red Sox are the third most decorated team with nine championships.

The two teams first played one another in 1903 but the rivalry gained serious traction when baseball’s greatest-ever player, Babe Ruth, was controversially sold to the Yankees by the Red Sox in 1919.

The Red Sox, who had won three World Series titles with Ruth in the side, had to then watch the New York side dominate the sport for most of the 20th century.

The era popularised the ‘Curse of the Bambino’ – a reference to Ruth’s nickname and a superstition Red Sox fans would carry until they finally won the World Series again in 2004, ending an 86-year wait.

Their most recent championship was 2018, while the Yankees have not won one since 2009.

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Football

Salvatore Schillaci: When ‘Toto’s stare was the star

Published

52 mins ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

Salvatore Schillaci: When 'Toto's stare was the star

By now, comparisons were being made with Paolo Rossi, the inspiration when Italy won the 1982 World Cup.

“Rossi was a champion,” Schillaci said ahead of a semi-final against Argentina that his side were expected to win. “I am an ordinary, modest guy. I just hope I can continue to do what I have been doing.”

He did, opening the scoring with another poacher’s effort, but this time it was not enough. Italy passed England’s record of 499 minutes without conceding at a finals before their goal was breached in the second half – and the fairy tale was finished when they went out on penalties.

Every national newspaper in Italy used the headline ‘End of a dream’ while Gazzetta and Corriere dello Sport simply put ‘NO’ in huge letters on their front pages.

“We deserved to win,” reflected Schillaci. “I think if we had beaten Argentina we would have gone on to win the World Cup.”

That was not quite the end of the Schillaci story, however. The day before West Germany beat Argentina in the final, he grabbed his sixth goal of the tournament in the third-place play-off against England, putting him ahead of Czech Tomas Skuhravy as the tournament’s leading goalscorer.

“After the tournament, I went away to somewhere quiet,” Schillaci says. “Everybody wanted a piece of me but I just wanted to get away from it all, especially after the pain of our semi-final defeat.”

The next time he made the headlines, it would be for a less savoury reason. The following November, he was banned for one game for threatening to have Fabio Poll shot after the Bologna player punched him during an on-pitch row.

By then, the goals were drying up too. He scored only five in the league in the 1990-91 season and six the following campaign. An injury-plagued move to Inter Milan in 1992 failed to revive him and he ended his career in exile – albeit a lucrative one – as the first Italian to play in Japan’s fledgling J-League.

While he was still in Serie A and struggling to regain his World Cup form, Schillaci said: “Even if I were to drop out of the Italian team, I will still have with me for the rest of my life the wonderful memories of Italia ’90.”

He still had them after returning to his home city to run the youth academy he used to play for.

What was clear from talking to Schillaci was that, while he enjoyed reliving past glories when he was asked to play in exhibition matches, he was also happy his fame did not change him too much.

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Football

Liverpool cut Milan open at will – Warnock

Published

2 hours ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

Liverpool cut Milan open at will – Warnock

BBC Sport’s Stephen Warnock praises Liverpool’s attacking prowess in their 3-1 win against AC Milan in the Champions League.

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MMA

Joshua vs. Dubois Results: Live updates of the undercard and main event

Published

2 hours ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

Joshua vs. Dubois Results: Live updates of the undercard and main event

MMA Fighting has Joshua vs. Dubois results live for the Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois fight card at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on Saturday afternoon.

When the main event begins around 5 p.m. ET, check out our Joshua vs. Dubois live round-by-round updates for our live blog of the main event.

Anthony Joshua (28-3) has reeled off four straight victories, including a devastating knockout of former UFC champion Francis Ngannou this past March.

Daniel Dubois (21-2) was recently promoted to IBF world heavyweight champion after Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt. He defeated Filip Hrgovic via eighth-round TKO this past June to win the IBF interim title.

Check out the Joshua vs. Dubois results below.

Fight Card (PPV.com at 11 a.m. ET)

Main event

Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois — IBF heavyweight title fight

Undercard

Tyler Denny vs. Hamza Sheeraz — EBU European middleweight title fight

Anthony Cacace vs. Josh Warrington — IBF and IBO super featherweight title fight

Ishmael Davis vs. Josh Kelly — 12-round middleweight fight

Joshua Buatsi vs. Willy Hutchinson — WBO interim light heavyweight title fight

Mark Chamberlain vs. Josh Padley — 10-round lightweight fight

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MMA

Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois: Live round-by-round updates

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

MMA Fighting has Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois live round-by-round updates for one of the most anticipated boxing fights of the year at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on Saturday afternoon.

The main event is expected to begin around 5 p.m. ET on DAZN and PPV.com pay-per-view. Check out our Joshua vs. Dubois results page to find out what happened on the undercard.

Anthony Joshua (28-3) has reeled off four straight victories, including a devastating knockout of former UFC champion Francis Ngannou this past March.

Get the Joshua vs. Dubois main event live blog below.

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3:

Round 4:

Round 5:

Round 6:

Round 7:

Round 8:

Round 9:

Round 10:

Round 11:

Round 12:

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Football

Duggan's best WSL goals

Published

3 hours ago

September 21, 2024

NewsAdmin

Watch some of Toni Duggan’s best Women’s Super League goals as she announces her retirement from professional football after spells at Everton, Manchester City, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.

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