WNBA rallies around Lauren Hill

"We want to make this woman feel the love from the basketball community," New York Liberty senior VP Kristin Bernert said of Mount St. Joseph freshman Lauren Hill, above, who has inoperable brain cancer.

Elena Delle Donne had chills when she first heard about Lauren Hill. The WNBA star was brought to tears the more she read about the Mount St. Joseph freshman, who has inoperable brain cancer.

Delle Donne will attend Hill's game on Sunday as a fan, moving a speaking engagement to make sure she could be there.

"It's a once in a lifetime thing for her and I want to be there to support her," Delle Donne said.

"She had that much passion for the sport to get one more game in there. It's so amazing to see as an athlete her love of Basketball. To see what she's doing to play that game is really miraculous and so incredible.

"The impact she's going to have on the world is the most important thing. It's very important to continue her legacy and I'm going to do my best to get the WNBA to remember her."

She isn't the only WNBA player who will be at the game. The Indiana Fever will have a contingent at Xavier on Sunday among the 10,000 people expected to attend the game. The Fever honored Hill, who is from Indiana, earlier this month at a Pacers preseason game. The team made her an honorary member of the Fever.

Delle Donne wants to do more. She reached out to her agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas to see what they could do for Hill.

A few hours later, Colas was talking with Kristin Bernert, who is the senior vice president of business operations for the New York Liberty. Bernert had read about Hill and was also deeply moved by her story. So the two thought of ideas of what they could do to help.

They came up with a website -- http://www.1more4lauren.com/.

It serves as a chance for people to learn about Hill and offer their support. There are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts from athletes across the sporting world, including Maya Moore, Becky Hammon, Mia Hamm, Richard Sherman and Kyle Singler.

"We want to make this woman feel the love from the basketball community," Bernert said. "We also want to raise awareness for the disease she's fighting. Raise some money. There's a lot of momentum around her right now. How do we remind people the disease is still there eight or nine months from now?"

At Zimbabwe golf club, 'foreign' trees exit stage

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A century-old thorn tree with an umbrella-shaped canopy offers shade to players on the 13th hole of Zimbabwe's oldest surviving golf course. The indigenous tree is going to stay, but "foreign" trees — firs, pines and eucalyptus — that were planted by early white settlers to remind them of their distant origins are now being rooted out.

This has nothing to do with the politics of President Robert Mugabe, whose government has nationalized thousands of white-owned farms under a black empowerment program meant to reverse the entitlements of the white-led rule of the past. It is a conservation and course management program that will change the landscape of the Royal Harare Golf Club, a place steeped in history where cows and sheep grazed on the fairways in the era before modern grass mowers.

According to records, the early, mainly British, settlers were filled with nostalgia for their home regions and golf gave them solace. They planted imported trees and shrubs in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known before independence in 1980.

King George V, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, played on the course in 1929, bestowing the royal title on the club. But the last of the hardy, long-living foreign trees he saw are being cut down now. The first settlers felled the indigenous trees on the course and wild animals that once roamed there disappeared too.

Royal Harare club manager Ian Mathieson said a program to cut down "alien" trees and replant trees "indigenous" to Zimbabwe such as the acacia and msasa varieties is under way, and will take 20 years to complete. So far, nearly 60 gnarled and elderly "foreign" trees have been removed and more than 300 local trees and shrubs have been planted in their place.

Foreign eucalyptus, or gum trees, most of them over 100 years old, are set for the chainsaw, said Mathieson. They suck up too much water at a time when Zimbabwe faces acute water shortages, and the sinking of thousands of new borehole wells in suburbs near the golf course have already lowered the underground water table, he said.

"If we are to retain water, these trees need to come down," Mathieson said. Nearby pine trees also make the soil acidic and "there is also the threat of falling debris from the old trees," he said.

Experts have been called in for the replanting exercise that requires careful planning. Every hole has trees planted in ways to make the game more challenging, according to Mathieson.

"A player has to contend with the trees if he hits the ball out of the fairway," he said.

Katie Smith's career is coming to a close

I have followed her career since high school, and especially at Ohio State, saw her play quite a few games there. She is a competitor. She is articulate, my guess is someone will find a place for her behind a microphone ...... 

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Katie Smith has always been a gritty player throughout her illustrious basketball career. With the New York Liberty on the brink of elimination from the playoff chase, Smith wasn't about to let the team go down quietly - even with star Cappie Pondexter out. The league's second all-time leading scorer put forth a vintage effort against Phoenix, scoring a season-high 17 points Tuesday night. It just wasn't enough as New York fell 80-76 and dropped out of the postseason race.

Smith quietly announced early this summer that she would be retiring at the end of the season. The Liberty honored the 15-year veteran, who was playing her first season with the team, before New York's final home game. ''I think what we will miss most about Katie is her drive to win and the fact she's a fierce competitor,'' WNBA President Laurel Richie said.

The Liberty put together a video tribute showing highlights of Smith's career from her playing days in high school to her college days at Ohio State. It finished up with some of her best moments from the now-defunct ABL and WNBA.

Smith said before the game she wasn't going to cry watching the video. She came close, but held her ground, instead joking afterward to the crowd that the biggest thing she learned watching it was that she ''had a lot of different hair styles over the years.''

The team also presented her with a framed USA basketball jersey and a photo collage of her playing career.

''She's an all-time professional,'' New York Liberty coach Bill Laimbeer said. ''She's just been that hard-nosed player that takes care of her body. She's played so many years because of that. She's gone from prolific scorer to outstanding defender and team leader. I can't say enough about her.''

Smith was brought to New York this season by Laimbeer to provide some veteran leadership. He coached her for five seasons with the Detroit Shock, where she won WNBA titles in 2006 and 2008.

''She's been a pillar of this league like Lisa Leslie,'' said teammate Delisha Milton-Jones, who will now be the longest tenured player in the league. ''The work she put in is unparalleled. She hasn't gotten the credit she deserves for what she's done for this league on and off the court. She's the consummate pro and you couldn't have asked for a better role model.''

Elena Delle Donne

Elena Delle Donne's talents have never been in doubt.

A McDonald's All-American coming out of high school, Geno Auriemma and UConn came calling, landing the highly-coveted recruit. 

After just a few days in Connecticut, however, Delle Donne returned home to Delaware, reuniting with her older sister, Lizzie, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is also blind and deaf. 

Delle Donne eventually made her way back to the court at the University of Delaware and led the the Blue Hens to their first-ever NCAA tournament wins, prior to being selected as the No. 2 pick of the WNBA Draft by the Chicago Sky. 

At 6-foot-5, Delle Donne's superior ball-handling ability, three-point range and post-up moves represent a unique challenge for WNBA defenses.

From what I have seen and read, here is a gal that your kids could look up to, respect and admire. If they need a hero, here is one for them to consider. She and Jenny Finch are two I really admire.

Arizona Secretary of State Threatens to Remove Obama from Ballot

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett is threatening to keep President Obama’s name off the state’s ballot in November unless he receives confirmation from Hawaii that it has a valid birth certificate on file for him.

Bennett, who spoke to Arizona radio host Mike Broomhead Thursday, said he requested the confirmation eight weeks ago and has not gotten it. Hawaii, he said, does not have to supply a certified copy of the birth certificate, merely send him an email confirming that it has one.

Asked by Broomhead if he would remove Obama’s name from the ballot if Hawaii fails to comply, Bennett said: “That’s possible. Or the other option would be that I would ask all the candidates, including the president, to submit a certified copy of their birth certificate.”

Despite overwhelming evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, the issue of his birth continues to dog him. Thursday, Breitbart Big Government reported on a promotional booklet by Obama’s own literary agency listing him as having been born in Kenya.