The Rome Emperors are a Minor League Baseball team of the South Atlantic League and the High-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. They are located in Rome, Georgia, and play their home games at AdventHealth Stadium. From 2003 to 2023, the team was known as the Rome Braves. They served as Atlanta's Class A affiliate before being elevated to High-A with the restructuring of the minor league system in 2021. Rome is the longest-tenured partner club of the Atlanta Braves.
The Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian professional basketball team based in Vancouver. They were part of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1995, along with the Toronto Raptors, as part of the NBA's expansion into Canada. Following the 2000–01 season, the team relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, United States and was renamed the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies played their home games at General Motors Place for all of their six seasons in Vancouver.
The New Jersey Jackals are an American professional baseball team based in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. The team was founded in 1998 by Floyd Hall and is owned by Al Dorso, a businessman who also owns the Sussex County Miners, Skylands Stadium, and State Fair Superstore. The Jackals play their home games at Hinchliffe Stadium.
Ronald Eugene Rivera is an American football head coach for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He attended the University of California, Berkeley in the early 1980s, where he was recognized as an All-American linebacker for the Golden Bears. Following graduation, he was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the second round of the 1984 NFL Draft and played nine seasons with them, including as a member of the 1985 team that won Super Bowl XX.
Robert Paul Melvin is an American professional baseball manager and former player and coach. He is the manager of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). Melvin has been named Manager of the Year three times.
The Chicago Bears American football franchise is a charter member of the National Football League (NFL), and has played in all of the league's 100 seasons. The team has captured nine NFL championships – eight NFL championships and one Super Bowl – second most all time behind the Green Bay Packers. The franchise has also recorded more victories than any other franchise (739), retired the most uniform numbers (14), and have the most members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (29). The Bears have played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920.
Arthur Ray Briles is an American football coach who is currently the head coach for the Guelfi Firenze in the Italian Football League. Briles was the head coach of the Houston Cougars from 2002 to 2007 and the Baylor Bears from 2008 to 2015. His college coaching career ended with his dismissal from the team in 2015 as a result of the Baylor University sexual assault scandal. He is the author of Beating Goliath: My Story of Football and Faith (2014). He is the subject of a biography written by Nick Eatman titled Looking Up: My Journey from Tragedy to Triumph (2013).
The Battle Creek Battle Jacks are a baseball team that plays in the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league. All players on the team must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. Their home games are played at the C.O. Brown Stadium in Battle Creek, Michigan. Their name refers variously to a previous Battle Creek baseball team, the Michigan Battle Cats, to Apple Jacks manufactured by Battle Creek-based Kellogg's, and to a "Jack of All Trades" as someone with multiple skills. Also, a "jack" is another term for a home run, and Cracker Jacks are often eaten by baseball fans during the game.
Lower Columbia College (LCC) is a public community college in Longview, Washington.
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raiders. Between 1982 and 1994, the team played in Los Angeles as the Los Angeles Raiders.
The Bellingham Bells are a collegiate summer baseball team in the West Coast League. The team is composed of college baseball players from teams around the U.S.
Derek Stingley Sr. is an American football coach. Prior to his coaching career, he had a nine-year playing career in the Arena Football League.
The West Coast League (WCL) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league founded in 2005, comprising teams from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alberta. The WCL was previously named the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League (WCCBL), but in 2008 renamed as the West Coast League. The league is designed to develop college talent, and only current college-eligible players are allowed to participate. The West Coast League has produced dozens of professional players, including a number of major leaguers. League teams are operated similarly to professional minor-league teams. The WCL's season typically runs from early June through the middle of August.
Daniel "Sonny" Dykes is an American football coach, and a former college baseball player. He is currently the head football coach at Texas Christian University (TCU), and previously served in the same role at Southern Methodist University (SMU) from 2018 to 2021, the University of California, Berkeley from 2013 to 2016, and Louisiana Tech University from 2010 to 2012. In his first season at TCU, he led the Horned Frogs to a win in the semifinal and an appearance in the National Championship game.
The Towson Tigers football team represents Towson University in the sport of American football. The Tigers compete in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as a member of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). The Tigers are currently coached by Pete Shinnick. Their home games are played at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson, Maryland.
John W. Winkin Jr. was an American baseball coach, scout, broadcaster, journalist and collegiate athletics administrator. Winkin led the University of Maine Black Bears baseball team to six College World Series berths in an 11-year span. In 2007, at age 87, he was the oldest active head coach in any collegiate sport at any NCAA level. In all, 92 of his former players wound up signing professional baseball contracts. Elected to 11 different halls of fame, including the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013, he finished his college baseball coaching career in 2008 with 1,043 total wins, which ranks 52nd all-time among NCAA head coaches. He died in 2014.
The Texas–Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros baseball team, or the UTRGV Vaqueros, is the varsity intercollegiate baseball team of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, an NCAA Division I institution with several campuses in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, United States. UTRGV was formally founded in 2013 with the announced merger of the University of Texas–Pan American (UTPA), with its main campus in Edinburg, and the University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) in Brownsville, with the merged university beginning operation in the 2015–16 school year. The Vaqueros compete in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), play home games at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg, and are coached by Derek Matlock.
Steven Jakob Matz is an American professional baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played for the New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays. Matz was born and raised on Long Island and played baseball for Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, New York. The Mets drafted him directly out of high school in the second round of the 2009 MLB draft, with the 72nd overall selection.
Steve Trimper is an American college baseball coach who is currently the head coach for the Stetson Hatters baseball team out of the ASUN Conference. Previously, he served as the head coach at Maine from 2006 to 2016 and Manhattan from 1999 to 2005. An alumnus of Eastern Connecticut State University, Trimper played baseball there from 1990 to 1992 and was a member of the Warriors' 1990 Division III national championship team.
The Traverse City Pit Spitters are a baseball team in the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league, and began play in the 2019 season. Based out of Traverse City, Michigan, the Pit Spitters play their home games at Turtle Creek Stadium in nearby Blair Township. The team began play at Turtle Creek Stadium in 2019 after the park's former tenant, the Traverse City Beach Bums of the Frontier League, ceased operations at the end of the 2018 season.
