Page 2B
SPORTS
East Oregonian
BRIEFLY
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
PGA Tour
Palmer eager for 2018 after year
when his wife faced cancer
No. 2 Wozniacki saves 2 match points,
advances to 3rd round
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Second-ranked
Caroline Wozniacki fended off two match points and rallied
from 5-1 down to win the last six games in the third set and
avoid a second-round upset at the Australian Open.
Former No. 1-ranked Wozniacki used her experience to save
match points in the seventh game of the deciding set against
No. 119-ranked Jana Fett, who was making her main draw
debut at a major, and eventually pull off a 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 win.
“That was crazy,” said Wozniacki, who has reached two
Grand Slam finals and was a semifinalist here in 2011. “I
don’t know how I got back into the match.
“She’s a tricky opponent and she had nothing to lose.
And then I think she realized she was up 5-1 and she let
off the speed just a little bit, and I was like, this is my last
chance. I have to go in and attack.”
Wozniacki won the next nine points, and 24 of the 31
points played from when she first faced match point. She
clinched a 75-minute third set on her first match point when
Fett netted a backhand.
By DOUG FERGUSON
Associated Press
HONOLULU — Ryan Palmer
couldn’t wait for 2018 to arrive.
It began with an up-and-down
week at the Sony Open — a 64
sandwiched between a pair
of 71s, and a tie for 58th
— though his mood was
decidedly steadier. Palmer
was in good spirits when
he arrived and nothing on
the scorecard was going to
change that.
It’s nice to have last year
behind him.
He had surgery on his
shoulder in October, and Palmer
that’s now healed. A new
home being built on seven acres in the
Dallas area is almost finished. Above
all that, his wife, Jennifer, is getting
nothing but favorable scans in her
recovery from breast cancer.
“I couldn’t have been any more
calm when I got here Monday — on
the range, practice rounds, the pro-am,
everything,” Palmer said.
A year ago when he arrived on
Oahu, his wife was still undergoing
chemotherapy for the cancer. Palmer
missed four straight cuts to start
the year and didn’t crack the top 35
until April. He had only three top-10
finishes, one of them the team event
with Jordan Spieth at the Zurich
Classic.
“It seemed like a blur,” Palmer
said. “Usually you can go back and
look at tournaments and see what
you did. It was mostly bad stuff. But
I don’t remember one thing about
it. The time Jordan and I had was
awesome. I know I had a good week
in Reno (tie for ninth).”
One day he does recall clearly is
when Jennifer had her last round of
Bengals thank Jaguars by donating
to Bortles’ foundation
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Cincinnati Bengals
fans are thanking Blake Bortles for helping the Jacksonville
Jaguars eliminate Pittsburgh from the playoffs.
The Blake Bortles Foundation says more than 100
Bengals fans have combined to contribute nearly $5,000
since Jacksonville beat Cincinnati’s biggest rival, the
Steelers, 45-42 last Sunday.
Bortles threw for 214 yards and a touchdown in the
victory. He says he appreciates the contributions and adds
that Bengals fans “should know their support will make a
difference.”
Established in 2016, the Blake Bortles Foundation
supports first responders in Florida and helps children and
adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities lead
pursue full, independent lives.
Earnhardt interested in becoming
minority owner of Panthers
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Retired NASCAR driver
Dale Earnhard Jr. says he is interested in becoming a
minority owner with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.
Earnhardt told The Associated Press he was not asked by
local businessmen Felix Sabates to join a potential ownership
group, but said he did contact Marcus Smith, the CEO of
Speedway Motorsports, to say he’d be interested.
Current Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced in
December he’s selling the team.
chemotherapy, which was followed
by 35 radiation treatments.
“Each time she goes back to get
checked the scan is good,” he said.
Palmer is on a minor medical
extension and has five tournaments
remaining to earn 24 FedEx Cup
points, the least of his
worries.
He hadn’t played since
August, when he failed
to qualify for the FedEx
Cup playoffs. He knew he
needed arthroscopic surgery
to clean up a bone spur in
his shoulder but thought
about playing a few events
when the new season began
in October.
Instead, he took off the
entire fall and spent time going to
10-year-old son Mason’s hockey
games. It also allowed him to recover
in time to go to Hawaii. He plans to
play next three events in the Cali-
fornia desert, Phoenix and San Diego.
He’ll take the following two weeks
off to move into his house.
“This year couldn’t be any better
right now,” Palmer said.
BROADCAST REVIEW: One of
the local rules adopted at the start of
the new year involved video review.
Players no longer are penalized two
shots if they sign an incorrect score-
card that they thought was correct at
the time, which stems from violations
discovered after the round.
The major golf organizations also
agreed to assign one or more official
to monitor the broadcast to help
identify and resolve any issues that
arise.
“We’ll have someone watching the
broadcast, whether that person is a
rules official coming in from the golf
course or ... whether it’s someone
back in the office watching the broad-
cast and communicating,” PGA Tour
Commissioner Jay Monahan said.
Still to be determined is who that
person will be.
Rules officials don’t think the staff
is big enough to take an official off
the course. If it’s a PGA Tour official,
the question becomes how adept the
official is at spotting a violation. And
while such video reviews get plenty
of attention, they don’t happen often
enough to warrant someone sitting in
front of a TV for three hours.
There has been video monitoring
for years. When the final group makes
the turn, with fewer players on the
course, the tour will send one official
in to watch TV.
A DEFINITION OF CONFI-
DENCE: Fifteen months ago, Justin
Thomas had one PGA Tour victory
and was No. 35 in the world. Now
he’s the PGA Tour player of the year,
FedEx Cup champion and a major
champion and has seven victories.
That his confidence has soared
is obvious. What exactly does that
mean?
“I don’t have the sense of panic,”
Thomas said. “I know that I don’t
need to be what I thought I had to
be to be in contention. I know that
I don’t have to go out and play this
perfect round. I know that if I shoot
1 under the first round at this tour-
nament, that I still have a chance to
win. I know that I’m not going to win
every tournament. It’s more the fact
of the whole body language and the
patience thing.”
His own example would have been
the TPC Boston last year during the
FedEx Cup playoffs, and the CJ Cup in
South Korea when he was exhausted
from a busy fall and squeaked out a
playoff victory.
USA Gymnastics
Ex-doctor’s victims recount sex abuse as young gymnasts
By DAVID EGGERT
Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. —
One after one, gymnasts and
other victims of a disgraced
former sports doctor stepped
forward in a Michigan court-
room Tuesday to recount the
sexual abuse and emotional
trauma
Larry
Nassar
inflicted on them as children
— one with the warning that
“little girls don’t stay little
forever.”
Nearly 100 women and
girls planned to speak or
have their statements read
during an extraordinary
four-day sentencing hearing.
Many of them cried as they
told their stories. Some
requested that their identi-
ties not be made public. The
judge consoled the victims
and said they should not
blame themselves.
“I testified to let the world
know that you are a repulsive
liar and those ‘treatments’
were pathetically veiled
sexual abuse,” one victim,
Kyle Stephens, said to the
54-year-old Nassar, who
bowed his head with his
eyes closed or looked away
as she and others spoke.
Stephens, the first to
speak, said Nassar repeat-
edly abused her from age 6
until age 12 during family
visits to his home in Holt,
near Lansing. She said he
rubbed his genitals on her
and digitally penetrated her,
among other abuse.
She said Nassar later
Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP
Former family friend to the Nassar family, and babysitter to Nassar’s children Kyle
Stephens, right, addresses Larry Nassar Tuesday during the first day of the victim
impact statements in Circuit Court Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom in Lansing,
Mich. Behind Stephens is her mother, and Asst. Prosecutor Angela Povilaitis, center.
denied it, and her parents
initially believed him.
Stephens said she largely
blamed her father’s suicide
on the shame and self-
loathing he felt for defending
Nassar.
“Perhaps
you
have
figured it out by now, but
little girls don’t stay little
forever,” Stephens said.
“They grow into strong
women that return to destroy
your world.”
Nassar has pleaded guilty
to molesting females with
his hands at his Michigan
State University office, his
home and a Lansing-area
gymnastics club, often
while their parents were in
the room. He also worked
for Indianapolis-based USA
Gymnastics, which trains
Olympians.
Another statement came
from Donna Markham, who
told of how her daughter
Chelsey killed herself in
2009, years after Nassar
sexually abused her during a
medical examination.
“It all started with him,”
she said, describing her
daughter’s downward spiral
into drug abuse.
Victims
described
experiencing “searing pain”
during the assaults and
having feelings of shame
and embarrassment. They
said it had changed their
life trajectories — affecting
relationships, causing them
to be distrustful and leading
to depression, suicidal
thoughts, and anger and
anxiety about whether they
should have spoken up
sooner.
“He touched the most
innocent places on my
body,” said 17-year-old
Jessica
Thomashaw,
recounting how she was
sexually assaulted at ages 9
and 12. “I couldn’t be just
a normal girl anymore, and
I forever lost a big piece
of my childhood due to his
abuse.”
Ingham County Circuit
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina,
who is expected to order
a sentence Friday, said the
system had failed them.
“You shouldn’t be angry
with yourself,” she told a
31-year-old victim, who said
she was assaulted almost 20
years ago. “You went to him
for pain and healing, and you
didn’t know. No one faults
you or any other victim for
that. You were a child.”
The Michigan attorney
general’s office is seeking
40 to 125 years in prison
for the 54-year-old Nassar.
The maximum represents
a year for each of the 125
girls and women who
filed reports of abuse with
campus police. He already
has been sentenced to 60
years in federal prison for
child pornography crimes.
Olympic gold medalist
Simone Biles on Monday
said she was among the
athletes sexually abused
by Nassar. Another gold
medalist, Aly Raisman,
tweeted
Monday
that
she would not attend the
sentencing “because it is too
traumatic for me. My impact
letter will be read in court in
front of Nassar. I support the
brave survivors. We are all
in this together.”
Olympians
McKayla
Maroney
and
Gabby
Douglas also have said
they were among Nassar’s
victims as teens.
In November, he admitted
to digitally penetrating 10
girls, mostly under the guise
of treatment, between 1998
and 2015. As part of plea
deals in two adjacent Mich-
igan counties, he said his
conduct had no legitimate
medical purpose and that
he did not have the girls’
consent.
Nassar is scheduled to be
sentenced in Eaton County
in two weeks.
The
criminal
cases
followed reports last year
in The Indianapolis Star
about how USA Gymnastics
mishandled
complaints
about sexual misconduct
involving him and coaches.
Women and girls said the
stories inspired them to
step forward with detailed
allegations of abuse.
Melissa Imrie told the
judge she was assaulted in
1997, when she was 12, after
breaking her tailbone. She
described years of severe
depression,
sleeplessness
and other issues.
“Everybody’s story that
I listened today is just an
echo of everything that I’ve
went through. They’re just
speaking like it’s my voice,”
Imrie said.
She said she wants young
athletes “to be safe from
sexual predators, from this
kind of abuse.”
NFL
Seahawks bring on Schottenheimer, Norton as coordinators
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. — The
Seattle Seahawks have hired Brian
Schottenheimer as their offensive
coordinator and are bringing back
Ken Norton Jr. to oversee the
defense.
The
Seahawks
officially
announced the anticipated hires
Tuesday after reports surfaced over
the holiday weekend of agreements
with the pair. San Francisco 49ers
coach Kyle Shanahan released a
statement Monday that Norton had
been offered a coordinator position
less than a week after Norton was
hired by the 49ers. The Seahawks
did not confirm Norton’s hiring
until Tuesday.
Norton was the defensive coor-
dinator in Oakland before getting
fired after 10 games last season.
He was subsequently hired by the
49ers last week as an assistant
Schottenheimer
Norton
head coach before taking the job
with Seattle. Norton replaces Kris
Richard, who was Seattle’s defen-
sive coordinator for the past three
seasons and was selected ahead of
Norton for the job in 2015.
Norton served as linebackers
coach for Seattle from 2010-14,
but when he was bypassed for
the job three years ago jumped
at the chance to be a coordinator
in Oakland. Along with firing
Richard, the Seahawks let go of
linebackers coach Michael Barrow.
Schottenheimer takes over
for Darrell Bevell, who was fired
last week after seven seasons in
charge of Seattle’s offense. Bevell
was let go along with offensive
line coach Tom Cable following
a disappointing season where the
Seahawks offense was defined by
inconsistency.
Seattle also hired veteran Mike
Solari as offensive line coach,
replacing Cable.
Schottenheimer was an offen-
sive coordinator from 2006-2014
with the New York Jets and the
St. Louis Rams. He spent the 2015
season as the offensive coordinator
at Georgia before returning to the
NFL the past two seasons as the
quarterbacks coach with the Indi-
anapolis Colts.
Schottenheimer will inherit an
offense that has great potential but
significant problems to solve.
Russell Wilson led the NFL
with 34 touchdown passes this
season but was regularly under-
whelming during slow first-half
performances that put stress on
Seattle’s defense and often had the
Seahawks playing from behind.
Schottenheimer’s
biggest
challenge will be re-energizing a
Seattle running game that disap-
peared this season. Wilson was
the Seahawks’ leading rusher by
more than 500 yards. No running
back for Seattle had more than 240
yards rushing and the six running
backs who carried the ball for the
Seahawks in 2017 averaged a mere
3.3 yards per carry.
His final three seasons in New
York were the most optimistic sign
that Schottenheimer can help the
Seahawks return to the run-first
style that head coach Pete Carroll
desires. The Jets were the No. 9
run team in the NFL in 2008; No. 1
in 2009; and No. 4 in 2010.
With the return of Norton,
Seattle chose a return to the past.
There was a belief Seattle was
trying to bring back Gus Bradley,
but the former Seahawks defensive
coordinator opted to remain with
the Los Angeles Chargers. Norton
knows much of Seattle’s veteran
personnel and will be more apt
to run what Carroll wants defen-
sively.
Richard’s units slipped the past
two seasons, but that was partly
due to critical injuries. Seattle lost
safety Earl Thomas for the final
month of the 2016 season and
played half of the 2017 season
without Richard Sherman, Kam
Chancellor and Cliff Avril. Seat-
tle’s defense ranked 11th overall
and 13th in points allowed this
season.
Solari joins Seattle from the
New York Giants. He has ties to
the Seahawks after serving as
offensive line coach in 2008-09