Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 2017)
10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2017 CONTACT US FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorianSports Gary Henley | Sports Reporter ghenley@dailyastorian.com AP Photo/George Frey Oregon wide receiver Darren Carrington II (7) celebrates a win over Utah last November. Former Duck Carrington cleared to play for Utah Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY — Receiver Darren Carrington has officially been cleared to play for Utah after transferring from Oregon shortly before fall camp began. The Pac-12 Faculty Ath- letic Representatives’ Committee waived the intra-conference trans- fer penalty that can force play- ers to sit out a year. The senior has been practicing with the team throughout camp. Carrington was dismissed from the Ducks soon after he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence. Eugene police have said Car- rington was arrested after hitting a pole at a McDonald’s restau- rant early on July 1. In addition to DUI, Carrington was cited for careless driving and making an improper turn. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound San Diego native joins the Utes as the most experienced and successful receiver on the roster. Carrington had 43 catches for 606 yards and five touchdowns last season as a junior with the Ducks. He has 112 career receptions for 1,919 yards and 15 touchdowns. The Utes are plenty familiar with Carrington after he caught a game-winning, 17-yard touch- down pass with two seconds left last season for a 30-28 Oregon victory. Carrington has been a much-welcome addition to Utah’s new fast-paced, pass-first system under new offensive coordinator Troy Taylor. The Utes begin the season by hosting North Dakota on Aug. 31. MMA rival: ‘No way’ Conor wins Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Conor McGregor became known as a fighter with a mystical ability to defy the odds because of his stun- ning upset victory over Jose Aldo, the former UFC featherweight champion. Aldo says there’s zero chance McGregor can beat the daunt- ing odds he faces when he steps into a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather. “There is no way McGregor can defeat Mayweather,” Aldo said. “Mayweather has done this his entire life, and it’s a different sport.” The way Aldo sees it, McGre- gor has obvious motivations for the spectacle that will occur Aug. 26 in Las Vegas — and those moti- vations don’t include boxing glory. “After the Mayweather fight, he’ll get lots of millions of dol- lars,” Aldo said. “Probably he’ll never fight again.” Aldo was the most dominant champion in mixed martial arts until McGregor stunned the UFC with a 13-second knockout of the feared 145-pound star with one punch. MAYWEATHER VS. McGREGOR • August 26, 6 pm (main card) • Floyd Mayweather (boxing) vs. Conor McGregor (MMA) • Showtime pay-per-view Submitted Photos It was a full house last weekend at the Astoria Aquatic Center, which hosted the annual “Beat the Summer Heat” meet. Swimmers beat heat at Aquatic Center The Daily Astorian T Swimmers confer with a coach during last weekend’s meet. he North Coast Swim Club hosted its annual “Beat the Summer Heat” swim meet at the Astoria Aquatic Center last weekend. Over 170 swimmers participated in the event, with swim teams from Oregon and Washington state and one swimmer from California. The swim club hosts two swim meets a year, including “Beat the Summer Heat” in August and “Fall Chinook” in November. Based in Astoria for over 40 years, NCSC is a year-round competitive swim club, which provides education in the sport of swimming to athletes ranging in age from 6 to 18 years old. The club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi- zation, and employs one head coach (Kath- ryn Zacher) and one assistant coach (Mike Gwaltney). Parent volunteers run the rest of the orga- nization. The majority of the club funding comes from swimmer membership dues, local corporate sponsorships and club activ- ities like the annual Dolphin Splash. For athletes looking to get involved in swimming, the NCSC offers a trial member- ship to the team. For more information, see the club’s website, www.swimnorthcoast.org. Casinos embrace esports even as they work to understand it Strategy to woo millennials By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Casi- nos are slowly embracing compet- itive video game tournaments as a way to help their bottom lines, but the money is coming from renting hotel rooms to the young players and sell- ing them food and drinks, not from turning them into gamblers. Like most other ways gambling halls have tried to attract millenni- als and their disposable income, it hasn’t been easy. Atlantic City was first city in the nation to adopt skill- based slot machines to woo mil- lennials but bailed on them after a few months when the response was underwhelming. Competitive video game tourna- ments, known as esports, are a grow- ing industry around the world. The fast-paced action, vivid graphics and often violent on-screen action is cat- nip to millennials, the audience casi- nos are targeting as their core slot players grow old and die. But it’s been difficult to move them from the video console to the craps table. AP Photo/Wayne Parry Video game players compete against one another in an esports tour- nament at Caesars casino in Atlantic City, N.J., in March. “Everybody’s still trying to figure out, how do you make this appealing for the consumer and make sense for the business? How do we all profit from this?” said Kevin Ortzman, Atlantic City regional president for Caesars Entertainment, which owns three casinos in the city. The company in March hosted an esports tournament at Caesars that drew about 900 competitors and spectators. The bottom line result was encour- aging, if not dynamite. “We certainly experienced a spike in our hospitality offerings — the hotel, food and beverage side of things,” Ortzman said. “We didn’t see as much on the gambling side, which we weren’t terribly surprised by.” But he said coming up with ways to attract millennials is a necessity for the casino industry as a whole, add- ing that esports players could be cul- tivated to embrace casinos for video game competitions the way their par- ents and grandparents went there to play slot machines. Gambling requires discretion- ary income and free time, things that people starting their careers or fami- lies may not have in abundance, said David Schwartz, director of the Cen- ter for Gaming Research at the Uni- versity of Nevada-Las Vegas. “The big question is whether peo- ple who are 40 or 20 now will begin to play casino games as they get older,” Schwartz said. “This isn’t a given.” Schwartz agreed the real money for casinos in esports tournaments comes from ancillary spending on food, drinks and hotel rooms. The Caesars video tournament offered $200,000 in prize money, including a $70,000 top prize, that lured players like Jose Mavo, of Charlotte, North Carolina, who has been playing competitively for a decade and has become a casino cus- tomer as a result of being in tourna- ments hosted by gambling halls. “We had a tournament in Vegas, and that was the first time I went to a casino, so ever since then, I’ve been gambling quite a bit,” he said, listing blackjack and roulette as favorites.